KJFG No. 5

Suspended in time & space, lost vocabulary competency…. ga ga goo?

Soul Eater! omg! love!

The animation is aaamazing! Beautifully stylistic, incredible camera movements and angles. Snap snap snap, whack whack whack, whoosh whoosh zooom! omg! visual overload @_@

And the story line is… big fighting, kill evil monsters, whack whack kapow! And everyone is super cool! ^^

I find myself pausing very regularly to awe at the scenes, and even going through frame by frame (back and forth repeated) and taking screen shots to come back to later! XD It reminds me of when I was littler and reading manga, when I see significant or well-drawn panels coming up, I’d try my best to not let my eyes stray to them until I get to them, so not to spoil them and lessen the impact. I would also need to linger on those panels to absorb them, but not for too long cos that would interrupt the flow of the story, but I would read on to a pause -able point and then go back and re-savour the good panels. Teehehehehhe!! Oh nerdling how silly you are ^^

Warning: an overuse of exclamation marks!

omigosh! I have hit the anime jackpot! weeee!!

one of my lecturers have got the biggest anime collection i have ever come across! we spent 3hrs this afternoon talking about old anime & manga and going over  new ones! waaah, i am in heaven! right now i have about 30Gb of anime on my uni computer and 7 dvds on my desk that were just floating around the office. i’m pretty sure that barely scratches the surface of his collection! and further more, another class mate is an anime fanatic! ahhhh!!! *glistering eyed* between the two of them they’ve got pretty much the entire history of anime covered! they’ve reinvigorated my anime love!! i havent watched anime for a long time and have some serious catching up to do! i am going to get myself an anime hard drive and collect like a mad woman =D woopeee!!!

Tonight: M-chan watches Lucky Star! Wai, kawaii ne! Based on a four-panel comic strip, this slice-of-life series is kinda like an anime version of Seinfeld, in that they just sit around and talk about ”nothing”, but a helluva lot more cute and a lot more inane! I’ve just been watching episode 1, where they spend 10 minutes talking about ways of eating food! The bizarre mundaneness might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I just can soo relate!

”When do you eat the strawberry on a strawberry shortcake… or the chestnut on top of a Mont Blanc?”

”Lets see… There are also strawberries tucked in between layers of sponge cake. I follow a normal distribution of strawberry, cream and cake as I eat. So there isn’t a set time for eating the strawberry.”

XD  

Aww…. family

I’m kinda missing my family…. *gasp!* Yes, a strange revelation that kinda took me by surprise. I almost impulsively bought plane tickets to go visit! *double gasp* This must be the longest I’ve gone without seeing them, and the guilt is starting to set in with every phone call that starts with ”when are you coming?” Bless them for calling me and checking how I am, but the same sequence of conversation and questions is just a wee bit repetitive.  Couple of nights ago mommy and daddy called and ran through the usual (in such order) 1) ask what i’m doing / where i am, 2) see if i’ve had dinner, 3) ask when I’m going to visit, and 4) ask if i’m doing ok. But then to make it a little bit different, they updated me on the horrific earthquake in Sichuan China. The epicenter of the quake is close to my grandmother’s home town, which kinda makes it close to home, albeit in a very loose emotional sense, as she has long lost contact with her side of the family. Nevertheless, China is still motherland - partially for me, enormously  for my parents and wholly for my grandparents - and so the huge death toll and ghastly aftermath really sends my stomach into a wretched knot. Mother Nature can be such a mean bitch some times…

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All THOR’ed out

This course makes me buy some weird things.  I went scavenging through discount shops yesterday for props and ended up with two plastic bags containing:

• 2 giant sheets of bright cardboard
• styrofoam balls
• thick florist wire
• crepe paper
• a packet of giant ballons
• a 1kg bag of flour
• and 2 plastic toy light sabers

The launch for THOR went very well, with quite a big turn out of people - a lot more than I would’ve expected. Everyone seemed quite impressed by the game, which really helped to ease the nerves.  A nice young man from RMIT publicity turn up and took photos - specifically asked for one of myself and my co-producer, which apparently will be in the uni’s news. EW! I’m gonna look shocking, it was one of those photos where you can feel the unnaturalness of your smile and the awkwardness of your face. @_#

kawaii desu!

This is a-mazing! w-o-o-w-!-!

Also: Waaah! i looove Aardman!! They soooo cool!

