Final post / day 34

FINAL POST OF BLOG. Much or less finished. Currently now at 12.25pm handing up at 3pm we are left with our cd cover and we are pretty much finished. That's about it. Have a nice day. MOIP was fun. Kind of, oh well. Life is life. Tomorrow is presentation day. Hope everything goes well. Heh. Oh well. Thank you for looking at the posts.

Ok, now it's 2:36pm. We are still rendering, over the past hour or so. Something is probably wrong with it and now we are left to wait and stare at the bar that is growing agonizing slow. Think we encoded something wrong. Sound effects not in yet because we are exporting from Adobe After Effects. So, yea. We are pretty much in panic mode but we cannot do anything about it. Team almost quarreled because of it. Still, we know each other. Quarreling is not something we do and should adhere to. Pent up emotions just released in an instant. But, hey. It's better to end the project in harmony than in a rift. Never know who you got to work with next time in the future.

4:24pm. Flim is done encoding. Got to start on sound effects soon. Late submission already. Had some problems with animation too. The clip's animation disappeared. Will encode the original again in a different format. Let's hope it works and able to hand in before 6pm.

6pm. DONE. Handed in to General Office! Late, we are late, at least our last part for sound effects and some stuff are done with pride and not anyhow inserted. Since we are late, at least we hand in the best effort we can put in. Always wonder why we cannot do that from the start. We learnt our lesson this time round. Seriously. There is no excuse.

At least we are done. MOIP is finished. Team got together again. Earlier emotions of frustration not in sight. That's how it should be right? Learn the lesson but not damage the relationships.

I would count ourself as pretty lucky. Certainly from news I heard from other groups and stuff. Loads of things. Negative mostly. This project is supposed to promote teamwork and not talking behind their backs? Oh well. Human nature is just what it is. Wait till they work and get slammed by their bosses and would start blaming their teammates. What disgrace and lack of courtesy. Learn to step back when two leaders are in a group. One has to lead the other to take a more humble approach to say the least. At least that was what our group has in.

We all just have one thing in common in our group. TME MANAGEMENT IS POOR. We learnt that the hard way. But no hard feelings to each other. We all are to blame and we all know it well.
Let us mature and grow from this experience good or bad to take through to our future projects.

Still, I cannot get over how some team treat their teammates. At least, act professionally. Enough.

It is to the end of a great semester, I thank everyone who has went along with us and suffered and joyed with us. I thank all the lecturers for their great insight and advice with sometimes choice words to wake us up.

But most of all, Thank you, my team mates for not giving each other a whole lot of hard time doing the work we are given and not complaining about a LOT of things. But encouraging me and helping me learn. Thanks for cooperating every single time to my tardiness and sometimes bad time management, Vice Versa (:
May I hope to work with you guys again if a chance arises. It was great working with you guys although we have bad days. Cheers.

Nevertheless. Thank you, the readers for reading the posts that we posted together. We hope you learnt something throughout our filming process and blog that we posted. We hope you take away from here something that is meaningful for you in the future. Again, thank you for reading our posts.

We barraged a huge number of posts in a few hours. We done it (the posts), but we did not post. We had bad time management. No more excuses. So, I apologize for it. I take blame.

We may not get fantastic grades for our final video, but the most important thing is not about the grades is it. It's about what we learn from the process.

Our lecturer Amanda, you have been great. We thank you for being teacher in charge of our MOIP and able to tolerate people like me. Although your words can be piercing at times, I deserved it.

Finally, to round it off, everybody that is involved in the process of our film or in others, we thank you for giving your time away to help us do our projects and try to get a better grade.

Have a nice holiday to enjoy, and most importantly, have a nice day every single day (:

FINAL QUOTE OF THE SEMESTER!

“Jealousy... is a mental cancer.”
B. C. Forbes

Yours Sincerely,

B. C.

Day 33

Pretty much finished. Interview is done. Film is now much or less completed. Final editing will commence. So I will keep you guys posted as I pretty much finished my roles.

MOIP is something that really gave me experience in filming and the hardship involved. Helping much on animation for Kenny. He is pretty much struggling to get hold on Maya platform. So, I will spend my time helping him as much as I can and not get involved in the animation parts.

Hao Wei, after some days with Adobe After Effects, created a cool nice opening for our project group name. Fancy opening to look out for!

Sound effects to rush in the clip. And pretty much we are FINISHED! Let's hope we make it in time nice and dandy.

Quote.

“The soul should always stand ajar. Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
Emily Dickinson

Day 32

Today was interview day. For our director's cut after our follow your heart part, we would be having a director's cut after that. And much or less everything fallen through.
Much to our own fault by not preparing our scripts and so had to come up with last minute which failed terribly and that we wasted the day away. Oh well we had to do the script at home and hopefully everything will go well the next time.

What's left is now animation and interviewing that we believe for animation it would take quite a while but for interview it would be kind of fast. Let's hope no more delays will be arising from here onwards to delay our scheldule.

Hope to finish this ON TIME. Hope.
Quote of the day.

“Fate, is an excuse for why we end up where we do! Our 'Actions' predetermine our Destiny, our 'Reactions' seal that fate!”
Carl Stoynoff

Day 31

I am finished with the character model. With findings on the internet some free template that is available only for the heart body. Still, I had to add on the limbs of the heart as well as skin etc.

Making the joint tools and IK handle tools that I had learnt during Animation Fundamentals. Still, just touching through the whole of Maya, my skills to say the fact is low. And able to create only simple models and stuff, so, do not expect too much.

I would not be doing the animation but will be helping kenny do if he needs help. That is basically it. Hao Wei was just in school learning how to do Adobe After Effects after he downloaded the free trial off the net. That's about it.

“He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well - even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.”
B. C. Forbes

Day 30

Hello. We got the nod from Alan! So, we can proceed to have consultation with him for Maya. Alright so at first he told us that we could get a model heart for free if we actually look hard enough.

So, that was what we did and proceeded to do so. But, in accordance to him, it was pretty hard to find a heart that is actually free. So, we ended giving up our search and concentrated mostly on the editing part of the video that is available for us. And that we actually are not finding it yet. Probably do it at home since it will not clog up the space in the room that other people needs.
So yea, we just did more editing and planning for the following days to come.

