Day 37_ Goodbye to MOIproj1! YES!!! Holiday!!!

Woke up at 10.44pm as usual and reached school at around 11.45pm. Vivien was worried as nobody was there in school yet and further more, our concept for the video was not done yet. So, I hurried to school to meet her in the MMfund lab. She had managed to bring everything (storyboard, script, timeline, etc.) to school. I got to comment that she is a efficient team member. Thanks Viv! So after that, I decided to meet Yi Chuin to discuss on the concept together while Vivien can do her MMfund project. I was wondering, why can't the school just go easy on the students with only one module to work on if there is a huge project for us to handle. It was indeed stressful for those who need to handle two projects at one go. Even if the school was preparing us for the work life, phew! Some of them, like Vivien and Yi Chuin only got to sleep like 3 hours every few days per week. Maybe we didn't have time management or we two of our members were busy at some point of the time??

Ok, by the way, let's go back to the topic. I slept late yesterday because I haven't been updating my blog for like one week, so I had a lot to touch up upon. Then, for the video concept, Yi Chuin and I managed to complete it and I went to print and bind everything up. Sad thing was, we were late for the submission by, like 40 min (unless the submission is at 2.30... ) Went to the GO to submit to only find out that it's not there. Opps! And ouch! Mdm Wahidah was giving me the " you are late and you know the consequences" kind of 'smile'. Yes! She smiled at me which made me feels like, tensed! But there is this group who haven't even hand in their stuff yet. So ya, Aaron didn't came to meet us and he was missing. But nevermind, we had done everything. Just hope that the penalty won't be to harsh (was hoping that the lecturer would give chance).

Day 36

Dead! Presentation day and just like the second interim, we haven't gotten our video rendered by 12pm. Luckily, Mdm Wahidah brought us news that the time had changed to 1pm, but we wouldn't be given credit. Was sad, but still got to thanks Yi Chuin for staring to render the video first. She was very tired and told me that she had only three hours of sleep. Vivien and Yi Chuin must have been very stress to see this happening again. However, we still managed to complete the transfer of the clip onto DV tape and we were on time for the presentation. Good thing.

I was enjoying every one's work and most video were funny and surprisingly good too. I think that overall, SPC had done a good job too. We should give ourselves a big round of applause and I must thanks Yi Chuin, Vivien and Aaron for doing their part in this project. I just felt that I might have been a little lazy at times. X( But still, a happy ending =)

Day 35

I managed to sync the animation with the music, even thou there are some problems among some of the frames. I had problems like missing frames and the music was really bad when imported into Flash.

While both Yi Chuin and Aaron tried to make the clip shorter still. It was indeed tough for them i believe and furthermore, the premiere pro actually hang and had to be closed. Aaron was indeed having a headache at that point of time as he didn't really saved the recent edited one. Which means he has to edit again.

Before I could finalise the puppet animation with sub, Wendy came and I had to leave.

Day 34

Well, we have almost completed our animation. We were still left with the animating of the puppet where she would pull the credit screen down but to make thing easier, we decided to make the chibi puppet pulling down the credits instead. And decided to drop the idea of animating the puppet when Yi Chuin was talking against the computer.
Changes were made to save our time but still being able to portray and convey the same message that we wanted to put across.Then again, I remembered Vivien having to stand and hold the notepad for like thirty minutes and she couldn't really move at all. I also helped Vivien to flip the pages whereas Yi Chuin was taking photo of the credits. It was definitely tough and tedious but worth it. My arm became numb afterwards from supporting Vivien's hand.
And I must comment on Aaron on the fact that he had done a good job in cutting the long video into 11 min short. Go!! Just 2 more min down!

Anyway, Vivien was told to find the sound for the flicking of the puppet, where the stone would fall and the puppet hitting the 1m painting and many other more. It was indeed very tough having to find these sound effects as usually if we were to find the one that we liked, it wouldn't be free. While Vivien was searching for the sound effects, Yi Chuin and I were actually importing the photos that we took for the credits to be transferred into the computer.. However, the size of the photos were too big that they had to edit and adjust the size of the image in order to be able to edit the photos in flash. This actually took like an hour or so to re size everything due to the fact that we had 144 frames to do. Aaron was still editing the video. In the blink of an eye, it was 12 plus and Vivien and I had to rush for the last bus to catch. I missed my last bus thou...

