AFP really works as a preparation for IBP, so next, shall be our IBP. GOOD LUCK and ALL THE BEST for all the groups!! ^^

AFP1 all happened in a bus with no requirements of lighting and so, which just make me feels a part missing. With AFP2 i finally experienced a real production again. The 2 days shoot ended quite successfully i guessed, just that we did overrun a little in the first day.

The first day was the worst out of the 2 days. The first location was Woodlands Secondary School and apparently all can drivers in SIngapore don’t know where is it, because all the cabs that we took to there all get lost in Woodlands. And the weather was drizzling in the first day which make location to be changed immediately from school field to school canteen; not a bad change though.

This time round, I do not have to worry that I have to look at the mixer while booming the mic. Big thanks to Simon, Khairul and Fadhuli for booming for me for the 2 shooting days.

However, maybe one lesson learnt for me: NOT to rename the project file again in the Tascam. I did it for AFP1 and nothing went wrong, however it went wrong in AFP2. On the first day night, wanted to transfer the audio files but I realized that my laptop couldn’t read the file. However audio files can be still tracked in the Tascam. Weekiat called Mr Hsien for the problems and Mr Hsien said that he will checked for us when we come back to school. Therefore meanwhile, i borrowed Tascam and CF Card from Jasmine (They do not have shoot on Sunday). Really thankful for Mr Hsien and Jasmine’s help. The problem is solved.

Lost soles production ended like that. It is a great time for me to experience so much things~

My group members for AFP2 shuffle a little after AFP1 and some of the members are classmates that i never worked before. It’s kind of a new experience working together, because i met a different way of handling pre-production.

There was a new gmail account set up specially for our project, for all paper works and informations to be passed around the whole group. Each of us knows the password and we are asked to log in into the account to check up the calender inside. It’s kind of a new and effective way.

Being a sound man for AFP2 again, i will have to do sound spot sheet for pre-production. Looking for copyright musics is just the most irritating job ever. Got a few that i think suits our story.

Production will start soon and what i hope for is just GOOD WEATHER!!!

GOOOOO LOST SOLES!!

I had not faced any big issues in looking in music, but the only thing that troubles me is the copyright issue. Copyrighted music usually suits the choice of my music best.

However, in the process of post-production, I realize that we cannot underestimate the power of b-rolls. We lose our b-rolls with the reason of the gate of the camera being exposed. And therefore when we viewed the rough cut without those b-rolls, the whole edit doesn’t make any sense. The whole edit just doesn’t flow.  Therefore, we spend one more day to shoot some of the b-rolls, and then our edit became complete.

Another lesson learnt shall be not to edit in our own laptops even if we have final cut pro in our laptops. It may be easy and time consuming to edit in our own laptops but it wil be an ultimate challenge to transfer the file from our laptop to the final cut in the school labs.

AFP #1 finally down.

Had my AFP Production on the 19th May which is on a Wednesday. Meet up early in the morning to bring our equipments to our first location. Setting up for the scene was fast and easy because we did not use any lights, therefore we used shorter preparation time cause we just need to set up the cameras and sound recording equipments. However, the thing that make our production start at a later time than schedule shall be because our casts and extras late. The first scene that we are shooting is a “busy” bus-stop, therefore we need extras. Unfortunately, there was a traffic jam that day which caused everyone to be late.

Start on our first scene after all the casts and extras are ready. Our script had only a couple of dialogues only and therefore that make the sound recording of those lines extremely important. However, I met some challenges as a sound person because of the boom shield. This is the first time I used a boom filter, I used it because we are shooting on outdoor and therefore I decide to use a boom shield to get a clearer sound. However, the volume of the sound recorded are affected by the bomb shield. I had to volumed up the sound level to the max to get a clearer dialogue from the female lead. And because of the sound level problem, I had to request for one more take, which means more films used up.

The problem that I faced during the bus scene will be the noise gave out by the engine of the bus. Therefore, I shoot the dialogue scenes with the engine closed. I also did record the ambience of the bus with the engine on, so that the problem could be solve in post by mixing the two of sound tracks.

Our production ended quite successfully I guessed.