There,

“If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.”
Albert Einstein

Day 29

Today was rather slack. RATHER. Went on to edit the video and evaluate what we want and which part we are using cutting down from 55 mins of tape to about 10 minutes 5 minutes of what we want to.

Slowly, Hao Wei was cutting the video and I was helping him at the HereAfter.

Kenny had guitar lessons so he went off first.

Hao wei and I was there editing the clip and since I had pretty much rounded everything up. So i went on to do the character modeling in Maya making the skeleton based on kenny's drawings. Pretty hard to make an actual heart out so, I sent an email to Alan asking for consultation.

Pretty much done for the day.
Here it is, as expected.

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.”
Mahatma Gandhi

Day 28

DEATH DATE. WE WERE SUMMONED BY AMANDA AND WE ALMOST DIED CAUSE WE PRACTICALLY GOT NOTHING TO SHOW.

Ok, off with the caps. As you can see previously, we only extracted our video this morning. Best of all, we had video fundamentals in the morning too!! So, we are totally screwed with our interim 2! It's not something to be proud off. But it is just how the filming delays caused us to be.

Not that we are lazy or something. It's that we really could not help with how things went. Enough whining. I will simple summarise what happened at Interim 2 without fail.

We had nothing to show, just some in the process pictures. That in turn lead to us being unable to be graded and thankfully Amanda said that she would grade us the next day. So, I guess it is kind of fortunate for us? Oh well, that is about it. Extracted the video, and it seems alright. So, hope that everything works out fine.

Cheers to the death that we face and the new that we hope to shine in.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Mahatma Gandhi

Day 27

Ok, so today we finally finished filming what we wanted. God, we wasted 55/63 minutes of film. What a whole lot. Oh, well at least we are done and dusted with coming to the school. Everything of course did not go according to plan and we had to change several objects, placements to the storyboard because the environment is set.

Breathe a sigh of relief on everybody's shoulders that we got it done and we had some other stuffs too! If we needed to use to be put up. Out of the context contents.

Went and extract from hereafter but was not informed the extracting place was changed. And in the end ended up not extracting anything because we did not know to go to MAC lab to extract and wasted the time. Oh well, at least it's done filming. Interim 2 will be a mad rush in the morning. Probably would not make it but, we were set back by nearly 5 days!!
Breathe the quote of the day of relief!

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.”
Albert Einstein

Day 26

Rushed, tried, did everything possible. Filmed in the morning, only to be denied by the school staff security the school will close at 2pm. Yes, it was a mad rush to get things done. And unfortunately we failed the task. Some of our casts did not come due to certain reasons and some shots could not be taken. However, we still are able to get some though. Need to return again soon to complete.

We have cast's that play GO Chess! I'm interested in it too. Oh well, our casts are secondary school guys all under Hao Wei's tutoring of GO Chess club. Still, what a wasteful day.

Hmm.. Oh well. I do not blame them.
As usual.

“The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat. ”
Albert Einstein

Day 25

Finally, we actually did some filming. Today was rather a fruitful day. All the cast turned up and we are able to proceed filming starting from 2pm onwards. Ok. So, rather much we finished half the filming process. Thank god, oh well on the bad side, we are about five days late, so we pretty much have to burn our weekends to catch and and plenty much more to do.

Oh, well. That is pretty much it for the day. Still some more to go. Our new actor, by the way is Named Terry. Not a tall guy but a patience and determined one to speak the least.

So, finally. We are able to get some start in our work. It's kind of nice. Asked kenny to take some shots of us doing the shots to show behind the scene stuff if needed.
Quote of the day below.

“Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”
Albert Einstein

Day 24

RIGHT, this is becoming a trend not to be. Yes, from the first few words, you probably can judge what happened again. Our film got delayed again because the teacher said that she would find a person from the drama club that would help us film.

So, because he is our main actor to be, we could not start filming because our entire film depended on him mostly. And Hao Wei, our director agreed to it, so we had to wait for him to come tomorrow so we can start filming. Oh well, all for a better cause I guess. Just roughly briefed through the rest of the cast that was there and what was expected while I had the first chance to go to the scene to scout what is wanted from the director and the storyboard how I am going to approach the shooting.

We cannot start animation without any film -_-. So yeah, everything is pegged back because of this.

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past"
Oscar Wilde

Day 23

On to a new day, off to the same old start. Yes, we did not get to film today AGAIN. But, whatever.

Getting sick of the growing trend. Ok, today's problem was basically that the teacher in charge was in a meeting and the meeting lasted throughout the day.

So, ya, we are unable to contact the teacher in charge and we waited from about 2pm through to 6pm when the school was closing and they were not out yet so we had to go home. We had classes in the morning so only able to make it later at 2pm earliest. And hence goes another filming day to the drain. END.

“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.”
Abraham Lincoln

Day 22

It's afternoon when we reached at the school for the shoot but, yes, another thing cropped up. We finally got the permission to shoot at the school from the principal. So, Hao Wei asked one of his previous teachers to leave a message that we were to use the room.

But, however the clerk that we met and asked first to open the room for us denied that, and that we were to ask the teacher to tell her a second time. This, unfortunately led to us finding the teacher and after we had confirmation, the clerk was not to be found and may have went home. So, our day just ended like this. With no work done. Reviewed kenny's character designs movement-wise and such.

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Day 21

Today was SUPPOSED to be the first day of filming. And, so we went ahead to Hao Wei's secondary school at Hougang. One long hour trip there. To Montfrot Secondary School. Ok, so, we were halfway there and thought to get the shooting moving. But, Hao Wei called us halfway and told us we needed to get a letter from Temasek Polytechnic to validate sort of like a consent form for attending a trip. And so, we had to halfway return to Temasek Polytechnic to get the consent form from Wahida.

So, pretty much our day ended when we passed the letter to the the principal and he said it will take two days to confirm but we managed to plead to him that he will confirm a maximum of 1 day validation period because we had no time left.

