A sweet new skill - Mosaic for censorship

This is a post that took too long to be shown to the world. But you know it was for a reason that i couldn't really post it up. But thanks to a new exploration and skill, i have finally been able to post up this classic moment from our trip to Taiwan.

I have always longed to know how to create mosaic pixels to censor certain part of videos. Today was the day that i have satisfied my desire to learn this thing.

The story is that Regina had accidentally bumped into some porn on her hotel TV set. That conversation was soon forgotten and a similar classic scenario was captured during a get together in the room the following night.

It was to our understanding that most Taiwanese Hotels offer adult channels in their room television set and that most cases start from channel 14 and above.

I love Taiwan more than ever.

Location Recce! - Hunt For The Sweet Spot(s)

Location Recce Video - 7th Jul 2008 @ Haw Par Villa

*NEW*Location Recce Video Part 2 - Haji Lane + Arab St. + SAM


As some of you might have already accidentally been told, i have plans to execute a top secret out-of-my-mind-crazy-fun-filled video project. I have yet to finalise the whole idea and will plan to reveal the truth in a bit.

Prior to the planning of this project i have decided to do a series of location recce (scouting) for potential places that i could use. I think this is important as it will churn out inspiration and the motivation to proceed on to other stages of conceptualizations.

For my first recce, i am happy to have Jo (FB-TV's pioneer) and Leong (my soul brotha no.1) to follow me and make things alot more interesting. Jo played host to my recce video for Haw Par Villa. Said the most random things ever.

For my recces so far, i have visited : Haw Par Villa, Haji Lane, Arab Street, Singapore Arts Museum, Red Dot Design Museum, Duxton Road & various spots in Yishun.

Here are my findings so far......

HAW PAR VILLA





HAJI LANE + ARAB STREET





SINGAPORE ARTS MUSUEM



RED DOT DESIGN MUSUEM



VARIOUS SPOTS IN YISHUN



That was pretty much was everything that i have explored to far. The frames that you see here are screen shots of what my camcorder has captured, so all these were experimentations and a preview of the various compositions that i can achieve from these locations.

So far my reflections of Haw Par Villa is that it's a very 'ching chong' setting which stands out from the rest that i have seen. Good for an out of this world project. The whole 'contrast' and 'loudness' effects i would say came from red dot musuem because of the redness. The rest of the stuffs from Yishun and Haji Lane were basically more of the grungy/street/urban artsy feel. What i need now is locations with high populated density, more modernised and colourful places. Wish me luck in sourcing for good places.

If you think you have great locations to recommend, feel free to tag. Would very much appreciate your help!

Interview Tryout - Ben From O School

One of the very first things that i did right after my internship at Wormwood Films was to have my hand at an interview shoot; to experiment and explore the idea behind good interviews and what to expect when shooting a subject. I must say i had fun doing this one.

To help me out for this shoot is the very generous Ben Koh aka PSYK from O School. I figured he would be an interesting and suitable candidate for me to do this shoot on since he is well known and i'm sure many people are dying to know more about this cool cat. Thanks Ben!

I also took the chance to experiment and use for the first time a set of Wireless Transmitter + Microphone for this shoot. Allows for much superior and clear sound. However during the playback there were a little bit of wheezing sounds but i'm sure this is due to the camera's head.

After reviewing the shots, i questioned myself on what would make a better interview clip than this. Of course at this point, i hope my next shoot will have more engaging questions, content that people can grasp easily, more flexible shots of the subject, more visuals and cutting the sound-bites more straight to the point. 

This video is supposedly meant to be published on Singapore Got Dance. But i know this will aid me more on similar FB-Related clips and thus this acts as a benchmark starting guide for my future shoots. As of now we have to get through some clearences before publishing the final cut on Singapore Got Dance. 

Check http://singaporegotdance.blogspot.com

Stupid Stopmotion Experiment - Ian & David

So my comeback move was to experiment of a few other possible tricks that might be useful in further stages of my project. Here is a put together of a bunch of old stuffs from back in the day when David and i was till doing our Final Year Project at that lab. Enjoy!

Hang in there! FB-TV will be back soon.

For all you people who have been checking in every now and then i appreciate your interest and i am happy to say that, will the coming end of my internship at Wormwood Films by end june, i will be able to resume on my long paused FB-TV project. This time with better planning and more knowledge and hopefully more interesting content on its way. Stay tuned as FB-TV will be back in action in July!

