Block B - Day 18 – Production Package (The End)

Yes as you can see from my title. Today we need to hand up our production dairy and have to finish the last entire by tonight.

Today went school early to prepare everything. Well I woke up early in the morning to burn the DVD. This should be done yesterday, but I was too tired that I fell asleep without knowing when and how. I still haven’t given up hope to render to DVD in Premiere Pro. And ones again it fails at the exact same spot. I was very upset with my laptop.

Well so I rendered another .avi file and it needs 3 hours to render it out. So which means I have to keep my laptop on while traveling to school on bus. Fortunately the bus wasn’t crowded at all. I still manage to carry my laptop on my hands.

Reached school and it’s still rendering. Ok finally it’s done. And I had another problem. I couldn’t use the “Video DVD” function in my laptop to burn; probably I think it’s OEM version issue. I’m sick of these serious. Problems are queuing up to visit me. I have no idea why.

Ok so here comes another problem, I tried the school’s computer and it had error! But I still haven’t give up. I tired burning using any possible software to burn the video DVD. In the end I still gave up. Seeing so much time I spent trying and still gets so many errors, I decided to burn as a Data DVD.

Well I couldn’t believe it either, it’s so drama. But it really happened to me! I have nothing to say seriously, tired of fixing my laptop.

And I understood that animation takes a lot more time then video editing. That’s what I personally felt. He’s the main animator in our production. I knew for sure, he needs more time to complete his animate and blog. I knew when a person is tired he or she can’t work well especially in animation. If without his high quality work, I don’t think our video will look nice. So I really hope Dion can finish his blog on time.

Anyway I shell thanks people who have helped us in the production especially our lecturer Siddons!
Thanks!
Goodbye!

Block B - Day 17 – Post Production + Presentation

So I shell continues the story. I went back to school and I’m the first to reach. Time flies. But unfortunately Dion was the last to reach school. We’re all waiting for my laptop and Dion in the 2D lab to transfer the footage into a DV tape. Because Dion has my laptop with him. We were informed that the presentation was going to start soon so we had to go down, if not late comer will have their marks deducted. So we went LT25 to wait for Dion.

Finally Dion reached school. Another problem arise, my laptop is able to detect the camera but it keeps having problem transferring to the tape. I seriously have no idea what went wrong. The firewire, laptop and camera are all new. New as in just brought it and didn’t really test it out. So I’m not quite sure where the problem is. But thankfully we had Lionel with us. He directed me to change the settings and it really works! Really have to thanks him for helping us. But the funniest thing is, I’ve tried those steps before he told me but it doesn’t seem to work. Well I have no idea what was going on either. Oh before that, I tried on the DV deck and it doesn’t seem to work or detect either. Perhaps I think a tired man is an unlucky man.

Anyway thanks to all those lectures and people who have helped us to get the footage on tape!

I notice we’re the only group that have 6 people and had the longest video duration, which is almost 20 minutes. I think the audience enjoyed the video which we presented. Some say it’s quite long but some say it’s alright if the contents are interesting. Hope nobody will feel boring after watching it.

After the whole presentation ended I went home with half of my eyes closed. And this is the first time in my life which I slept all the way to the interchange till the driver came to wake me up, and that’s when I notice I’m in the bus interchange and the bus was already parked nicely. Well I think not everybody will have the change to experient it, I guess. Well what can I say, it’s embarrassing. Oh I wore the wrong jeans of my daddy’s’ out for the whole day. And I only notice it when I reach home! I thought I slimed down so fast within a week. That’s why you kept seeing me pulling my jeans up after every 3 foot steps. It was so annoying.

Block B - Day 16 – Post Production (Tuesday)

Dion and Andrea came over to my house to do the video editing that was left out. They reach here at late evening time. Well they spent their night here till the nest morning. We were all super tired at that time. Dion and Andrea had nothing much to do after the animation was done, it was wee hours so they slept at my house. But I’m still awake to continue my editing. Well they went home early the next morning. Oh they were trying very hard to finish the animation ASAP so that I can edit in and render it on time.

Today I’m so stressed up! My computer keeps having problem and the rendering takes 20+ hours for the whole video to render with every effects I applied! Of-course I stop the process! I don’t have much time to spare. So I switched to a faster computer to render. Guess what? It takes only 13 hours to render but I still think it’s too long, this rendering is way too expansive So I decided to render it with some of the effects switched off. I think the blur effect uses a lot of time to render. I use that effect for the background. The reason I applied the blur effect on it is because it won’t attract much of the viewers’ attention.

