Aqilah (original take)

This was the original song recording. I planned to use it in its raw form but Jakin volunteered to retake the main parts.

Barb Wire

Previous post: so apt to how I was feeling.

As the holiudays being to shorten, I was like counting down, as if doomsday was looming. To hand in media art.
Thank God the dateline was extended 7 days. Yay Mr Toh! (bows reverently)

I was really going in circles about my ideas and what to make a video of. Then it just hit me, if you were once so enthusiatic about the project with the first idea, why not just stick to it? Duhh! So I present to you my (unexciting) theme: memories.

So now I'm just gonna work with what I have. Siighh

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me? (Yes!)

Nowhere Man please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man,the world is at your command!

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

Nowhere Man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all till somebody else
lends you a hand!

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere Man please listen,
you don't know what you're missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

He's a real Nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody!

April Come She Will

Yesterday I was addicted to TED.com, clicking on vids and listening to people talk while I painted my shirt.
I don't know how many I listened to, and for once I'm not gonna count (I usually like to keep record of things. Like how many times I ordered pizza in June).

Majority were interesting. Steve Jobs told his life story very very well (he's one of those great people I meant to do research on. thank God it was made easy into a video and can be found on youtube.)
Then there was this super interesting one on spaghetti sauce.
And others on light-hearted subjects like '5 dangerous things you should let your kids do' or 'games for girls' or 'wearing nothing new' (bubbly designer Jessi Arrington).
Finally, I rewatched the first TED video I saw in year one, School Kills Creativity, Ken Robinson. It's really cool to finally understand what he's talking about cuz I rmb back then I thought it was deeply academic, but actually he was really funny.

Can't help it. I MUST make a list of what I clicked on:

Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy
Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas (found this sucky)
Brenda Laurel on games for girls
Gever Tulley 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new
Joseph Pine on what consumers want  (bleah)
Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce  (way more successful in conveying the above message)
Seth Godin on standing out  (obvious..)
Yves Behar on designing objects that tell stories
Jacek Utko designs to save newspapers
James Surowiecki: When social media became news  (for arc)

ew. get a life

Carl, The Rottweiler

Ideas/thoughts I usually ponder about:
What value is there to what I say? Why do I bother blogging, it just takes up more Internet space.
(Ooh another idea > finding the limits of the Internet akins to measuring the area of the universe. Nyeah not new.)
 
Altruism (selfless concern for the welfare of others). I have a very bad habit of scrutinizing other's altruistic behaviour (very very bad judgemental habit).

How on earth can I portray these themes?? (I'm ok with concept, medium, but no idea on the steps and process of executing it out. Simple methods are definitely called for).

My mum came back from the library and brought back children's books. And she handed me my all-time favourite: "You're A Good Dog, Carl" !! I love Carl! My all-time favourite dog, rottweiler.
Captures so much in just images. Memories and the trust-bond between dog and child.
Illustrations a hit too.

I have these!! Hardcover, in miniature pocket-sized books

Sho cute together.
 

I guess it's pretty exciting to have a teacher read my blog. Dylan is struggling with the fact that it is not easy to think simply. Sigh

Keith Haring
Siggi Eggertsson
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
Yoko Ono
The Game -Lee Lip Jiang.
Guernica.
7 mins of permutations (yuck)
Circus Posters

Spent the morn reading from my Beatles book about the stories behind their songs.
Such brilliant artists everywhere.
Brought my com out into the living room and found net connection. Then went on fb (havent in a awhile) and Lip's album The Game came up. Holy maccaroni. He's so talented and creative, it makes you feel jelly but inspired to do something brilliant like that.

See. It's so SIMPLE. His ideas are so simple and it's universal cuz everyone can understand and relate to it. I bet all his fb friends and everyone in sota saw it.
 How can I make impact like that? Is it possible for my ideas to be really original? Something no one has thought up before? Maybe, most likely someone who has walked the face of this earth has. But that idea has never been executed it out. Yet. And as artists, it's our job to execute it and present it to the world. 'Kay maybe not 'the world', but at least to your social circle. To people whose lives you are already impacting. Is that not enough?

In order to create some focus in my work, I have to think (which I have for the past month D:-).
What do I want to say? What concerns me most? Enough that I want to bring more awareness to it?

Ideas/thoughts that I usually ponder about:
What impact can I make on in this world?
How far can my ideas get across?
Can I ever be as great as Steve Jobs or The Beatles? (thinking too competitively here)
Why do I ever dream of making up stuff like them? (the reassurance of being able to make a living, come up with stuff that people can admire, like and get influenced by, making a difference, a change, thats what its always about isnt it.)

Gonna continue in another post cuz after managing several blogs and writings, long posts are not ideal :/

A New Hope (Epsd IV!)

Just what I needed! An extra pair of hands!
Why didn't I think of it before??
It'll make the project less tedious, slow, and more fun. Yay

Just when I felt really stressed about not getting anything done.., a friend offered to help with my stuff.

First, I need to know what I'm gonna do >:|

Draft of ideas (finally)
Some out door scenes at night (haha. like raiding a 7 eleven).
Was hoping I could film at places like on a rooftop, or the scape park.
Cool activities (Like a car roof picnic.)

A thing with bicycles
Video a bike going over a series of items on the ground (credit Jakin).
A tour of some places
Place cam on a part/different parts of the bike that records interesting parts

Effects that I have
FISH EYE lens
A bunch of things final cut can do.
Hope there's time

Side dishideas
skateboard
washing machine
a blinking eye
vitamins
coke

Latest
Something got to do with some vintage film cams.
I'm sure I can do something with them.