Also, added a picture above to act as a teaser to hint you of a few possible new toys and weapons that i will be back with to continue on with my project. Would you just take a look and compare that baby with the older picture on the right of this screen? Now thats a huge differnce... literally.

Chunky Goes To Work

Hey guys, im sure many of you have been wondering why haven't i been updating my project and many of you have been pondering about the progress. Well the truth was that i have decided to volunteer myself as an working intern to a film production company. The reason why i wanted to do this was to expose myself to the production and post production process in the film industry. I wanted to see how things work from the business aspect to the filming and production all the was to the editing and final deliverable. I was thinking prior to being exposed to the life in this line, i would have a better understanding about what i should be working towards in my 'School Of Groove' project. It's all for knowledge baby! Thus, Chunky has gone to work!


Wormwood Films (previously known as Embassy) is a company that specialises in producing corporate videos, event videos, TV ads and such. Their portfolio is impressive and very experienced in this line. Wormwood is a small company that is located in an old walk-up apartment at Gilstead Road. I found it to be pretty interesting as we rarely get in touch with old buildings like this. Windy and peaceful and has nice smell of grass.


So far throughout my internship i have had the chance to learn the A - Zs of administrative work, from banking cheques to making calls to the big shots of the business. And even watering my boss's plants. To help me with this is a colleaque that works just over a meter beside me, Qiao Juan. She supervises the work i do and schools me with what i should do in my line of work.


So far one of the things i enjoy is going out on shoots. I am training to be what they call a P.A or Production Assistant. I basically help around in the shoots and making sure that the filming is kept on schedule and the things are running in the right order. A producer's right hand man. It is always interesting to see the project piece together from the works of the camera crew all the way to the post production editing. Learnt alot about what the outdoor shooting scenario demands and got to be in touch with more gadgets and appliances. I am so far liking what i am going through. Chunky is enlightened.

'Street' Dancing Outdoor Style @ Vivocity

Alex aka Poppin' AC getting down with some tight Popping.

I know i haven't been updating for a while because i have been busy with all my graduation shit. The school is done grading this project and now it will be carried out as a personal project from this time on. No more supervision and so, i am alone now.

Today, i spent a day chillin with my FB brothers and sisters when we chanced upon this really cool rooftop hangout located at Vivocity. The night wind was nice and it really was a sign of a great get-down time. And so we did. Future FB member and new freshie Alex aka Poppin AC is one of them guys who really rose to the occasion. Check him out. Someday he is going to be one of Singapore's finest poppers. He is just 16.

David Lee aka Stickman is feeling the new school groove.

Well. Alex wasnt the only one who was feeling the dance that night. David got up the platform and did his thing too. Need no more write-up on this one. His stuff can tell you everything!

I will be planning to include a chapter about an MTV of us and others dancing in the streets. These footages today could very well be the starting of a series of outdoor shoots! Watch this space!

FB In Action! Segment

This will be the first segment in the lineup of the DVD programme. This segment introduces Foreign Bodies as a tertiary dance club based in Nanyang Polytechnic. It also showcases snips of performances that were done over the years. Basically this part was to kick start things and hopefully display the club as a very performance oriented club.

Like they said, music inspires many things. When skimming through the music that i have chosen for this clip, there was this one part at 21 secs that has this dreamy sound effect at the music background. This part of the music gave me an imagination of clouds skimming by over the buildings of NYP. Thus i hesitated no further and ran out of my lab to get the shot.

That Cloud Effects Thing

I found this to be pretty interesting because many people have no idea that cloud patterns could be this beautiful when we see the world at speed. I took me a whooping 30 minutes under the sun to capture this shot. I feel bad for my camera who had to take a sunbath. Had a good chat with tyron while the tape was rolling on this one. Beautiful.

After Grunge-ness, comes the DVD Cover Draft!

Click here for an enlarged version

Here is my first try in trying to churn out a possible feel for the DVD cover design. As the name of the project is still pending, i simply just used the 'School Of Groove' tag as a tentative title for now. Notice my use of colours in an attempt to generate a some energy out of the composition. The silhouettes are taken from a FB photoshoot taken 2 years back. I composite the silhouettes to form a very crowded feel as FB is in fact one big happy family anyway.





