12 MORE DAYS

Despite what most think, exactly because it is a private institution, it prides itself on taking things seriously. Waaaaay too seriously in my opinion.

Just in case, if you think is just a simple matter of outputing an animation (which is really not simple considering how indie animation film "9" took four years on a home computer for a graduate student), I have to also put these in order:

1. Development folder - this details my thought processes - how the idea grew, developed, took shape etc. Sketches, animatic poses, characters, landscape developments, mood board, colour tryouts etc also go in here. Other than detailing the creative processes, the main reason is really to ensure that I don't just rip off things off the Internet and other artists. Also, the proposal for the client - yes, typed out in full, not point form - will take centre stage here.

I just finished one A4 ring folder and I am not even half way through.

2. Packaging - since this THE project, and I am also doing it for a pseudo client - I will need to package it like in a real pitch. So this means cd casing, label and booklet - this is the very basic that I have to do. I could, of course be more creative, and also throw in bookmarks, pamphlets, stickers, info kits (Oh, character franchise!) etc except that I will have to justify the purpose of each communication medium, which means more work and less time to finish the animation.

3. Presentation slides - how nice if I can pluck in some ready made template and copy n paste some trash from the Internet! Wishful thinking there. Of course I mean to design something for the client, suit it to the theme, fit it in the main overall communication purpose, explain the concept, rationale, art direction, target audience BLAH BLAH BLAH.

ARGH.

Week 11 (what, already?!)

14/09 - 20/09
- Finished scene 5; scene 6 on the way (soon, soon!)
- Relook scene 2 and 4 (wah lau - this is like 50% of the main storyline)

Week 12 (last week)

21/09 - 27/09
- Stitch all scenes in premiere
- Fit in sound effects and music
- Print out allllllllllll my shit for development folder
- Mock up for cd packaging
- Prepare presentation slides

Instant fix: this totally made my day!

Title: Where Peiling went on our picnic day?







Whahahahahahahahahahhahahahaa!!

uhoh - Week 10.

Ok its week 10 now. *keeping an eye on panic levels*

Amazing - time really really really flies. But I am glad that it will all be over soon. That said, my progress is kinda - ahem* non-existent coz I am so distracted, restless and neh neh about this whole FMP thing. I am quite over it - letting it go already - and just trying not to look too far ahead but plod on till the end of it and just doing as much as I can. If I can't finish it - actually will have grace one lar! - then let it be then.

Quite chill. Plus I really don't like to sacrifice sleep over work. I like to sleep! *sulk*

Week 10 timeline:

1.composit scenes plus landscape development (oh yucks)
2. finish scene 4 animation by fri.
3. start on scene 5 landscape development

You can see I am squeezing a hell lot more things this time round because I hope to finish everything (all animation) by 20 sept. That will leave me one week for editing, sound, cd-packaging, development folder, presentation slides, mock ups and whatnot.

(Riiiiiiight. Thats alot to squeeze in one week lar!!!oh crap.)

Ok on second thought, I better try to move things up a bit more.

I am digging this video - ang moh version of our wayang kulit (sp?)

Self encouragement

Enough said.

Especially when you see your friends dropping dead like flies next to you. friend quit school, while in the midst of it. Sigh.

Ok - after these few weeks of animation - I realised this, I really still just prefer paper and pen. I just want to drawwwwwwwwwwwwwww or shoooooooooooooooot.

I want to switch mediums already and I am not even done?!

Week 9 - surging ahead?

Animating scene 2 - old colonial Singapore.

After compositing all my scenes, I realised, to my horror, that I don't have enough flesh for scene 2. This means going back to the storyboard again and see what I can add in.

The end result is an addition of 4 more mini scenes (each scene probably lasting only 3 seconds max - oh groan) to give it more meat.

I am only at the easiest part though - animating rickshaw pullers - so I wonder if I even can make it for the deadline to finish scene 2 by er....TODAY?!

Ok, realistically, I need to readjust my deadlines for week 9 (oh, 3 more weeks to end of FMP! CANT WAIT!!!):

- Finish scene 2 and 3 (is that even humanely possible?)
- Possibly start on scene 4

On top of this - I owe Matilda a new set of wedding invites ( I really want to try a series in my own personal style) and corporate identity for a freelance proj.

