I don't understand why. But according to some of my peers, Wahidah told them that they have to blog about today. "For what?!", I asked. "Or we won't get our grades", so they said. Oh, whatever. Though Alfie didn't mention anything about it, I'm blogging this post just for the sake of blogging. Better be safe than sorry? Maybe. So what can I say about today? We came to school to submit our production package and compiled our blog entries. And that's that!
THE END.
Hi. I'm blogging in the dark again. It's addictive I tell you. This is going to be the last post for this blog and I can go back to my personal space at wordpress.com! It been so long since I last updated in there. Yeh, you won't have to read anymore of my boring posts. There's more life elsewhere. Like, finding a new hobby, get out, smell the flowers and roll on the green grass.
This morning we went back to the 3D lab to transfer the video to tape and to burn it into DVD. Jen tried using her mac to burn it but it didn't work. We took over an hour to get it transferred when it should only take less than an hour! Oh gawd. The fire wire was terrible. It didn't help at all please. We tried to transfer with 2 different video cameras, 5 different fire wires, at least 4 different computers and even tried to burn the video into DVD countless times, but nothing worked! So frustrating. It was already 10mins past noon by then and we were still stuck there. I think we used Yi Chuin's video camera to try out and thanks to her, it put an end to our hair-pulling mad rush. The video transfer to tape was quite fast. Thankfully, the lecturers were kind enough to extend the deadline to 1pm.
Almost the entire cohort was already there when we went to the LT. We quickly settled down and the screening started. Some of the videos were really impressive! I felt like a loser. Too bad, I had to leave for work halfway through the screening. I didn't get to see Raj's video!!! And I was looking forward to that. Anyway, I heard from others that his video is really stunning. Even Mr Ronald couldn't stop whistling and clapping.
To conclude, I've learned a lot from this project. Not only am I more familiar and got to learn more about the softwares used, I have also learned a very valuable lesson. That is to plan properly! Especially for production work. Lots of thoughts have to be put into the planning and it has to be very detailed. One more lesson learnt is teamwork, everyone is important. They are your pillars to support you and are there for you when you fall. We go through thick and thin together. Especially as a group, we help each other and overcome the problems together.
Though, the video didn't turn out very well (cos I know we could've done ten thousand times better, I think.), but in any case, I feel so super relieve now that it's over and at least we managed to complete the video. Really. Trust me when I say that. I'd like to think that everything went pretty well. I'd like to think of myself as an optimist. All in all, I believe it was a good experience for us. The relationships that we've all forged, all the fun and stressful times we've shared are priceless. Man, I hate this feeling. Sitting alone in the dark and feeling emo over this just doesn't feels right.
OOOOOOKKK! SO! Today marks the end of my first year in MOI. I would like to thank each and everyone of you who helped us out any ways, whether is it a favour like helping us to get foods and drinks from the canteen and cheers, or helping us to handle the camera or saving our asses many times when we get ourselves into trouble and of cos, saving our footages from the hard disks and mac and whatever transfers! YOU PEOPLE ARE THE BEST! THANK YOU MANY MANY MUCH!
Last but not least, Alfie, you're awesome! Thank you for being with us and guiding us along.
Last last but not least least, GINABRUDDER! SHUSHU! JENNYFULOPEZ! KALA! MANY MANY THANK YOUS TO YOU GIRLS. GIRL POWER! YAAWWW! Without y'all, the video willl not be completed. The times spent together were really enjoyable. I'm so happy I have such adorable friends!!! XOXOXXXO! Happy holidays!
PS/ My fingers are slim and fit. They have been doing a lot of exercise: typing.
Fare thee well, yall!
Adeline, OUT!
:D What can I say? It's the last day! Okkk! Today was very very extremely productive! Yeh, well, it has to be or we can forget about passing. A lot of happened today. I don't know where to start from. But I'll try my best. Let's get started!
Oh, I'm blogging in the dark. I love blogging in the dark! Time check, 0427.
