Announcement :

Akirastudio is now Halcyonwerks

I've been contemplating a revamp of my website for eons now, kicking in phase one for now ( heck, i make it sound like some HDB upgrading project ) The title akirastudio have been with me since the first days of my amateur web publishing days, dating back to my first singnet account when I was still in secondary 4. That's almost seven years ago ! Akira seemed like a most natural choice for a title, given my then euphorical and fervent admiration for the masterpiece. Although my respect for it have never dwindled the least bit, it probably been one most influential animation i'll ever watch, my webpage is no longer just a fanpage, and its only appropriate that the title now take a backseat. Akirastudio will now be housed under Halcyonwerks as an individual section by itself, all to be updated continually.

Go here to see the new index page for Halcyonwerks : http://www.notionwerks/akirastudio/halcyonwerks.htm

As for the new title Halyconwerks, the inspiration came in part with the design I had for Halcyon realms, my weblog. It falls back to the album design works for the ambient electronica group Chicane, which I like immensely. Its music is an enbodiment of speed, emancipation and peace.

hahaha ... lucky for me ... i oready gone thro much meditation before the show, & completely pyscho myself to ve as low expectation as possible ... minimum damage to my fragile & hopeful heart!

George Luca's lost it completely !! Just when I thought things couldn't be any worse than the Phantom Menace...they obviously can. Maybe its because the expectations are so sky high for epII to exceed its progeny...nontheless...i still found the whole show much of a disappointment. Probably THE most disappointing show this year so far.

what a beautiful review to a beautiful film (i can only assumed abt the film though, din see it)! blaue reiter u should be the one writing those reviews in straits times eheheh!

Time and again Korean films have swept me off my feet, engulfing me in megalomania, putting me back in love. The latest addition to the family is the movie "One Fine Spring Day".



I think my emotions are most easily roused, as far as movie watching is concerned. So if a laudable movie that is imbued with all the right qualities of beauty, subtlety and emotiveness comes my way, I will break down like melting ice awashed in sunlight. One Fine Spring Day are all these qualities and more. I saw it at the SIFF, and now as i listen to the music and the visuals, hauntingly beautiful and memorable, I cannot help but express my praise for this movie through this channel.

http://www.springday.co.kr/

This review explains most of the movie expressively -

http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/archives/nyaff02/finespringday.htm

The rest is watching it.

Texture tests.

As of today I have exactly 6 months to the day when I'll start clearing my ORD leave. While six months may sound like a relatively short time, it really isn't in terms of army time. My "old bird" army friends warned me of this pre-ORD paranoia syndrome, where one gets more and more disillusioned and bloodied eyed counting the days left as they seem to just stretch longer as it gets nearer. I think i'm still quite sane. Maybe in 3 months time.

Anyway, I wouldn't be around for a week or so, will be on my ORD range. Yes, the last range that i'll have to attend in my NSF life. Music to the ears ! By the end of this week i can kiss goodbye to my M16 and let it lie patiently in the armskote waiting for its next faithful owner to come.

Until next week.

okie then, sassy girl meets evil rei

Haha...Gatchaman...paiseh...because I promised my friends in the army to watch it with them...but I don't mind watching it again...

wah ... blaue reiter go see my sassy girl neber jiao!

My Sassy Girl ( Yeopgijeogin geunyeo ) stars the devastatingly beautiful girl Jeong Ji Hyun of Il Mare, which by and large is one of my favourite Korean movies of all time. By virtue of this alone I was bent on watching my Sassy Girl, and although it lacks the melancholic sentimentality of Il Mare, is still one heck of a funny and at times romantic movie.

The Korean word `Yupgi' means ''to be curious about and search for creepy and uncanny things or events.'' But it has become a most fashionable pop culture code word, meaning anything nonsensical and implying something creepy but cool and funny. It's become a buzzword in Korea in recent years, especially in cyberspace. Kim Ho-Sik's hit serial story on the Internet, [Yupgi Girl], surely played a critical role in spreading and wedging the word ``yupgi'' into the collective consciousness as the hippest culture code. Yupgi Girl, starring Cha Tae-Hyeon and Jeon Ji-Hyeon, is a film adaptation of Kim's Internet serial of the same title. The movie follows Kyon-wu (Cha's) narration, in which Jun Ji-Hyeon is called ``the girl.'' (This presumably lovely female principal, strangely, doesn't even have a name, although she is the person who commits herself to all those yupgi demeanors.) Kyon-wu saves a girl who was apparently about to be crushed by an oncoming subway train. What made that sleek girl with glowing long hair and white face almost throw her life away in front of a subway train? Alcohol. As a complement to for this yupgi girl who throws up, dead drunk, on the wig and then on the very bald head of an elderly man in the subway, who becomes angry, hits him with her fists and shouts abusive words at him, Kyon-wu is a light-as-air character who is ready to serve this too high- spirited but pretty girl. The lively, sprightly, refreshingly charming actors, Cha and Jun, are the reasons to go to see this film, which is full of light-hearted laughter for the first 100 minutes before jumping ahead three years into a farfetched leap of plot for the last 20 minutes.