The prototype fits the casing just right but the tips were a little bit running off the cover. I generally like the feel of it. And i will continue to work on it within the next few days.

People. I need help with the name of the DVD. Its Urgent!

Grunge Is The Answer - FB Tees Print Treatment.

Though this may not be a video related post. I still feel it all connects as branding is something that joins all aspects of things related to a club together. A change in style of print and logo will definately affect the project. As i have also been behind the design of the deep-traditioned FB Tees, i felt it was my responsibility towards to club to 'pimp' the new designs to suit today's style.

In my opinion, grunge is the answer. People have been telling me that they like the format and the text of the shirt. It works. But it is somehow 'too clean'. For more of the 'street' feel, i added scratch textures and paint marks for a manipulation of a paint work or a stencil worked against a rough surface.

This is not the final design. This is just an experiment.

Old design

As you can see from the past design, the bottom reads 'Hip-Hop, Street & Pop'. Due to a little lack of education in the past, we did not realise that Hip-hop culture and Street Dance culture is pretty differnt. By mentioning hip-hop & street seperately might also mean differnt things out of dance. The whole presence of the 'Pop' word is pretty subjective. Some object to say that we do pop dance. Others might mistake it for 'popping'. Thus the new footer 'Nanyang Polytechnic Street Dance Club' pretty much sums up all that we do. As Hip-Hop dance, Funkstyles, House and such is under the umbrella of Street Dance.



Did some colour trial tests for schemes that we do not already have. Here are what's feeling me tonight.

Past Colours

The first sets ever produced came in red based shirts with white print. (2005 - 2006)

Seen here is the white based & black print version (2005-2006) and the black based & green print (2007 - 2008) version.

The black based & white print FB-TV special (2007 - 2008) and white based & purple print (2007-2008) versions.

These sets are said to be the nicest produced. The black based & orange print (2006-2007) versions.

The highly subjective brown based & white print (2006-2007) version.

A Sweet Rhyme - Rap by 'Flow'

A really sweet rhyme by a former member, Prasad aka Flow. Was pretty impressed by how well he could spit out rhymes on the spot. This was shot during the Club Crawl CCA Orientation 2007.

Yo! Foreign Bodies got the moves so slick,
you gotta move it right, we aint sayin' no nothin'.
We gonna flow like the sea.
People wanna follow me.
But you're never gonna be there, this's how it's gotta be.
Foreign Bodies, you gonna shake your body,
we'll get it right naughty, yo!
The video is gonna get it right.
It's like MC's they gonna say' 'Wassup! aite!'
I aint messin with you now.
Foreign Bodies Night!
..
..
That's what we are..

Felt some sentences in the lyrics describe us pretty nicely. Especially ' We gonna flow like the sea, people wanna follow me '. Heads up to Prasad.

Outtakes - The Victory Feeling : Trademark's Funkamania 08 Win

More recently was a proud and historical moment for FB as our team, Trademark has clinched the Champions in the prestigious Funkamania 2008. It was a moment of surprise and rejoice for the team and the whole club. I thought it would be nice to include a segment that could relive the cheers and hysterical cries of joy. The above segment was displayed just that. Well done Trademarks. A proud product.

The Treated DanceAlive! Musical Segment (draft)

After combining the outtakes and a few key shots and interview, i managed to achieve this composition to almost make up a whole chapter to summarize DanceAlive 2007. It was very tricky to choose which shots to place and which to discard. It was a pity i could not put many other shots into the timeline due to time constraint and also because many of them doesn't seem to 'belong'.

More write-ups pending regarding this post. Watch this space.

Motion Typeface - Names

The hovering typeface idea was chosen so as to add a more visual appealing element towards the interviewees. It's a style i plan to adopt for the whole project.


The above green dots are motion keyframes which signify the points of which the text will move/hover from one point to another. Each point closely follows where ever the human head is and thus the text will look like it is 'following' the person being interviewed. The keyframes are marked within every moving frame within that footage so that it follows accurately.


Using Apple Motion - DanceAlive Title

This spark effect was done using Apple Motion and acts as a highlight and a backing for the text above it. The text was animated in Apple Livetype which was later incorporated after compositing the spark effect onto the footage.


The interface of Apple Motion. The footage is later composited below the spark effect and then later sent back to Final Cut Pro timeline. It was my first time experimenting with Apple motion and it was nice to know how convenient it was that the Final Cut Studio softwares work seamlessly with each other. Sweet stuff.

