First Class: Second Thoughts

I’d like to say that First Class had been simmering in my mind for years and years, and that I lived, breathed, and ate these characters until finally one day, I pitched it in front of the powers that be and they were so impressed they burst into spontaneous, rapturous applause, and gave it two thumbs up.

I’d like to, but I’d be lying through my teeth.

The truth is, the basic concept was created almost on the spur of the moment, out of necessity (and/or desperation).

We’d been pitching new comedy ideas sometime in March last year. And none of them seemed to make any impression. But the powers that be had been tossing around a few phrases constantly throughout that meeting. Phrases like “with kids”, “multi-racial”, “family-friendly”.

So I asked them: What about a comedy set in a secondary school? MediaCorp has only ever done dramas set in secondary school, but there’s really so much potential in such a setting – both comedic and dramatic. And it fulfils the criteria of being “multi-racial”, “family-friendly”, and “with kids”.

They seemed rather taken with it.

That very day, I wrote a brief concept paper outlining the approach and the basic premise, along with a few characters. We brainstormed the next day and further refined the characters, switching the main character from a female to a male (Michael Wong) to avoid comparisons with Moulmein High (which was really a drama, and had adults playing schoolkids – I mean, come on!). Over the course of the next week or so, we had all the main characters pretty much set (but not their names – those would only be finalized when we completed casting, because they would depend on the race of the person casted).

By April, we had an early draft of the first episode. Which is really ridiculously fast considering that a few weeks prior, it didn’t even exist as an idea. And then came the writing… which I’ll elaborate upon in a later post.

- Minxiu

The original title for the premier episode (I’m not entirely sure if it should be called a pilot, since it was shot and written along with everything else) was “First Class”.

But to make up for that, we’ve tried to make the characters say “first class” every episode or so. I would say “as often as possible”, but that would be silly. Every synonym for “good” would be replaced with “first class.”

Cathy meets Ashley

The first draft of the script also had Cathy’s maid spelt as “Letitia”, instead of the current “Leticia”. I think someone misread it, so the name was changed to prevent any more mispronunciations.

Also, the first draft had a reference to Mrs. Poon – which was bumped over to next episode. And of course, she makes an appearance in Season 2. See, we planned ahead!

The “Captain, my captain” scene at the beginning is undoubtedly a reference to “Dead Poets’ Society.” The irony is that MX, who is the film buff, hasn’t watched it – while me, the shallow movie-goer who only watches big explosions and hot chicks, has. Then again, it was screened during a primary school class, so maybe that’s why I watched it.

That, and American History X.

- Marcus

The No-Belles: Mindy, Cindy, & Sindy

So anyways, the No-Belles were originally concieved of as a nameless bunch of Noel’s groupies.

Their names, however, are actually a reference to the Magus Sisters of Final Fantasy IV. I had originally wanted to call them Mindy, Cindy, and Sandy – but MX thought it’d be funnier if Sandy were Sindy, and they kept getting confused by each other (Sindy & Cindy sound the same, after all). It worked out well – and they are kind of, relative to each other, Magus Sister-sized.

There you go. My little Final Fantasy homage.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the behind the scenes blog (First Class: Second Thoughts) for First Class: Back for Seconds.

In the coming days/weeks/months, we’ll be sharing with you the journey that First Class took from concept to screen, as well as little production stories, photos and our thoughts and reflections on the series. Also, maybe even hints of things to come in future seasons.

Who do “we” refer to? Well, we are:

Writer – Marcus Goh

Director – Lee Chew Yen

Creator/Head Writer/Director – Wu Min Xiu

We hope you’ll enjoy reading about our little show, and, more importantly, enjoy watching it.

- Minxiu