We met at 11am at the 3D lab and gathered aalllll of the selected video clips and put them together. After that, we did a whole lot of editing to the video and added transitions too. We then added the audio to the video and also used audio transitions for certain effects.
There were quite some jump cuts during the content as we had to slice out certain parts to shorten the length of our video. But that was quickly solved when we put the module processes over the jump cuts. Video transitions were also used to create a better flow in the video and we did more colour corrections to the segments which has bad lighting. However, we couldn't get the lighting that we want for some parts, hence, the inconsistency throughout the video. Shuxian then took over and added in the subtitles for the 3D fundamentals module segment.
Annnnnnddd.... Lo and behold! The video is done! It was 8plus in the evening when we finished the video, but it felt like it was only 3plus in the afternoon. Time flies when you are busy or too engrossed in your work. The past few days has taught me new applications/functions in the software. Really interesting when we discover and learn new things on our own, instead of being spoon-fed all the time. All that was left was to transfer the video to tape and to burn a DVD copy. We tried burning it in school but somehow, we just couldn't! So Jen offered to bring it home and try burning it. If it doesn't work, then we will have to do the transfer tomorrow. Okay, I'm not too worried now. At least we are done with our video. Now we just have to compile our blog entries and print them out for submission together with the production package. Oh yeh, I'm done with putting the production package together!
There will be a screening of all the P1 videos at LT 24 tomorrow. So in other words, the submission of the tape is at noon. Hopefully we can get it done by then. Can't wait to see the videos that my peers have done.
Read me later!
Today was crazy. We started work at 11plus in the morning, all the way till 11plus at night, when the security guard came to chase us out.
The day started with further selection of video clips and editing of the video footage shot during pre-production block. We then had to transfer the videos out of Jen's mac to another computer, so we could work on it as Jen didn't have Premier Pro installed in her mac. We had some problems doing the transfer as the hard disks that we tried using were of a different format. Raj said something like they were not mac compatible I think. Fortunately Sarah was around! She uses a mac and has a hard disk! So we borrowed from her and yeh, the transfer worked. Oh but but but, Apple and Jingyuan needed the hard disk back to edit their group's video that is in it, and so they waited for over two hours for the transfer to be done. They were really sweet as they waited patiently without grumbling. Of cos we felt bad for delaying them.
During the transfer, we went through the list of songs we have selected for the video again. Agreed on three songs. One each for the opening, content and closing. After that was done, we moved on to select the video clips from the pre-production block.
Just as we thought everything was going on fine. Shuxian had some problems with the animation for the fast-motion video, but she quickly fixed that. Next was Jen. The pictures of her "still-pictures video" were in the wrong size. Ahh... She had to resize all of them.
We were all tired from staring at the computer screen all day long. It was about 8pm when Kala had to leave. Shuxian left quite some time after Kala. Jen stayed till 10plus. And Gina and I left at 11plus because we were trying to put the video clips together. We still have a few more clips to add in tomorrow. The problems faced at the last minute is neverending. It happens all the time. Gin and I realised that our video is too lengthy (it's not supposed to exceed 10mins). We discussed and agreed to shorten and fast-forward some parts of the interview.
Gina brought home the audio-speech of the video clips. Initially, we planned to use the separated audio which we recorded using the compressor mic as it is of a better quality. But figured that we don't have the time to go through all of that because we have to ensure that the audio has to be in sync with the selected video clip. So a safer option would be to take the audio from the selected video clip and do whatever she can to polish it.
Alright, gotta go! There's more to do tomorrow! I can feel the sense of urgency creeping into my blood.
We met up at Gin's place early this afternoon. A pity Kala couldn't join us. We continued working on the task assigned to us individually as we were not done with them yet. Gina installed Premier Pro into her computer so we could put the clips together when we were done with our individual tasks. But the data couldn't be transferred to her computer. Bah, what's new. All those transferrings are driving us mad. We decided that we will have to leave that for tomorrow when we go back to school. Time is running out. Just keeping our fingers crossed and that hopefully we are able to get everything done asap because we got to transfer the final video to tape and burn it into dvd by Tuesday. There you go, another transfer.