Just to let you in a little on the details of this movie; many of the scenes, costumes, lines were borrowed heavily from a few other korean movies, Il Mare itself included, as sort of comedic parodies. If you pay close attention to what's actually happening throughout the movie, you'd be sure to spot one many spoofs, connections and hints that would allow you to better understand the somewhat ambiguous ending. There's a 2 disc dvd set on sale at dvdasian.com, which promises more secrets and easter eggs, and I'm going weak at the knees already.

The movie No Man's Land was a smorgasbord of various debatable issues and human emotions. At the height of the Bosnian war, Ciki, a Bosnian soldier, hides in a trench in No Man�s Land. Nino, a Serb, is wounded in the same trench, while Cera, a Bosnian soldier, lies unconscious on a spring mine. Both men attract the attention of their respective sides in an attempt to survive their predicament. Soon, the UN troops are called in... This movie is about the casualties of war, for right from the start of the show displays a massacre of troops as they battle at the bloody frontline. This movie is about satire, mocking the stiff and dogmatic bureaucracy of the UN as they stood and gaze in brazen shame as the wounded lay unaided. This movie is about deep poignancy, for as the last shot in the movie slowly tracks out you feel the disconcerting solitude and despair of the wounded as he lies helpless, bereft of any aid. To have envisioned all this ideas and presented them in such a witty, humourous and yet sad movie, I for once agree with the Oscar nomination panel that it truely deserves the award of best foreign film.



( apologies for those who haven't watched the film ) My favourite shot in the film must be where the Serbian commander decided that to "play safe", had the entire trench area bombarded by artillery and at this juncture, the two wounded soldiers taking cover in a shelter. The framing was such that each of them were leaning on either side of the entrance of the shelter and henced divided on the left and right of the screen, with the entrance in the middle of the shot and artillery bombing away ouside as they argued on the fault of the party who started the war first. I personally interpretated the framing of the shot with them been divided in the middle as the separation of the Serb and Bosnian people as war wages outside ( the artillery bombing ). Within, the conflict can only be solved by whoever possessing the weapon, as in the case of the Serbian soldier. Cool art direction and photography.

Today I went on a texture photo shoot. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I needed some worn out, dirty metal surfaces for my bot. Coincidentally there were some roadworks going on at the nearby x-junction near my house and parked in the middle of a grassfield was this wierdlooking, sorta tar laying contraption. No one seemed to be bothered with it, and I figured the folks that owned it realized no one would have the slightest interest in it too. It was worn with age and slick with oil stains, the yellow paint peeling off in many places. Perfect ! Actually its a little too dirty for my robot but i'm sure I could work that out in photoshop. So off I went taking shots of it, closeup, crouching as near as possible to get the best details. It so happened that lessons had just ended at the nearby school, and the students walking past looked at me as if I was a lunatic.

heehee .. i tink use the same motion file on my char b4 ... i recognised the end pose :P

Strictly Ballroom

Notionwerks is back ! I seem to be missing some email during the transitional period but I hope I didn't miss anything important...

Anyway...I have been doing the skeletal setup for my robot and its mostly done. To test the motion of the near completed bot, I loaded a motion file that came with max and off he went, dancing away. Its clear even with such a small render some many joints were off and there's tons of tweaking to be done. But it was fun ! :]



Click here for the movie file.

Well folks...I think Notionwerks.com will be down temporarily ( which accounts for the missing banners above...) ...apparently the network that hosts my brother's server swapped owners and there are some problems with the webserver. Hope they get it fixed pronto coz I can't check my mail !

yah lor ... very funny waterboy ... hey it did really worked very very well on blaue reiter ehhehe!

I just watched the Japanese show Waterboys today and I like it immensely ! Fantastically hilarious as it might be, I think it excels in been more than just a mere comedy show but something more - an uplifitng movie with the lightly stated lesson that through determination and perseverence, as well as creativity, innovation and the courage to challenge the norm, many seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcomed. All in all, it was just one heck of a funny and wacky show. I feel really fantastic and positive after watching it !

wat s the serial code or prototype name, like RX78 for gundam something like tat ehhehe ...
hey give him a laser blaster hahahah ... nah ... he s a book reading robot ...

Once again, I've been afflicted with the "there can never be too much detail" syndrome, finding it painstakingly difficult to stop delving into mindless tweaking and nuances in the modelling process. Old Ben's mantra of "God is in the details", some quote he passed to us eons ago keeps playing over and over in my brain. I've finally stopped for now, the model almost complete. Textures should be in soon. Now what I need to do is get out there and take some pictures of old, worn out metal parts.

ahaaaa .... our dreaming robot prototype 1 is out!!!

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.