I think I learnt that things must be planned beforehand. Not to blame anyone or anything, we indeed had a shorter preparation time because of the bus booking, which freaked all of us out I guessed. However, I learnt that the team would conquer the problems if they faced it together.

Now, when the production is like starting in 5 – 6 hours time, our problems are sort of settled. We have the bus, the talent and the locations, but I seriously pray hard that the weather will be GOOD because we are not using any lights.

Come on my dear group members, we will conquer this project together!

GOOOOOO~ DD

After struggling for the last few weeks of school( as all the due dates of the projects were on the last 2 weeks), its finally HOLIDAY! Although we had to complete  a lot of projects within this holiday, i still feel excited as i could finally give myself a good rest. Its a good time to recharge myself for the school after holiday as more projects is on their way to welcome me. =’(..haha..

The 1st trip that i had in my holidays is to the ZOO! It had been 9 years i guess since i last visited the zoo( as the last time was a school trip when i was in primary 3). I were very excited when i got into the zoo, everything seemed so familiar as the environment of the zoo did not changed much. The only thing that changed is the numbers of animals. 

I remembered that the zoo used to have a lot animals but now, every different kind of species only left with 2 or 3 animals. It was really sad too see that the animals are getting fewer n fewer. I am so worried that the animals that we used to see now, will be extinct when it comes to the next generation.

I was very happy that i saw the white tigers which are very rare now. But i feel so sad for them when i saw them laying on the big rock doing nothing. As they should belong to the nature, they should be running freely in the big grass patch, hunting and preying for their own food. But now, what they can only do is to stroll around the small area that were given to them. Yah.. you could say that at least they got their meals everyday on time, but what would you feel when you got nothing more to do except to lay on the ground and wait for food? Wouldn’t you think, that kind of life is boring? Actually, not only tigers, a lot of the other animals too, were trapped inside a cage or a standard place alone. Its really lonely and boring. Although i enjoyed looking at them but i still sad for them as i feel that they lost their freedom. But, who knows, maybe they like their lifestyle now=)

Walking under the hot sun in zoo was really tiring but i do enjoyed a lot as a step nearer to the nature, haha.

Holidays are still going on, i hope i can get my works all done and relax myself before the holidays end. =)

I must keep myself ready for the new challenges i have to face after the holidays!! 

* I GOT MY DREAMS REALIZED IN THIS HOLIDAY *

I start to wonder if the things we see are different? For example, colors. Is the color i saw as pink same as yours? Although the color of the grass is green, the color of the sea is blue but is that color of my green and blue, same as yours or the others? Isn’t it interesting? Is it something that we never known as whenever i took out a red color item, the color that we named or known it as red is different? Is there a probability for this?

I then continue to wonder to the appearance of a person. Is the appearance we have for that particular person the same? That may be a reason behind why do some people think that some girls or guys are good in looking while the others do not agree with it.

Human being do have different perspective of views for a particular event. Sometimes when something bad occurs, it may seems to be very unlucky and you may grief over it. However, just changed your perspective of view and you will realize the outcome may not be as bad as you expect to be.

I often trained myself to see things in different perspective in order to prepare myself to tackle the problems i always faced. As sometimes, you will resolved the problem when you see the problem in another angle of view. Sometimes, things may not go how you want and there is no point for you to be sad or angry about it as you can never changed the facts, so only thing you can do is just to accept it. And the easiest way for you to accept something is to changed your views on it. This is also one way to make your life easier=)

I was really glad that 22 out of 36 of them make an effort to come to the gathering( at least the number passed half of its amount) its really hard to get everyone together, so i am contented enough with 22 ex-classmates.

When we settled down in the Seoul Garden, i examine each of them carefully, some had changed so differently and some were still the same. But there sure be one thing had changed for the boys, their HAIR LENGTH!! ( i really don’t understand why boys like to keep their hair long after they graduate from secondary school) 

Chatted with them about the school life now. Some of us went to polytechnic, some ITE and some repeated secondary school, yet we all still missed the days we had at past and we all agreed that we loved and missed that class. ^^

Flashing back, i remembered lots of stupid things that we had done together.

