the wacky wombat weblog

This is actually kinda old news. Deadline for the video and report was last Thursday night, but I guess the event is worth a belated news update. :p

After labouring for 9 months, it’s finally done. phew! It’s the first time I actually shot anything I wrote, so yeah, it was a pretty interesting experience. The night before our shoots I’d be freaking out on the details, trying to go through storyboard in my head till I actually dreamed about the shoots. But the next day I wake up and it’s go go go! haha.

Glad it’s finally over. No more editing and watching the video a zillion times (although I still have to go back and design the dvd menus). But the work is done. Finally can take a rest, do homework, not skip classes and edit on weekends. yay! And watch more TV! And start having time to exercise!

Can’t wait to screen our short film. Still working out the schedule with organisers, so hopefully it’ll be good!

And thank goodness that the grant from Singapore Film Commission came through! Don’t think we can just rely on the school’s 200 bucks since our production cost already went into the thousands. But with the grant, at least we don’t have to empty our own pockets.

I guess producing this short film on our own has been quite an amazing experience. I mean, I really did learn a lot of stuff on the way (since they never really teach us much in school), and in the end, it does give me a little confidence in knowing that hey, we can actually manage to produce something that isn’t all too bad! Whether it’s good or not, I don’t know yet. Pray the project moderators won’t tear it to bits during our upcoming presentation lol.

Just finished my term paper for my Asian film module — last academic paper to write, ever! yay! So now it’s time for a well-deserved break. I’m going home tomorrow for a long weekend holiday!

I realise nothing can be better than a hot hot shower and a nice scrub after a long hard day of shooting. Plus a good bed later of course! It’ll be even better if I had a foot scrub and massage. ahhh. But it’s ok.

Today was the first day of my short-film shoot for my group’s final year project. So stressful, because it was a shoot at the MRT station in land of ulu-ness Buangkok, and we only had 6 hours to finish everything.

As usual with every few of our shoots, some technical issue will crop up, and no one will be able to fix it, even if we called the school, which we did. So, we went ahead anyway despite the picture not being exactly what we wanted, because we only had this one chance today at the MRT.

So basically it was just us 4 girls running around with our camera equipment, hoping on and off trains, pointing camera everywhere, drawing stares from everyone, and attracted some kids to come inspect further. >.<

Sigh, we barely managed to finish everything. But thank god we did, albeit having to do with just 1 takes for many shots. Although the very pretty opening sequence will probably have to be dumped cos it only looked pretty in my mind but not in real life when it didn’t work out on camera. Argh! Heartache. But ok, I’ll leave that to worry in post-production.

I think the most heartaching thing, is to know of all the creative possibilities that you can have with your mind, but you’re just restricted by money by equipment by skills. OK, correction, basically it’s just by money. Money means we can rent better and lighter cameras (not bulky ancient non-industry-practice D9s, tho’ it does look good). Money means we can hire people to work for us and get tons of extras and PAs and professional crew (not just 4 of us scramble here and there).

I was just watching Studio 60, and I’m like, if only we have money! We could have proper set design, wardrobe, proper lighting, great cameras, use tracks, steadycams and omg cranes! And everyone will fall over themselves to agree to let us use their place to shoot and what not. haha ok maybe not that. But yeah, they’re Hollywood and I’m a pathetic zero-budget student production on 20-year-old technology and only 4 pair of hands.

Nonetheless, stress aside, it was kinda exciting. And damn scary at the same time. Ugh. That’s why I like and hate production. Why didn’t I just go and be a journalist? But I guess I’m not that type of intellectual.

Anyways, shoot continues again on Saturday, and it’s gonna be a marathon all the way till next Thurs. Hopefully it’ll be a wrap by then (stretching it any longer means saying sayonara to more of our precious moolah). Pray everything goes well, and pray someone decides to sponsor us 3k! haha. Anyone out there know anyone with money to spare for a group of budding filmmakers? hehe.

Tomorrow we’ll be dressing our next set (and also, I suspect, the crew’s ‘home’ for the next few days). Meanwhile, I’m just gonna go clear out my brain a bit before populating it with a new list of to-dos and shot list and etc tomorrow.  Wish me luck for the week!

urgh. I hate exams. Mainly because the exam halls = freezers, and that makes my fingers feel frozen, especially after having to scribble 10 pages at high speed. It’s so uncomfortable, and so exams should be done away with. heh. Plus the usual argument that 2 hours is not a good gauge of your knowledge blahblahblah…
Exams again today. Will be wrestling with dead philosophers on ethical issues and deciphering vague media laws to see if someone has broken it. yeah. woohoo, loads of fun. -_-

On the up side, Video2 has long since been over (since Monday). YAY! Horsie project is done. They look pretty on TV haha. So now I can stop dreaming about the horses or the place every few days. Drove me nuts. Bad enough that I need to watch it 100times over during editing everyday, but to see it again in my dreams?! I’m supposed to be resting, damnit! Somehow I got a feeling fyp could mean worse is yet to come, in dreamland. hah.

okay, enough rambling. Time to head to school and pick some other good brains for knowledge, i.e. group study. LOL.

Just came back from a location recee for my next short-documentary project. And it was a nice lil’ afternoon with the horsies at the RDA (they’re an organisation that uses horses and ponies to provide therapeutic horseback riding to the disabled people for free)

I’ve always liked horses since I was little. Watched too much TV and cartoons with magnificent horses trotting and galloping around I suppose. :p

So beautiful, right?

It’ll be a busy Tuesday next week when we go on the shoot. Hopefully everything goes well. Production excites and freaks me out at the same time. I’m just paradoxical. 0_o

Suddenly I’m beginning to feel the pressure of school again.

Last few weeks have really been ladida for me. After 6 months of cheap labouring (in the name of gaining experience), and 2 months of just generally lounging and loafing around in Tokyo and KL, I never really got back into the rhythm of school, or even feel the least stress. Probably ‘cos a 3-day school week allows me more time to shop, sleep, AND loaf around even more. hehe…

But now suddenly there’s a lot more to do. Final year project is slowly picking up speed. Story treatment must be done soon — my poor future short film has only a beginning and an ending, and everything in between is well, unknown for now. eecks. Any takers out there to become my muse(s) for some inspiration and ideas? :p

As for today’s studio session, overwhelmed and confused are the words I have for this class’ project. So rusty from not having done directing in eons. >.<

So I gotta have a nice little chat with my brains and tell it to wake up. Somehow it's only at its most alert during makan and shopping times. hmm...

Also on my to-do list: media law readings, french homework (oui oui), finish setting up this blog, do my laundry, clean my room, shopping, *cough* return to jogging routine. Lots to do!

p/s: Am really happy that I finally remembered to bring my posters back from KL and mount it up on my room. Now I have Pulp Fiction and Fight Club on my walls.