The Huntsman: Winter's War

The Huntsman: Winter's War premiere was scheduled for April 3, 2016 at Universal Studios. Fans who wanted a glimpse of the stars: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron and Jessica Chastain had to buy the standard Universal Studios Day pass to gain access to the red carpet or they could enter numerous competitions that would allow them entry into the "exclusive" fan zones.

I decided to take my chances and enter the competition. As I was working on a project for Resorts World Sentosa, I was able to snag two tickets to the premiere, but those unfortunately did not include access to the red carpet, so I gave those tickets to Joyce and Chee.

As luck would have it, I managed to snag one of the competition passes and together with fellow movie fans Ray, Anthony and Liza, I headed down to Universal Studios at around 3:30pm well ahead of the 5:00pm start time of the event. The place was packed with fans by the time we got there.

With passes in hand, we were ushered to the far end of the carpet.  Though we were able to get to the front of the barricades on the red carpet, it didn't look like the prized passes were so fantastic as the stars would probably sign for a long line of fans before making their way  towards us. From past experience, when the stars reach the far end of the carpet, their handlers rush them along and they barely have time to sign any autographs.

Nevertheless, we took our spots on the barricade and waited it out. The movie premiere was supposed to start at 7pm but by 6:30 there was still no sign of the stars and we figured we  would just see them walk past, but 6:45pm we heard screams coming from the front of the carpet and figured that the stars had arrived.

It was a rather excruciating wait, not knowing if we would be skipped because at red carpet events there is no guarantee that you could get anything at these kind of events, even when you win a spot in the fan zone.

Cedric Nicolas Troyen, the Director @RLiw

It was a rather long wait before the director of the movie came over to sign for us. He signed and that was a good indication that the stars might sign for us too. Before he left I gave him a copy of my book The Lion Dance.

Ray and me waiting for Charlize Theron, you can see me about to give her A
Day with the Duchess ©Today

Next up was Charlize Theron, a vision in white. She was the last to hit the red carpet but the first to reach the end of it. She signed autographs and posed for photos and she gave multiple hugs to a girl who was no doubt her biggest fan there. The girl looked like she was about to burst into tears.

Finally, she came to our side of the carpet. I held out a copy of A Day with the Duchess for her. She took it and began to sign the cover. I yelled "It's for you and your children." My friend Liza took the photo below

Charlize realises that the book is for her and her kids.

She stopped smiled and thanked me graciously and then she kindly signed my poster. I later found out she signed an abbreviated version for the other fans. 

Then Chris Evans and Jessica Chastain joined her on the red carpet and posed for some photos before Theron moved off to the press section and Chris and Jessica continued to sign autographs and pose for selfies.

After a lot of yelling Chris came over and signed for us. He signed my poster but as you can see he must have been really tired because he didn't give me a complete Hemsworth. 

You can compare the one he signed for my friend Joyce on another occasion. Still it's similar enough and I'm happy that he signed for me. Ray asked him for a Selfie and I managed a photobomb. Then I gave him a copy of A Day with the Duchess for his kids. He seemed pleasantly surprised and he thanked me with a big grin and then moved on to the rest of his fans.

@RLiw

By that time security asked us, none too politely I might add to remove our posters from the red carpet before Jessica Chastain came over to us. She had been to the S.E.A. Aquarium that morning and so I gave her a copy of At the S.E.A. Aquarium and she promised that she would read it. Then she signed an autograph for me and posed for two pictures. She is such a lovely lady.

With that we called in a night and skipped the movie as we were too exhausted to go. All in all, it was a pretty amazing day and we got autographs from all the stars! We had a brief respite for star gazing before the next big premiere: The Captain America: Civil War  Blue carpet event at Marina Bay Sands. But getting up close and personal stars would prove to be a far trickier endeavour....

A Meeting with Kyle Chandler, a Book Festival and an Award Nomination

Kyle Chandler and Me

Hey, everyone, I met Kyle Chandler today, but first let me tell you about the Asian Festival of Children's Content where my books There's Soup on My Fly! and Blow A Kiss were vying for the Hedwig Anuar Award, which carried a $10,000 cash prize that was to be shared between the author and illustrator.