Day 33

Today we got to re shoot the scene where Aaron would hold the storyboard and also the scene where Aaron, Vivien I would be speaking on the bench instead of standing.
I actually got a little confused about the camera, as in is it as the puppet point of view or not. But at least the camera angle and everything else had improved. As soon as we had finish this scene, we went on with the voice over. I made quite a few ng scene as Aaron was making me laugh. It was funny. But after we had gotten everything transferred onto the computer, we set off to Aaron's work place to continue on our animation. Basically, we were already rushing off the animation and were afraid that we couldn't finish it in time. But we had got it half done by Sunday which is a good thing at least. Thanks to all members burning the mid-night oil!

Day 32

Woo! Went to school and met Yi Chuin in the 3d animation lab. She managed to get help from Mdm Wahidah and Peng too. So, we managed to solve the problem with the advice given by Peng. He told us to cut the video into pieces then slowly render one by one to see which frame got problem. It works! And we gets to render it already.

As for my puppet drawing, Yi Chuin actually found some mistakes I had made. So as to improve, I decided to erase the wrong frames and redo it again. Oh ya! Yi Chuin also showed us her animated stone. I think beside the stone looking too smooth like pebble,but as for the rest, it is okay. Plus she must also darken down the shine on the word to make it more visible.

Yi Chuin was looking through the video as she edit, but found that she don't really like it and was asking for a re-shoot. We re shoot the door part and did some experimenting where we actually off and on the lights, giving off this flickering effect and eerie atmosphere. Everyone agreed to do so on Saturday. Yup, and I had already asked for a off day on Saturday. Thanks goodness.

day 31

Ok! Finally, our video was like, ready to be rendered. However, something very bad happened today! Aaron was actually in school even before it was nine!! That was shocking! He was even earlier than everyone else! But I felt sorry for him that his effort had gone down the drain as we soon realised that the video could be rendered properly. He rendered like 7 times, but it still got problems. So, Aaron was like frustrated and tired from waking up so early. OK, back to me, I did the puppet on the message pad and finally, I was completing it soon! I was relieved. Going to ink it soon!

I was hoping that Vivien could help me ink the 144 frames of puppet which I had grew sick of drawing. But, Vivien was such a perfectionist that she was over concerned with the first two frames of puppet that she had drawn. So, instead I decided to do the whole drawing again. And nope, I was fine with it.

Day 30

I was still continuing on the stickman puppet on the thick stack of paper. Working my way though, hoping that I will do a good job in animating it. I decided to draw a rough sketch on the bottom of the pages so that I could flip and see the flow of the animation. But then, I was growing tired from doing so many frames withing one day. I played games last night, which makes me feel so low-energy today. Was like, half way done with the puppet running scene when Vivien told me to prepare for the diploma show. I was feeling too tired to help out but since everyone in my group are going and since I had volunteered, so why not.

It was a long walk from design to the TCC. Reached there and saw familiar faces, the MOI-ers. I was told to be the bouncer and to prevent non-VIP guests from sitting on the chairs. Sound like a cool job, but no, cause you might offend someone if you don't know how to tell them properly. And after the wonderful show had ended, my legs were numb from standing. Three hours had past and I went to eat buffet which was provided by the school. After eating, I tag along with Aaron and Jeremy to see them play the drum set.

It was ten plus, so we went back to the 3D animation studio. And surprisingly, Yi Chuin was still there doing the animation. Thumbs up for her hard work! I continued a little of my puppet too.

Day 29

The day had come for our 2nd interim and the thing that worries me the most was that when I arrived in school to find only Yi Chuin there alone to render the video! And to know that Aaron had not finish editing the video had really put the three of us to sweat.I felt sorry for Vivien who had tried so hard to prepare the presentation slides to only find out that the video was not rendered yet. And Yi Chuin was really kind to have come to school earlier and had rendered the video first. But, as Aaron arrived, he managed to sit down and wait for the whole video to be rendered. So, the three of us went to the classroom and viewed the rest of the other teams' work first. I think that Snap and Crewsade did a great job and I like their video and concept.Looney Bin's was funny and cute. When it was going to be our turn, luckily Aaron arrived in time. So we showed the class our video and the comment given was good. I was glad when i heard that Lecturer Wahidah saying that our film has the potential. I hope that we will really make it look great and enjoyable. Yup, and we must thanks Aaron for helping to present the slides.