“This leads to the further reflection, that no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know of nothing so pleasant to the mind, as the discovery of anything which is at once new and valuable -- nothing which so lightens and sweetens toil, as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. And how vast, and how varied a field is agriculture, for such discovery. The mind, already trained to thought, in the country school, or higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaustless source of profitable enjoyment.”

Abraham Lincoln

Day 20

Discussion takes place today on how we are going to approach the film. First and foremost, we decided that a new storyboard needed to be made to make it even clearer. So, we had Hao Wei do the storyboard again, with the new elements of the location we are going to shoot at which he suggested is his school.

So, he did up the storyboarding again and he looked at Kenny's character designs that he did over the weekend and is not that impressed, because the coloring and the shadings was not clear from what Kenny did and so he had to go back to do character designing again. So, I was in charge of borrowing the camera from the design equipment store for tomorrow's shoot. That is about the round-up of today's work.

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”

Abraham Lincoln

Day 19

Today, we had a day off, I and Kenny had to go through H&C so, ya, it came at a handy time for us to finish our final stuff. Just had some more extra time to put into for MOIP1 and fortify our ideas. Hao Wei had no other lessons. -_- so, ya it pretty much sucked seeing him coasting through this block.
But next one, we are all In the same boat of Video Fundamentals and we will all be stuck inside it. Oh well, played a little with Maya as I had time. Not much to talk about today. Still scratching the surface of Maya usage!

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. “
Dalai Lama

Day 18

We Had interim 1 today. Pretty much sucks. We were late because we did not get our stuffs printed in time and that deducted our marks. -_-

Overall, idea wise, seems like most of the people agree that our first idea of the follow your heart works. And is rather liked. The rest was not so well received though, in accordance to the contents involved. So, ya we were late, our presentation half-assed. But, overall we still came up something half-decent. So, that was a huge plus for us.

Although we bickered some because of whose fault so and so, we got over that since that is reality for us and we can't change it.
Oh,well. After that we went ahead to Amanda for consultation right after the interim and asked her how can we improve it since she told us that there are several factors to look out for when we plan to do the video we wanted to do like, will we lose track of the brief and the actual objective we are chasing for? How can we integrate it to make a video that actually works since making a wholesome of advertisements would be time costly and that we wont embark it but how can we fufill the 7 minutes of video then.

That, falls on how we can probably insert some sort of a director's cut or something that could use up the time as she told us.

I'd came across this quote and surprisingly, I loved it. Speaks words for me. Oh well, here it is.
“I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I'm not.”
Kurt Cobain

Day 17

Ok, Hao Wei started doing the storyboard, a more in-depth one. So, we would not have troubles fitting the scenes in the middle of so many cuts. So, that was his work of the day. I was the Camera man, so, I was with him while he was doing the storyboarding at school talking about what shots to use and of such. Had quite a lengthy discussion there, all placement wise lighting atmosphere, right about there. But, not being there, I was unable to give much on my point of it, since we had not went to the place before, (except Hao Wei) but what he said was rather alright so, I believed that there is a fair space to work on.

Kenny on the other hand, did character designing and coloring of the animation Hao Wei wanted, ( He is the director by the way. ) and he commented wanted more details and of motion walking jumping kind, so, Kenny had to redraw more. Our character is basically a Heart with limbs moving. That is about it for the day. Interim 1 is just around the corner. Hope we don’t get bombed.

“Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.”

Pablo Picasso

Day 16

Its day one of productions. We have not started filming yet. We decided today to just discuss what we have and what we planned to do for the fiming days to come, since we did not want to waste a whole lot of time filming but in the end not doing anything.

So, considering the factors given to us by Amanda earlier before, we started looking on how we are able to plan properly and film distributing our strong points on workloads that we are most able to do hence minimising time used to do the work and maximising efficiency.

So, we started discussing and rather so with the location we are to film in the process, equipment needed and of the such. We roughly got what we intended to have for the film.

School location which will be Hao Wei’s Secondary school, will be left to him to get

Equipment which will be me, Boon Chong

And finally Animation which will be Kenny.
That’s roughly what we had in mind and hope everything goes well.

Your quote of the day.

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.”
Pablo Picasso

Day 15

Consultation, Consultation.

Today is friday. And, we went ahead to consult Amanda originally at 12pm but we sent it late and our appointment was push from what we wanted at 12pm to the available time slot at 3pm.
Regardless, we did not know until we reached school at 12pm and we checked our mail and found out it got pushed till 3pm. So, whatever. Life sucks. Ok so we had 3 hours of free time in the mac lab, we went there to meet up. And yep, since we got such a huge time available on our hands, we would try and work out our video idea and plan to see how it goes.

First was an initial idea of follow your heart video where the actor actually follows his heart. Including animation involved as the heart. Cannot possibly expect us to use a real one.

Second was a person screaming and the camera zooms out to show he is shooting an advertisement.

Third was a guy that holds his fart in and loses his sense of self and farts because he is caught away in the moment of MOI
Last is basically how we will show a child that is in a library or some sort to actually take a design or MOI book from the top shelf by using other books as leverage.

During the consultation, Amanda pointed out some factors for us. Although she liked the first one, maybe the last one too? The other so was not as appealing. Also she warned us that making an advertisement would burn a lot of time and advised us that making one or two will be tough and hard enough. She also questioned about how we are going to integrate the lives and experience or modules we were taught in MOI to be inside the film as well.

So, Hao wei and I was there discussing. Are we going to maybe input some sort of clip after the advertisement? Or of the such. Consultation ended with Amanda with these few very important issues in mind and after that, we discussed much about it to prepare for our interim One too. Pretty much about it today.

QUOTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

“The Death's Field is the mirror which allows us the knowledge of the world we living in.”Sorin Cerin

Day 14.

Hihihihihihihi. Kenny here.

We have no school today so stuff will not be long here.
Yes we have changed our mind on the World of Warcraft idea. We have figured out that alot more time will be needed if we really wanted to attempt it. Therefore..