So after much efforts and time I spent transferring those files that is need for the rendering and finally it shows 3 hours of rendering time. I was very tired and was pretty stressed up. The things that everyone are afraid of are; error rendering during half way and renders over time. Well both happened to us! I was so disappointed with my computer seriously.

After I’ve done my editing, I rendered it to DVD. It went smoothly when it’s rendering and it took 3 hours to render, but when it came to burning, it fails! And that was like 5 or 6 am already. I was so afraid that if I try rendering it to DVD again, the same error would occur again. So I decided to export to .avi. Seeing that there wasn’t much time left for me to look after the rendering due to my driving lesson, I passed my laptop to Dion. I instructed him on what to do after the rendering.

I was late for my driving lesson and when I reach there, I notice how stupid I am. I went on the wrong day! My brain was seriously dead at that time. My driving lesson was supposedly on Tuesday, which means I’ve missed it and $60 gone!
Well please don’t get confuse because now I’m blogging on yesterday’s blog. Because I worked over night till now so this should be considered as Tuesday’s work.

Block B - Day 15 – Post Production

Well today everybody meet up again to do those nessory things that wasn’t done or left to be done. And ones again my room had turned into a hotter oven because the weather is hotter today.

After they went home, I rushed hoping to get the editing done ASAP because the deadline is nearer and nearer! Well I planned not to sleep as to finish up finishing up the rest of the editing. But as usual I fell asleep, I was so damn tired probably because I faced my bright CRT monitors screen for the whole day.

Block B - Day 14 – Production

During the weekends, Yvonne and I met up early in the morning as we scare it will rain heavily in the early afternoon because the weather forecast said so. But ended up it was a super sunny day at Tampines. Well at times the sky will turn a little cloudy but most of the time was sunny. That’s what we wanted! After the ext. of TP was done, we headed over to shoot various school’s flags.

After we have done with our shooting, we met Dion and Andrea in school and headed over to Dion’s house to shoot the havoc scene.

We had fun shooting and it was really funny seeing those toys act like a human moving around.

This is when we faced problem. After we have done with our final shooting, we preview back the footages. And that’s when we notice the camera had dirty head and needed cleaning. So which means most of the footages we shot in the day was wasted! But luckily there was some opening shot were fine. But we have to reshoot the havoc scene. Well reshooting that scene wasn’t that bad after all because the second take was even better then the first.

Block B - Day 13 – Interim and Post Production

We met as a group earlier before the consultation at 1.30pm. We were afraid that Siddons will not like our video’s presentation. But ended up he’s quite fine and enjoyed watching the first few minutes of the film. We were all surprised!

Well shell rush for the rest of the editing. And not forgetting the opening shot and the havoc scene to be shot before the final submission.

Block B - Day 12 – Post Production

Well today we didn’t meet again. But I’m staying at home doing the video editing as usual. I’m trying very hard to compile everything into one. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

Block B - Day 11 – Post Production

The group didn’t meet up today. I’m supposed to do the video edit at home. I’m trying hard on video editing and I just found out that there are a lot of small elements that should be added into the video. I think we’ll not hit the 80% target on the nest interim. Well I’m trying my best to edit now.

Block B - Day 10 – Post Production

The Animation team and the Video team met up at my house, in my bed room. We voiced over the audio which was required for those scenes. We had fun voicing over it. But we took quite sometimes to do it. Sad to say, for me I took many takes just to get the right lines.

I think I really need an air-con to be installed in my room. My room just converted into an oven this afternoon. My room is packed with 6 people with the windows n door shut in order to record our voiceover without any external noise.

And the Animation team agrees on the footages which we selected.

Block B - Day 9 – Post Production

Andrea our boss and Yvonne came over to my house to select those footages we shot that day. Well we took quite a few hours to select the right footage. We had 3 tapes means 3 hours of footages.

The animation team didn’t come over to my house as they need more time to complete the animation.

I think we shell meet another day so that everybody agrees on the footages that we had selected.

Block B - Day 8 – Post Production

We didn’t meet up again. But I spent sometime looking through the footages that we shot. We shell meet up tomorrow.

Block B - Day 7 – Driving Test (Off Day)

Well I had my theory driving test today so we didn’t meet today. The group is so kind of letting me off for today for my test. So kind of you all, a big Thank You! Well I passed my test yeah!!

Block B - Day 6 – Post Production Rolling

Our group is divided into 2 teams, Animation and Video team. I’m not too sure what the Animation team is doing but I had to go school early to transfer those footages. We did nothing besides that.