Day 28

It was a rainy day today, I went to school as usual and met Yi Chuin in the 2D lab. I sat down and started working on the ending credit. I did a draft of the puppet's movement in Flash. This was to make sure that later when we draw it onto the paper, we won't be mess up with the timing and action. I drew the puppet in stick man style and I find that some action was rather hard to animate. Like my skipping look like kicking to Vivien. Oh ya! And not to mention that I had problem importing the remix version of the song into Flash. Therefore, I had no choice but to use the original version of the song instead. This lead to another problem, the timing that I had listed out had changed as it was a different version of the song. I solved it by keeping track of the song together with my animation so it will match. It was rather tiring to do this, so I was a little worried about doing the real thing. As for the rest of my members, Yi Chuin was drawing the chibi onto Flash. She also asked us if the chibi looked alright. I think it look better if it was short and chubby. So, after we had given her our opinion, she adjusted the chibi. Aaron edited the video, however it was not complete yet. Vivien helped out with the presentation slides and she also decorated it with a nice background.

Later at night, Vivien and me watched howl's moving castle, joined by Yi Chuin later on. It was a really great animation movie and had it touches my heart with the beauty of it.

Day 27

It Friday today and SPC can finally edit the video! We had imported all the scenes onto the computer and it was ready for us to "cut & paste". Haha! So, I was in school at around 12 plus and Yi Chuin was already there. I always couldn't get up early. Then, I went to the 2D-lab to start on the storyboard of the ending credit. I had fun doing it but it was quite hard to really draw out what you had pictured in mind. Plus, I still have to keep track of the timing and if I miss one second, the whole thing will not turn out right. Yi Chyin was fine with the idea but it seems like Vivien was keen in putting her favourite song for the ending credit. But hers was those epic kind of music and it doesn't suit the theme of our video. I could see that she was rather disappointed about that.
Coming back to the ending credit, I even find the song lyrics so as to make sure the song will be suitable to use. And yes! I showed Yi Chuin the lyrics and she said the lyrics had some similarity with our video as it also contains a story about journey. I was glad about that. But then, suddenly another idea strike me. I told Yi Chuin that maybe we can get like Vivien or Aaron to dub the song into English so it will not be so weird as the song that we were going to use was in Japanese. Actually, Yi Chuin did commented that if we put in a Japanese song suddenly, won't it be weird? Hmm... so the previous statement was my solution to this problem.]

Eh... Aaron did his video editing, but he played games while doing his job. So Viv was rather unhappy about it.

Day 26

It was Thursday today and I felt that time really flies. And soon enough, it will be the 2nd interim of this project. Got to finish filming real soon as we still need to edit and animated. As for today, I had finished drawing the girl into flash and animating her eyes. Had some problems with her body posture and I couldn't get her hand in the correct angle. Luckily, I had some help and advice from my peers and the girl turned out to look human(hehe...). Spent about like 2-3 hours in front of the computer just to complete this drawing. Wonder how long I would take animating the chibi puppet and well, the puppet. I was hungry again, left my house with an empty stomach... But back to where I had stop, I waited for my members to return to the classroom so I can eat something in the canteen. After that, we will be shooting remaining scene.

Yup, it's was 5pm and while Vivien was resting, Yi Chuin and I tried to fix the problem of the computer screen having lines appearing on it in the video. Since Aaron knew about how to solve this problem, we drew while waiting for him to arrive. Then, we realised that we were left with only one minute of the tape. So, we took off to buy a new cassette tape and also ate before returning to school.

Went back to school to get our camera and props ready. We headed for the mac lab at level 6 as the screen will look fine in the video, because it's MAC! Then, we discussed about the camera angle and how I should actually tear the drawing out. Because we only had one try in this scene(due to the tearing part), we had to analyse everything perfectly before going straight to filming. After we had managed to film it down, me and Yi Chuin went ahead to shoot the flipping of my running scene. At first, the photos are reflecting too much light and Vivien even tried to block out the light from above. Luckily, we managed to find an angle that won't make the photos reflect too much light. So, we went on with our flipping part. I had took quite a few shots and Yi Chuin also wanted to take extra scene of flipping the photos faster. After completing all the shots, we finally gets to return to the 2D-animation lab. But to our dismay, no one was in the room and the lab was locked from the outside. The three of us went to find the security guard and luckily, he had help us tap. Maybe we should not had said that he was unfriendly. But he seems to be. Oh well, that's his job anyway.

I just miss bus 15... ...