Purple and Brown are so cute ^^ Beautiful character design, especially the eps when they have secondary characters like little balls with eyes and bounce around. So simple but so cute!

And Pib & Pog!! XD aaahahaha! so funny! Oh the brilliance.

We rock da house

THOR launch coming soon!

wha wha wha??

Procrastination is… posting on your blog at 1am when you should be finishing preparations for your pitch at 9am in the morning. 

I am ill prepared…. at the moment anyway. Just half finished the storyboard - which always turns out to be a bigger task than expected. And why is it that miss stationary freak (that would be me) cannot find a decent eraser anywhere? A whole collection of novelty ones (pigs, hearts, tea sets, sushi platters) but no normal decent functional eraser. So I’m left agonising over the fact that I dont want to deform any of the cute erasers, but also knowing all too well that as cute as they are, their actual functionality as erasers are shitehouse! Smudgey smudgey everywhere!

Anyway, I’m pretty happy with my project idea, but not at all confident with my technical approach….. Doing the storyboard I feel like a hand drawn animation would easily achieve the fluidity and movements that I want. But then where’s the fun in that? Why do something conventional when you can spend the next 5 weeks agonising over ”why the BLEEEEEEEP am I doing this???” Yes! Fun times ahead!

Back to work!!! *kicks self* Long night tonight. Its intense, but its fun ^^ 

hearts and bubbles

i love what i’m doing!
i love the AIM studio
i love the creative energy
i love ideas
i love being able to have ideas
i love movements
i love little details
i love brilliant brilliant people!!!

Ow me Ow my

Bit worried about sore legs, especially the left shin. They been getting hurty hurty on and off for a while now, but might be getting worse? Today the left shin’s been sore constantly. Not sore enough to render me immobile, but worried enough to have me considering a visit to the doctors (and I’m not a frequent doctors’ visitor). I think I ought on Monday… unless it fixes itself… although I’m not sure that it’ll be completely fine cos its a rather uncomfortable sharp pain that sometimes really dig in. And like, I need my legs, to like, do stuff.

Adventures in Missy M land

Little Miss M’s day:

 9am - 9:30pm: uni - yup 12.5 hrs in the AIM studio. I ducked out for bout 15 mins at midday to buy some glue and sticky tape and thats it.

10pm - 11:30pm: dance rehearsals

midnight: home drawing storyboards 

What’s more, now my plans for tomorrow are changed. Had intended to sleep in just a wee bit, go into AIM, do some stop motion, then go to the Docklands to prepare and do the show. But instead I need to get out to the Docklands at 1:30pm to do a tech rehearsal, then again at 7:30pm to get ready and do the show at 9. So I’ll either  have to get up early and get into AIM early so I can get some work done before dashing off at 1, then straight back to AIM and hopefully have about 3hrs to do some more work til I have to leave again at 7, and all in all, be totally exhausted. Or alternatively, sleep in a bit, get to the rehearsals and the show and fit what ever else in in between, which means I wont get any animation done, which would really set me back =(

Aww well, enough whinging. The THOR launch party is next Thursday…. not long to go…. Then its straight into the Minor Project. Rest? What’s that?

The Minor hasn’t taken off yet, but its already led me to new horizons. Couple of days I ventured into a hardware store and for the first time in my life, had to actually buy from a hardware store for myself. 

Little Miss M’s adventure in hardware land:

Day 1: Wonder in wide eyed and confused, go through every isle trying to figure out where a man would choose to categorise wires in a big space of tools and stuffs. Find some wires but continue to lap through the entire store just in case there are other choices in other sections

Day 2: Return to store and in her I’m-a-silly-girl-oh-he-he-he voice asks ”Can I please return these? I bought the wrong ones…”

Sad to say, not only can I not do boyish stuff, I cant perform the girlish  task of sewing. I was actually taught something called pillow stitching (I think?) today after three failed attempts at sewing a little corner and making a mess. I must say, this pillow stitching business (is that what its even called? or am I just making it up?) is tha bomb! You get these awesome neat little stitches! I can almost, like, make stuff!

I need a tool

My sickness deterred me from enjoying the St Kilda Film Fest last night =(. Half way through the screening I started feeling ill and by the end of it I was shaky and dizzy. My poor friends had to put up with me being all quiet and sullen.

