SicKL Open Lab this coming Saturday!

FINALLY, OUR FIRST PROGRAM IS HERE FEATURING THE DARE DEVILS(AND ANGELS) OF ART EXPERIMENTATION!

The SicKL Open Lab (SOL) is launching its first season with new works in poetry, experimental music, video and film on this coming Saturday, 28 June at the Studio in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur (SicKL).

SOL 0001 kicks off its first program with voice composition by Tham Kar Mun- featuring Tham Kar Mun, Yandsen, Kok Siew Wai and Wong Perng Fei; Malaysia premiere experimental video and film works by Au Sow Yee, Huvy and Wong Fe Lik; and a multidisciplinary performance with poetry and visual arts by Tan Yan Tee, Chen Lin Loong, Law Yee Wan and Looi Yook Tho.

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SicKL Open Lab (SOL) is organized by Studio in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur (SicKL). SicKL has gathered a group of young artists from different disciplines to share ideas and passion in art, and work together to bring new voices to the local art scene. SOL is the outcome of this collective philosophy.

SOL is a monthly art laboratory where artists come together to show individual’s work and form new collaboration. SiCKL will provide the environment for artistic expression, improvisation, experimentation, learning and collaboration. In each lab session, we encourage artists from different backgrounds to experiment with each other to create new work. This open platform is free to perform, to exhibit, to experiment and to collaborate. We welcome artists from all disciplines.

*****

SOL happens on the last Saturday of every month at 8pm. Please contact us to confirm the dates.

For more information, please contact:
Siew Wai: swsuny@hotmail. com / kokbuffalo@yahoo. com
Sow Yee: truely_au@hotmail. com

www.emacm.blogspot.com

** Next SOL: 26 July 2008 **

SPORE

check this out!!!

website

youtube


wat u all think?
c how ppl create just by selecting them.. huh?

how hard or how long is it to create a creature?
modeling/texturing/joint/ etc ?
everybody can create their creature ^^

Bridgestone Ad

Very cute little squirrel will face it's fear!



*WOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!*

Love and War - An Operetta

Wonderful little production.

Have I Officially Lost IT?

That's the big question hovering over my mind right now... Have I lost the ability to enjoy an animated film?

I just saw Kung Fu Panda and in my opinion it is one of the best animated movies ever made, TECHNICALLY. Cause that's all I kept looking at... Fur, Character Design, Animation, Textures, Renders, Cinematography, Direction, Editing, blah blah blah.

I enjoyed the jokes, laughed at them but all I was looking at was everything but the movie. I barely got the story (no thanks to Ali getting us front row seats). All the time I was thinking... hmmm....... nice fur, nice texture, ohh look at the that piece of grass fluttering in the wind in the top left corner of the damn screen, while Po and others were making the kids laugh out loud around me.

I feel sad :(

So How is Everyone Doing?

So how's everyone doing? Here I am again doing the same post I did some time ago. Well today is internship day 02 for most of you guys I assume? So how're you guys lah?

I'll just start with myself. This is my 3rd week working and I have to say that most of what I have been doing is tutorials, tutorials and more tutorials! Why? Simply because where I work they don't use Maya (or Max for that matter). They use this software called SideFX Houdini:



Well yea, Houdini. Well basically its back to square one like learning 3D all over again. If you guys think Maya is a b*tch, wait till you try Houdini... but once you get the hang out of it, you'll start to see how much more efficient Houdini is when it comes to workflow. The software itself works by procedural nodes. Well, yea its hard to explain what procedural workflow is but honestly once you use Houdini, you'll think Maya is like child's play. I know this might bore some of you guys but I managed to find a screenshot of Houdini 9 (the version I am using now)...



Anyway back to internship. The people over here are really nice and helpful and they are very eager to help you start out. I guess for me internship here isn't like how I'd picture it. I thought I would be treated like a slave to some senior or smtg but its not true. Here they really treat you like a full time staff. I get a workstation to myself and all I am asked to do is to learn the software. They said its going to be a long 4 months and so I better learn all that I can. Recently they let me do one of the VFX shots for an upcoming film (which I cannot mention the name of course due to its P&C).

Working hours for me is... hmmm well there is no working actually. All you got to do is make sure you finish what you have to do for the day by 7pm so usually I go in about 10am latest also 10:30am.

I just want to share that if there is smtg I learnt is that I learnt what 3D production is really about. Working in a team. I used to model a lot of cars in Maya and when I was there the senior actually told me what I was doing is not efficient if working in a team cos when they work on a car for example, they will split the jobs some people do interiors, some people do the engine, some do the exteriors. And when there are like 2/3 people working on one car, everyone has to model the exact same method so they it can be combined well and also, the texture artist can start texturing and the animator can start animating even before the model is complete.

