something is missing... perhaps theres something in the wires, we never understood, how to muster the creation of life, he could...
Stan Winston passed away at age 62... I only found this our recently though it occurred some time ago. Big deal i'm making out of some random name you've probably never heard of before...
well...
He was only the man how brought pretty much everything you see on screen to life. Yes Anthony Stark, he powered your suit, as he powered the passion of many who aspire to be like him.
I really have nothing else to say, I don't have to, because what we're truly remembered by, is the things that we do.
Long story short...HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEAWHALEHUGGER!!!!
I stayed up till 4 over the weekend preparing this, and a bunch of robo-buddies spent an entiremonth devoted to making someone a very happy little girl:)
*SUPPLIES!*
noi didn't botherdocumenting anything (physically) this time round because i really wanted to finish this ASAP! would have love to being that this would be the first short in which i actually have EMOTIONS on whatever it is I have chosen to bring into this world.
the idea came to me while walking to Leisure Mall a week ago or so. As I was thinking bout what to get lil Aleawallea for her 19-th little men started scurrying around in panic, looking for stuff on e-bay, digging through my iTunes collection and emptying out almost every cabinet in my head. Having the contents of my records (which were initially kept in those cabinets till they were emptied and later moved to Section 17 due to fumigation of Section 12) gone... every single item that I had surveyed as potential Birthday Gifts of reasonable price had pretty much vanished, and so did part of Reunion by STARS which, mind you was playing on my Sony at the time of the unexpected dump.
With nothing to think about (and of course nothing to remember) the little men went on poking into the right side of Section 42, sadly no meaning of life was uncovered but they found remains of one of my old creations... well relatively old creations per-say. Out of sympathy and the fact that I had accidentally switched over to The Lifting by R.E.M then men and I agreed to re-animate our long lost friend... We also agreed that I should stop staring back into my head every once in awhile as I had already landed my forehead on much tree bark over the pass few steps.
During the reanimation process it was concluded that I had to shut down the whole of the left brain... apparently I still had a some pie stuck in there from smack before I dropped math. Throughout the next three minutes and twenty seconds of The Lifting the men bickered bitterly in regards to how to devour it. Being at 3.142 it was ideally hard for the men to each have an equal share their attempt to calculate a (fair share for all) got three divisors and two squares jammed in there along with the pie, making it's crust almost unidentifiable and my left brain completely nonoperational. (I bet you just popped an artery)
The men were surprised and so was I that their senseless bitching about the simple task of eating a piece pastry had solved the problem.
Now with the right brain in full control resurrecting Bluball would be a sin ch! However all that bickering about pastry and math triggered something rather unexpected. You see the left brain may have been shut down, but every calculation, every word spoken had still somehow successfully established itself in the archives. Like binary, all this leads to a simple command... and the whole argument about pie lasting three minutes and twenty seconds translated into three simple words... "push the button"
Next thing you know, Ageless Beauty starts playing. Having no left brain to reassure me of whats logical and whats not, I began to hallucinate, spamming each plasma screen in the right brain with images of what I saw. Basically I realized that having such power to bestow life on the non-living, there was no need for me to bother with getting a present for dear ol Alea, I'll just leave it to my creations. I woke to realize that I had not gone through a state that Buddhist monks call enlightenment and what Curt Cobain called LSD... there, In front on the operation table stood my benevolent creation, perfectly blue and..... *CUT*
The film reel snapped, flinging the last few frames of Victor and his creature out the right ear lobe. I turned and looked around... all around me, Bluballs... not like the ones I had nurtured.. but.... ones with.. expressions, emotion.. feeling. I gasped and fell back in horror of the abomination that I had created *SHRED*
The blockage the mathematical devices created had blended my copy of Frankenstein as the men thought the book made crap sense... the math couldn't agree more.
*beep* the player died halfway through Ageless Beauty, my visions suspended in mid air, along with the pair of Homer Simpson boxers that just wont get back in my closet.
The math had finally finished devouring Shelly's book and the men decided to suck the admin's dick by giving him the pie in hopes of a promotion to "the ___ men" My left brain began to re-render itself consious, screaming numbers and "logic" right back through the right brain. The plasma screens fizzled and began replaying everything with every inch of logic forced in by the left brain, re-timing, re-trimming, re-raping every idea that had come to pass over the pass few minutes. The rush of logic enabled me to regain a sense of reality again.. which I regretted having unconsiously stepped on dog leavings that I had initially pictured as grapes for making fine wine.
