The long road to filmdom
Charting his path
Yazid’s early journey, as I soon discover, is as fascinatingashisapproachtodocumentarymaking. As he keeps re-iterating: “One of the key ingredients of a good documentary is a good story and a good story requires an emotional ride, emotional journey. In any emotional journey, there has to be triumphs and failures…” And if Yazid’s life story is anything to go by, he certainly has all the ingredients to make a documentary about himself.
Leaning towards me across the table, his eyes dancing with mirth, Yazid shares: “One of the things that I get asked quite often is which film school I went to. And I always surprise people when I say that I never went to any. I’m an SPM drop-out!”
Noting my surprised expression with bemusement, Yazid proceeds to enlighten me on his early years. It seems that his formative schooling was spent at a Chinese school. He admits to enjoying his school days but unfortunately, when he turned 13 and was on the verge of Form 1, his father decided to take him out and enrol him in a ‘sekolah kebangsaan’.
Recalls Yazid: “I was so depressed. And he did this because of some silly reason that couldn’t be resolved. Dad wasn’t happy that the school wouldn’t let me out for Friday prayers because the timing clashed with Geography class! Dad negotiated for months but got nowhere so he took me out!”
Brows furrowing, the Johor Bahruborn filmmaker confides that he doesn’t have many fond memories of his spell at secondary school. “It was just a different world and to be honest, a real culture shock for me. I didn’t adjust well. I didn’t pass my SPM because I failed my BM (Bahasa Malaysia)! Basically with that, my SPM was as good as being in the dustbin. I threw the result paper away. I couldn’t go to the university or get a job.”
That realisation truly hit home when he was 17 — the age when he decided to ‘run away’. “Erm, I made the decision to move out of my family home and head to Kuala Lumpur to see whether I could make a better future for myself,” confides Yazid, before adding: “I had issues with my parents, perhaps because I failed my SPM. I was also a bit depressed. When I left the family home for KL, I only had RM50 in my pocket. I told my dad that I’d get a job in production somehow.”
His brows furrowing in recollection, Yazid recalls: “I did ask dad to come with me to KL and see whether we could grow our production, perhaps go into TV programmes or drama. But he didn’t want. So I went. I was a young man with huge dreams.”
His decision to chart his path into this industry wasn’t surprising. After all, Yazid’s father, Ahmad Puad Omar, was a camera man. Shares Yazid: “I started this career very early on with my dad actually. He