We have decided to embark on an 'advertisement-based' kind of video. As HaoWei has said in the previous post our audience may rather prefer short and fast advertisements. This video will reveal many different interesting facts about MOI. Probably at the end of every short advertisement for each sectors of MOI, a catchy tagline would be used, such as ' Come to MOI! That piece of crap u drew actually came to life!' Or something like that. Well we are going to consult Amanda tomorrow on this and some of our other ideas, and finalise on the one that we want to do. Hope it turns out well!

Quote of the day:
Technology adds nothing to art. Two thousand years ago, I could tell you a story, and at any point during the story I could stop, and ask, Now do you want the hero to be kidnapped, or not? But that would, of course, have ruined the story. Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.
Penn Jillette

Day 13.

Hello guys, I'll be sharing again for today. Today's post will be mainly about my new idea for MOIP1 and some of my thinking process, together with some of my personal comments about the presentations I have seen these few days.

For the past few days we have been looking at presentations that defined different ideas; some of them were vague, and some were lost in the midst of technical aspects, some were but big and ambitious dreams (*talking about myself), while some has lost its track on its original target audience. And most of these presentation had one common objective in mind; "To promote MOI". Seems like all of us is doing fine, but on the contrary, that might spark a marking crisis; with the fact that videos produced would be vague in expressing the core message behind the story and most videos would end up being similar to each other; which meant that the marks would have been roughly the same.

I guess by exemplifying the scenario of watching videos produced by the year two seniors, it would have sucessfully conveyed a particular message that I was try to express above. And I have a feeling that we might be gearing in the direction the year two seniors once was heading and there is no need to be discreet about it, because at the end of the day, I believe, when it is time for presentation in front of the lecturers; and if all of us are going to answer their question of "What is the message of your video?" with "Promoting MOI", they are just going to faint badly. Let's refine the question of "What is the message of your video?" into "What is the unique message that your video wishes to express about MOI?" (Unique here is defined as something that you want to bring out especially). Logically speaking, there are many things in MOI that are worth promoting about; but what exactly are you trying to promote? If you are going to order a plate of rojak because you think that it consists of all tastes; then you are going to fail and look exactly how a rojak resembles.

And, I believe by now all of us would have realised how the masses in MOI were aimming for a 7-9mins of full length video rather than a full animation or a video accompanied by animation. Hence it is going to be competitive.

I don't know what you guys think about how to go about doing the video up; but here's what I want to share. A theory that would make things much easier. The formula goes like this;

-Set a message as the foundation. Be it "The beauty of MOI" or whatever, choose it wisely; as at the end of the day, this is where your video and your story is build upon.

-Create the story according to your message. Ensures that the story is a medium that enables the surfacing of your message clearly; if it does not, don't even think about using that storyline because its going to fail badly.

*If you can actually pass this two points; generally you shouldn't have much problems creating a good video. Although the next thing to consider would be how with the help of a particular style, it actually refines and beautifies your video; bringing out the message in its most crystal clear form to the audience. (I am not very sure about the style thingy, still trying to sort out though).

Here's my idea for MOIP1;

The idea is about how you can create a set of advertisements that are finally combined to reveal the different facets of MOI that are worth promoting about; and each of them were accompanied by cheeky taglines and catchy short storylines to capture the attention and to entertain the audiences. And of course; as Alphie was telling me how it is like a compendium of advertisements. But I had in mind wondering that perhaps the audiences might prefer a set of short and interesting advertisements rather than a long-winded video that only wishes to express one single message? Hmm, that would have to be proven to the client/lecturers through the studies of surveys and interviews I guess. But this is an unconventional way; and in fact Boonchong and Kenny, together with me, were eagerly anticipating how this idea would really turn out to be.

An in depth detail to the content of the video that we are making;

(Sample) 1. The story tells of how a student encounters an event about how he wanted to have a huge fart in a room full of other students engaging in works while he was doing up his final production for a video. And just as he was struggling inside himself; he heard the magnificent sound produced faintly by the brushing of leaves; and ahead of him was an enthralling vision of lush green lands covered richly with short beautiful trees. And he thought he has and is alone in this quiet garden, and so he released the gas in his stomach; a long, huge one that is so deep that it would have utterly disgusted himself if not for the heavenly garden he was in. But no sooner, the music faded and he found himself amidst the room full of students in distress of the need to grasp for clean air, while the others had fought hard with the now diffused methane gas by pinching their noses while giving the protagonist a ridiculous look. This is when the tagline "In MOI, you can release it anywhere, any time." appears.

Well the aim of the advertisement is to promote MOI, and specifically in a delusional way of telling the audience how in MOI, you will be able to create beautiful scenes and audio sounds that even yourself can be amazed and be fully captured by it. It is the truth that is in MOI, but the message was not put plainly across to the audience; while leaving the audience some room to ponder about the message behind the idea and at the same time, giving them a sense of entertainment.

Of course the video would not have started and ended just with advertisements. Things such as an Introduction, or an ending would be necessary to package the set of advertisements properly into seemingly like a one final product. And if need be, an illustration of the set of advertisements or the repackaging of the advertisements in to a story would do good.

I am currently watching lots of Superbowl advertisements though; just to get a feel of how those advertisements were like. But I guess what I really have to consider would be the "Context" and the variable tastes of advertisements that would entertain the audiences. That should be all for today, thanks for being in the post with me; enjoy.

Haowei

Quote of the day: "In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. " - Unknown.

Day 12.

Hihihihihihihihi. Kenny here.

Day 12 of our MoiP already. Today is day 2 of our presentation of our ideas. Yes i presented today and it was so so only. Haha yes i admit my second idea was not really well planned. Actually i jus thought of it the morning before! Yes. I think my first idea could work out well with abit more planning. Like i said in an earlier post, it is going to be an animation + video thing. I have already wrote about it before but this is the clearer and edited version.

It starts out with a silhouette walking in a deserted alley. This part is going to be 2d animation, which can be done with Adobe flash. The silhouette looks lost. He walks down the alley and discovers a nostalgic looking door. The door has strange symbols carved on its edges. On the top the door, is a rusted plate which says MOI but is faded and the silhouette squints. He gives a shrug, and walks in. It is very dark in the room. The only things visible are the silhouette's eyes which are glowing. The silhouette stumbles and barely makes out the outline of a treasure chest. He bends down and feels the treasure chest, and opens it. A glowing effect is used here. A video will start rolling and first shows our team making the words MOI from coloured stones on an open field. This is taken from a high perspective and sepia is used. After the team forms finish the word MOI, it will burst into full colour.