Well so how bout you guys? Come share your experiences no matter good or bad. =)

Sorry if some of you guys find my post a little too long. Just wanted to share my experiences thats all. =)

RIP: STAN WINSTON

Special effects pioneer and film director Stan Winston died last night at the age of 62. Winston suffered from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, for the past seven years. Throughout his legacy, Winston had a hand in creating some of the most memorable movie characters including The Predator, The Terminator, Edward Scissorhands and most recently Iron Man. He won three Oscars (TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS and JURASSIC PARK) and was nominated for six others. In 1995, Winston and director James Cameron founded Digital Domain, a firm that is still one of the leading FX houses in the world. Winston tried his hand at directing with films like PUMPKINHEAD and A GNOME NAMED GNORM but they were met with less fanfare than his makeup and FX work. He had recently been working on TERMINATOR SALVATION: THE FUTURE BEGINS. Winston will always be a godfather to geek cinema and it's hard to fathom modern cinema without the contributions of Stan Winston. Later today Stan Winston Studios will be releasing a list of charities to donate to in lieu of flowers.

*Smooch*

Alright this is a very interesting game that parodies most fighting games you can find...

http://www.mentoskissfight.com/

Something you may kill your time with (Not recommended during office hours or any time when you're actually busy)

Infringement

Hi all,

I was advised not to post this up, but I felt that I need to remind everyone the importance of these “rules” (nothing offensive, and I’m not pointing finger to anyone), it's just some general reminder to everybody.

Thanks Jason for the comment. I certainly know that my previous post is aggressive and it's going to hurt someone. As my previous post mentioned: one of your friends involved in a controversy problem... I didn’t know who he is but I knew he is from MMU FA, and the only channel I could contact everyone is through the FA blog. I just hoped the fellow could read the blog and stop doing what he was doing immediately... if he continuously posting those false information about the company on the internet, he can be charged guilty and get himself into trouble easily.

What happened was: someone somehow pretended to be a company's staff (actually he is not any of the workers there) and he stupidly gave out his own information by answering questions about that company in an internet forum - he was seriously breaking the law whether the information given out was true or false. He must consider himself extremely lucky as legal actions could have been taken against him. Anyway, later then I was informed that the problem was solved in a proper way, and the guilty person was actually another guy.

A lot of you are looking forward to the working life, everyone is so excited to go out and prove themselves, the motivation is high and the dreams are flying; yet... there are rules that you still need to obey. Silliest mistakes but deadliest penalties.

“Private and confidential” is what I would say... I believe everyone knows the term already. Every company has their own private and confidential information, especially those big scale companies. Most of the top secrets are not to be exposed, but some of it might be passed to the employee for working purposes. Those information are only allowed to pass among their staffs for the project to flow, it cannot be leaked out to the public (usually is stated on the contract you sign). I believe most of you are already 21 years of age, by breaking those rules, you could be charged by the Legal Law of Malaysia.

Anyhow, most of us still tend to share the information among our friends intentionally or unintentionally, as it is the nature of human beings to “gossip”. It is best for you not to speak out any single word, but if you do want to share, please just share with those trusted personnel or trusted friends; and certainly, you don’t post those information in the internet stupidly as those could be used as evidence to against you! Being framed would not be a valid excuse, you are still guilty for leaking those P&C information to public.

I hope everyone can take this seriously, the rules is for you to follow and not for you to break. And one last thing, please don’t ask about the salary of the company’s staff, is quite a sensitive topic to certain people.

Back to the FA blog, what kind of sharing do you all like to receive? Those “what a wonderful world” kind of things? I tracked back some of the post and almost all of them are praise, wonderful, nice work, showing out some of their stuff without any comment from their friends and some commercial kind of thing. What a heavenly peace post. Everything is so positive and when it comes to critic, everyone keeps quiet and don’t want to get involve. It certainly not my kind of world.

I'm very glad that Jason stepped out and do some criticism on my post. Thanks. I believe most of you have been offended by my posts but still chose to keep quiet. I have been doing this kind of criticism job for the pass few years and it is normal to receive aggressive replies from audiences. People feel harsh to accept the truth most of the time, and tend to cover it with some beautiful words. I’m not sure how much everyone can receive the pain when I posted up my 1st article a month ago. I tried to soften my words but I end up chosen to treat you as an adult rather than a young student. When it is good then it is good, when it is bad you'll take the feedback and you need to improve. I don’t mean that all my comments are good, but at least I voice out my opinions. That is what sharing means to me.