The Hong Kong & Singapore  members of SCBWI
  Top L to R: Janet, Kathleen, Sue. Bottom L to R:  Resham, Pooja, Me, Kenneth
Not pictured: Catherine

Well,  they didn't announce the shortlist until the awards night and I was pleasantly surprised that There's Soup on My Fly was one of the eight books shortlisted for the award. Well, you know I didn't win, of course,  because if I had, this post would have started very differently.  I did, however, meet the night's guest of honor, President Jose Ramos Horta of Timor Leste, but as you can tell from the photo, he looks like he'd rather be doing something else than posing with me. 

This is what the Prez must be thinking: Why am I posing with this goober?

As you know, I was also a finalist for the Crystal Kite Award so this is shaping up to be a pretty great year. Would have been better if I won the award though, hahaha. No, seriously, it would have.

Cheif Judge of the Hedwig Anuar  Award Ken Spillman announces the short list

Kimi 's seated in black jacket in the front row and Kate's right behind her.
Trevor's the only dude in the photo.

Nominee Sue, SCBWI Singapore leader Kenneth and lovely Lynda
who was so supportive

I also met some wonderful people at the festival, who also happen to be great writers, some of whom were shortlisted for the Scholastic Asian Book Award. 


Kimi Takazawa who hails from Hawaii was nominated for her book about some very unusual chickens - watch out for it!  Kate Whitehead from Hong Kong is another name to look out for. I've got a gut feeling, and my gut is rather sizeable, that both ladies will make it big in the children's lit soon.  You heard it here first!


It was fantastic meeting Janet and Lynda, who were so wonderfully supportive and encouraging! And BTW, Trevor Kew, you're a teacher and author and that's kewl! Auntie Susanna Goho Quek, you're such an amazing artist. Thanks for working with me for FREE!! ha ha. 

Clockwise from the middle: Sarah, Catherine and Kate

Before I forget, I have to add that I'm so proud of my friend and long-suffering editor Sue Flotow who was among the elite list of Scholastic Asian Book Award finalists for her story Kam's School Fish Rolls. After reading it I knew she would be shortlisted, and guess what, she was!!


Special thanks goes out to everyone who were great during the week, especially my fellow SCBWI Singapore members Resham, Pooja, Catherine, Sue, Qian, and of course, our fearless leader and all-round good guy Ken, who puts up with a lot of ***** mostly, ok, no, all of it, from me.

Kyle  Chandler and Me( David Seow)

So you might be wondering how I met Kyle Chandler. Well, I found out that J.J. Abrams and the cast of the movie Super 8 flew in town  to promote their movie and I was lucky enough to meet Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights, Early Edition, Homefront) who stars in the movie along with Elle Fanning (Dakota's kid sis) and Joel Courtney, who plays his son.

I've been a fan since Early Edition and Kyle was really great.  He's such a nice down-to-earth guy and listened to me babbling about Friday Night Lights and he waited patiently as the contents of my laptop bag fell out as I tried to fish out my books to give him as a souvenir. Of course I had to do the fanboy thing and ask for an autograph and he graciously obliged.  Let me just say he's not one of those celebrities who has the handwriting skills of a doctor, his signature is legible!  I apologized for being a bother, and he kindly assured me that I wasn't. 

Kyle Chandler and my friend Ray

I told him that 'Fly' was recently nominated for a book award and he offered his congratulations. He then asked me to pose for a pic  with him using his camera, not mine, but his! What a thrill! At first my friend Ray couldn't work his camera and told him that he'd take the pic with my camera and then we would email it to him. Ray's attempt to get the personal contact details of a Hollywood star was an epic fail! 


The pic was eventually taken and with a firm handshake, and a smile thanks were exchanged and he was off to his next appointment. I said it before he's a very friendly guy. Thank you, Mr Chandler!  Go see Super 8, people! 


And before I forget, head on down to the bookstore to get Adeline Foo's latest book Whoopie Lee, Almost Famous and Shermay Loh's Archibald and the Blue-Blood Conspiracy. They're fantastic authors. Oh and you might like to get my books too if you haven't already. Ta for now.