We rarely notice the head the main character is sitting in, the smartphone he’s holding, or the fruits dish on the table when we watch TV. We don’t recognize because it shows that a team of professionals working in the background to produce on-screen authenticity have done a good job.
Every television drama set or variety show relies on accessories to entice viewers. How these accessories are sourced, crafted, stored, managed, cared for, used and reused – also, that could be a line in itself.
Our neighborhood TV productions have used everything from the classic backdrops from The Sheng Siong Show to the classic Golden Pillow from the 1995 Zoe Tay starring of the same title to a papier-mache type of Desmond Tan’s head for a surreal scene in 2009’s The Ultimatum in which his character is decapitated by baddies who then send the head to his father in a box. Pretty things.