At the start, we will interview Moses. The question would be - What do you think is MOI. Moses would give a candid and interesting answer. We will den start rolling in our topics. For example, one of my chosen modules is drawing essentials. The video will be a handicam held at waist level and walks all the way to the 5th floor drawing essentials room. All this time the silhouette will find himself in the video but he is invisible to everyone else. We will here showcase our students work and use voiceovers of our teamates on their view on what the module is like. Near the end after showcasing all our teammates work and opinions, the silhouette sees a bright light and everything changes back to the dark room. He looks down and sees the treasure chest unopened. He walks out of the dark room and looks at the sign. The word plate Moving Images now is shiny and colourful. The silhouette finally gains form. Beside the plate a word animation 'See you here!' flies out.

This would be my idea haha! Alot of the time, in the animation part, interesting sounds will be used to catch the audience's attention. Time to work on DesignHnC. Till 3 days later!

Quote of the day:
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.
Oscar Levant

Day 11.

Ok, It's my turn again. Well, for today, there is not much to write about as it was presentation for final two ideas today. Ok, for class time, we had presentation and basically what was said was people's final idea that they came up with and the reasons for doing so with storyline plot and so forth. Amanda said to us that we concentrated much on the style's we are doing instead of giving a good clear storyline. That is, she gave an example stating that it would be better than we gave a good storyline then a flashy style of doing it adding effects and stuff and that without storyline it would seem as an white elephant effect.

So, ya. Point taken. It seems that everyone's presentation touched more on the style of doing the idea rather then to explore on storyline. (That's what I noticed) Surely, as written above, yes storyline has been magnified greatly in a making of a good video. And i agree. Storyline first and then we can work on to the style we are doing. However, style is something that is important in showing how different our works are from the rest. But regardless, this can be thought of later rather then current because storyline is the main thing in mind now and for how our styles would be like. So yes, Amanda certainly made a point there in showing us that storyline for now is most important compared to other aspects of the video.

So, ya about my presentation, it is still rather not clear on how I am going to approach my idea's yet. I asked if i could do still photographs as a video but was rejected. And so I had to approach one new idea. But, for the other, it is about a group of cops solving a new case that as been presented to them. These cops will then start to find clues about it and go around the school searching for clues that will help them solve the crime. And these so called "clues" are then our portfolio. So in describing these "clues" they start to talk about the work and then each of us will have time talking about it. So, when these clues start to add up, all of our chosen portfolio will be introduced as well as going through the crime and almost reaching to the end of the story whereby the mastermind is found and it is a person from another school whereby he/she came to steal works and wanted to use them for his/her own assignment. And was caught at the end and so forth apologised. Ending the story.

Sounds will play a big part fast and slow paced, with some explosive starts to the video. Of course, camera angles would be important too. Budget wise isn't that important I guess as not much props are needed. And that's about it for today and for my first idea.

Let's hope i do well for my presentation tomorrow!

Here is your daily dose of quote:
"Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know."
Lao Tzu

Day10.

Good evening, I will be sharing today again.

Things were so peaceful and quiet today eventhough I was still recovering from the aftereffects of the presentation on wednesday. And what was left behind now was but a bunch of entangling-tossled knots that had nearly made me lost every bit of my sanity; we aren't really able to address the issue of bridging the gap of young and old directly are we? If any of you guys that are reading this current post; someone who had witness the discussion on thursday; those questions I asked were questions to me that can't be solved too, so apparently I was trying to look for answers from you guys too lol. Yeah, pardon me for being a hardcore gunslinger or whatever you call it, I was hoping that you know; there's really a solid answer to those questions.

My self evaluation from this event is that; it seems like all of us are trying hard to be coming out with design solutions, but nevertheless; there are always flaws after another, and those that are found in yet another, you've got to keep coming up with new solutions repeatedly like that of an endless cycle. A good explaination would be looking into how from the main objective of solving communication issues to the perfection of handphone models and its utilities has led to yet another new objective or aim which all in all would be easily summarised into one single unreachable target or goal. Good luck to us as designers, and embrace the never-ending journey of perfection.

Enough of nonsense, here's more nonsensical information on the rough update of my work ;

I wondered how it feels like being an aged elderly. Does it feel as if I am detached from this globalizing world if I were to be one of them? Will I still know or understand this familiar yet estranged world that was once my home? What will I feel when recalling the old memories, was it melancholic eventhough the recount were full of happy events worth celebrating and to reminisce; or has the recall made me further saddened with bitterness? Are my eyes and ears still as openminded or has it turned old and conservative; or was it purely about the merciless swiftness of time of which my mind and heart was not prepared? What would be the last thing that I would thought of and how would I feel as when I am near death? *Random stuffs you might wonder, but these are the ideas of my ideas; and the answers of my answers.

Here are some interesting pictures from World of Warcraft's new expansion pack: Wrath of the Lich King. Among my ideas for Final Assignment, one of them is similarly attributed to how World of Warcraft is for it's design and its style. So these pictures

is actually a glimpse of how my idea roughly looks like or feels like.

The content of the idea will be presented on monday, so I can't release it here yet. Thanks for reading the post; enjoy your day.

Haowei

Quote of the day: “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).”

Day 9

Hihihihihihihihi. Kenny here.

This is day 9 of Moip1. Schedule is getting tighter as they days grow shorter. Plan, plan, plan. Next monday is presentation of individual ideas. And the production of our final would start. STRESS AHH. Mmmm, some sotong, potato wedges and beer can help : D

Okay. Today we had a talk by wahidah at LT 24. It concerned our final assignment and many things were explained in detail and cleared much of our doubts. Firstly the final had to be in a video format, that means animatics were not quite appropriate. We had to let go the idea of animatics so.. we will embark on a tough mission ==> to do a full 7-9 minutes animation!!! No we are not mad. The ideas have been set already, stuffs are carefully planned out.. All that we need are endurance, patience and determination.