GULP.

Sometimes I wish my drink can be this exciting:



The other two of the campaign here:



I like "this same group of people that goes to Paris repeatedly but fail to see the Eiffel Tower..."

Phew-groan-phew-groan

I think animation can be basically summed up in this way:

"phew(it's over)-groan(oh my goodness, another new frame)" repeat n times.

puke.

anyway on a different note, thank god!!!!!!! John is finally out! After 8 weeks of deliberating-redrawing etc etc, finally the main character looks "yeah!" to me!
But that means I have to redraw John and all the action sequences.

Timeline check:

1. Finish scene 4 landscape development ( I am lacking one more)
2. Fine tune scene 1 animation (this is haunting me bad!)
3. Finish scene 2 animation (oh no! so behind time!)

Ok, I think I have to switch on the "panic" button already.

Since I am feeling optimistic about the world right now, here's another reason why I love animation despite my lack of skills-patience-tenacity etc:



My favourite part got to be when "Here comes the sun" kicked in. WOAH surrealism!

I am doing all that I can to not throw in the towel and quit.

Animated scene 1/ animation is a bitch.

Having abit of problems with the opening - skipping ahead; now I am trying to close scene 1.

Not very satisfactory coz dun know how to make actions smoother. I m sure there is a damn way to make it work except tt I dun think I have the time to explore AE so much, which is a shame really. Maybe i shld try?

aiya see how.

sick of animation - and I still have 5 more scenes to go.
kao.

on another note, what is wrong with singapore?! every darn video i want to access is restricted due to darn copyright restrictions?? and only in SG? FUCKED UP.

ok chill, woman, chill:

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

Animation!

Finally I am animating some shit.

Quick ones:

1. having trouble keeping a consistent look and feel - i attribute it to an intense dislike for the current style I have to adopt to make it target audience sensitive. sometimes it is good to do shit that is self masturbatory - i.e. panders to no one but my own personal enjoyment. inner voice: designers are commercial, you know....
yes yes, let's move on.

2. still wondering if i should try to zhng john a little. he is really UGLY. i hate drawing cartoons.

3. have to re-paint the entire underwater scene. see point 1.

Timeline:

Think I am still on time for some stuff - hopefully I can get the majority rushed out before next Monday when I have to go to work.
This means:

1. completion of scene 4 (landscape development)
2. finish animation of scenes 1-3 (.........)
3. interim filing and organisation of development folder

Have a penchant to watch movies on my own - you don't really do much in a theatre except to fixate your eyes on the screen, so what does it matter if you have company or not? - but my point is this actually:



Azur and Asmar. first movie that i caught on my own at the PictureHouse some 2 years back. Wondered why it took them this long to export it to the US? Oh wait. They dubbed it in English. LOL~ I wonder if this is French pride at work? :)

Week 7 - Scene 3

Scene 3 is relatively easier to draw as opposed to Scene 2. I mean, underwater world vs old colonial singapore? that's a no brainer.

Anyhow, I am quite done with Scene 3 (at least the opening scene), just need to put in two (maybe three?) other perspectives and I can move on with animation tomorrow.

Was surfing around when I saw this video - very nice, reminded me of Disney, esp. the sequence in beauty and the beast and cindrella.

Week 6 - opps! its already week 7!

Week 6 flew by in a frenzy - not in the i-am-working-my-butt-off-for-the-project kinda way - but in the "I am screwing FMP and going out to play!" way.

My birthday week was hectic fun! it was shopping, dinners, drinks and more! Had a fantastic treat at Jaan par andre too. Extra sweet round up to the week :D

Alright - reality check time:

Still trying to finish the landscape development for scene 2 (i am only at scene 2. yikes)
settling all the perspectives, characters and backgrounds.
(I am late for this!)

Week 7 - need to do up landscape for scene 3
settle all the perspectives, charas etc
Finally - must start animating at least the first 3 scenes - try out and see if there is more work required. I foresee alot more tightening and streamlining though. hmm.