Where is the sense of urgency. Gotta admit that we digressed way too much. Wasn't a very productive day. But we had fun! I'm so happy I have such adorable groupmates. After today, we got to be dead serious for at least the next two days. Did I just say two days? TWO MORE DAYS! :D
Toodles!
Because I don't come here as often as I'd like to, every time I decide to blog, I have to back-track quite a bit.
Last friday, Kala came down to school in the morning to hand over the animated fast-motion video. I think she worked through the night to complete that as she had to leave for a family event in the afternoon till sunday.
Moving on, we spent the whole day working in the 3D lab. Each of us were assigned to different task to work on. Shuxian edited the font for the fast-motion video as the fonts were not the ones that we plan to use. Can you imagine how much work that is? EVERYTHING has to be changed! The font, the size and the position of the words. That's a lot of work eh? So anyway, Jen compiled the edited pictures together in After Effects, while Gin and I did the selection of clips from all the video footages we have. Thank God Kala already edited some parts away. So Gin and I just had to sit through the footages and pick the ones with the best take. After selecting the clips we want, we then piece everything together and we figured that we can actually adjust the brightness in Premier Pro! Got to play around with the levels. I felt so relieve because I thought that the lighting was really bad and was hoping that something could be done to make it look better. Not much was done today as we spent a lot of time transferring all the footages into Jen's sexy Mac and Shuxian's hard disk for backup. We are kiasu. Or was that supposed to be kiasi? Whatever, not a big difference there. So the only footage that is left to edit is the one we shot during pre-production block.
Before we left, all of us sat down to discuss and made more plans. We are going to meet up at Gin's place on Sunday and so had to plan out what each of us has to do. Oh yeh, next week is the week. It's going to be the week of mixed feelings. First half of the week will be filled with kanchiong-ness and a couple of other negative feelings. Second half of the week will beeeeeee...... filled with HAPPINESS! All sugar-coated smiles and butterflies! I can't wait for next week but yet wish that we had more time.
Okay, blog soon. Terrah!
The rain has been crazy. No where near lemondrops and gumdrops.
Okkkk! So all the photos have been edited in Photoshop and passed on to Jen so she can put them together using Adobe After Effects. Shuxian and Jen did the credits roll. Short and sweet. I think Kala continued with animating the words. And Gina and I continued with the song selection for the video. We have quite few handful of suitable ones, can't really decide on which to use. That's the problem when you have too many. But when you don't have enough, you panic.
Anyway, I'm quite worried because we haven't really done anything for the audio yet. And yes, we know that audio is important too. Gina told us about a new software she found, if I'm not wrong, it's called 'Adobe Audition'. So we will be using that instead of 'Audacity'.
We went to the diploma show too. There were so many things to see! Spent about an hour plus at the MOI booths watching short films and animations by our seniors. Some of the works were really good. Too bad we didn't have the time to watch every single one. Gina and I were saying that it's funny how discouraged and intimidated we felt when we should actually feel motivated to do better. But really. The difference in quality when I compare our video to they videos at the dip show is really grrrreeeaat! I don't know what to say. I wonder if I could even produce something up to that standard when it's my turn to do FYP. Hopefully I can be as good or even better. Got to work hard and hope for the best.
We had our second interim assessment this afternoon. Sorta like a casual presentation. When I say casual, I really mean casual in that gather-together-sit-down-and-chat kind of sense. No, wait, it feels like consultation too. But whatever it is, we showed Alfie what we have done so far. Yeh, so he told us to make the animation opening title a little more interesting. We decided that maybe we should add some colours to it as it was just plain black and white.
As most of our videos are in the 3D lab, Alfie decided that he would go over later to have a look at them. We prepared the hardcopies of pre-production stuff, but realised that we didn't have to submit any of those until the end of block. Oh well, I guess it's alright, in this case we won't have to do last minute work and have more time for other stuff. Ah, but we got to redo the storyboards as they are not too well done.