Upon reaching home the left brain had completed it's restoration of my cerebral system, allowing me to review what I had seen, in proper terms.... only for me to say...
Right..... for the Ball.... erm..... i'm supposed to like.. advertise or something right???? errr... oh what do we have here? 2 ads :) Yeah, proof that I have NO LIFE, i shot this at one in the morning, a few hours after being told to promote the ball LOL.
I kinda looks more like a movie opening/trailer than an ad.... lolness.
I thought the first ad originally had music fit for a funeral so i made it the "B-side" instead :P
The links are below if u want to use these... have fun.
Afterglow
Afterglow B-Side (music)
You heard the talking monkey!
3oth June 2008 KL Hilton Grand Ballroom RM130 per ticket... beat Jason at magic and get a 10% discount. lol
You can find both here : Afterglow 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWGyvJjWto0
I should be studying, I really should... though its a sin against my nature to do so.
Anyhoo, was digging through clips from yester-year-year and found a clip that i guess meant alot to me as:
1) it portrays raw, authentic school life that you CAN'T FIND and WONT BE ABLE TO IN A MILLION YEARS.... mainly because everyone else (students with cameras) enjoy posing, thinking up ways of spicing up school life on camera, and... making stuff up.... this is all natural :)
2) It might win me an Era award or something if i took that and all 185 recorded clips and made a documentary.
3) COME ON! LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!? DETENTION? BANISHED TO STAND ON THE TERRACE DURING PERHIMPUNAN!?
LIKE WE CARE... Prefects..... Dogs.... whatever you call them... EAT THIS!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
with love, 5 Clancy 2006 -Graduation Day- (on the Terrace during "detention" and perhimpunan)
the voices of 5C and 5K. namely Wait Kit, Wei Kit, Roshan, Teck Juan, and yours trully.
Yeah.... and Mr. Wong (new principal) or Alexander (new head prefect)? they never came to save their brethren. Apple fell far from the tree sad to say. This never would have happened if Mr. Loo was around.
Trivia: Mr. Loo was our principal back when we began secondary, We've ALL felt the end of his cane, during that incident when 3 classes in the hall were making too much noise. Once he came in it was pin-drop silence! followed by half an hour of queuing up outside the main office to receive out "just deserts". To be honest after that NO OTHER canning to DATE could match that of Mr. Loo...
"*WHACK* no pain... walk walk, walk, run, run,run....SCREAM! MY ASS IS ON FIRE! BLIMEY"
Okay I'm not going to blog no more till after exams..... that's in July :P Hope and Pray that I can finally put up some serious work on this blog after the exams.... in the meantime here's some random stuff I typed while chit chatting with Pia -_- i added a few more songs :)
Hey Jude, Good Day Sunshine, It Wont Be Long Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite Because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on The Long and Winding Road on The Magical Mystery Tour over near an Octopus's Garden where Lady Madonna Wants You Eight Days A Week so Hold Me Tight With A Little Help From My Friends Back in the USSR where Happiness Is a Warm Gun Oh! Darling Here Comes The Sun in an Old Brown Shoe with a Blackbird screaming Help! Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da in the Blue Jay Way in a Yellow Submarine.
Dear Prudence, Don't Let Me down to Strawberry Fields While My Guitar Gently Weeps, In My Life I am The Walrus and All You Need Is Love Because Oh! Darling A Day In the Life of The Fool On The Hill is Here, There and Everywhere and If I Fell For No One We Can Work It Out for All My Loving Across The Universe Can't Buy Me Love From Me to You So Love Me Do Girl!
-This would be SOOOOOO much longer if i had referred to the list of Beatles Songs sitting in iTunes :P
I know few ever touch this blog... so i guess its safe to ramble a little. Whoever has read this blog before already knows very well that nothing but videos appear here... personal life, what i wore to day, whether i scored straight As, or who i want to kill at this very moment would be something you'll never see... well make this an exception then.
Let me tell you a story... I never realized the passion i had for film till i was in form 4... sure i've made a few star wars skits on Samantha ans Clarissa's 8mm DV camcorder back when i was 8-10 buy the idea of taking my ideas to a whole new level never occurred to me...
