Shooting Stars

Not so long ago, the entertainment industry had a rather painful fondness for trying to make actors into singers. Just give them a couple of months of voice training, put them in the recording studio and film a pretty music video. Voila, you have a pop star with a ready built fan-base from their acting efforts.

Remember Fann Wong's album, Christopher Lee's EP, Zoe Tay's CD (I think Zoe might want to drop this from her CV)? In Hong Kong, Louis Koo and Flora Chan, among others got into the act. Their recorded efforts were acceptable, their live singing not so much.

With so many musicians struggling to break into the industry, I hate the fact that actors can get recording contracts despite having no training and no discernible musical talent. It is all a cynical marketing ploy and thankfully, there is much less of it going on now.

I thought that there could be nothing worse than forcing actors to be singers. Then I watched Channel 5's "Shooting Stars". Well, there IS something worse - forcing singers to be actors.

Shooting Stars is the "Singapore Idols drama series", starring 5 of the Singapore Idol finalists. We haven't seen all of them in action yet, but of the ones we have seen so far, the experiment with acting singers is a mixed success.

Taufik Batisah
Acting Chops: His acting is perfectly decent. Not a De Niro, but he pulls of "intense" with commendable aplomb. He isn't skilled enough for subtle characterisation, but he does not overact and is quite at ease in front of a camera.
Act or Sing? : Sing, with small acting jobs now and then. With a lot of training and experience, he could get as good at acting as he is at performing, but why not stick to what he does best?

Sylvester Sim
Acting Chops: Ouch! Painful, painful, painful. It's just painful to watch him act. So wooden and utterly uninteresting to watch. Whether in love, worried, angry or upset, his facial expression never changes. And let's not forget the bad diction; he was almost incomprehensible. Just painful.
Act or Sing? : Sing. And never, ever, act again. Never. Please.

Daphne Khoo
Acting Chops:She seems to be playing herself, so this might not be much of an acting stretch. That said, she is natural and unaffected. Her "manja girl" act is likeable and sweet rather than being irritating. She also successfully plays off her fellow actors.
Act or Sing?: Act. I don't much carre for her singing voice, but see real potential in her to act if she wants to pursue it as a career.

Olinda Cho
Acting Chops:The girl has a larger than life personality which seeps through her acting. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but might limit her versatility. Her acting style is rather broad and has a somewhat exaggerated quality. She does show comic instincts and might be more comfortable without a script.
Act of Sing?: Sing, and do a side-line in variety-show hosting. The girl has a great voice which should not go to waste.

A word on the music in the series: Kudos to Ken Lim for letting the kids record the closing songs aired during the credits of their respective feature episodes. I quite like the song that Sly sings (if he enunciated better, I might even be able to figure out what the song is about!). Taufik's and Daphne's (which she co-wrote) are also good generic pop songs, certainly comparable to anything we hear on the radio nowadays.