After Alfie left, we continued animating, editing and selecting more songs which we think would be suitable for the video.
Adding colours to the works in each frame is reeeaaaally tedious. A lot of work. With the number of keyframes we have, it's crazy! Can't imagine myself majoring in Animation. So Shuxian and Kala brought back some stuff to animate.
IT'S MIDWEEK! Remember to smile (:
Break. We didn't meet up today. However, we were each assigned some stuff to prepare for tomorrow's presentation. All's going pretty well so far. I learnt that it is important to have backups no matter how reliable you think your hard disk is. Do not be afraid to be labelled as 'kiasu'. Have as many backups as you can. Better to be safe than sorry. That was what we did. A backup in Shuxian's hard disk and another in Jen's new Macbook Pro! Ahhh... Macbook Pro. So seksi! I wish I could have a pro instead of the blackie. The light sensitivity of it is just so cool. And and and, the buttons! So nice to press! Tell me about it.
See y'all tomorrow.
Halfway through. 3D LAB IS OPENED! Like, finally. So we transferred everything from 2D lab to 3D lab as we felt that it's more spacious in there and has a better working environment, with MORE computers available. So many to choose from. Oh but I'll miss the warmth and the crowd in 2D lab. Anyway, back at work, we continued from where we left. More animating, uploading of videos, drawing of storyboards and further planning. We also did some preparations for second interim assessment.
Oh hey, we'll be taking a break tomorrow!
Hang in there, y'all.
We are behind time. It is already day 26 and we are not done with filmming. (Which is not how it's supposed to be as planned.) Only left with the interviews to film but the delay is slowing us down by a lot. Couldn't wait any longer for the edited scripts, so we decided to go ahead and film with whatever we have.
Gina was the first to go because she has to leave earlier for a concert. We filmed the same way as how we did it previously for Kala's interview. I started to feel nauseous, I wonder why too. Probably didn't rest well last night. So I went to get some shut eye. Jen woke me up when it was my turn to film. Man, I look really bad in the video. Sick kitty.
Oh well, glad that all the filmming is done and we are left with editing. IT IS THE WEEKEND, YO!
Have a great one and be safe.
Ginabrudder brought her camera to school today to take photos of all our 2D works so we can include them in our video. No idea where the 3D works are.
3D lab was still closed. So we went to the 2D lab to upload the photos and some video footages to a computer. Apparantly, we were hogging the computer that one of the year 2 animation students uses for his P2. He was kind enough to not bug us though. Seriously, there isn't enough computers for all of us! I hope the school will consider investing in more computers so we can be more efficient. Okay, anyway, we then saved everything we have into Shuxian's hard disk as backup. The videos take donkeys to be uploaded. Once is enough, can't afford to do that twice.
Goodnight, y'all.
Oh, whatever, I know, the title makes no sense. But who cares, it's just a title. Anyway, today's super un-gay (if there's even such a word). Un-gay as in, the opposite of gay. Gay being happy fyi.
No time to waste. So we decided to try out the Mac lab on the sixth floor since both the 2D and 3D labs were still fully occupied. Doesn't look too bright on our side. There is no Adobe Premier Pro in the Macs and Shuxian couldn't upload the video into her laptop because of the cable.
Right, so we wasted a day. Couldn't film anything either because we haven't got the edited scripts back yet.
I'm outta here.
Meeting time has been changed to 11am. So after yesterday's discussion about being punctual, we saw improvements today.
Gina brought her condenser mic to school. It helps in such a way that the audio for the speech would sound clearer. Okay so we could only film Kala as her script was the only one that has been edited so far. We took turns to control the recording of the audio and video. It took us quite a number of takes before we settled with the one that we are satisfied with. Even wanted to upload the footage into a computer, but there wasn't any available ones as all the computers in 2D lab was occupied, while 3D lab was closed for some FYP presentation. Uffa! So we ended early.
Alright, lets hope the edited scripts will be in soon!
