The aircraft that greatly resembles Singapore's ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) gantry has created a buzz online after the Red Bull FlugTag 2012 Singapore.
Fascinated by the bold use of the ERP gantry in the competition, InCinemas spoke to The ERP Team and learnt that Jack Neo's movie could be involved in its creation! Hit the jump and find out in our exclusive interview with The ERP Team!
Organised by the European Red Bull, Singapore had its first Red Bull FlugTag (pronounced as 'floog-tag' meaning Flying Day) held at Sentosa, Siloso Beach yesterday, giving us all the fun and entertainment through the many different kinds of 'flying' aircrafts made by 38 teams.
The highlights of each 'flight' are not only limited to the moment when the aircraft leaves the 6-metre high flight deck or the distance travelled by the flying machines , but also the pre-flight entertainment once the aircraft is on the ramp. Credits go to the strong headwind and the humourous pair of hosts, The Muttons from 98.7FM, for contributing the many laugh-out-loud moments. You never know what will happen just before the team pushes their hard work into the sea!
One memorable moment is the Gold Fish, by team Flask ML pop, which doesn't seem to like the idea of jumping into the sea! It has shown its reluctance not once but thrice, bringing laughter to the thousands of crowd. Another is the Penguin by team Pengcraft 2000, where it has its head got torn off when sprinting halfway across the runway. There was even one that went out of the 'cliff' and recorded a negative distance!
(Head over to InCinemas Facebook Album for more photos in higher resolution!)
Not all are about making a crash or splash, as each team also gets a 30-second performance prior to the 'flying' of their 'beloved' aircraft. I was expecting a team to do the gangnam style somewhere and true enough, there's a couple of team mimicking Psy's moves but its probably the Angry Birds team who left a deeper impression, even though its not the best gangnam dance one can expect though.
We also see designs made with references to movies say, the penguins from Madagascar (team Pengcraft 2000), flying dragon from How To Train A Dragon (team Amphibious Dragonfly Drone), Balloons from Pixar's Up (team BBFL), Starwars (team 501st Legion Singapore Garrison; from superheroes like Batman, Superman, Flash and Green Lantern; cartoon characters like Power Rangers (team Mega Aero Zord) and Angry Birds (team Maxus Flock of Flyers); and even food and fruits like Cha Siew Bao, Prawns, Chilli Crabs, Durian, Bananas and more!
But none of these earn more attention and cheers than the ERP aircraft by The ERP Team, especially when the muttons point out that the day has finally come when Singaporeans get to see ERP crashing into the sea.
Note that the ERP's performance consists of a familiar song that seems to come from one of Jack Neo's films. At the end of the splash, the judges were so impressed by the team that they awarded them the highest number of points, 37 out of 40, in the competition. The second that came close was team Mega Aero Zord with their Power Ranger.
InCinemas was curious about the team behind this creative design which had won over the hearts of the crowd and whether Jack Neo's movie had played a part in inspiring the ERP! Read on and find out more!
Meet Matthias de Ferrieres, 34, and Richard Luquain, 33, both of whom
are French who had been in Singapore for quite some time already.
(Image - From Left: Matthias de Ferrieres and Richard Luquain.)
Q: How long did it take for you to do this?
Q: One week only?
- Richard: A bit more than that. a week and a half?
- Matthias: We did a test using a dummy in my place, and when we were confident enough, we bought the parts. 2 full days and every night.
Q: Why ERP? Who came up with this idea?
- Matthias: It's me. We wanted to find something that is local and very innovative, that relates strongly to Singaporeans and Singapore that we make them laugh and make them realise that we can make fun of something which is very concerning and annoying on daily basis... Daily basis! Hourly basis!
Q: Crashing the ERP.. Do you have a personal grudge with the ERP?
- Matthias: No, okay look..
- Richard: - To tell you the truth.. -
- Matthias: I watched Money No Enough 2 when it was shown. I love the beginning. The first 5 mins... I just loved it. And it came to my mind. So, why not doing (sic) it? Exactly like in the show. That’s why the beginning of our song (30 sec performance) is Money No Enough 2.
Q: Where are you from?
- Matthias: I’ve been here for 12 years. My wife is Singaporean, she's Hokkien. So I'm very influenced by my family-in-law. I'm aware (of Singapore).
Q: I figure that NO Singaporean would probably dare do that.
- Matthias: Ya. Ya, that explains why we didn't win.
- Richard: I think that explains why we didn't win! I think we got the crowd cheerful. I’m pretty sure we won this one (the audience) because the crowd was just crazy when they saw the ERP, but I’m not sure if it's 100% politically correct.
Q: Did you live in SG quite sometime as well?
- Richard: I've been in South East Asia for 7 years. I lived here for 2 years back in 2005. I'm back in Singapore for a year. Therefore I know Singapore quite well yeah.
Q: That moment you guys were going to crash the ERP, everyone was engaged and cheering for you. The judges gave you the highest score.
- Richard. The judges gave us the highest score yesterday as well. We know that. We are aware of that. But it doesn't matter.
- Matthias: We were told that we've got very good marks on creativity.
Q: I think you are one of the most entertaining teams out there and I thought you would win something.
- Richard: The other teams expected us to win as well.
Q: Were you guys disappointed?
- Matthias: No.
- Richard: That's fine. We had fun. We meet friends. Indeed when we see the marks, we think 'Oh great we’re going to win something'. We didn't win anything, never mind. We had good fun though.
- Matthias: We're very happy that the media comes to us. We love to bring people smiles. It's fine. Prize is not important.
Q: Do you think the theme of ERP itself has hurt your chances of winning?
- Matthias: Okay look I’ve been here for 12 years. I want to tell you something. ERP is an amazing invention that should be implemented in my country France, and everywhere. It’s very, very good.
- Richard: We have the same concept in France but we are just queuing. Here you won’t even need to queue and it’s deducted automatically. So I think it's a great concept. We have nothing against that. Maybe, maybe it won't help us to have this ERP theme to win but that's fine.
- Matthias: You know you love your mother, I know. I love my mother I know. But I make fun of her as well.
Q: First time you've taken part in this?
- Richard: Red Bull Flugtag for me is my first time.
Q: Advice for those interested parties to take part in Red Bull Flugtag?
- Matthias: Perseverance. You need time and patience. Work as a team, even if with your friends sometimes you can be frustrated. You have a lot of unknowns so be prepared to face the unknown. Something breaks, something doesn’t work or you need more money, etc.
- Richard: Another thing which is very important is fellowship. Because you don’t have that, you come with anger and you can't do anything if you don't have the fellowship.
Q: You expect someone to jump as a pilot but that rule was taken away half way.
- Richard: Matthias supposed to be on the top right of ERP. But they (organisers) say that the tide was too low.
Q: How much did you spend on your aircraft?
- Matthias: $900 without the booze.
- Richard: Because if you count in the booze, it will exceed the budget!
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