I am especially worried about the action bits coz i m not sure how it will work out. especially the transition between each scene?(this reminds me alot of my robot circus for 3d animation)

Lets see. Back to the grind.

Ok its official...

I don't know what the hell I am doing anymore - I think I need to put all the scenes into AE to at least have a look.

But - laters. Think I am going to move on with landscape development... ah, old colonial Singapore.

Darn funky.

Oh fyi, I hate John - bloody neh neh main protagonist. damn U.G.L.Y!! But I need to move on already... plus all the animatic poses of ugly John are out - no time to change or redo character. argh.

Characters are running?

Did up all the animatic poses yesterday - trying to finish up in Illustrator.
(now I am wondering why I have 3 monsters given that my storyboard has changed?!!! That makes a total of 4 main characters = 4 x 8 poses = 32 frames = 1 sec of running. For 1 sec of animation = 1 day of work?! @.@)

Did a mini output in GIF and AE to see if the poses fit together nicely and well, though far from ideal (coz too slow in AE; retarded in GIF) the feel of it is there I guess. Aim to finish scene 1 before class, if not really got nothing to update my progress man!

TOO SLOW!

Road safety

Interesting use of mood and colours eh.
I am not sure if its for kids though, coz somehow these gives me the creeps.
Think coraline or simply ghosts standing at their spots...







I just completed the background for scene 1 - i am screwed coz it takes me way too long to nail the look!

now i m trying to animate john's walk and run cycles plus finish up all the perspectives for scene 1.
All these and I am not even animating yet.

..............

Going to chart my progress here - FMP 5th week

Totally disliked drawing "manga"/"cartoon" styled characters - they are butt ugly. Pardon me, but I think I do realism pretty well. (ok, not that well....YET. ahem.)

But for sake of ease of things - i don't have that much time (helloooo animation!?) - i will have to stick with something that I really don't have the hots for.

So John is finally out! After two/ three weeks of character development and ploughing through tons of manga/anime (ok tats just an excuse to read trashy manga), John finally looked ..... agreeable to me.

Though I think he can still do alot more development work - except that I have no friggin time anymore!

Now its onto the medium - poster paints, oil pastels, watercolour or good ol' vector??
Thank God for the light box!

Also, side note about the style - target audience is for kids age 6 to 12 years - so goodbye to my kind of style (mixed media, pencil and watercolour etc etc) and hello - everything bright, happy, vibrant and literal.

GROAN - but ok la, ENJOYING!!!

side note: totally inspired about learning corel painter. WHAHAHAHAHA!!!

illustration: "Dreams are made of this..."

I was busy for awhile, trying to finish up this illustration. Can't say that its fantastic - maybe cause I have been staring at it for a while - but oh well, it is done! Horray, now I can move on to my next creative proj. Fun~ But I can't decide between the two colours... I guess I must really output it to see how it will look like on print. :D

Nearly died doing the feathers on the birds(?)penguins (?) coz every single stroke was done using the friggin mouse. OMG. I want a tablet!


Theme: Dreams are made of this....

Oei - two of you, hurry! I am moving on already!

I like film...

but Lomo is pretty sad. Third batch of prints: 6 hits out of 12; out of 6, only 1 makes it.
I want my Yashica Electro. :(

Why we procrastinate

Read article here

Killer Mondays/ Uncle Macbeth

I hope my future Mondays will not be a battlefield. That is really the last thing I need - a nagging, middle aged, over-achieved, friendless, too f--king rich Uncle barking at me to have a "vision". Spare me, please. What's wrong with just wanting to complete my dip and eventually become a designer? I think that's a mighty fine vision; in fact, I think it is more feasible, tangible and something that I can count on realising. Also, how I look and whether D. wears shorts or not, has nothing to do with the class, subject matter or the pseudo-wannabe-major fail(!!!!) lecturer.

I think it is foolish to give said Uncle airtime here, really. I hope this is the last time.

Give me strength please.

Two favourite things

Looong hiatus.

Check out the video - great, stunning visuals and fantastic track.


M83 - We Own the Sky from David Altobelli on Vimeo.

