Capturing the Moment

There has been many little but significant moments that I happened to encounter for the past 6 days.

It all started when Andrew, my college tutor gave me a call to attend Asia Film Week for free. As in the college is paying. There is so much to say about what happened, so many tiny details to elaborate, but I think I’ll just summed up what I had experience.

1. Friday – I got lost twice on my way to the event in KL. And people like me are hopeless with directions, always having to flip the map at least 10 times. I did what I could since my spatial skills is absolutely lousy – Ask for directions.

I asked
5 college guys,
2 security guards,
1 Malay lady,
1 Malay guy who gave me the wrong directions,
a druken looking taxi driver which was totally blur,
and a bus driver.

whoopee I got there.

2. Saturday – I only got an autograph from Peter Watkins, director of Prison Break, X files, CSI, Smallville…directed a few episodes of each show, like what most TV directors would do. He taught us about capturing moments on films, capturing emotion and humanity in people, capturing the human soul on camera. This holiday is gonna be tons of CSI for me. My favourite speaker, definitely.

3. Sunday -  Chun Siang and I got lost again. (Ish? how can u get lost on the 3rd day?) Ended up being the late Malaysian that we all love to criticize. I was teasing Hee Chung and Chun Siang about the pretty girl that they were ogling over. ahaaha. Bet them to introduce themselves to her but I end up meeting her friend, Purdy and got her to introduce us to the pretty girl, Tris. HEE CHUNG, CHUN SIANG YOU OWE ME BIG TIME!!!

4. 15 minutes later, I received a message from Jason explaining Miss Veronica Ho has passed away from cancer. Before that Purdy was talking to me about her. A bit on the hit of my head somehow. I couldn’t concerntrate on the seminar.

5. The seminar was a 3 full day event in KL which led me to be quite exhausted after every train ride. Having tons of assignment being lag behind. But I met quite a few people from 8TV, ntv7, National Geographic, History Channel, and people who does your Facebook games.

6. Monday – Jason sms me the address of the Memorial Service. I ended up completing 70% of my animation to be handed up to Tahir. I couldn’t care less. Esther, Yun Shin, Chee Hau and I attend the service at night. Another trip to KL, here we go.

Btw, this is one of the most luxurious service I had ever attend to. And we were the only students there. It was hard to untangle the emotions I felt. I don’t know her that well, but I just finished a seminar that got me inspired to hope and dream, and then later on I felt a bit lost and stunned.

Darren ask me on my absence in church and faithstation. I have not been attending FCC for the past 4 weeks. If I list down my excuses then it would be too much to explain. (I hate giving excuses) Lets just say every Friday I’ll do my homework until 5 am and fall asleep on Saturday afternoon till the evening. Seminar last week and 4 weeks ago my sis birthday. For faith station, it has been pouring like mad this past few weeks. And I do have this sorta thing that I hate to do – drive to college even when I don’t have class, wasting 40 minutes front and back. I am attending regular mass with my sisters and my mom. And recently, my relationship with my mom has been quite good.

7. Tuesday – It rains like nobody’s business. Quite moody that I could not to go out in the evening. But I did something I did not do for such a long time, in fact, I had not done this for the whole year – stare outside my window to feel the cold breeze, letting out every form of hidden unhappiness, hidden unsatisfation, hidden tiredness and weariness, hidden uncertainties, hidden anger. Let time fly by instead of chase after time. Talking to God honestly about how I feel.

7. Today – Fay told us her testimonial on her trip to Cambodia during prayer meeting. Man, I really need to go for one. She showed us a video clip that made me think about it the whole day. I really think it’s far more worthwhile going for missionaries first before getting into the workforce.

Queen Veda er–final for now

This is as far as I go for character modeling.

The weather now is so cold that it’s so difficult to work without trying to fall asleep.

amusement.

boo pa a boo boop

Had 2 run through the 2nd time to understand what is it about. Something on birds taking over the world. But it’s seriously addicting. I watch it 4 times.

For animation students, these are the world’s most prominent animation festivals and top animation colleges to know:

Festivals:
1. Siggraph Computer Animation Festival
2. London International Animation Festival
3. Animex International Festival of Animation & Computer
4. Ottawa International Animation Festival
5. Melbourne International Animation Festival
6. Annecy International Animation Festival

Colleges & Institution:

1) Supinfocom
2) Filmakademie Baden-Wuertemmberg
3) Gobelins, Lecole de Limage
4) Ringling College of Art and Design
5) Vancouver Film School
6) Ecole National Superieure des Arts Decoratifs
7) Royal College of Art
Bournemouth University, NCCA
9) University of Southern California
10) Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advance Learning
11) CalArts School of Film/Video
12) National Film and Television School
13) Ecole Emile Cohl
14) Savannah College of Art and Design
15) School of Visual Arts
16) University of Wales
17) Ecole Superieure des Metiers Artistiques
18) University of Teesside
19) RMIT University
20) Rhode Island School of Design
(The world’s top 20 animation schools, ranked by the number of student films shortlisted at international festival during the past 5 years.)

So…

yea yea, no skin yet. after I rig it, I’m just gonna do a simple turntable and demoreel. I hate rushing for a deadline. Rather do nicely later on during the holidays.

Staff looks good eh?