I will stop here for the time being as i m a little sick. 100% effort must be put in for the best results. NO the beer is not taking its toll.

Quote of the day:
If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.
Mo Udall <--yes very nice name

Day 8.

Ok, today was not the best day ever. I would not be the last to admit our work was not great. Other facts to include that it is not easy to work out certain issues for some and for some others. K. Whatever, today was presentation for third age council. I guess our group was a tat long-winded in the presentation but ya it is to present. Our idea of gameshows or rather broadcasted on tv seems to not be too great with our lecturer but ya, we understand. So, just suck it up and try harder the next assignment then. It's over anyway so just let it go taken it as an experience for the future.

And yes, the entire lesson concluded on when everyone's presentation was over. So we listened to everyone's idea on their third age council program and some of them were quite impressive, I must say. Ok, So let's move on. Amanda said there would be a 12:30pm class at LT24?(I believe) for issues concerning the Animatic. Cause some lecturers did things differently and all the classes seemed to be jumbled about it including ME! So ya it is a good opportunity to clear things out of the way since we will be starting on it sooner then later already. And about that, I am worried about the animatic that Hao Wei has mentioned though. Whether we would be finish a 7-9 min of that. But, lets hope we take a day off and seriously think it over instead of just choosing it randomly because, there is time constraints and for me and kenny there is 2 modules to work on currently for the block and we might not be that free to do it. Since when we finish, it will be 6pm and 2d animation labs would be closed. So, looking/discussing for a more proper feasible way to approach this would be nice. Not that I disagree, But, handing in a half finished project still would not be great fun for us and the lecturers if the time deem us to just do that.

I like the animatic idea. No question. Just that, with the manpower and manhours available certain elements need to be in check for it to happen. Certainly, whatever happens, I hope for the best possible solution and the best result that can happen in doing the animatic. Cheers if we finish. Cheers again when we finished. Let's not keep our heads down. But rather learn from every experience.

Written By:
Boon Chong (B.C.)

"You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind."
Author Unknown

Day 7.

Good evening. Again, I will be sharing about the progress of our work for both the current excercise for Third Age Council and our final assignment.

We are at the final stage of preparing the required materials for tomorrow's presentation to our client for Third Age Council; and here is something that I would like to tackle hard on before tomorrow. Have you guys looked at the pretty witty activities Third Age Council (c3a) provides for both the young and the old?

How many of you, the young ones, are interested in Bonzai? How about hearing the elderly talking about stories in a competition? How about a mass brisk walk around the Moulmein Estate with grandmas and grandpas? Do you think "fun and beads" provides the young and old the interaction? These are the mild activities that will never have its potential of bridging the young and old maximized to the limit; and in time to come, all of us will realise that there are multitudinous activities to bridge the connection, but the effect is never to be seen as a whole; at least not visable within decades. It's a fail.

To me, bridging the young and old together is about how the old can feel young with us. Yes. of course in reality the elderly has a much weaker physical body; but that is not of main concern.

If by allowing the old to feel comfortable, then perhaps Osim, or OTO would have been earning joyous amounts of profits, or the massaging centre would have had set up a special programme for these elderly who are happy then; but that was not the point. The young has their wants and so does the old; yet what in common they share are needs, and if so, the focus on this project about bridging the connection between the young and old have long transcend above the issue of having the elderly to be feeling comfortable; as theoretically wise, the need for elderly to be comfortable would have turned out to be a "want" than a need that was shared in common with the youngsters, or rather the need of elderly only. But, there is a need to keep in mind that it isn't possible to deny that it is a "must" for the old ones to be feeling comfortable, afterall it is factual in real life that the old couldn't take exhausting activities or events; thus this point of consideration has to be kept under moderation, such that the activities and event we come up with do provide a certain degree of comfortability to the elderly, yet the focus on bridging the young and the old is not lost amidst among the trivial matters that has brought the young and old more difference. So the question is;

"Do you think that what really matters when you are old is all about limiting youself from all facets of activities that are and can be potentially exhausting? Or perhaps by avoiding these activities it makes you feel better as you can enjoy your Osim or OTO massager at home? Wouldn't you have lost the meaning of life by barricading yourself from many of these fulfilling activities? What is your purpose of living as an elderly then, to wait for death's grip to be on you, or to live the best that you can before your time comes?"

Personally, I feel that the constant fails of activities that hasn't been bringing great changes to sucessfully bridging the gap of young and old was due to the fact that the issue of awareness was not clearly addressed. And how could bridging the gap of young and old be sucessful when the members of public who had taken part in your acitivity or event were but bunch of apathetic participants or audiences? Therefore I believe in choosing an event, or an activity that will indirectly inculcate a certain awareness of the need for the old to always remember that it is not about their ages, nor is it about their health restrictions; but the need for them to want to feel young, and the need for them to want to step out of the barricade of being "an old man/woman", so that they can mix well with the younger generations; and in return, the pro-active youngsters will then see the aging flaws of elderly and henceforth an understanding is established.

Of course the question would be why the old first? Simple, the youngsters are open-minded and pro-active, the old are constrained and conservative. Hence, to create a whole lot more of ideas but to be chunked in with the bunch of activities that fail? Or to be the first to break the ice and do things differently?

In this case, just as what the picture shows; I believe its the masses fault including the young people for neglecting the old. And it makes me empathize the old man alot as he had to eat alone when next to him was a bunch of fairly young people enjoying their time with one another. What if I were to pay the bunch of young people huge sums of money just to award them for eating with an old man? Does the true value still stays on? Or does it actually guarantees that henceforth they will look out for lonely elderly and enjoy food with them? Something to ponder about while we are approaching our work I guess; afterall these are real life problems that we have to consider too...

As a designer, we are the creator and manipulator of all things, but whether be it for good or for bad, to be influential, or to be influenced, to create for the need of invention, or to create for the need of a purpose, you choose.

Moving on to final assignment.

We are currently still discussing on what mediums we will be using for our animatic, and soon we will release the news in blog with a rough glimpse of how our work will be. And we had in mind an idea that we would want to work on together already; as all of us agree that it is a fascinating idea and we really enjoy it. Hmm, will be showing Amanda the idea tomorrow with some samples of videos and trailers that our idea adapted on.