Star Wars

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

This is hilarious! A girl who has never seen Star Wars gives the plot of the 3 original movies and they animate cutouts and tiny explosions in a very comedic manner. Nice animation, not cheesy at all!

Someone, please strap me to my seat.// Excuse me while I go bersek.

We love Tuesdays' class:


See? Intense concentration, how rare and refreshing! :D

Tuesdays' classes are so enjoyable! Well, that's because we get to unveil a whole new world of PHP syntax and Prado - Oh Programming! Week after week of encountering this mysterious and exciting landscape, we find ourselves increasingly enlightened:






Daphne is obviously loving it:


Look at her range of emotions; so expressive!






Oh what sweet glorious joy! :D

Lomo

Second batch of lomo prints:

I got a little too experimental here; I mean Velvia + Colour flash? No shit.
Scary saturated reds.
(mental note to self: use ONLY white/blue flash with Velvia.)







Shudder.

Bai-lingual//Hanoi bride love you long time time!

eh Kenny, can you don't move at the speed of light?
KAO. Stay nua!

har-nah. give you.

When I totally gave up posing.

Processing first! I don't want to treat the whole class char siew baos and drinks loh!

Conceptual Photog....?// Creative Proj ...? //Rant

Final-fucking-ly!

After all that planning came to naught for the "Bride" (I fell sick on the day before the shoot last year), la_vue and I finally pulled off one mini conceptual photog project today! WOOT! Yay, one mini creative benchmark hit. :)

Couple of things learnt:

1. I am a super-duper-cannot-make-it model.

Angst? More like constipation.
Melancholia? You mean stoned.
Attitude? Sigh, ah lian la.

One word: FAIL.

I suck when I try to pose; and when I am natural, I am all wonky and pretty much behae like the siao char boh that I am, day in day out. No problem except that it isn't really part of the concept.

So damn hard. Modelling is hard! Argh.

This is going to be the last time I am posing as a damn model. I just want to photograph; why is it so difficult?!

2. Always have at least three people for a shoot.

One chief photographer who will do the main shoot and all; one art director to well, get the model poses, costume, makeup, hair and locations right; and one more to basically help out with miscellaneous random stuff and also photograph.

I will want to do another mini project, but the next time, I am going to photograph and direct at the same time. Yup, I am going to be in the director's seat. TMD. I ain't no fucking lambeh model! RAWR!

3. Always have insect repellent.
I count...2345356464756756 mosquito bites on me.

4. Always have extra flash unit and/or back up lighting, even if its going to be a outdoor shoot.
The weather today sucked big time; it was overcast most of the time; and when there was sun, it did not last long. We played hide and seek waiting for the sun to do its un-hiding and even then, results were fairly haphazard. You are either heng or suay.

And for most of the time, we were SUAY.

5. Always take pre-shoot planning seriously.
Get the right equipment, props, costumes, compositions, mood board, artistic direction, story boarding etc early. Concertize it on paper, do a bit of research, go for a site recce, test out equipment and settings before the shoot. Details do and really matter.

6. Ignore #5 when everything is failing; instead throw everything out of the window and screw pre-shoot planning!

It was really enjoyable when we both just gave up and literally stopped trying.
Despite that, we got some pretty decent taiko shots! LOL. YAY. It is true after all when they say that beginners have all the luck.

I am glad I am an amateur! :)


Photographs in the process of DI-ing. I hope I get them out soon!

P/s: In exchange for being model for a day, la_vue's going to help pack my room! WOOT! Sweet lar, I love maids. To la_vue: A must to come in an apron; foreign accent and bad hairdo optional. :D


That said, I need a model for an outrageous idea! Maybe an extra photographer too. So....if you are keen, enjoy sai kang, don't mind spending abit of money, have something creative to contribute, or know people who are like that, please please let me know. :D

My heart skipped// New Year Resolution

Watch this first:




Then watch this:



I believe I finally found the voice for what I have been feeling all this while - my obsession with being the best, the perfect, the 100%.

This sets the tone, mood and attitude for my 2009. My thing.

"I want to do something great and wonderful but I must start by doing little things like they were great and wonderful."