In form 4 (2005), while sitting by the telly doing my chem homework (normal) You Get What You Give by the New Radicals started playing. Then.. it hit me.... i had this vision of a a short video filled with recordings of life in MBSSKL (Methodist Boys Secondary School KL)... raw and uncut. Nothing planned.... just whatever i could get on camera. Since that day, i spent the whole year dragging my camera to school (it was a 3.2MP Lumix... yeah its old) everyday, filming things as they happened.
I soon began to fill my comp hard drive like there was no tomorrow. Speeches, random moments, SJAM moments, special occasions, EVERYTHING, went into that camera. I soon decided on other videos, one being a football short ( i wanted to preserve these memories and images because its something... i felt worth every second of my time) and a couple of other short videos.
24th February 2005 : The Most Memorable Day in school history as far as many are concern.
It had been a good long 10 years before the school finally earned enough (3 mil approx) to build a new block... however this involved knocking down the block my classroom, 4C was in (as well as 1M, my Form 1 classroom). I had this crazy idea..... lets let things go out with a bang before they tear the place down. The night before (23rd) i called up Chang Liang and asked him to bring spray paint the following day. I supplies more spray paint and a football :) After school ended... We made our way quickly to 4C and.. as you shall see in a segment of the video/s ... had the time of our lives.
Anyway... these videos, are my very first works as far as film and telly production is concern. A quick note.... In this video, unlike what most school students my age would have done, I didn't intend on creating an image with fantastic cinematography that would make such videos "visually engaging". My goal was to preserve what was real... not to create something synthetic.
"why did he think adding meant increase? To me it was dilution" - Philip Arthur Larkin (from Dockery and Son)
1 year in the making.... sorry that a few people are missing and etc. Alas, all i can say is....
THIS IS WHERE... i grew up My Family
My Brothers in Arms
This is Where (2005)
MBS Footy (2005)
MBS VS VI spoiler (2006)
When Wai Kit gets OWNED... there is always a perfectly valid reason behind it.... don't you agree Jen Ric, Li Qun, Zhi Wang, Teck Juan, Kelvin, Jonathan Phua, Ryan, Foo, Satesh, Nemal, Jay, Roshan, Mutu, Yew Seng, Josiah, Jovin, Chong Jian, Boon Kheng, Chee Kar, Wai Hong, Loke Wee, Ta Zhi, Syukri, Brendan, Cheng Liang, Sean, Daniel, Kuan Jhun, Zhi Hao, Hashridz, Firdaus, Weinan, Au Yong, Weiyang, Shankar, Dinesh, Joe Yee, Bosco, Woei Lim, Alvin?
Well, after spending a day trying to figure out how math had any significant ties whatsoever with stem and leaves... i decided to spend the last two hours of the day making a lil somethin.... its just an ad for W3! Pictures.... having re-labeled my "flop guarantee" production suite. enjoy... e=MC2
As much as i have grown fond of the BBC, i can't regard the idea of such a name to have a lack of originality and identity... Sure it does portray certain ethics in a film director... Brains & Balls but to prevent being sued by the real BBC, best i change it.
My dad has been hassling me on changing the whole production to be under my name. Personally it would be cool to do so... but i don't in any way have the reputation to do so. I think it makes me look bloody pompous. But, something had to be done... note that the new name covers members of the alphabet, numbers and symbols.
After having tasted the art of stop-motion for the first time, first hand... i thought that it would be great to go forth and populate. Sadly after long hours of searching for a worthy mate it came upon me in instinct that my purpose wasn't to populate at all... in fact, there are population problems in the world as it is.
So, what to do in the dying days of our most beloved and cherished hols?
why not, another Stop motion feature.
Jason, Jason.. i promise you, this feature isn't 10MB large and doesn't consist of 2 seconds of crap Instead, here i have for you a whopping 15.22GB and 1894 stills worth of crap.
ahem... one cannot just watch a short video and get disappointed, one has to note :
THE MAKING OF BLUEBALL This being my second attempt at Stop-Motion. Once again i went in without any technical information in regards to how i was going to do this.... and we all know i DON'T READ. Anyway i decided to move beyond the late Horace's solid wooden exterior to something softer, more delicate and, well blue. the BLUEBALL TEST featured here is just an attempt to animate modelling material or plaster or play-doh as most 9 year olds call it.
I made it a point to finish shooting in two days. such a rush resulted in rather bland and cruddy movement. The animation isn't smooth in other words...
one huge boo boo i made was when shooting part of the first scene... theres this huge jerk in movement because i accidentally knocked the polystyrene platform by accident. I didn't see this until i had reviewed the full video.