Audio
Luna inspired RCP (Random Chord Progression)….
The Remedy inspired RCP…
Dramatic movie soundtrack RCP…
Stampede? I got the whole riff and song going..
Create something funk & jazz!
Classical plucking.
Experimentals. (steel slider)
Additional : drums. piano effects. bass. en lins pedal

Must keep in mind that some of these will probably end up not possible to film.
Thats why I hope to think of some simple back up stuff I can use. Maybe an animation. (not exactly my favourite thing to do..)

I dont wanna clog up my head with too many cool things from youtube. Major dizz spell.But if it happens, tune in to some cooling jazz.

Demoralised (not a song title)

Yep, I'm demolarised. (doing chem now)
Spent a whole day of cycling round with a tripod & camera strapped to my waist using green rafia string. Didn't get anything.
Took really little cuz it took me awhile to get the cam strght, ..but I didn't adjust it enough so as to not show the bicycle handles..yea so I practically have no film to use.
AND THERES ONLY A WEEK LEFT.

Sunlight was streaming in on and off, making it a really nice afternoon...but there was a crazy amount of cars and people going around. Frustrating. Plus timing's never always on your side so I lost a few good moments.
Such as the time my friend was cycling towards a very big cloud of smoke. He said, "Take a picture! This looks cool!" But I couldn't cause I didn't bring my camera :(

IS THIS THE KIND OF HARDSHIP YOU WANT TO PUT US THROUGH MR TOH???

But I'm glad the day wasnt a complete waste cuz I had fun with my friends. Cycling round university road to orchard. And back. Then my friend suggested a new way of attaching the camera to the bike. Then my other friend also suggested attaching a bunch of cameras to dif parts of the bike and record what each part gets. (thats experimental!) So I guess I'll have to try it again someother time.

I just have to rmb that I shouldnt have to try too hard or wrack my brains. My motto is THINK SIMPLY and maybe I'll get rto make a cool vid like below.

Whoa!

Compressed 02 from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.


Compressed 02, by Kim Pimmel.
time-lapse techniques.
ferrofluid and dye
the liquid races among the crevices in simple soap bubbles
Pimmel used a Nikon D90

To read a more detailed, but short sum about the vid:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/ferrofluid-races-amidst-soap-bubbles-astounding-time-lapse-010556634.html

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window!

Vids: ashley's black ice vid reminded me to make a song w/ awhole lotta bass. Also reminded me that my vid doesnt have to be very complicated. I think I might (if time permits) do a series of vids cuz I have so many ideas, it wouldn't be able to fit as one.

Food by Jan Svankmajer. Way cool. Shows how disgusting Man & his over-consumption is.
But I don't think I can do video effects like that D: It's quite a lot of work. Probably took a lot more retakes than you think. Plus the incorporating of sculpy animating...the idea of beyond spectorship is starting to creep up on me.
Makes me wonder why movies are so cheap, I mean in proportion to all the money and effort put in.

And Marcel's blog. Blew me Away. What a talented dude

Better

Attempted to take some video shots today...not as easy as I thought.
One take was of the washing machine. The machine hates me.
I place the camera down infront of it and record. But the machine doesn't move. Then when I stop recording and get up to do something else, it starts to move.
During the 50 min wash, I would come check and see if it's spinning the way I want it to. I would look at it and it wouldn't. But once I walk away, it makes whirring sounds. Uurgh.

Finally though, I found out that it is only at the last 10min of the wash that it starts to do its vigorous 900 spins. So I got those down and eventually came up with some very effective takes. Yay!

The next take would be of a skateboard. First was to try filming a skateboard down a hill in the sun. Second experiment was of strapping the camera with my shoelaces to the board and pushing it down a hill. All were fail.

I forgot that a skateboard does not make it's way down a hill
on it's own the way I pictured it in my head. At most it would take off great but then it would sidetrack to the curb. And it could only go short distances so it looked pathetic.

Second try. Skateboards on roads aren't smooth like waterslides. It was way shaky!
The camera was titled at an angle where the scenery didn't look that great. But one idea I got out of it was using the skateboard sideways so that the camera could move from side to side smoothly. Well depending on the texture of the ground.

Hoping to take adv. of the 3 days off to do this. And a bunch of other stuff of course. But I'm pretty excited about it cuz I happen to have a lot of ideas (thank God). I've even listed them out twice.

But I'm not posting them here yet. I know I won't be able to take all of them. Mainly because of some obstacles like location, people (getting the corporation & manning the camera for me), getting the angle and the effect I want (working w/ the camera)....And after the skateboard incident, one of my main ideas is looking to be a problem. K wont spend so much time here gtg

Luna

The videos below are songs that that I refer to in creating the audio for my film...not to forget the song Luna, again a Smashing Pumpkins song.
Actually I'm more interested in creating the sounds and music for the film, cause I've got some instruments & a band to help me. But I do have some videoing ideas to go along with it too.

There's definitely gonna be some guitar effects and sounds in the audio.
Since my band's a partially instrumental-progressive-indie-experimental-rock band, we have been exploring and inventing unconventional for our songs.

This is the third blog I've created. One used to be public, but dead, and the other one personal. But now both are private. And sorta dead. I like blogspot's designs.

I regret showing the class 1979. It had some special camera effects, but it was only for the song!

It's persistent, stirring, yet droning hums are what I'm looking for. Or this sense of movement/moving forward feeling. I hope to create that, not just the sense of moving ahead but also some beautiful reminsciensing tune that captures sunlight and memories of youth. A lot of the pumpkin's songs are like that, it's really appealing to me.

Pixies

I'm not attracted to bald guys