Random DanceAlive! Musical Outtakes (With bad sound quality)

Here are a bunch of scenes that i have chosen out of the library to be potential shots for a little montage on the DanceAlive! Musical segment. I put them together so as to try to identify a feel and generate possible ideas.

Not alot of shooting have been done during this Musical thus it will be a tricky part to do.

DanceAlive! Musical Performance Cut

Here is the performance cut of the Lyrical Hip-Hop & Funk routines that i plan to include right after the Musical Segment of the project. It is not the full routine for each clip as i only decided to showcase the better part of each performance.

I chose the singing part of the Lyrical item even though there was minimal dancing because of the different vibe of of performance coming from this piece. We have never seen ourselves dancing to this kind of tune and doing jazz steps. It was also unique to be able to dance behind a singer, thus i thought that choosing that part of the lyrical hip-hop item would showcase a different side of FB.

I also chose 'Main Vein' part of the Funk item because it was the part the fuses Locking & Popping together. I somehow felt that the part of the dance looks harmonious despite differnt styles, different steps and different costumes.

Excerpts taken from official DVD copies of DanceAlive! 2007.

Credits:

Lyrical Hip-Hop
Choreographer : Ryan Tan (O-School)
Singer : Izyan
Actress : Rene Tan

Funk
Choreographers :
Locking - Ian Poh aka Chunky (Fbodz)
Popping - Ben Koh aka Psyk (O-School)

New Locking Demo For Style Talk - Locking

Here is a demonstration of a Locking routine that i plan to include right after the commentary. This will give the user a view on how the style is like during a performance. This is a recent show during the NYP open house. The response for the show was quite good. Thus encouraged me further into putting this up.

Style Talk - Locking (Updated)

Based on Miss Irene Lim's last feedback on this segment, she commented that my commentary and documentary should include:

1. More visuals to support the commentary
- Thus i have to find and source for more authentic historical clips to support my whole chunk of content for the whole talk on the history of locking.
- More visuals of fbodz people in action

2. More close ups
- more close up shots of dancing. duh

Thus added heavily on that portion and thanks to Gemini for the footages.

I wanted very much this segment to be a understanding/learning point for the viewers. In a way that they can understand the style. If you have noticed i did not go very detailed into explaining the dance and i avoided alot of topics because as Miss Irene Lim mentioned, audience attention is important. Thus i figured they just have to absorb what they want to know.

A New Intro Is Born!

On my last meeting with Miss Irene Lim, my supervisor, she feed backed to me that my original Intro segment (containing shoutouts from across the globe) wouldn't appeal too much to general audience. Reason being that the layman will not be able to understand and absorb the content. She has suggested that the starting should be impactful so as to capture the attention of the general viewer.

Hence i considered her comments heavily and drafted out a new arrangement of the intro using previously used footage. The treatment and the feel is now different.

In order to achieve a more 'grungy' style.. i designed a few borders and splats that might help to make the shots look more 'street'.

Mike Test Mike TEst 1 2 3

Please forgive my efficiency in mandarin. I know i shame my own people. But the whole session of this is actually to test out the sound quality of an extended mike that is connected to my camcorder. Right now i can interview people and have better sound at a further distance from the camera yay! No more In-Your-Face interviews!

Big thanks to Jasmine Yap for helping with the filming...tolerating the crap...for not laughing although you should have..and walking backwards to make this session a possible (waste of your time).

A Style Direction Is Set (Almost) - Locking Segment

This draft is displays the desired style direction that i want to follow for the Locking Segment of the project. As you can see i have adopted an 'Old Film' effect on a majority of the clips. This is because the 'Locking' style of dance being an
'Old-School' style, bears a pretty suitable relationship with this effect.

The shoots for this segment of the project have not been taken yet. thus, the parts where you see my happy face talking are just dummy segments to give you an idea of what and how i plan to do up the composition.

In case you were wondering...

Some folks have seen me walking (or trekking) to school and noticed how hugesified my bag is. Many have asked... "ian, just what the hell is in that thing?"

Im here to tell you what. Just click on the picture if you really want to know. It's nothing big though, but try carrying a load of this day in and out. You'd find out where i got my hunched back from!



