This is the original blog address of Nothing Better Than Being Alive.
I have removed the auto-redirect code in order to archive my posts, seen as it I originally intended them to be before porting them over to Wordpress and never getting to complete it.
However, I have ceased in keeping a personal blog and decided to invade the realms of Facebook (Audi Khalid) and Twitter (@audikhalid). I think the following re-posting from the Wordpresss blog explains my decision.
"With the recent death of one of my closest friends, Nicholas Chan Wei Kit, I think it is only appropriate that I take a bow from the blogosphere.
Much of my entries under the category “National Service” has me spending my time with him and Justin.
You’re happy where you’re at now, Nick. And nobody can shoot you down."
It's been a great 5 years of blogging, with Nick being one of the regular visitors. You'll definitely come across my writings again online as I open up blogs catering to different interests.
Those were the words uttered by my boss and mentor, Jimmy Low, in the wee hours of the morning yesterday after we wrapped up from my biggest shoot yet.
It means a lot to me. I've been in the company for two years now, where I worked for absolutely no money just because I want to learn. My first paycheck was fifty dollars. I received my paycheck yesterday, and it was a double-confirmation that I was now a professional.
I've been given hushed advice by some of the people I know that the Army musn't find out I'm working while serving. Honestly, I think it's an open secret that many of our soldiers are moonlighting as well.
For the past week I've been juggling between reporting in camp at 7am, leaving at 7:30pm to get on location and then wrapping up at 4am, only to report back three hours later. It's crazy. I never knew I could do it, but I did. I can only thank my peers in the Guardroom for their understanding and tolerance. I should get them something nice.
The shoot we just did is entitled "De Dana Dan", a Bollywood feature film starring Akshay Kumar, and directed by Priyadarshan. I was stunt-doubling for Paresh Rawal. In the end, what I thought was to be just anothe run-of-the-mill odd-job became one of my biggest breaks yet since Pulau Hantu where I stayed on Ubin for two weeks, just before enlisting for BMT.
I'll be updating more about it soon, so keep a watch on this space!
Just for fun, here's a video of me doing a gymnastic routine that involves a backhand spring. I could never do this trick, but with guidance from Uncle Jimmy, I did it in FIVE minutes.
P.S Dating's going on fine. I've got a very lovable partner. Much kisses and hugs to you!
Okay, I'm seriously swamped with website projects now, both professionally and for my own. Sadly, my knowledge only extends to uploading photos and videos and writing. I can think of layouts and such but webbies get paid for what they do; there's no intuitive way I've come across that allows me to create websites easily.
I'm looking for someone to help me out. Particularly, I have the company website to move over, and I have a new blog up to detail my steps in my film-in-progress, and finally, my new wordpress blog.
I have half a mind to use my leave just to complete everything. Knowing me, I'll probably be off jacking it. Meh.
I came across this video today recorded on a SprintCam v3 by I-Movix at an astounding rate of 1000-frames-per-second. Compare that to a normal video camera's frame rate at 25-frames-per-second!
Trust me, it looks MUCH better in HD.
Since we're on the subject of film, I'm working on a short film right now. It's another action-packed thing with the usual soldiers and boom-bam. I figured it was time to churn another one out to see where I am now, technically and creatively, after the days of masturbatory film-projects from Poly.
I'll update periodically on the progress of this project. Or maybe I should start a dedicated blog for it. Whatever la.
I've been wanting to this for quite a while, and I guess it's the logical way to go - I'm converting this blog into a photoblog.
Sounds all well and good, but apparently I have no idea where to start. Gone with the sidebar (moved to the footer) and that leaves ample space for hi-res shots to be put in. There have been quite a few shots I've taken that I'd like to share but sizing it down to a width of 500px doesn't do justice to the details that I'd like everyone to see. Come on, digi-cams record in HD now, too!
Also, I'll be catering to wide-screen monitors... seeing how EVERYONE has a laptop now and every other emokid has a Macbook.
Oh I'm joking about emokids having Macbooks. Put your apples down.
I know my writings are crap, and I'm listening. So that means less blabber-writing and more mastur-snapping.
But, of course, I love writing. I mean, that's why I'm so annoying on Facebook, so I've set-up another blog purely for text. Due to privacy concerns (can't let my parents nose around), I've hidden the link somewhere on this blog. Happy searching!