I had no script and simply thought of how to compose the shots and messing with various props (as you shall see) as i went on with the shooting. Once again, i apologise for bad footage and all that... u can swear at me all you want later.
I decided to shoot this one with my webcam, hence the 1894 photos only taking up 15.22GB of my Hard Drive. heres the crap part... each pic was only about 800kb in size. 2 days (and more) of my life and 2 minutes, 30 seconds of yours. Day 1 - shot scene 1 (1600-0100) Day 2 - shot scene 2 + finale (1300-0230) Day 3 - video rendering STAGE 1 (0230-0530) STAGE 2 (0530-0600) Final rendering (0600-0645)
Heres a brief synopsis... The setting is this little white planet called Polyron (its polystyrene) inhabited by little BLUE BALLS... these little buggers can shapeshift a little bit, most of the time turning into finger-like things which appealed to my mum as male appendages. Quite true in a way.... eww. so, this little blue ball (Blu) found a red blob lying on the ground, after prodding the blob, it rises up and tries to attack... the little ball runs off to tell TWO BIGGER BLUE BALLS (Blaek & Whaet) about the incident. and..... well just watch the video okay!
Stills from "The Making of Blueball"
cam on a cup... haha!
a closeup of Blu explaining what happened to Blaek and Whaet. (i nailed him to the platform so he won't wobble too much when i was adjusting his movements)
an over-head shot
my trusty companion through work and play.... mostly play.
creating the "shadow" effect of the blob.... my glasses case mounted on my mini tripod. THE BLOB!
molding the Blob as it prepares to attack! i smothered the light with tissue paper to reduce glare.
i remember those days where i could have Batman vs Luke Skywalker.... like toys.
the Sauron-cam... this is how i got the overhead shots done.
full view of the Sauron-cam... its just a tripod with my webcam on top. Oh and two nails to prevent the webcam from falling back... its dangling!
I made two scale models of the BLUE BALLS for close up and wide shots.... guess which is which.
The Full cast of Blue Ball Test
Full cast + crew.
LADIES AND GENTS without further ado, BBC Productions proudly presents: BLUEBALL TEST, written,directed,produced & animated by Low Weiyan.
Well all i can say is tat nobody ever looks at this blog.. but that doesn't in anyway play significance to the fact that TODAY, I explored the world of stop-motion for the very first time...
After having watched Corpse Bride the night before i decided that it was time indeed for me to attempt what seems to take hours, if not days and if not days, months and if not months years of painstaking work.
Considering that i had no idea as how to shoot a stop-motion feature properly, the video i've uploaded would probably mean nuts to viewers.. but watever... i had fun shooting it... not so much fun in the editing tho....
heres why... shooting as i thought was as tough as Hell considering i was not willing to flush out 300 pounds for a Stop-Motion figure, neither was i going to fund a bloody spray set, mold and dedicate the next few weeks of my life to molding Jack Skellington! Instead I found myself spending 6 full hours shooting and editing 21 seconds worth of cow poo...
I grabbed my Horrace, the drawing mannequin that my mum bought for me years ago and made with the shooting... I decided to do an ad for The BBC considering that it was the least time consuming and nobody bothers with studio ads, thanks to modern technology.... we have "chapter skip".
Shooting took up 149 stills and 244MB of hard drive space.
Editing was a pain in both left and right butt cheeks... Since one frame makes up probably 1/6 a second i had to re-time and resize all of the stills considering that still default at 5 seconds on Sony Screenblast. The fact that i didn't have Stop-Motion software made it a little tougher.
for the first time i emphasized on lighting... because it was shot in my study room, i had to change the background.... So i made with this black background with enough light illuminating Horrace...
On the job!
and the Award goes to??? Horrace Wimp!!!
Once again i did not have professional tools of even a spotlight so i used two table lamps placed in some odd manner to produce my idea of lighting in this 21 second disaster.
the set
Sound was recorded later, with me recycling most of my props which after being recycled for noise were FUBAR.
but enough jit jat, heres my 21 second disaster... the official BBC ad...
Heh... BUT I wasn't done yet!!! Since I was already surging with Stop-Motion hormones, i decided to do a second video in favor of a friend whos going to sell cupcakes and brownies tomorrow for her Business project-a-mathingy...
So, heres another disaster but slightly longer than the previous disaster... bout 19 seconds longer and.. yes... 130 shots more! I can hear my Hard drive screaming!!!!