Thank you for being with me in this entry once again; enjoy.

Haowei

Quote of the day: “It is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)”

Day 6.

Hihihihihihihihi. Kenny here.

It's day 6 of our Moip1. Things would start to get slightly messy with the inclusion of our Design history and culture assignments. Nevertheless lets not get too panicky just because we have more stuff on our hands. Still panic? No problem just grab a bag of ruffles with cold beer : D

It was individual consultation day today, and all of us had a quick consultation on our individual ideas of how the final assignment was to be done. I had a rough idea of how i wanted it to be done, in the form of an animatic. Keeping in mind our target audience, the time limit, the 'enjoyability', and also the part where we had to also showcase our other teammate's work, i can carefully plan out my idea. Amanda suggested for me to put down my ideas in the form of a mood board, where clear visuals would be easier for others to understand my ideas.
I was planning to do my animatic in an abstract form. Here are some visuals which I think may give you an idea of what i would like to include in my animatic.

















Haha yes i know that's little but of course its just the tip of the iceberg.

The second thing that i would like to address would be the assignment on the third age. After the survey at the old folks home at Buang Kok, we gained a deeper insight in the problem between the young and old. The interview with the Indian personnel was lengthy and fruitful. Here are some pics taken that day. 1st >> Indian Personnel, 2nd & 3rd >> example of certain programs to boost old folks social skills.


Yes. So as you can see, certain programs are already in progress in old folks homes to improve the elderlys social skills and etc. From the research and surveys, we have more or less analysed properly and accurately the problems faced between the younger and the older generation. We have left to think of the best 'design process' that would effectively apply what we have learnt and improve cohesion between the young and old alike.

This is would be it for today's post. Thank you for having spent time to read so far. Have a good rest and a chiong day ahead! : DDD

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
I love being a writer. What I can't stand, is the paperwork.
PETER DE VRIES

KENNY

Day 5.

Ok. It is day 5 today of the week and since MOIP1 started. There isn't any class today so there is nothing to write about class.

First thing first. It's sunday today and I am blogging Day 5. Yes. And no, I am not late. We just decided that the people in charge of their respective friday's do weekend's too since friday may not be having class. And we won't want someone to enter nothing in the blog entry.

Alright. Ok, we decided on thursday that we would visit the old folks home on saturday at the estate near Hao Wei's house at Buang kok(If i spelled it correctly).


Day 5-Extended. (Saturday)

Yes, As mentioned above, in the morning, we went to visit the Angsana's old folks home at Buang kok.

Things started very cagey at first, with our group not much getting into the folks there. But, some of the folks over there thought that we were interesting and talked to us, even bringing us to their workplace for a look. We went and took pictures as well as some interviews. After much looking we decided that instead of asking these old folks, we should ask the person in charge of the place about his views on the issue we are tackling, which is the third age council problem.

Well at first, his answers was not what we intended to be so. But, after minutes and minutes of interviewing, he started to be more open and gave us more and more of what we actually wanted to be receiving and a whole lot of information we did not know but he as a social worker over the past decade had experienced. He is in his 30s-40s and that proves he is in the middle of this third age problem. Hence, he is able to relate to both the youth and the elderlys. Understanding both their circumstances and the difficulty that it is to bring this barrier closer. And after that interview, it was our last time at the old folks home and we left.

As that was done and dusted for the day, we were walking to the bus stop where Hao Wei had several idea's for the MOIP final assignment(Animatic) and we started discussing. Well, we had a good chat about it and we all decided roughly what we wanted to do. And we were all in agreement with no objections of the concept. So i guess we would be using it? Would not say what it is here though. (:
Look forward to it.
And we went off back home after that.

Day 5-Extended(Sunday)

Ok. Coming up with survey questions to be posted online and giving to peers soon. Nothing much on today. Focused much time on History & Culture assignment. (Monday Presentation) So, yea I would be soon done with my survey questions and hope to get good honest answers on it.
Ok. So, I'm pretty much done for the entry on the weekend+friday.
Hope you guys have a good week ahead.

Yours Truely,
Boon Chong (B.C.)

Enjoy your daily dose of quotes. I decided to follow in my comrades footsteps. Just for the sake of it. (:
Malcolm S. Forbes: "Presence is more than just being there"

Day 4.

Good afternoon lecturers and MOI friends, today I will be sharing our process for both MOI Assignment and the exercise on Third Age Council.

(I have specially set up yet another website www.proj1bliss-technical.blospot.com which is only opened to two other moderators and owners of Proj1bliss, and Amanda Ma; of which she will be able to overlook our entire making process as the in depth information that was mentioned here was merely a shallow one to keep the many target audiences updated, which includes other MOI Students that are also currently embarking on MOIP1.)

The MOI Assignment of which we are currently working on is still at its mind mapping stage; in terms of the animatic’s settings, its form, the style and how in depth is the overall visual presentation and what contents of the animatic itself is going to be.

But what is far more in concern, to me probably; is how dynamic my ideas are in terms of the influence on my target audience and, how by repackaging our final product to look professional and attractively; yet the core message of this project is neither lost nor has its quality faded. Also style is considerably the most important factor as it defines who and what Proj1bliss is; hence we are still at the stage of recognizing potential ideas and deciding our style. Instead of sourcing for an idea or a concept that blends with our design style, I believe in creating a new design concept through the influence of Proj1bliss’s designing style.

"Personally, I do intend to take this opportunity to raise this project one level higher; into a head start for our group to contribute to Temasek Design School (TDS) by creating an animatic which could be proposed to Director Moses; a corporate video that will be used in the public media as an advertisement to promote TDS. "

Monday. 9Febuary2009 -"I actually made a mistake by misunderstanding what animatic is. So its like I am re-emphasising by saying that "I do intend to take this....higher" by creating an anmatic; when an animatic itself, is the representation of our idea and product and it is meant to be a medium used to propose our idea to a client." Sorry for the misunderstanding here.