Block B - Day 5 – Production [Anchor & Professor]

This is the last day of shooting in the TV studio. But officially we had only one day, which is today. Today everybody came a little earlier then yesterday and the day before.

Joel as the professor in our news video. We shot his scene first because he had to go for his group shooting after that. We ended up over run. But everything went smoothly. Except some super funny incidents happened during the shoot that causes the delay.

We spent almost 12 hours in the TV studio shooting everything that wasn’t shot. At the end of the day we still didn’t shot everything that includes the opening which is the ext. of TP. Due to the bad weather and bad sun lighting, we decided not to shoot the ext. scene today.

Block B - Day 4 – Production [TP TVC]

Today went straight to the TV studio when I reach school. Had difficulty transporting those equipments to there from the first floor, but I still managed. I brought 4 super long poles with me for the green screen. Without the pole, the screen won’t be able to hang up.

Today we shot the TP advertisement scene in the morning. Same as yesterday, there are nobody using the studio in the morning. So we make use of that time to shoot. Clarissa is our cast for the advertisement.

With more then three 800W lightings settled up, the TV studio became very warm. I was sweating when I was doing the setup. We also did “thank you” scene for the fun of it. Well again we enjoyed ourselves today again.

We ended shooting with that scene only. And that’s the end of the day. But as usually, I’ve to stay until evening time for my dad to fetch me home with those equipments. I think the school should come out with a big locker or store so that we can store our things and equipments there over night. If not bring all those equipments here and there is very tedious.

Block B - Day 3 – Production (Out of TP) [3D Hand, Crowds & Photographer]

Today we headed down to the old Parliament House for our shoot. We intended to use the stairs for our shoot but we didn’t realize we weren’t allowed to film there. One of the guards came and stops us from filming. So no choice we have to change to another location. The place is somehow near the there, it’s just at the front of the Parliament House after the big multi functional field.

That place is called the Glorious Dead Memorial. We placed our props and start shooting. During the shoot, there were many buses intentionally park their vehicles in front of us. Was a little pissed but I manage to solve the problem, I placed the camera bag and the tripod at the side of the road as to prevent and to warn drivers about it.

After that, we headed down to Raffles Place to get some crowd shots. Well just record it incase we need it.

After that we headed down to the Kallang Leisure Park shopping mall for the photography’s at work shot. We did many shots and had much fun there the whole day. I enjoyed filming and acting, but I still prefer to be at the back of the camera filming people in action.

Block B - Day 2 – Production [Dr. MOI & Photographer]

As usual, I’m the first to reach the school in our group. The reason is because, my dad is going for work around that time, so he could fetch me to school with those equipments I loaned from school. Well I headed to the TV studio and started planning the shots and check on those equipment that was needed for the shoot.

Finally the rest of our team mates came. We decided to shoot the “Dr MOI” scene only. Due to the timing issue with other groups, we only managed to shoot that scene in the TV studio that day.

The shoot went smoothly and it was really fun. I love setting up equipments and the rest of the mates enjoyed setting up with me too. We had fun acting in from of the camera and stuff.

Time’s up! We handed over the studio to other group. Fortunately we managed to finish capturing the Dr MOI scene. After that we went all over the school even to the Bedok Reservoir to look for a suitable location to shoot our next scene. Why are we going around searching for location during production? We went to the GO (If I’m not wrong) to double confirm on using the Design Gallery for our shoot. They told us that there will have some event going on there at a later time. So that’s the reason why we are roaming around the school after the studio shoot.

So finally we decided to shoot the photography’s interview at the TP triangle garden. I had many takes during the interview. I should improve on my acting and speech I guess.

Large Mic Pole/Holder

Block B - Day 1 - Production Rolling [Model]

We started our camera rolling today! Well I enjoyed shooting this interview with the model (Yvonne), interviewer (Clarissa). I bet that every one enjoyed shooting today in the wonderful air-conditioned room, the Mac HD Lab. We took quite sometime to setup the whole scene which includes “Camera, Lightings, Set setup & etc.”. Perhaps we need to warm up ourselves furthermore today is the first day of shoot! I love setting up those scenes. I love playing around with the lightings, camera and stuff that are related to “Production / Technical”. After the whole setup, I relies that the whole lab is in a mess! But who cares, as long as we tidy the place before we leave and moreover the audience won’t be able to see it anyway. It’s behind the scene!

Today we intended to shoot the External of TP for our opening shot, but unfortunately the weather today was not in our favour.

Well today we have some issues over the TP TV Studio. So let’s just pray that everything will be fine. Well if the problem still exists on our actual TV Studio shoot, we might consider other TV Studio outside.

