If perfection is the enemy of good, what is the integrity of my work?

"Perfection is the enemy of good" - my friend reminded me of this quote when I was conflicted with a dilemma regarding how I should respond to a mistake that was recently pointed out regarding my work.

But first, the beginning.

On 25 May 2021, I published my first big-budget documentary piece direct to my YouTube channel. It was a fully independently funded work that I had conceived since January that year and had spent the months that followed working through the process of researching, scripting, collaborating, performing (it was my first time hosting my own work) and directing post production that included motion graphics (another first for me). It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. However, I also knew that there would be mistakes to be made.

With every documentary production, it is wise to have a healthy expectation of mistakes. It is inevitable as with every human endeavour, and one’s awareness of it allows for the appropriate response to rectify them before the work is released for the world to see.

For my part, I started off by having a screen test - a self-audition of sorts where I read through my script and shared it to a couple of trusted friends and peers. I gathered feedback and advice and refined the script.

Fortunately, my time at the National University of Singapore and Tembusu College had equipped me with some research fundamentals, skills that became essential to the task at hand. I cross referenced my sources, found gaps in public discourse and made editorial decisions that could be backed up.

And with the foresight that hecticness usually rises during the production and post-production process, I sought to make this script iron-clad so that I could focus my time on the other aspects of production. Once again, I would be producing, directing and hosting the documentary too.

For the most part, this process worked. It allowed all my collaborators to work in tandem knowing that there is a central script that can be trusted. And it allowed for ease of adjustments when some ideas that were conceived in the script did not work out well in execution.

And it was this latter part where the cracks started to form. And just two days after the documentary premiered, someone that I had sent the video to commented, "so many mistakes…" It was text-based, but it was deafening.

Mistake 1: Bishan is not Toa Payoh

The first mistake was a blunder. One of the properties showcased in the documentary was Blocks 290 and 291 of Bishan, the first two public housing blocks to have 30 stories in Singapore. All but one mention of this location in the production documents was correct. The one fell through the cracks? The document that I would send to the graphic team to insert the call out titles.

And you might think, despite this, how can such a mistake still slip by when it is so prominent in the documentary? I can only say that this was a case of tunnel vision - for even during a nitpicking session in which I pointed out places where numbers were typo-ed and spaces between the letters of each individual property had to be precise, the mistake of having Bishan be referenced as Toa Payoh in large text just never registered in my mind.

However, this was, for me, a mistake that I had a remedy for post-premiere. In all works that I push out on YouTube, there is a link to a shownote that will allow for additional comments to be attached to the work for future reference. I would also highlight this mistake as enthusiastically as I do to promote said work.

If this was the only mistake, that would not have warranted a replacement of the original video. But the next mistake did.

Mistake 2: 1952, not 1967

During the early segment of the documentary, there was a timeline animation segment that showcased the milestones between the 30 years from the completion of the Cathay Building (Singapore's first skyscraper) in 1941 and Blocks 26 and 28 in Bendemeer (the 2 buildings that opened the film) in 1971. For Singapore, those 30 years were monumental and I wanted to acknowledge it despite the segment having little to do specifically with answering the core question - do Singaporeans live in public housing skyscrapers?

The answer to that question has significant connections to policy making and nation building, thus the idea was to have a segment dedicated to it. But it was originally a supercut sequence of old footage and photos with no captions. It implied the phase of time in context but without captions for detail.

However, that idea could not materialise due to my inability to get the relevant footage, and so we quickly had to get back to the drawing board. The idea for a timeline animation was conceived, and soon with it, captions of each year and a short description. And it was at this moment, when the decision was taken, when the second mistake happened.

I mentioned that I wanted to make the script ironclad so that despite the hecticness, the facts will be right. But due to this relatively impromptu decision, new facts had to be added, and hence the fact-checking in this case was hasty.

That resulted in the unfortunate error of placing two photos of Singapore's first satellite town, Queenstown, at the tail end of the timeline with the year 1967. This implied that the town was developed after Singapore's independence, when in fact it was built in 1952 when Singapore was still under British rule.

And unlike my prior mistake, this had larger implications, the main one being that there might be audiences that will take away this piece of misinformation if the documentary had also failed to captivate them to learn more about the topic for themselves. And while I had put up a correction notice to address it. It still bugged my mind. And after five days involving much self reflection and discussion with my community, I had the mistakes amended and re-uploaded the video.

Relevant concluding title

Flawed as it was, this whole process was a result of my accumulated experience mixed with some experimentation. And one of my desires to take away from this endeavour was to refine that process for the opportunities that may lie ahead.

And that is why the mistakes I had made, while regrettable, were ultimately expected. It allowed me to be better at my craft and matured my thought process, such as what I now think of mistakes - as per what you had just read.