I couldn’t help myself…

The subtle wonders of a nice cup of tea

Migraines.

They’ve been plaguing me like locusts on Egypt for the past few days, gnawing on every fiber of sensibility and reverie in my brain. I feel like part of my brain is actually numb now from all the incessant chewing on it.

I really want this job…

I wish I made my showreel earlier. Bah. Lack of foresight upon hindsight. Ah well… There’ll be more chances in the future… Yeah… Sure… No problem.

My head really hurts.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Snow White remains popular till today. To be honest, I can’t figure out a single reason why people would rather watch Snow White than some other great Disney classic like Jungle Book. I loved the Jungle Book. In fact, after watching Snow White on the LD player Pa and I hauled out, we sat through a trip down memory lane with the cranky ole’ hunk-o-crap (aka my LD player). The LD player really sucked. The door wouldn’t open, for one. And we had to keep unplugging it and prying the tray door open with our fingers. The animation on the other hand was something to die for. Amazing. And I still loved Jungle Book. Much more vivid characters. Compared to the bland, unmemorable Snow White and her equally dull prince.

In my opinion, what makes Snow White last is the acting done by the 7 dwarves. Amazing acting. Awesome characters. Fascinating! Heigh-Ho!!! Lol… I kept grinning to myself as I watched it. And kept roaring with laughter at the Jungle Book.

ARGH MY HEAD…

I’m trying to drown the pounding in my head with tea… Feels like my brain is already swimming in earl grey… Time to sleep… When I wake up, more programming, walk cycles, video reference, research on Snow White… Garh…

How do you describe a day like this?

Today was… =D

It was downright tiring, but the opportunities that came up were just amazing. It all started with dragging my mojo-exhausted body up from the sanctity of my bedsheets and mindlessly automating myself to school for XMedia conference. Lol… It was really cool really. I could only stay for 25% of the conference cause I had to rush off but for that 25%, it was amazing. One duo that especially impressed me was Champagne Valentine. They had some really cool interactive stuff as well as some downright strange things like this game called Escape the paparazzi

Basically, you get to choose from a host of notorious hollywood names and you have to run from these tiny paparazzi folk. Every so often, you’ll run into Bonuses that will give you super powers. For example, Michael Jackson’s bonus is dangling a baby, and Paris Hilton’s is throwing a cellphone.

lol… Funny runny game…

Another speaker was Anina, supermodel turned one-of-the-budding-internet-stars-of-tomorrow. She started her own website called 360 fashion which was basically a new take on the fashion industry, showing links from one person to the next like a giant web of connections. Anina totally baffled the waffles out of me. She spoke of really complex things and her ideas were nothing less than fantastic! I loved alot of her ideas and her work. But… Ah well…

Anyway, I had to leave early to go Vivocity to pass Boo our camera. While over there, I had to buy a packet of cigarettes for Tabbie, the actress from the film I was working on today. It was the first time I was buying ciggies and it looked like the first time the cashier at the 7-11 was selling it. We spent some time scouring the shelves for the Malboro Menthol Extra Lights. (“Ah ya! That one with the throat cancer on it!”) I also bought a couple of mentos boxes (only because they were being sold at 2.20 for 2 boxes! what a steal!)

When I got on set, it was already 130! I was a good 3.5hours late… =\ Lousy Ying… Nic the director of photography quickly helped me get settled right in and I set off doing my assistant director stuff. I think some of the shots could have been more dynamic, but I suppose, director’s choice! I liked the lighting though. Very nice. =D the entire crew was really funny and nice to hang around.

A few really awesome opportunities came around this time…

Tabbie is from SMU and organizing the inter-varsity scriptwriting competition. It’s run fly-by-night style with contestants getting the theme on friday and having to submit the script by saturday. Winning scripts get to be shot with aid from *scape (I’m guessing with a professional film crew) but I’m speculating here. Sounds like a great opportunity for ADMers to show our scriptwriting skills! She’ll be getting in touch with me over the weekend to find out how we can work together on bringing ADM into this. Apparently, the union hasn’t responded to them… Quite saddening…

Also, Nic let me in on this great chance to work with a television station provider. They’re looking for an animator to help them with a pitch they’ll be making to the traffic police soon. I’d love to work with them! The guy will be contacting me soon and hopefully I’ll be able to show him my showreel by then. =) If this works out, it would open so many doors in the future. =D My big break! I must give it my all!

During the shoot today, I also got to meet Ian, the guy who is playing Alex. The character of Alex was modeled after me, apparently. And I found myself going “hey, that sounds like something I’d say” quite often during Ian’s reading of the script. I never knew I was so weird.

I have a very bad headache now.

I missed being on set and feeling the crazed adrenaline rush, the stress that hung like a thick impermeable smog in the air, the whir of gears whizzing in the half a dozen minds in the room. Sickening. Smothering. Deafening. Exhilarating.

Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t go into film. But when I look at my animation, my something created from nothing, the life I breathe into pencil scratching on paper, the character I sculpt with these two hands… I know I’ve made the right choice.

My birthday wish this year

I wish you wouldn’t do that.

I wish my parents can be stress-free.

I wish my mom wouldn’t be sad.

I wish you could just grow up.

I wish you would think about what you’re doing.

I wish my brother wouldn’t be lonely.

I wish things would go smoothly with the proposals.

I wish I can be better at animating.

I wish I had more time.

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HAHAHAHAHAHHA

Cal arts is so funny…

Spoof on motion capture 

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe (photographer) 

Splurge

Excessive is the word of today.

