This is my first update since I started on [ Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep ?], having completed the main parts of the robot. At this stage I'm sure there will be plenty of changes coming along once I tried to setup the character. ie some parts just aren't so well fitted for animation rotations, etc.

I must admit that I find some of the winners of this year's Oscars to be well, rather unexpected, or even unjustly from my point of view. The biggest pang of indignation must come from the fact that LOTR won the award for best Cinematography, which I felt was handed out lacking in sense and astute choice. By and large, the movie is most deserving of some other awards, best costume and effects for that matter, but for cinematography ? I'm not saying that the photography in the movie sucked - but it seems manifestly clear that there are a few other more deserving and creative works in the arena for contention. Moulin Rouge, or Amelie ( which I liked immensely but is not the reason of my complains ) had devastatingly good cinematography. I'm pretty sure I am not the only person complaining...am I ?

For your ease of perusal for complains, check out : http://us.imdb.com/RTO/Oscars/

Okie...just let me elaborate a little on what i've read about Panic Room from the American Cinematographer. It tells the story of Meg Altman and her daughter Sarah. Meg has been recently divorced and both of them are looking for new life after the rather unsuccessful marriage. So they settle down in the big city and find a nice, cozy, perfect house. Upon inspection of the infrastructure of the house, Jodie Foster soon learns of a safe or "panic" room in the house that has video screens, buried phone line, ventilation system, and a 1 foot thick steel wall. Apparently, the room was specially built for emergency situations and the like to keep the occupants safe and to allow them to monitor the whole house. This is put to the ultimate test when a group of fool hardy and adamant intruders seek to infiltrate the room as mother and daughter engage them in a battle of wits and sheer determination to survive.

Must check out the trailer here : http://www.apple.com/trailers/columbia/panic_room/

Panic Room is gonna be great. Nope, not a ooo ooo show. Starring Jodie Foster.

looks like blaue reiter s longing to fly away, away fr our dreamless island :P *take a look at the new banner, nice* thus special song dedication: fly me to the moon (SIA Business Class Power Mix)
panic room sounds like some ghost movie ... issit? aha ... if only we all humanly beings can always prioritize so well ... we can all function effectively ... like a machine? hmmm ... i need to go bck to texturing instead of blogging here, damn.

instead of spending time on my 3d project i found myself wasting into the dead of the night revamping the layout of this blog ( as well as redesigning the top banner above ). heck...i don't think i know how to prioritize...
anyway, lots of movies coming up - the royal tenenbaums, Ali, time machine, iris. all which i'll be catching. recently i bought a copy of the american cinematographer and the cover review was on a new movie by David Fincher, titled panic room. very exciting.

Well...the camera I used for this picture isn't actually a lomo ( I don't think "you know where" would be using a lomo for work. they are basically against anything individual and creative. *in controlled tone* ) Anyway, its a relatively expensive Polaroid camera, a big sized one for that matter, that is used mainly for taking passport sized pictures ( ie the same kind of format that was seen in Amelie ). Right at "you know where" its used for...identification purposes. Shan't elaborate any further.

Hmm...as for Gatchaman's idea of taking photos for remembrance...i've been planning it all along ! I've already decided on the things I want to take - the long, long winding path that I have to walk every time I book into camp, ( where if i'm walking along at night I swear to you I can count a thousand stars in the sky, its that dark and quiet ) my standard army locker, and er...shan't elaborate any further. I hope they don't do a spotcheck the day I smuggle in a camera though...i be very very screwed...indeed

hey ur camp has got so much interesting things to photo manzz!! oopss ... i try lowering my volume ...
for the sake of art, risk it, after u ord, u publish somting like a photographic journal of 'life in you-know-where' ... maybe not in spore ... hahahhaha ...
rhume, definitely not lomo. hmmm ... while u considering hor ... they ve a 16 shot wan coming out liao ... hehehe ... ppl soon get bored of them, u noe ---toys they are!!!

Gallivanting ? Hee...wish I could Rhume...I think hiding is more apt a word to describe me now...

anyway, I've been Amelie-ed ! Took this picture in camp. *shh ! you didn't hear that ! *

[ copied from an identical post from Daydreamer blog ;) ]

I'm bored tonite...and broke...and yearning more strongly than ever to take a plunge into the sea, in my full getup of Mares Scuba!

I have been silent for too long....and suddenly tonite I found this old backup CD of mine containing the old stuffs I wrote...angsty and fiery that characterized my earlier styles.
Sigh....and pugnacious too... But it's been fun to re-read what my mind conjured in years long past (well, ok, so it's only like 4 years ago.) How I've changed since!
How life has shaped me, now beating me in, now moulding a new arm elsewhere. sigh...

Listening to: Hotel Costes: Costes La Suite. I can't stress enuff how ingenious this compilation is. It's a Dancing-trance inducer. I SWEAR!
reading: The Silmarillion. well, I lament that LOTR can't be infinite...but thank gawd they published this book and The Unfinished Tales...