Thought I’d take it easy yesterday (which obviously didn’t do much) and trolled through Lincraft and Eckersley looking for inspiration. Going through art & craft stores are such kid-in-a-candy-shop moments. I just want to bag the whole shop and have everything. Ended up getting more random play things than actual stuff I was after. I’m using them to decorate my desk at the studio ^^. On a bit of a tangent - speaking of desk at studio, I feel slightly obsessive now that I’ve antibacterial wiped my whole space (desk, computer, drawing table, everything), and keep a tub of wipey things at my desk for regular maintenance. Not only does my space have character, its also now the cleanest =D (not necessarily the tidiest as I seem to be accumulating more and more stuff on it).

I love this! We watched it last week when Malcolm Turner from MIAF came in and gave a talk and showed some films. Its so true! And right now I’m procrastinating from doing my script for tomorrow T_T. I keep thinking that I have it all visualised in my head, but struggle when it comes to putting it all down in words. The process of writing it all out also makes me realise that there are so many aspects (like lighting, movement, sound, framing) that I haven’t really considered in the static representations in my head. Then I panic and go ”ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! how am I suppose to make all that with my bare hands!!” And I bang my head against the wall. I’m almost wishing that my parents are closer by so I can get my dad to make things….. or at least give me a pair of pliers (who knew not having tools will actually affect me one day). Why have I not inherited the handy/crafty skills of my father? I love the notion of getting hands on and making things, but lack the talent.

Sick =(

What great timing. stupid body! work harder! Seriously tho, getting sick and felt like shit today. Cant believe how much I’ve managed to push on tho. Felt like I was gonna crumple into a heap at any moment, but kept going ”just a wee bit more.” And so much for not a big night…. bad idea. Erggg…. so… depleted… sick….  Would love to just sleep the next two days…. =( but cannot canno.

Big wkend of dance events, and I’m skippin them all. Tho would prolly need to go somewhere with good vibe & music to cleans out all that gangstaness & skankholeness from tonight.

Come fly with me

Hello my pretty butterflies. Those of you that will be fluttering about in Melbourne on the 16th of May and have a spare $20, why not head over to the End Child Slavery concert where you can see me (maybe, if you look really hard at all the little dots on the stage) flaunting around on stage sometime during the night. My first show!! Eeee! Exciting! Scary! What if I trip and break my leg? O_O!! omg!

There’ll be other entertainment stuff too, like bands (donno who yet), personalities (Hamish & Andy, and donno who else) and other stuff (yea donno yet either. the PR side of the event is really lagging.) But what really matters is that your money will be going to a good cause — helping me boost my confidence =D

Apparently I have one free ticket to give (possibly more, but at least one), which is a bit superfluous cos where am I gonna find a lonesome person who’s after a free charity gig? o_O 

I think my lil’ house crew will also be doing the MMA showcase at the end of the month, which will be even more exciting/scary cos it’ll be a lot more intimate and it’ll be our own stuff!! Chances are I probably will break my leg or make a fool of myself in that one (hmm…. maybe I should barricade people out of the studio that night)

Human Tetris

Apparently Human Tetris is coming to Australia! I was really excited when I first heard, hoping that it would be the actual Japanese episodes shown Iron Chef style! But word has it that Nine has bought the show and they’ll be shooting in Melbourne in a couple of weeks.  Hope it wont turn out like that crappy American Iron Chef in comparison to the original Iron Chef.  I love my Jap human tetris, they better not ruin it! ps. Also check out human Pacman, or Japanese Pacman - hilarious. Ahhh crazy Japanese. I LUV!

I’m no me kneeeeees

THOR is making me loose my mind…

I woke up in a panic last night/this  morning, thinking ”oh my god i’m late for the meeting!” (as a producer we have a LOT of meetings -_-;;;). Then I looked at the clock and it was 4am. I’d probably only been asleep for 2hrs. Then during the day I went to get lunch, and ended up paying for it, walked half way back to the studio and realised that my hands were empty and I had left my food back at the shop. I am going loopy loos. This project is intense. Everything about AIM is intense. At the moment I’ve got 1 thing to finish for this week that should’ve been in three days ago, and two for the start of next week. Then the minor project’s gonna start and still need to do another interactive assignment and at least one more animation by the end of the term. And of course, there are still 3 weeks left of THOR. Or should I say there are only 3 weeks left for THOR. Its crazy, 5 weeks sounds like a lot of time but looks like nothing when you break it down. SCARY!! eeeeeeeeeee!!!