A little more rest please…

Ubisoft came this week to meet recruit seniors for some internship program. UBISOFT!! My sisters mouth would drop to know if I’m able to be part of a Ubisoft team. But back to reality — I would still not deny my heart for 2D animation and storytelling. So..yea…

……..

……..but UBISOFT?? Gila jealous!!

Anyways, Saturday is a rest day for not only me, but almost everyone in group 2.

Who knew that with just 3 subjects left the projects would eat up every single hour of your entire week? But not exaggerating too much la… I spend some time speed painting and watching tutorials and reading PDF files, or scrooning over the decision of whether I should sacrifice not going to faith station on Mondays so I can follow my dad and sis to go swimming, sometimes thinking of how many times I have to bail out on people because of my time kissing the computer screen and recently, an addiction to desperate housewives just to keep me awake throughout the night finishing my assignments. On Friday during prayer meeting session, we mostly prayed for —rest.

I can’t post anything much that I have done (especially animation) because it’s better to compile it into a video file before airing it. Now thinking about that demoreel. WHY lag the time so long? I would get so fussy about it and keep re-editing something until I like it. Not to mention I can’t wait to start the 2D Project, I can’t wait to call up old friends,  I can’t wait to hear my old friends share their lives, their internship times, their complains, their worries, their excitement….

The truth is, I miss a lot of things that I usually did before. For 2 semesters I had not been able follow my dad go jogging and to meet people of different ages there, so at least I won’t feel so confined under my own interest only but share similiar interest with other people as well. I miss 2 hours of talking session with friends on the phone, without risking invading my sleep time. I miss hanging out with my family on Sundays. I miss having a long foolish playtime with Adeline and Ratzo – some of our childish obsession that never grew old. I miss having guilt free sessions playing computer games. I miss the days that I need not worry about what assignments to complete the first thing in the morning but just to enjoy the orangy rays of the sun melting through my skin with a simple ‘ Thank You Lord for the Day’.

But yea, nostalgia time would be back soon within 2 more intensive weeks. I’m tired but determined to finish this sem properly. Here’s what I’ve done so far for modeling on my character:

haven unwrap the UV and add textures yet. (plus no eyebrows) Then later to put a skeleton to pose her.

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On the other additional updates. I would like to start a new blog by December – An artblog to dump in all WIPs and write all the technical and artistic jargons which not everyone would want to read during a creation process. Another more reason is that there’s too many people reading this blog, which sadly, becomes the case of being less expressive than you formally did.

Quickie

I was browsing through my dad’s ‘China’ National Geographic magazine yesterday and I read about something cool.

Western and Eastern people express their emotions differently. Even if we have the 6 common expressions in the world – happiness, sadness, anger, fear, shock and disgust, the eastern people uses their eyes rather than their mouth in terms of expressing how they feel. You can see a lot of these in Chinese soap Operas and Bruce Lee shows. Also in manga.

For the same reason, that’s why western emoticons are like , , :p, XD, ;

where else, Asians, mainly Japanese, express their emotions like : ^_^;  ,  ToT , #^.^# , n_n , O_O , ~_^ , u_u , ?_? , >.< , ^o^ , *_*

So how do I feel at the moment?

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T.T…………………..T.T…………………………..T.T…………………………….T.T………………………….

T.T T.T T.T T.T T.T

back to work.

A story to tell

I was feeling very moody about the day. My spirit was pretty much dash over a reason. But I was glad that I went out with my family to celebrate my sister’s birthday. It turn out to be one of the most fruitful dinners ever.

I’m thinking of how upset I would be that I might be in working in Singapore years ahead, leaving the comforts of  my noisy family behind. Even now it’s hard to spend time going out together as a family.

Anyways, today my father became the storyteller. He told us about his childhood and the people who had influence his in his life. And boy was it a good story to tell. We were jokingly persuading him to start up a memoirs book, to write down the account of a family history. The story was like an epic of a persons life that made me feel how insignificant my life is compared to the hardships they had faced.

On the account that how many times my father talks about the significance of people around him, fighting their way out of poverty, re-establishing relatives tie in a one out of a million ‘miraculous’ way, boasting about the values learn and kept in Victoria Institution, and the little things people had done for him throughout his life, stikes a chord over what a sad life I have.

Their story feels like an epic story told on film. I’m wondering what happens to our sad case generation life story:

When I was 6, I went to kindergarden.
When I was 10, I watch a lot of TV.
When I 13, I went to SMKSU. Where I studied on the things that did not matter too much and hardly applicable in life. With exceptions to some subjects.
At least the CF was somewhat a significant story to tell.
When I was 18, I hit college.

That’s why I told my dad, our generation are on the extreme side of things. It’s hard to be hardworking for many when many things are already given to us. It’s hard to bring strong meaning out of values and principles when the world takes it’s road to teach us things that are so shallow that doesn’t embed deep value within us. Even many teachers in our lives never that held that much of an influence in our lives, only a few. Those days teachers were idols to students, because of how much they cared about showering education to their students.

What are we fighting for? Who are we serving? Is there a reason why we want to run that extra mile? For all I know Jesus was and is a root reason why I still want to do well, even if I’m so fed up of ‘doing my best’. I would have easily gave up working hard. I would had easily gave up on many areas of my life. I would had easily take the easy road to be self-centered, kiasu, whatever. I would had easily not bothered if you had scold me.