I went out shopping with my 妹妹 this afternoon. I set out to just buy a vest and the MUGEN comic today from Heeren, but we ended up buying a whole lot more and shopping at the far ends of the plains of Orchard Road. We had a really enjoyable lunch at Village to kick off the entire once-every-3-or-4-months-shopping-trip. Enjoyable mainly because we found out that both our Universities had deals with Village that entitled us to 15% off! Rad! The food on the other hand wasn’t all too appetite-whetting.

Once ever so often, I suddenly find my digestive inexplicably possessed by a large yellow bulldozer and I’ll be compelled to have food in my hand and mouth at all times of the day. Today was one such a day. Feeling hungry right after a rather large lunch with my parents, I had a second lunch with my sister. However, the soup at the Village performed a miracle like none I have ever had the honor of witnessing. It immediately exorcised the demon bulldozer from my bowels and instantaneously, I lost my veracious appetite. Something was definitely magical about that soup because the moment we left Village, my stomach began howling like a werewolf again.

Ignoring my shrieking stomach, we headed up to the first floor where MUGEN was nested around the fountain area thingy. And lo and behold! I saw ADMers! Lol… Apparently, one of our Year 1s had his work in MUGEN! I’ve read through his story already. I love the artwork. Really. Compelling story too. JIAYOU MAN! Awesome stuff!

After buying MUGEN and collecting the awesome goodie bag (that was a fantastic cloth bag choc full of a monster allergy notebook, Chuang Yi catalogue, Playworks magazine, deathnote and Saiyuki postcards, and this strange unidentifiable but really cool perforated thing), we dived head first into HMV!

I bought 3 new CDs today from Kanye West, Boys like Girls, and Timbaland (yeah… I know what you’re thinking. Stop thinking it.)

The Kanye West one came with this pair of really strange shades that bear an uncanny resemblance to the sort driving testers will wear to intimidate you/shade their eyes from the punishing Singapore sun/hide the fact that they’re actually sleeping.  And the whole bag came with a really strange CD from M1… of all people…

LOL… It originally came with a tag that screamed “OUTDATED?” Hell yeah. It actually has 2 tracks on it, both with the word Ring Ring in it. Kao… A cd full of ring tones. It will drive me to insanity. Just looking at the cover made me do a double take and I almost choked on a chocolate cake I wished I had.

After the CD shopping came the bit where I went looking for my vest. Now, I saw this really awesome vest at Heeren… 4 months ago. So naturally, I happily trotted down town in search of it, only to be miserably disappointed that it was long gone. But at Heeren, I was convinced by my sister to buy a pair of black pants that were slightly on the skinny side. Feels weird like chipmunks on a revolving wooden walrus. But nice anyway. =D good buy! I also began looking for a new earring thing to replace the black spike I have on my right ear. Those curvy ones for eyebrow piercings make me want to pierce my eyebrows. But imagine how weird it’ll be… I will only ever have just one expression. Probably one of utter disbelief.

Yeah. Something like that. Just not so hairy. I found the right earring thing (I keep calling it earring thing cause it’s not really a ring, and it’s on the outer bit of my ear where we don’t normally associate with earrings) over at Far East, our second location for very very unsuccessful window shopping.

Now it’s silver! I like this really. But the spikes are too small. I’ve got one small and one big spike cause the lady didn’t have 2 larger spikes… =\ She should have given me a discount then… ANYWAY… We went shopping more over there! And I bought a pair of shoes to replace the ones I’ve currently worn to a deplorable state. It’s not very old, my old pair of skater shoes. But months of running and punishment has left it in a very very sad state. I shall tread lightly with my new shoes to prevent excessive and unnecessary wearing and tearing.

On the way to Far East, we were driving behind this uncle who forgot to close his car boot… Terrifying! And kinda ironic that the boxes in there were labeled CAREFUL MOVERS.

Another funny car we saw was in the carpark of Far East. It looked so cute and seemed to be grinning at us as we walked to and from the stairs to shops. You can almost make out this toothy grin and happy eyes! Totally Pixar’s Cars kinda stuff… Lol…

Anyway, we found the vest in far east. And also got a new polo shirt and bought lu a blouse thing. And ate some more. =\ I ate way too much today for any form of reasonable comfort. Right after coming home, we had fruits and then plodded back out to buy… OCEAN’S THIRTEEN! I love the Ocean’s series! My favorite shows! Now I have my favorite one. =D Fantastic! The kids watched it together and I made some cheese and nachos for us to share. And chocolate pound cake! Yummy! And I had a plate of mac and cheese. Hunger. Garh.

I’m still hungry…

Where’d you go?

Seems like it’s been forever.

Plans for the semester

What are my plans?

ILM came down yesterday to talk about LAS (Lucasfilm Animation Singapore). A few of the animators didn’t really like how it was starting to sound like an animator sweatshop. But I still love the idea of visual effects. And I feel ecstatic just thinking about joining the DAG team at LAS. But for this, I’m preparing.

Next semester, once all the flurry of organizing events and getting things started has settled down, I’m planning to take a Visual Effects night course at Intense school of animation. And at the same time work on short 10 second snippets of animation to put in my showreel. I’m already beginning my first animation of 10 ideas I have worked out. How do you show character in 10 seconds? Challenging. But something I will have to learn to do. And hopefully, the work I create during my Visual Effects course can go into my showreel as well.

In the mean time, I’ll be drawing again every day, reading more graphic novels, taking more photographs, going through maya tutorials, cinematography books and tutorials… I’m currently going through a tutorial on how to rig a character properly. So far so good!

Things will be great.

I’m getting hungry.