Day 25

Today, we did not do the stop motion as I had agreed to help match the puppet movement to the music, but I didn't. So, I shall do it tomorrow. Anyway, Yi Chuin and Vivien had printed the photos out so we can shoot the scene whereby the photos will be flipped. After that, we went off to 3D-animation lab to shoot Yi Chuin's scene. She will be talking to the camera and then showing the work that she had done on the computer. After the take, we rest as I kept complaining that I was hungry... I think that I was being too lazy. I better work hard for this project as this involve my members too. Yup, after eating, the members went off to the 2D-animation lab to film the scene of the door. They closed all the light and made the room real dark. Then there was Sholleh in the class helping us to block the light. They also started playing around with the A2 board, fanning every one's hair.

Day 24 Tuesday_Fun Day :3

I felt unlucky today as I step out of my block, I got knock into a bicycle. I said sorry(don't no why), and the lady just looked at me like it's my fault. So, I went to school feeling unhappy and continued our stop motion with the puppet. We tried making the puppet walk but then it turned out like it's moon walking. Cool, at least it's dancing now. Before that, it looked like it was performing some martial art move. Then, Aaron said that he had this new idea of animating the puppet onto whiteboard and chalk board. I think it was creative and interesting. It was one way to release our boredom of having to always changethe puppet movement by moving it bit by bit. Yi Chuin also got tired of holding and adjusting the puppet, therefore she decided to use some of Aaron's idea. She wanted to follow the style from one of the Japanese music video. In the MV, the animation was drawn onto a drawing block and they had many people holding on to different frames, therefore making the drawing looked animated. It was a totally new idea which I think is really cool and well done. So, I suggested to Yi Chuin tha we should do this tomorrow.
Finally, we had managed to film with our 2D art work at the 2nd level. Basically, we used our art work as backdrop and we will be talking to the camera about how we felt about MOI Project1. I was actually nervous and unperpared to speak infront of the camera as it was my first time doing this. I felt weird and just couldn't start off with my speech. In the end, I practised with Vivien alone and finally got the courage to talk to the camera. Everyone took quite some time with the filming but it went off smoothing and we completed another scene today. Some problems encounted was with the noises in the background and it just covers up our voices. This caused us to retake. After everyone had their turn, the three of us, Vivien, Yi Chuin and me went to upload the video into the computer. We went to KFC to eat our dinner as the video were being uploaded.
As the night falls, we were once again chased out of the classroom by the unfriendly sercurity guard. But we had the most joyous fun taking photos of ourselves at the design entrance. With the help of Sholleh, we had managed to takes group photos with our hoodies on.

Day 23

I went to class to put my stuff, then I went up to level 6 as Vivien needed some help with dreamweaver. After that, we went down and decided to do stop motion for our credit. But before that, we have to find some dance move for the puppets. So, we went to youtube and newgrounds to find some short dance step for the puppet to follow. Then, we finally found the perfect dance move! It's made by a korean artist and the animation was really good. Vivien and Yi Chuin recorded the dance which lasted about 40-50 seconds. After this, we went to the 2D animation lab to start on the stop motion. We set up the stage for the puppet and it's black in color. We encounted some minor problem, like, the black board that Vivien bought was not big enough. But this problem was solved as the members found some left over pieces of A3 size board. Then, we adjusted the camera on the files and sketchbook as we were sjooting from the ground. We started off quite well till the puppet had to be filmed moving on its own. The movement look quite jerky, but we were still fine with it. Then, I suggested to use black tread to help keep the unbalanced puppet in place. Seems like we had to continue it tomorrow. I watched some anime online, then Yi Chuin and the rest started to import the video onto premiere pro. But, the file size is too huge!!

We also managed to try filming the intro of the door. It was dark.

Day 22

Was a moody day today. Almost everyone was not feeling happy today. By the way, we manage to shoot the scene of Aaron holding up the storyboard. Then after that, we also took the scene whereby me, Vivien and Aaron were talking and I spotted the little puppet at the last moment. We took quite a few takes, but somehow, it still don't seem to turn out the way we want. I think it would be better to take it again after everyone had the mood to act/be happy.

Then, on Saturday, I felt as if it was the most unlucky day of my life... I was careless when working, got scolded, gets nasty customers, got my finger slammed on the sliding door (Yes.. OUCH!!!) etc... Maybe I was getting punished....................................

Going to read YC new idea later..