The Interview

And so the day came...Ooo... the day finally came, it was going to be the exclusive interview with Farah for our paper. Things started out rather bumpy, with us not sure whether we'd finish work on time... we did, but me and Eliza (who was going to conduct the interview) got stuck in a freak jam. Then we were like zipping through traffic with Eliza tailing me and not letting anyone through in between... hehe... arrived in Taman Tun on time, but we found out that Secret Recipe's lighting wasn't sufficient for our photoshoot for the interview... Smsed Farah to tell about that, and she said she was in Ikea and we could do the interview there at the Swedish restaurant, which has sufficient lighting. So off we went, I parked the Alfa in TTDI, and hopped into Eliza's car and we were off to Mutiara Damansara...

Meet-up at IKEA
When we finally met Farah, she was with Izwan, and she was all cheerful and smiles, despite having spilled ice cream on her clothes (she had it cleaned of course). The interview went on really well, and she was all smiles and had a lot of fun with us. It's good that our paper's interviews are very informal and asks funny and interesting questions, I guess it must be a break from the usual questions and interviews she faced. She did mention that she could memorize certain answers to other magazine interviews because they simply asked the same things! Ours included some fresh questions (although not all appeared) and some made her surprised and not knowing what to answer... hee hee... We had a lot of fun, learning new facts about her, as well as chit chatting... It was so nice!!! She's gotta be the MOST down-to-earth idol ever! And I'm definitely going to help her achieve her dream of being a star... In more ways than one... Btw, one of the more interesting facts was that she mentioned that she was like Dory of Finding Nemo. Apparently Myn also said that to her right after watching the movie. She also mentioned that she was rather clumsy, and Daniel called her "Little Miss Clumsy". Hee hee...






Off to McDonald's
Well, I found out that day that she was, but in a cute way of course... She was walking and slowly drifting to the part of the road that had cars, and had to be pulled back in! Later in McD, she almost toppled a table and a couple of stools on the way out... hee hee... cute la she. Yeah, that's right, we moved to McD after Ikea warned us about taking photos in their store (which Farah told them it was for Friendster... LOL). We had a few nice shots there, and Farah loved them. Unfortunately because of our policy and 'new look' rules, it couldn't be used and had to be shrunk and cropped. In McD, we took tons of pics, and with lots of poses, in case some didn't suit the layout. It was my 1st time assigned as the photographer for an interview shoot, so you bet I was nervous! But Farah was so sweet and nice, telling me that it's ok... Sometimes I wonder whether she's trying to cover up, because she's just so nice... She also mentioned it's easy to smile when I'm taking the picture. *blushes* The photos in McD were vibrant and colorful, but they too had to be cropped for the final page layout.






Makan-makan...
On the way back she ordered a Beef Burger to takeaway... haha... Makan while walking to the car, and I was wondering, why got McD smell, so nice... then she answered "Ni, burger.." haha... Escorted her to the car, and said bye bye, plus thanking for the interview, and for making it so much fun... Went with Eliza to Rasta Food Court in Taman Tun, and had a Mama Chops and Papa Grill meal. Hehe... When I went back, Farah was online, and she told me she makan lagi after the McD Beef Burger. hahaha... Then I told her bout our Rasta outing, then she said "tu laah...u & eliza didnt ajak me also ;-p"... Hehe... felt guilty after that. Promised to ajak her somewhere next time. hee hee... What a day it was... but it wasn't over, as the next day I had to lay it out and finish it on the same day!



The Great Rush
Ok, D-Day, and I was seriously looking forward to laying out the page. The pics (mostly) turned out really nice (of course! see who's the subject! hee hee) and I started picking out the better ones. I did 4 pages for the day, and I layed out 3 first before the last one, which was her interview page. There was a big amount of pressure, as I wanted it badly to be nice, and I had the Farahnatics and Farah's expectations behind me... To add to that, we had to finish bt 5pm because we have our Living Party to attend! OmG... it was so hard... but I tried my best, and the page had a few changes by Alan, (even made it look awfully weird before me and Val pujuk to change back) before the final result. It didn't turn out as good as I wanted (due to limitations and restrictions), but I was just hoping that Farah would like it. Contacted Farah and found out that she didn't wish for the possible producer of her album to be mentioned in the paper. Luckily it managed to be edited on time. The sad part was that on the next day, she found out of an error, which was a statement saying that her single "Kembali Lagi di Sisimu" was the 1st song written by her, when it was actually by KC Ismail. I apologized like mad, cos I felt I let her down. But she mentioned it was okay and it wasn't my fault. So I'm just praying nothing bad happens because of this. I wish it wasn't so rush, then things like this wouldn't have happened... Btw, I'd like to talk about the Living Party after the laying out, but I think it'd be better if it was on a separate post. Hee hee...

The end result...
The paper came out on Friday, and the Farahnatics were well informed, and were all out scouting for copies. Of course I kept some for them, and of course Farah. I also promised to burn a CD with her pics. As a souveneir... This issue was nice as I was in charge of fully doing the Living cover, in addition to my pages and the main cover (except the main heading and pic, that's Alan's job) that I normally do. Another bonus was my name appearing for the 1st time in the paper, as a photographer. Hee hee... If you haven't gotten it, you know what to do... it should be out till Monday (maybe a lil longer as 7-Eleven tends to keep some stock).





Oh well, that was my wonderful experience of being part of an interview with Farah, photographing her, laying out her page and seeing the end result. I told her it wasn't perfect, but if there's any chance of doing another interview or feature with her, I'd make sure I do better than what I did this time...
Hehehe... PEACE and God Bless, y'all...

Aris Tee