As we were the last class of express and our class are considered the “bad” ones, teachers always pin-point us and some students in other classes will also dislike us( its true!). However, we weren’t bothered by them, we still continue to do what we think its right and maybe fun. I remembered when we were secondary4, our classroom was at 2nd floor at the beginning of the year but just 3 weeks later, because of some problems, the school decided to switch us to 4th floor instead of the other express classes. We were damn angry about it as we think that its really unfair, but no matter how we object and debate, the school still insist in changing our classroom. So during the last day at the 2nd floor classroom, we decide to do something to show our unhappiness and take revenge…..

ta dah.. we handed our classroom to the other class in this manner.. hahahahaha!! although the next day we were all disciplined by our vice-principal but we never regretted doing it at all. ^^ (because its really fun=X)

I still remembered there’s one time when the other 3 express classes of chinese students can watch a skit while only our class will be staying back in the classroom and have normal lessons, we were super unhappy about it, and the reason the HOD of chinese gave us is because due to the constraint of spaces, our class who doesn’t have anyone performing shall not go, but we were not satisfied with all these stupid craps..haha =X.. so we went to bargain with our chinese teacher to bargain with the HOD. My chinese teacher cannot stand us and therefore send me as representative for our class to tell the HOD that our class wanna go too(i don’t know why i am so unlucky to be the chosen one, stupid! haha) 

Although my chinese teacher say i shall go alone but end up half of the class followed me(phew, who will want to fight the battle alone, haha) i told the HOD that although our class don’t have anyone performing but still, its unfair for us that we cannot get to see the skit, my classmates then all agreed by saying “yah lo yah lo” , this makes the HOD so irritated that she let us go in the end. haha! we were happy with the decision she made.. haha!

There is really a lot of stupid things that we do together and although its stupid, its fun! haha..

I really missed the time we have together and the reunion today makes me feel as if i am still in secondary4 and that feeling is great! Times flies and now we are all in different paths of life but i hope that we will all be successful in our own different ways.

2007:

2008:

* I really missed the time^^*

Today, i read up a article about a mum who uses her body to protect her 3 months old infant from the falling ceiling. When the rescue team saw them, the mum was died but the baby was still alive and they found a handphone inside the clothes of the baby. There was a text message that said(i translated it to english) : My dear baby, whether you live on or not, you must always remember that, mummy always love you.

I heart aches upon reading this news, that mummy sacrificed her life to save her baby. I believe at that moment of time, that mummy was only concerned about her baby’s life and nothing else, not even herself. In fact, a lot of the residents sacrifice themselves to save others, for example, a teacher also sacrifice himself to save 4 students from the falling ceiling. I felt a sense of warmth in those articles as it shows me that the world are still filled with love and not selfishness.

Upon seeing all these news about the earthquake in china, i really felt that life is so helpless. Imagine yourself waking up in the morning, preparing to go school and on the way to school, earthquake struck before you can do anything. The next moment you saw darkness and  you no longer get to see the sun rise of the next day. Can you sense the weakness of life as i do now? Life seemed to be so weak and helpless from this event. Its just a tick of time, and they are gone forever.

To what i feel, in this event, the worst thing that can happen is not that you are dead, but its that you can only see the innocent people dying one by one and you just couldn’t do anything to help or save them.

From the news, i saw parents yelling over the dead bodies of their children. Children crying, running around,  looking for their parents. Thousands of student buried alive. Thousands of innocent lives taken away. And now, at this point of time, the rates of these scenes continues to rise.

This incident really make me learnt a lesson, and that is to cherished every moments of your life. Who knows what will happen the next minute, i may not be still sitting in front of my MacBook and continue typing or maybe i will just fall asleep and die later. Life are so unpredictable and we got nothing to do to stop it from happening.

Maybe we can count ourselves lucky to live in Singapore, a nature disaster free country? And because of this factor, we tend to take things for granted. We will not experienced events like earthquakes, which will make us also had a feel of the “helpless” life, and exactly how precious is our life.

Do those innocents people deserved to die, or is it okay that so many died? Ask yourself truthfully, and you will get your answers.

I may not be able to do anything to help those innocents people but i sincerely hope that all these events will get over soon, just like how rainbow appears in the sky after the heavy rain.

* Cherish your life and everything you owed before you had no more chance *