This is the first video I've put together after a two-year hiatus.
In writing, I hide the true meaning of my words with awkward metaphors and subtle hints. This film tries to replicate that through its rhythm, shot selection and style. My strength has never been in creating fanciful flashy designs.
This one's dedicated to our very good friend. Take one for the road.
I've loved Royston since I came across his film, "15". about four years ago. It was the full one hour and a half one... the one with the cock shot.
A view from Esplanade's Rooftop Terrace.
Here's another one of his shorts (haha... his shorts...) that I stumbled across online. It's the full version of "Cut", a film that so cheekily puts across a big fat middle-finger to our film censorship boards. I love this film!
This was made years ago in 2004. I remember this censorship thing being an issue every now and then in my Poly days. We had lengthy discussions everytime it crops out. Once, our lecturers censored some parts of our scripts for lewd content. Funny... we haven't even shot any shit yet! But that's all over now.
On the 20th of December 2008 I was called down to help out in a shoot for Suria. I was briefed on what stunts we had to prepare the day before and it was simple: wire rigs and pyrotechnics.
This is where magic is done.
It was back to work and I relished every moment I spent the night before loading up the van in Whampoa with mattresses, poly-boards and a trampoline. Oh yes, how much of a 'coolie' I was before NS. Uncle Jimmy and I took stock of our explosives and I watched as he crafted effect after effect out of unsuspecting materials.
There are things here that can blow your nose off.
The shoot this time was for Suria's upcoming serial drama entitled "Nenekku Superspy", or in translation, "Superspy Grandma". The thing about us stunt guys is that we don't usually care whose shoot we're on or what the story is about. All I could gather about the show was that it's supposed to take place in some virtual world where a middle-aged lady is the hero and she kicks virtual ass by using household items as weapons. Like a rubberband.
Normally these film-shoot posts would go on-and-on as I regurgitate sentences in an effort to make walls of text that would allow pictures to be slotted in between paragraphs. Well, to hell with that. No one gives a shit about text even if I said I killed my sister last night and dumped her body on top of fapping macaque monkeys. I'll make a photoblog-post instead. Getting It Right. -
The film was shot just outside Seletar Camp. It's single storey building and everything inside's a mess. Lots of abandoned buildings in the area. Uncle Jimmy looked at them and shook his head. "If only the government could give me one of these buildings as my workshop." I concur. We need the space.
A look into this room and you just knew shit happened here before. Uncle Jimmy walked in when I took this photo and went,"Oh... this is where I did the human torch stunt a few weeks back. I set the wall on fire." Good lord, for a while, I thought this was a drug den.
Wire Stunt: Twirling Up -
There wasn't anyone around in the stunt team but my boss's son and me. Since he'll be busy directing, the setting-up had to done by me. I've seen a lot of wire rigs, but this was the first time I had to fix it up on my own. I was unsure and got quite a bit of a disappointment from Uncle Jimmy. Two years in the stunt industry and I can't even tie a knot?
I had to stack up and balance two tables that were lying around and stand on a chair and criss-cross wires through funny places of the walls to get this done. But of course I wasn't afraid - I had my SAF gloves. I feel so safe in them.
This wire stunt went well, and Tetris (yes, that's his son's name. 0.o) and I pulled the wire. She had to spin while we pulled her up. I had a go with it a few times before to check for stability. Uncle Jimmy was on the other end of the wire. When the test was done, he said,"You're an elephant." Who knew I was 70-over KG?
Apart from what we had on the project brief, we'd always do some additional low-level special effects on the shoot. It's from these little extras that I learnt many useful things like how to make AND handle an improvised smoke machine. Jimmy Low's a very handy guy and he can make things out of nothing. Then again, I was brought up with a silver spoon in my mouth.
For this shoot, they needed the dust-blowing-from-a-strike effect that's quite apparent in Hong-Kong kung-fu films. I heard the main actress was a veteran. She's middle-aged and a very jovial person. I'm surprised at how energetic she was.
Uncle Jimmy created this effect on-the-fly and it looks great on camera.