Week two of production block and I'm back here. Hi, Blogspot.
Today went by really fast. We spent some time in class as Alfie talked to us about our video and I-forgot-what. Only managed to film the process of animation and 2D art fundamentals.
Anyway, bad start for the week. Punctuality issue. The group sat down to talk about this before calling it a day. I'm glad that we are able to settle things calmly and maturely, instead of getting so worked up and kicking a big fuss over it. Guess we need to learn to be more disciplined in this area.
Till next time.
We planned to film the interview segment today, but had to change our plan as our scripts have not been edited. Instead, we did something else. Met up at the usual timing. Both Kala and I uploaded a series of footage to the computer while Jen and Shuxian did the ending credits and Gina animated the stickman using Flash. Afterwhich, we went to bedok reservoir to shoot a short video clip for the photography module. With still some time left to spare, we then went off to shoot Shuxian doing the demostration for coiling. Filmming can get quite tiring as there has to be different camera angles in a scene. So so so so so..... The weekend is hereeee! All smiles and butterflies!
Time check, 0447. I just woke up to start my blogging marathon. Totally love blogging in the dark. So much excitement and it trains my eyesight. I would say that my typing skill is fabulous! because I can type in the dark without making lots of typos.
Cheers.
We interviewed Alfie today and also filmed Alvin for one of the segments before uploading everything that we have filmed over the past few days. A big thank you to them, or else we would not get anything done today.
So all of us got hungry and decided go to the canteen for further discussion on certain issues over lunch. Yeah, talk about staying focused. We girls always end up doing something else besides work. I like how we feel comfortable sharing with one another, but I guess there's always a time for everything and we have got to learn how to manage our time better.
Okkk, I think I've something to do. Can't remember what is it Gotta go, blog again.
Jen, Gina and Shuxian took the foam boards to the workshop for cutting and wrapped with huge mahjong papers as we needed those as props in one of the scenes. I was late (shifty eyes) cos I had to prepare lunch for my younger brothers as my mom had to rush off to work. Cooking is no joke. It's serious business! Oh, don't remind me. Hate it. So I packed some spaghetti for the girls to sample. Ahhhh... hahaha. I know what you're thinking. Hey, they liked it. It was NOT BAD.
Back to where I was. We then went off to shoot another scene. But because we had a change of idea and didn't have the props that are needed for the new idea, we sat down and started chatting. It was more like a bonding session. Whao. Other than that, Jen showed us the opening of the movie, "Juno". How the video flows to animation is really nice. Looks good but definately not easy to execute. It is probably something which we can only do in year 2 or 3.
I hope we can accomplish more tomorrow. Goodnight world.
This mundane blog. I don't enjoy blogging as much anymore.
The group gathered in class at about 1230 and settled down to discuss more about the project, each throwing in an idea. The idea which we've chosen to develop is sort of like a scene in the Harry Potter movie. I haven't got the slightest idea of how it's supposed to look like cos I've never watched Harry Potter before. It seems to have this, effect on viewers. I'm curious but yeah I am not into witchcraft. Witchcraft = evil. Okay but whatever, I'll Youtube Harry Potter later, just so I can relate what my group members were talking about.
Afterwhich, we consulted Alfie with the chosen idea. He liked the idea(I think?), but told us that the content is not there yet. So he explained everything to us again in details. We then realised that totally forgot all about the content and paid too much attention to the style as we were more concerned of how we want to film the video.
Three points for us to take note:
That would be good for us to reflect on and constantly remind us to stay on the right track.
So all's still pretty shady and shaky for now. But hey, it's only the beginning. So it's cool. Oh, and one more thing! I think it'd be nice if we think of a name for our group. Gin, Jen, Shuxian and Kala, whaddya think?
Note-to-Alfie: Hello Alfie. While you were talking to some students outside class, Jen and I tried on your harry potter specs, hoping to get inspired. It was so cool.
Okkkk, gotta go. Love you leave you. Later!
"Some things in life are unforgettable"