And I miss dancing ;_;  Either have no time to dance or is too tired. At the moment I’ve made a commitment to show up for locking and house training, so I do my best to be there, but that’s about it. And even then I’ve been finding I’m not getting the most out of those session cos I’m too tired. Awwww!

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m dancing to make a difference! LOL. Lame-o. But yeah, gonna be taking part of what is hoped to be a massive house show as a part of a massive dance show for the End Child Slavery Concert in a couple of week’s time. That’d be great fun, but it’s also requiring me to commit another two training sessions per week, which I’m happy to do…. it just really wears me out.

Ohmigoodness! Timomatic’s lyrical hiphop class from Wednesday is on youtube. What luck, he has a total of three clips on the tube and I happen to be in one of them -_-;;;;; Mega eeek! Shouldn’t be any excuses… but I was so very tired, just had a house class before it, not to mention a full day of uni where I felt like I was running around like a headless chook all day. Aaaaand, had not done any lyrical/choried hip hop for a few weeks. Given all that, I was surprisingly happy with the start of the routine, but then kinda just lost steam and fizzle out by the end. Fortunately most of my mistakes arent too noticeable….. haha, some were pretty obvious tho. And the more I watch it the more I think ”damn, look at the shitey part there, and there, and there….” Embarrassing lah!

FLying Dogs

Birds - oh lovely music video made by Pleix. Beautiful detail in movement

This is whack. Or do I not understand art? If that’s the case then blissfully uncultured I shall remain.

Pretty little things

Four days ago my iPod committed suicide. It leaped out of my pocket in a busy intersection, dived on to the road and was subsequently ran over by a van. All this seemed to happen in slow motion as I gaped in horror. Ironically it was playing Daft Punk’s Technology when it met its death, and in the past four days I’ve come to realise how much I’ve become physically attached to the tiny piece of metal & plastic. Every time I step out of my house I need to have it almost implanted into my head, and so I’ve been on the verge of panic attacks to not have the security of mental escapism.

Desperately in need of an mp3 player, but not wanting to spend too much money, I bought a cheapo little plastic thing thinking that an mp3 player is an mp3 player and all I really need is something to play music. Bad Idea. I am a servant of the Apple corporation, and simply cannot go back to tacky interfaces, wobbly buttons that don’t always work, poorly designed glitchy software. I bought it on Saturday afternoon and took it back Sunday morning. And now I am a proud owner of this shiny little baby that lured me to (albeit unwillingly) part with my money. Apple’s design is just so yummy. Even the packaging is incredible - simple but oh so lovely. Opening the packaging is an experience in itself.

Game On

And so we launch into 5 weeks of panicking stress - also known as The Hope of Ruins: our group project of creating a 3D multiplayer game *eek!*

Who would’ve thunk it, that I’d be involved in 3D game design. Yesterday I spent a whole 10mins in front of World of Warcraft! And I’ve also managed to run around in other 3D game engines without too much nauseating pain. Yes, I too am impressed. I still don’t see the lure of wanting to spend every waking moment in a virtual world, but I am definitely in awe of the work involved in creating these worlds. Its a funny mentality to look beyond the ‘’socially inept nerd in a dark room” perception of video games and examine the art, concept, story, game play, modeling, textures, etc and be really wow’ed by it all.

In line with all this gaming I’ve been made to do, we went and played at ACMI, who sure knows how to put on an exhibition. Their current Game On Exhibit is brilliant. A history of video games presented through a collection of over 120 playable games! Ranging from the early classics like Pong, Space Invaders, right through to the modern day wizzbang of Wii, XBox & PS’s. Memory lane has never been so fun and pixilated! And getting my hands (or feet) on Tetris and DDR definitely made my day.

create, manipulate, innovate

I constantly have moments where I go ”wow! I can watch cartoons, play games, and surf the web and it counts as work!” That, I think, is really cool. But then some times when I’m thinking about the frames in an animation, the modeling in a game, the swf file on a website instead of just looking at it as entertainment I get a little annoyed.  I have so much more appreciation for animations, films, games, interactives and other creative media outlets. But it also does my head in to be living in constant amazement and awe of the possibilities and complexities, the vision and dedication, the ways to create, manipulate and innovate. 

Some cool links from the last few days:

• Very clever German caffeine drink ad 
• Funny IKEA ad
• Microsoft Seadragon - crazy stuff!! 
• ZPrinter 450 - coloured 3D printer