Kyle Soong has always dreamt that he can change the world through filmmaking. Soong’s journey began at IACT College as a Diploma in Broadcasting student that always impressive with his creative ideas and sparkling personality. His aspiration never fails even after graduation. Together with a few of his classmates, they founded a local production team – The Filmmen Production to produce meaningful films and inspiring music videos by sharing people’s lives and true stories. Kyle was passionate about using film and broadcasting as a tool to inspire and to drive the human spirit.
Winning first spot at the Berjaya Youth Short Film Competition 2015 with his masterpiece – “Sam Sir” was just the beginning. The film explored life and the importance of seizing every moment. It was based on a story inspired by his pastor, his mentor. “True stories have bigger impact on influencing people. ‘Sam Sir’ portrays the definition of success. Life is not about how much you have but to seize the moment of joy with the people around you,” Kyle explained during the interview with Berjaya Youth, hoping the audience can relate their daily occurrences when watching the short film, resonate and redefine the true meaning of success and failure in their lives.
Behind this film’s success lies an even bigger story of the team members involved in the production. The main challenges in Kyle’s production were manpower and experience. “Among us, only the director and producer possess filming experience while other team members were lack of experience. I was the director, cinematographer, scriptwriter and editor.” Despite the challenges, Kyle and his team pulled through the ordeals and smoothly made his way to the finals and then the winner of BYSFC 2015.
At times when the climb was extremely difficult, he focused solely on the goal, which surprisingly was not just about the competition. It was about utilising the money won to build a Youth Ministry to inspire skilful filmmakers with positive characteristics and good storytellers. For this achievement, he truly appreciates Berjaya Youth for organising the competition, “I feel proud and grateful to Berjaya Youth for providing the platform for young filmmakers to inspire people through good stories.”
Aimed at providing a platform for young filmmakers and producers, The Berjaya Youth Short Film Competition 2015 prides itself for hosting award-winning filmmakers and producers as esteemed industry judges – Gayatri Pillai, Afdlin Shauki, Datuk Paduka Suhaimi Baba, Ruby Yang and Ah Niu (阿牛). After sitting through entries nationwide, the winners were announced on November 20th, 2015.