As for the Third Age Council exercise, we have already come up with a few ideas featuring interesting events; and we shall be proceeding on to our next stage of finalizing the idea by doing a range of surveys this coming weekend. We will be making a field trip down to a series of areas to gather the correct information and research.

Thanks for spending your time with my entry guys; enjoy your day.

Haowei

Quote of the day: “Everything is possible for him who believes.”Mark 9:23

Day 3.

Hihihihihihi. Kenny here.

Today is a relatively short day, with the first half occupied by a talk session with video maker Victric Thng.

After a gruelling session with him, we proceeded to Amanda's class. We were explained more in detail about our assignment. We were explained to in detail about animatics, which is a way that we could go about doing our final project. We were first shown a clip from Youtube, which was a music video by the band Gorillaz. It is a virtual band that adopts an alternative rock, pop and trip hop kind of music. All of their music videos are 2 dimensional. We were shown their music video called 'DARE'. It is a frame by frame animatic and gives us a rough idea of how we can do our animatic if we chose to do one.


















After watching this clip and someonelse's animatic project, we all finally got the idea of how an animatic can be done. After that, we got into our groups and started to brainstorm on our own individual ideas. We thought of subjects that we wanted to showcase in our few minutes in the final. I have thought of creative story telling and drawing essentials haha. Besides thinking of subjects that we would like to showcase, we also had to think of ways to present these ideas. We had ideas of talk sessions, interviews, one person narrations, using of captions such as subtitles and many others to present our work. We have also learned all that we present should not be fully negative i.e saying anything bad about our course or being entirely unhappy with our course. But at the same time we must not show that MOI is a slack and 'bursting with fun' kind of course.

Keeping in mind our target audience, who are potential MOI students and parents, we can proceed to do more research and brainstorming to find out what is the best possible way to present our work in such a way it would strike deep at the hearts and minds of our audience and leave a long lasting impression.

This would be all for today's post. A good night's rest and chiong day tmr!

Quote of the day :
'When love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!'
Laurie Anderson


KENNY

Day 2.

Sup people. It's Boon Chong here, or B.C. too be short and how other people address me.

So, yes. I will be addressing the second post of the blog.

Alright. From the last post, which Hao Wei has gracefully written. You can see where our progress are. Still mind-mapping using those techniques written. So, for today it was rather simple class ended at around "1pm" and the rest is research and consultation time.

So for today, in class, we just touched up from what is from yesterday. And soon we were flying off to do our research on third age generation. If you guys do not know it is the >60 people. Or the senior citizens. So, for today we brainstormed several possibilities to solve it. And all of us when online to research for some pretty interesting stats and percentages. One in particular is that 25% of senior citizens in America uses internet ( Facebook, Friendster, Email. ) Wow. so really from this, we can get a good direction of where we are going and why third age generation and youth's do not really understand each other. Several ways we are going to tackle the Design Brief ( Why third age generation and youths have generation gap ) is to survey, research, find problems, solutions and design. And off we are for almost 2 hours of time left. Supposed to do more research and stuff for it. And give some information for tomorrow's lesson. That's what we are supposed to do. I do hope to finish this early as i am a lazy bum.
Oh well, That's it for today. Will edit and write more if i remember anything else.

Written By:
-Boon Chong. (B.C.)
Stay in school. And say no to drugs.

Day 1.

Good evening lecturers and MOI friends; this is my first entry. There are a few things to share with my fellow classmates today; the Design process, and the research on our elderly in Singapore.
The lecturers mentioned “Design process” repetitively throughout the briefing session in LT and in tutorial class; but what exactly makes up of Design process? Here’s some of the information that I have recapped from what I have learned in my secondary school days in Design and Technology classes (Note: Even though these processes are for D&T students, or which we refer to as PID students, do note that all these terms in Design Process applies to all other designers too);

Design Process is a term with these components;
- Definition of the theme

- Mind mapping
Before even analyzing the problems, we need to brainstorm for raw ideas and that is why Mind mapping is before the other components and is a first-to-do item.

- Design Brief
Design Brief is a short summarization of what we will be doing, or our main objective of the designed object.

- Design Specification
Design Specification is the identification of important specifications and points to take note even before the Ideation stage; it acts as a guideline so that we do not stray from the main topic.

- Problem Analysis
Problem Analysis is the identification of problems or a main problem that we anticipate when attempting our theme of design topic, which is always accompanied with quantitative researches to help correctly identify the true problem.

- Ideation
Ideation is the stage whereby your solutions and ideas are first developed, but at its nursery stage.

- Detailed Development
Detail Development is a huge process whereby it is actually the developing and shaping of your chosen idea from Ideation into a refined solution, this process includes areas such as studying of the possible technology used for your solution, the shapes and forms, anthropometrics, ergonomics and etc. This is also an important phase where you will have to repeatedly test out your idea to check that its working before proceeding to finalizing your product in Working Drawing.

- Working Drawing
Working drawing in this case is the final outline of your final product; of how it should look like in terms of the measurements etc.

- Material List
Material List will be the compilation of all your required materials in quantity.

- Evaluation
Evaluation would be the checking of your product, on whether you have meet your Design Specifications and why.

(Special thanks to my secondary school D&T teachers especially Mr. Peter Ho, Mrs. Cassandra Tan and Mr. Vincent Yong for their patience and imparting of their knowledge to me.)

Quite a lot of components eh? But they are essential. I hope this information helps you guys in the long run.

Actually, for the first exercise itself, I barely researched on what the elderly likes; rather I spent most of my time looking at what was the difference between the youths and elderly in Singapore, which is the cause of the generation gap. I think for this exercise it’s very much about tackling the differences between us and the old people; which means it’s very much about understanding the gap, and identifying of what is the essential substance that defines the medium that would eventually fill the generation gap and henceforth brings both the youth and elderly together. Hmm…shan’t talk too much about it; I am on the verge of leaking out my ideas LOL.

Guys if you need any enquiries on the Design process above, add me in skype; my username’s Leviticue.

Thanks for spending time with my entry today guys; enjoy your day.

Haowei

Quote of the day:“Be patient and you will finally win, for a soft tongue can break hard bones. (Proverbs 28:13)”