I am gonna copy and paste this same post into Halcyon Realm now. ;)

blaue reiter, jus saw your photos of the old skool lab fr ben 's links ... hmmm ... it seems like just a while ago, doesnt it? the dayz of glueing to my seat infront of my computer tat dont belong to me ... hahahahaa ...

actaully there was this time i tot nyp ppl r really blessed instead, coz i heard the lecturers there all got such good profiles. alas! it s tat same old mentality: other ppl 's thing is always better, coz it aint mine!

wah, that's nice stuffs your lecturer is doing....u guys are truly blessed to have been under his tutelage. :)

Been checking out Ben's website and his treadmill robot is completed...i must say its really cool ! Seriously cool stuff. Who'd said robots are strict nonos in demo reels ?

http://www.rethinkfx.com/


Image copyright of old Ben.

nicely lit!

another update on memento. :) Added couple pieces of furniture, installed a toilet. Be texturing soon I think.

Okie...glamour and glitz aside...you folks might want to know who the heck's in for this year's Oscars...

http://us.imdb.com/RTO/Oscars/

Also...i've finally took the trouble to download this really interesting screensaver called seti@home...of which seti stands for THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE. pretty cool huh. Actually its been around for quite a while but i've never gotten down to getting it. Basically it works like a normal screensaver but underneath it utilizes your computer's net resources to analyze radio signals culled from the whole's single biggest satelite ( Arecibo ). Cool.

Makes me feel like a mini Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact. Wait till E.T calls.

pulse rate ............ normal
breathing ................. normal
yesh! blaue reiter still alive!
this shot and your description of her room & her art student bckgrd, reminds me of this work-in-progress short, summerbreeze in siggraph. too bad they dunnoe doing wat, until now oso neber ve new stuffs up online. if not can be reference for u, the images of interior shots of the room i saw in their presentation.
but honestly, i do identify with u on the character model & rigging ... quoting myself shamelessly again from my blog:
if modelling a character is boring, then rigging a character is even more boring.
---- a guy who keeps using 3D but finds it hard to love 3D

I'm alive ! I'm alive ! *gasps for breath* Yes...whilst i'm still having big problems with my characters...I decided to take a break ( and a long break at that ) and get some work done on Nadja's room. ( conveniently taking an easy way out of things for now ). Heck. At least my Max interface is finally seeing some action ok ?

Hello guys....me macham very long sibeh quiet liao....Ooops...pardon my very good english....used to typing liddat while playing games....all the guys tok the ARMY way...
wah kaus....now it's spilling over to my blogging...hmm. Not good at all..

Whoah ah rei. Not bad at all.

I'm so bored recently ! No shows to watch !!! Oh by the way, was at Cinefex website that day and saw that they are going make Astroboy.

http://www.cinefex.com/upcoming/films/astroboy.html

way to go! evil rei! u saw the new robbie williams mtv with nicole kidman? but seems to ve suffered some cuts in it though.

i m very sure my dreams arent jus black & white, at least the ones i remember. but too private & stoopid to disclose, sorry !! haha!!!

[ kaleidoscope dreams ]

Recently a close friend of my popped me a most intriguing and though-provoking question - Do we dream in colour, or black and white ? I believe for most people the immediate answer would be of course in colour, for that is how we percieve vision in our everyday lifes. But if you gave it alittle more thought and probe your memory - are you very sure it was in colour ? Bear in mind here that the actual dream is very different from the one that you're trying to reconstruct now as your try to visualize it, for your mind would be trying to rebuilt the bits together and your perception could inadvertently add in colours that did not exist in the original dream. How then, can one remember ? Certainly not when your are in the midst of your dream for one cannot be full conscious when that is happening.

Perhaps dreams aren't really in colour, or black and white, but existing on a higher plane of consciousness where colour would no longer be necessary to convey those images. Or maybe they are both in colour and black and white, or monochromatic, or any other colour that can be conjured up by our imagination, but which is longer clear to us once we open our eyes. I can't say for sure which. Unless of course, anyone were to tell me that they had a particularly reddish, or bluish dream yesterday. Keep dreaming and find out.

An interview with the director of Amelie, Jean Pierre Jeunet :

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/features/amelie/

With the recent screening of so many a good French movies ( Le Amelie, Le Pacte ), I have been wondering about the countless other foreign movies that we might be missing and not know about it ! That is a scary thought indeed. Having realized this, I did some checks on Alliance Francaise website and found out that we could have access to their library of books and movies if we are a member. Student membership rates are about 20 plus, but which i think we are no longer eligible for, normal rates would be about 80 dollars a year. Not too bad. Think I might join. Need to catch some other movies like Delicatessan, City of Lost Children, and also the recent Crimson Rivers, starring Vincent Cassel ( the one handed villain in Le Pacte ) and directed by Matthew Kassovitz. ( The fella who acted as Nino Quincampoix in Le Amelie ).

website : http://www.alliancefrancaise.org.sg