1.Thinking Hat - My favourtie Derby hat. I use this whenever i am out of ideas. Automatically generates ideas once on my head.
2.Towel - For wiping all that sweat from trekking in and out from school.
3.Belt - I never know when my pants will fall.
4.Hard Drive - Is not so hard after all.
5.DVDs - My meal of inspiration. I laugh at how bad japanese dubbed music is.
6.Camcorder - My 3rd eye. Without this...no project....no project...still will have this.
7.iPod - My mojo, from working to taking a crap, i always need this thing to sing to my ears.
8.iPod Sock - You wear socks on your feet. Right? So does my iPod.
9.Camcorder Adapter - I just bring them anyway.

Eating some 'inspiration' for lunch & dinner.

courtesy to Jun Kai who painstakingly bought these off the net and David for actually handing them to me after watching. Viewed the whole load of these Dance DVDs to gain some inspiration for my project. Viewed chapters over and over again to watch how content is being flowed and also how some visuals are done. Great stuff, Great Stuff!

Interview Outtakes

here is an outtakes put together of interviews that was done today. 4 members were unfortunate enough to have came across my path and thus i sat them down for a chat. Two questions were asked:

1.What are some of the Stereotypes about dancers these days
&
2.What is Foreign Bodies to you.

The clip's audio and video does not sync! DAMN!

Busy Busy Busy

Spend a load of time reviewing my shots taken over the pass few days. I can now still hear the screeching sound of tape rewinding and the smell of the inner films as i type. I wonder how many more of these days will i accumulate by the end of this whole project



But anyway i have put together a compilation of Locking routines and outtakes to form a sweet montage. Tried the frames and they work out fine. The hightlight for this was the sound. The music was dubbed using Soundtrack Pro thus making the audio original! Doesn't sound as funky as i imagined but i guess it still works.


Ya Wen fell splat asleep. I think it was beautiful. I feel good cos it reminds me of my stamina. *lifts head high*

Some Cool Outtakes

Spent a day with the group asking questions to random people and interviewing random questions. Also took the time to sit in during the practises and had the chance to capture some shots which i think would be useful. Thanks to An An from O School for allowing the take. Props to her. Great stuff!

Knowledge is power.

Swallowed a chunk of the book for some editing knowledge. Pretty heavy content and was deeeep. I feel enlightened now.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto! - Starting Watermark Drafts.

Draft of how the starting composition will look like for the FB TV logo. The robot toy was chosen because dancers can relate to it as a visual metaphor for the literal 'Robot Dance'. It's entrance will make an impact.


took some pictures of the desired composition with my digicam and composed a graphical storyboard for me to reference.



I was taking a stroll down Bugis Village when i chanced upon this really cool robot toy. Fell in love with it instantly. I thought alot about what i could do with this sweet thing and an idea struck me pretty hard. I thought i had to get home to try that out. I was thinking if the Robot could play a 'mascot' role in the DVD arrangements. Thus i explored how this toy works... how it's movements and sounds could relate to dance in a certain way.



Thus i set up a white screen using cheap drawing blocks. And positioned my camera to capture certain movements of the robot toy. It was so much fun. Ideas were generated instantly. I then imported the shots to Final Cut Pro and started my fun with the footages.



I also took the chance to try out the shots and the completed composition on a standard 4:3 tv. Transfered the finished work to my camcorder and then played it back on my TV. Looks all sweet to me!

Editing Starts! - NYP Musical 2007

Some work done. Xiao Xian's + Pheobe's Interview.

Starting putting together some clips for the Musical Chapter of the DVD. This chapter is planned for 7 minutes with out-takes and interviews. As you can see i have experimented with the grunge styled border as i have showned you from the previous post. It has been applied for Pheobe's interview at the back of the clip. Audio and Video does not sync in this embedded video

Let The Games Begin!

Took the chance to view a huge load of tutorial videos which i have grabed off Youtube. Mostly DVD Studio Pro tutorials. Haven always been curious on how to bring over the timeline from Final Cut to DVD studio pro with Markers acting as DVD chapters.



Also took the time to experiment with some styling of the video treatment. As the above shows, i was trying to desgin a stylised border around the video frame. cool huh?!

A Teaser for you!

Here is the teaser prepared to get people knowing of the project. This is planned to be the first thing shown when the DVD is played. Shoutouts to Foreign Bodies from the rest of the world. Big names in the Hip-Hop scene!