Well... my intention was to come here to help. But if you want this devil to go away from here forever, I’m more than happy to do so. :)

Beware Of Your Attitude During Internship

Hello,

To those who are newly promoted to Delta students, who are doing or going to do thier internship, please be careful on your attitude that you are displaying... don't be naive and ego... one of your friends has already gave bad impression to my friend’s company staff. Please beware of what you are talking and what you post on the internet.

Mglrulz, 石头仔，Stop talking nonsense and stop pretending that you are the company staffs who know many things about that company. You are digging graveyard for yourself.

The Puppets - Si Ying

Hi Si Ying,

Nice to hear from you again and thanks for sending me the link. I just received the link today through an email sent by blogspot, the reply seem to state that you had replied on 25th May… erm.. Some delay from blogspot maybe….. nevermind, most important thing is I had received your animation and I’m appreciate it.
http://s116.photobucket.com/albums/o4/harunosakura2006/?action=view&current=final.flv

Well… I played your MG a few times… looking at those detail you had made in the animation … I hardly spot a mistake in it. Honestly, you really had done a good job on it. From the main character to the background, you had spent a lot of effort to create them.

The trees, the puppet stages, the puppet themselves, I know that you duplicated them… is ok to duplicate as long as those assets don’t look repetitive and I think you manage to do that quite successfully.

You have a very great sense of art; you manage to grab what you planning for and executed it with great accuracy (I believe that you come form 2D background). Color scheme, characters designs, theme, concept, staging and most important the pace of the MG, you manage to associate your animation movement, pace and transition with the music beat and this had add a lot of depth in your MG. (the music recording is so professional, you create it yourself? Or you cut from movies?)

Well, the only weak point in you is the storytelling. You have an interesting story, but you did not manage to convey it to the audience. I have looked at the MG a couple of times; I still can’t really understand the real story. Well maybe I’m too stupid for that, haha... anyway I try to interpret the story again in my mind and hit me if I’m wrong. :D

“The story is about a girl, ran into the village of puppets lead by the pigeon….temptation to steal all the beautiful puppets. All the puppet villagers are actually from real person, all of them are just like the little girl, so greedy stealing all the puppets and end up turning into puppet themselves because of touching the mighty 'lion king' ”

That is the story interprets in my mind from your MG.

“Acting” is lacking from your MG, that's why it is so hard to understand what the main character is doing. Because it is a puppet, you tend to ignore the facial expression. Imagine that you have a bunch of friend that showing you the same facial expression all the time, for sure you won’t understand what they are thinking of. Or you can try talking to a tree, scold a lot of bad words to the tree, and you won’t know whether it is angry because it doesn’t have a facial expression. Of course you will know it is angry if the tree hit you with it branches, and this is the time when body gesture comes.

Facial expression is strongly associates with body gestures. Body gestures can be used to drive the message if the facial expression is missing. They usually will come together to support each other. But in your case, understandable that puppet has limited movement, so it is very hard to tell a story with body gestures. Missing of this 2 important elements in your MG causes you the failure to deliver your message to the audience.

In my opinion... You can actually add facial expressions on the puppets. Don’t just treat them as a 2D character billboard with no ‘life’ in within. Some basic smile, sad, cry, angry will certainly help a lot. Inject some life into your puppets.

Or… if you still want to stick with your cool-faced puppets (might be your style or concept), you can add subtitle or voice over for your MG. Just like what you did at the beginning of your MG, is a pretty cool sound and it has created a lot of mood. It's ok to add voice over in your case, so that the story was told and it links your MG from the beginning till the end.

Try think about it... :) Or if you have your own opinion and we can share it. With other juniors of course. I think you will welcome some suggestion from your junior as well, right?

Overall, you really had done a good job, you can get any job you want by showing them your final work, no problem with that. You have a great future ahead. ;)

So how is your graduated life? Still on holiday?

All the best to you and hope to hear from you again. ;)



Cheers.

THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA BLOG

HELLO GUYS,

Happy Holidays. Hope you have a good internship. I am writing to plug and promote our film THE ELEPHANT AND THE SEA, and a new blog I started with a producer, Edmund. check it out here:

http://theelephantandthesea.blogspot.com/

Check it out guys. I write about the film-making process, and a lot of other stuff. got pictures, trailers, etc...

The film is getting a release this August 21, 2008 at Cineleisure Cathay.

Come support us!