JinnyboyTV Tells Us How They Finally Realised Their Dream Of Making Their First Movie

Written and directed by Reuben Kang, the movie - titled 'By MY Side' - follows post-SPM student Faye as she navigates through life and the challenges of a long distance relationship after finding out that her first love, Ben is planning to leave the country and study overseas.

The movie stars Marianne Tan and Brandon Ho in the leading roles as Faye and Ben respectively. The movie also features an all-Malaysian supporting cast made up of local personalities like Nadia Nash, Josephine Yap, Adam Shamil, Arwind Kumar, Maggy Wang, and Mark O'Dea.

As you'd probably guess by now, you're looking at the cast and crew hard at work for the wedding scene where audiences would find out if Faye and Ben's relationship survived 'til the end.

"It has always been at the back of our heads, like 'Let's make a movie one day'. So when tonton came to us and said, 'Hey, wanna do a movie?', it was a dream come true!" Reuben said.

"We knew that we can do it, but we weren't extremely confident either, because it's not easy to make a movie. You need a lot of manpower, a lot of time, and a lot of money. But we wanted to give it a try lah. If we don't start now, if we don't push ourselves, we don't push the industry as well. So this is for all the people who've been watching and following us for the past five years, to see how far we've come from just a small camera with a monopod 'til today."

In the course of discussion, tonton suggested longer 30 to 40-minute videos, ultimately deciding to go all out and pitched a full-length film to Jin and Reuben.

"I'm very glad that people like tonton believe in small-time YouTubers, that we can cope with such a scale. This whole experience has given us a lot of confidence and it's quite nice to see that we've come this far," Reuben said.

"And they gave us full creative control, so that's the best part," Jin added.

"We wanted to keep it real to the JinnyboyTV style, but at the same time, we didn't want to make just another silly video that you can watch on YouTube. We wanted to do something more meaningful, something important to Malaysians," Reuben explained.

So Jin and Reuben combed through all of their videos that were a hit amongst their audiences to figure out what they like and enjoy, then incorporated those elements into the script.

"It's very relatable, and any individual can see themselves or their friends in this movie," Jin remarked.

"I've been through that, experiencing what it's like to slowly start feeling ignored, to feel like you're fading out of that other person's life, and being phased out. It did culminate to a point where we actually went through some intense fights as a couple, and that kinda flashed back some memories for me and brought another level of emotion in there," Marianne said.

On that note, Marianne hopes that her character's story will inspire young women at that age to learn to love themselves.

"It's okay to come to terms with yourself, it's okay to discover this sense of... if you have a hole in your life, you shouldn't fill it with another person, you should come to love yourself. That's something I definitely want the audience to take away from this, especially the girls."

"It's such a blessing - this is my first major film, and to be acting alongside her is something that I'd never imagined would happen. But I'll be honest with you, it's a little intimidating at the same time, because it's my first time and I kept thinking, 'What if she thinks I'm absolute crap?!', Brandon mused.

"But it's also a good thing, because you feel the pressure and you wanna make sure you're at that level when she's obviously doing such a good job. Honestly, I'm so happy that my first film is with her, because she's one of the coolest and most understanding actresses to work with."

"Most of our YouTube videos are very quick. From start to finish, it'll take maybe one week or so. This is definitely longer, but even compared to proper feature films, we're already considered express," Reuben said.

"Most feature films will take at least three to six months for script development, another three to six months for pre-productions, one month to shoot, and three to six months to edit. We're doing all of those in one month blocks. We wrote the script in one month, pre-production in one month, shooting in 18 days, and we will finish editing within one month."

Reuben added that they are also working with a crew that's five times larger than what they're used to, which proved to be a great help when it comes to focusing on the details.

"We have more people, so we had more time to look into the details. We were very particular about how Faye's house should look like, how the school would look like, how the wedding should look like... the attention to detail has to be really accurate."

For Reuben, it was the one thing that he wanted to do differently from a lot of Malaysian English movies, which he thinks tend to be "very English".

"That's not how we speak, we speak in a very Malaysian way, very Manglish mah! So I had a lot of back and forth with the main actors to keep it Malaysian. Say it like how you would say it," he explained.

Pointing out that most of their videos are "very Manglish, and people still watch it", Jin said, "Just because a lot of people have been brought up with a 'West is best' mentality, we were confident that the mindset is changing, especially in the online world. At the end of the day, it's not really about where it's from. If the content is great, people will watch it."

"So the title 'By MY Side', the 'MY' actually stands for Malaysia. [In the context of the movie], it's basically a love story between Ben and Faye. Faye's first love is Ben, and as they grew older, they went through a lot of challenges and obstacles as they move on with life. But when you move on, you'll never forget the first thing that made you who you are today. In Faye's case, it's her first love, Ben," Jin explained.

"In a metaphor kind of way, it's about us Malaysians - no matter where you are or what you do, whether you're on holiday or migrating to another country - you'll never forget your 'first love', which is your own country. A lot of our viewers actually tell us, 'I always play your videos in the background although I've watched it a million times, just to hear that accent, because I miss it.'"

To put it simply, Reuben said, "It's a story of first love, and for us, our first love will always be our country."

Log on to tonton to see exclusive behind the scenes footage and bonus features from 'By MY Side'.

The cast and crew will also be making promo rounds in colleges and cinemas in the following weeks. Follow JinnyboyTV on Facebook for their tour schedule and more updates on the movie.