Block A - Day 15 - Presentation (Last Day of This Block)

Today is the last day of this block and we presented our storyboards and schedule for our production to Siddons and to the entire class. The presentation went well and Siddons is fine with it. But he reminded us to send him an e-mail of the dates and studios we are using. And he needs our script to be emailed to him so that he can reformat for us. Shell inform and confirm with the group.

Block A - Day 14 - Pre Production (Shots planning)

Tomorrow is the day to present our storyboards and production’s update to Siddons and to the entire class. Well Dion is still working on the storyboard and according to him; it’s just a draft storyboard. And we shell meet at Dion’s house to make our puppet! Meanwhile Yvonne and I are still working on those shots.

Block A - Day 13 - Pre Production (Shots planning)

Well today Yvonne and I started planning those shot sizes for our entire video and we were trying to imagine those shots sizes in our mind. Well at least we manage to complete some of the shots. Shell continue planning with Yvonne tomorrow.

Rina and Clarissa worked on characters which we intend to animate it. Dion were trying to complete the storyboard, that’s why he wasn’t in school today.

Block A - Day 12 - Reccee

Today everybody came together to discus on our scripts. But unfortunately, neither Rina nor me bring our script to school. Well we roughly look through everybody’s scripts except our team. Well they did a great job! But I think some of them need to be refined.

We went to many places to reccee. I guess, for most of us, some the places we have never been there before. Below are some of the location shots.

Temasek Poly

Visitor Center

Design Gallery

Design Space

Hereafter (Mac HD Lab)

Audio Production Room & Colourful Hallway (Ext. TV Studio)

TV Studio (Others)

Block A - Day 11 - Pre Production

Today I met Rina earlier this morning to discuss about our opening, commercials and closing shots & scripts for our news. I intended to take some still shots of the angles that I wanted to, but unfortunately I forgot to bring my hand phone that day. So which means I’m notable to take the shots down using my hand-phone camera. If those shots are taken, my group members will be able to understand better.

Actually intended to meet one of the year 2 student to find out more information about the TV studio and wanted to know more about their production. But due to the hand-phone thingy, we didn’t meet.

Well Monday we are meeting for to improve on our script.

Block A - Day 10 - Pre Production (Split)

Today is Valentines Day, therefore half of our group members were gone. Today is also the first day which we discuss among ourselves (Me and Rina). Me and Rina stayed back to do our scripts. Yvonne joined us and discuss with us too. We did the script today and will continue tomorrow.

Block A - Day 9 - Pre Production

Another day of pre production in class is done. The final storyboarding will continue another day. Today we just did a rough storyboard to ensure everyone know what is going on in the video. It’s very hard to descript everything using words or by drawings. I think the best is to recce the place with the group so that everyone would understand better.

We split those contents into 3 different groups of 2. Each group will have to discuss the contents, scripts and etc. Hope by Monday we will be able to finalist everything and to consult Siddons. For me, I’m with Rina.

Block A - Day 8 - Pre Production

Dr. MOI is soon to be born! And a model will soon be missing too! Who are they really? Stay tune to News6! Well as time goes by, the more excited we are. And we climbed higher n higher each day.

We confirmed our opening shot, content one, content two, TVC, casting, and credits. Basically everything had confirmed but we’re still working on it for the rest of the pre production days.

We estimated the length of our video, should be around 15 minutes long. We created 2 characters which will only reveal them on our final presentation day. Tomorrow we will be doing our storyboard and recce places.

Block A - Day 7 - Finalized

Today we finalized quite a few things. We finalized the things that we need to cover or show for our project one. Things like “Scripts, Casting, Locations and etc.”. And finally we have decided on our group / production name! We named ourselves “News6”. Why did we name ourselves as News6? Well simply exercise your brain a little and you’ll know why. HAHA.. But I still have to explain it. Simply because we’re doing a “news” like production as what you see on television and we have a group of 6 people in it, so we decided to use the name “News6”. And partly we got this idea from a particular channel from Mediacorp.

We also finalized our schedule which starts from today till the end of this production. For today, we are suppose to finalist our “schedule, production name and etc.” which we did. Basically we have 4 consultations with lectures almost ones a week till the end of this production. Of-course includes “presentations, filming, editing, extra time just incase we need to reshoot or touchup anything and etc.”. We have also chosen whose works to show under the portfolio section.

Block A - Day 6 - Presentation ONE

Well today, we met earlier to prepare for our informal class presentation. Everybody knew what to say and was prepared. During the discussion, we have decided to show “Schedules, Examples of the “news, People to consult and etc.”

