One would assume that the 27-year-old is merely just following in his father’s footsteps, but in fact, it’s the complete opposite.

“When I was young, my parents didn’t really encourage me to do filmmaking,” he explained to us during our chat about Wedding Pig.

Surprisingly, he has also never gone to film school despite having an interest. In fact, he majored in statistics when he was at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“She (My mum) would rather me graduate from NUS or Nanyang Technological University (NTU) or whatever to get a safe job, and then if I wanted to do filmmaking, I can do. But if all else fails, I still got a [backup],” he said with a chuckle.

When he was just 14 years old, Jack passed him some home video clips and asked Regent to try his hand at editing them.

And it was love at ‘first edit’.

“I thought that wah, editing is quite magical!” he exclaimed.

“From something that is so messy, you know, you can actually organise it and make it so interesting and so exciting and more importantly, tell your own story.”

That was when his filmmaking journey started. From then on, he started shooting for events and the rest is history.

Despite doing pretty well now, Regent still wishes he went to film school. He did take a minor in film studies while he was in NUS but that wasn’t enough to teach him about the more technical aspects of filmmaking.

“One of the common things like the 180-degree rule, I didn’t know that until I was on my dad’s set one day,” he explained.

And as his dad occasionally needed help during shoots, Regent also got to spend some time on set shadowing Jack, which, in turn, helped him pick up a few technicalities of filmmaking.

Regent may have learned a few tips and tricks from his dad, but don’t expect their films to be anything similar.

If you’re curious to see how Regent’s filming style differs from his father’s, Wedding Pig is a good place to start.

The show is actually the first long-form series that he has done and it took about two weeks to shoot before it went into post-production.

Created together with his friend Chelsea — who also based the story off a stage play that she wrote — Wedding Pig tells the tale of two sisters who get into a kerfuffle over a family heirloom (a 24-carat golden wedding pig).

The sisters compete to be the first to walk down the aisle as the pig will be passed on to the daughter who gets married first.

Some may feel like this is just a story about sibling rivalry but Regent said that beneath the drama, there is more to it than meets the eye.

“The pig represents tradition,” he explained. “Both of them have the same idea of what the pig is, which is family, but for one, [she] wants to sell it so it can help [her] move into a better home. For the other, [she] wants to preserve it because to her, it means something to the family.”

“And I think that’s the case with a lot of families because we express our love differently. Our intent is still the same, we still love one another, we still want each other to be doing well. But some people don’t receive it or see it the same way as you do.”

He referenced his own situation with his parents, revealing that they too have kept aside gifts for when he eventually gets married.

“Behind every material asset or material thing, there is always a meaning behind it. There is always something sentimental.”

“The heart behind it, that really counts,” he emphasised.

Wedding Pig is now showing on Viddsee. 

Text: Melissa Teo/AsiaOne

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