Our class has 4 groups that include my group but we’re the first to present. We used PowerPoint to guide us along and showed some examples of local “NEWS” broadcast from Mediacorp Channel News Asia and etc. Everybody got stunned when they saw the news. There was one part which Channel News Asia shows the child been abuse by the maid.

Other group presents their idea after us. They have interesting ideas too. Every group is special in their own way but we have the same target audience.

Block A - Day 5 - Preparing for Presentation ONE

OHNO!! Another group member of ours is down. Clarissa and Andrea get well soon all right. Well today Andrea came but Clarissa and Dion wasn’t here. Andrea is taking over Clarissa’s job but she didn’t have the notes which we did on the last day. So she had to call Clarissa in class to get the notes written down so that we could discuss in class. Oh by the way, she is drinking that in class because she is still sick. (Probably holy water)

We discussed about how our presentation should flow for tomorrow’s presentation. Consulted Siddons, he’s quite alright with our flow and contents. Right now, I’m thinking of what possible names can we use for our video and team. Should it be “news 6” or what? Well need to discuss this with the rest of the group members.

Block A - Day 4 - Last day of Jan

Today Siddons again reminded us about the things we need to do and what our objectives should be. I guess he is quite worried that we might do the wrong thing. He showed us a documentary video in class but unfortunately there was no audio. So we couldn’t understand a single thing from that story.

Today Andrea Lek didn’t come to school due to her sickness. Let’s hope that she will get well soon. Group discussion continues without her today. Went well with it, but I think it will be better if Andrea is here. Our group had confirmed the style we’re on and we keep came out with new and interesting ideas. Now let’s wait for Siddons's consultation on Monday.

Block A - Day 3 - 1/10 of Movies @ LT

I think many of us mistaken the word “documentary” by Mr Alan. He did mention about that word documentary but Siddons clarify it, he says we should document our journey / work from the entire the year through the video.

He showed us some examples from the professionals such as the making of “The Lord of The Rings by National Geographic”. The lighting, backdrop and camera angles are nice and interesting. I think that was a very good example. Another video that he showed us was about rock climbing. The Introduction of the entire hiker’s team, the part where they show the names of those team members are really creative. But when it comes to the interview part, I think the planning of the location (backdrop), camera angles & lighting are not as perfect compared to the movie making of “The Lord of The Rings”. Not only Siddons showed us examples, another two lecturers also showed us.

They gave us ideas by showing only the opening and the closing part. I think it would be better if they can show us a little longer. HAHA..

Well after the LT session, I guess I have some new ideas in mind now. But today didn’t have group discussion partly because Andrea Lek’s sick and all went missing after coming out from LT. I’m one of them.

Block A - Day 2 - What I want to say!

OMG! i look so gay..

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Ops! sorry Rina, covered your face. :(

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Today we had our group discussion and came out with many interesting ideas. Such as news reporting, interview, drama, commercial. Our style for this video is comedy. For us, the video seems a little too long, to overcome this problem, we have to add in commercials. Why is it too long? Because we have 6 members in our group and siddons recommended us to add in extra things such as commercials.

At first we all were quite happy and excited about our ideas of combining everything. But Siddons consulted us and said we are too “off”. MOI major in Video and Animation, these are the main modules we should focus on. The rest are just small little things that enhance Design school. After the consultation, we decided to drop some of the modules. I think our ideas are quite interesting and nice, looking forward to the final piece. HAHA..

To our dear audiences:
Our targeted audiences are those secondary school’s students and parents. In the video, I wanted to show how wonderful / beautiful TP is. Places such as the koi pond and some of the beautiful sceneries around TP. But of-course that’s not our main focus. I wanted to make the video more interesting by showing them the actual “editing studio, TV studio and behind the scenes where filming is taken place (actual production). Like for example, we can play around with the camera angles, position another camera behind us to shoot our actual filming / production (in a comedy way). We think that flows are important in videography, we will try to include our best works into the video. But not too many of it because I think it will make the video boring.

Block A - Day 1 - Went LT

Today went LT for my MOI project 1 briefing.

Well what I expected was; to do script writing, storyboarding and stuff. But I was right, we have to combine our works together and present it through video. The video is to target on people such as; “Secondary Students & Parents” who are coming into this school to know what they will be touching on. Well not just combining our works together, but we have to apply things that we’ve learnt through out the year.

We were forced to create a blog by today, so that we can start writing our journals / reflections online from today onwards.