Wire Stunt: Flying Backwards -
Tetris and I moved over to another room after taking down the former rig set-up to make a new one while Jimmy was off on a different scene. This was something new. The ceiling... well... there was no ceiling... and we had to somehow hook up a pulley on the iron beam about two-storeys up. All I had was a ladder two metres too short and a crowbar. I don't know how we got it up, but we did. Again, I was safe. Why? Because I had my gloves!
I called Uncle Jimmy for a check during a break and he was quite impressed at what we did. Then he told me,"Could you cut off all that false ceiling?"
There was no way I could do that. So he got four strong men and instructed me to get into my wire harness. I knew what was coming... I had to cut off all that aluminium while hanging from a wire. Needless to say, the harness got tighter as I stayed up there. You know how tight harnesses can get down below.
I had great fun, though, swinging around with the knowledge that at the other side of the line were four men on the floor heaving and maintaining their grip to keep me up. They couldn't keep up after a while so I looked at my boss and we grinned. "Bring the ladder over."
See, there's action stunts, and there's publicity stunts. That was a publicity stunt.
This is probably the only picture of me you'll see in close contact with another girl.
We got the stand-in rigged with a harness and proper padding to get her used to the wires. Till this day, I can never understand why I'm always so afraid of getting hooked on wires whereas the talents are so comfy and jolly about it. But before we got her up, I had the honor to test the wire out. Which basically means, if shit happens, it'll be a pretty good lesson for me.
Luckily, the set-up was stable and I got a kick out of it. The same four guys had to pull me. I'm sorry I'm an elephant, okay? I was afraid I'd miss the mattresses behind and knock the hell out of my head but that's pretty much impossible. I had some fun after a while and did the Matrix bullet-time thing for kicks. Oh, when will the day I could act in an action film? Spark Effects -
We saved the scene for later, and moved on to the pyrotechnics. Another thing about film shoots is that we have to pretty much think on our feet. On our side, we don't really do location scouting days before. Uncle Jimmy's pretty much a veteran and he knows what to do. He took a look at the location and planned the shots and sequence and where to plant the charges.
I think it's pretty cool to have a father that shows you how to make pyro-effects and that was what he was doing. He ran me through, as well, about the different shapes and patterns to consider for the scene itself. I got to work with setting them up and camouflaging them from the camera with leaves and wood.
This is an example of our set-up. This one's meant for a wide-shot so we didn't really have to hide it much. Uncle Jimmy packs it in such a way that even if you held the length of wire nearest to the charge you wouldn't get pieces of your fingertips flying about the set. It's directional and that means there's a clear danger area that the talent should avoid and it helps for the trigger person on the right timing to set it off.
No one managed to get a video of the effect sequence. The three of us had our own effects to trigger. I was a bit slow in triggering off. It was my first time, though, and luckily, I didn't have to march off the set or anything. Maybe I was scared. But fuck me, how can I be afraid of things I'm in charge of?
The picture above is the result after releasing the charge. The resulting pattern tells a lot about how it was prepared and this one was good. Safe, and fucking impressive. We blew a charge on another shot. It was on the floor, and the actress was a step away from it. When it set-off, the light and bang was so brilliant she jumped... subsequently releasing a fart. Good laughs that time. What's up with all the fart jokes, lately?
It's finally time for the last major stunt of the day. We got the stand-in in her get up of paddings, a winter coat, and the usual things a Malay lady would wear in the hot and humid tropical weather of our country. I should say it was a great transformation. I broke all rules of professionalism when I started to laugh out loud... uncontrollably. Who would have thought they'd see a lady in a tudung fly?
Even Malaysian films have never done it before!
I found out only recently that this stand-in was a university graduate. How cool is that? I'm setting up a lady who's definitely twenty-six thousand times smarter than me into the air and on a pile of dirty sandy mattresses. We didn't do two rehearsals... nor three... we at least threw her back a dozen times, rectifying her mistakes and getting things to the right momentum for that perfect shot.
The cameras started rolling and the scene commenced. Everything went fine and we did a few takes with no issues. We've never had an accident before, and I'd be damned if it happened the first time I was tasked to take charge of one. The stand-in had a great time (Okay, I think she got bored of the stunt after the first twenty rehearsals) but most importantly, the director was happy with the shots.
It's A Wrap!
I'm not quite sure when the episode will be airing. If you do watch TV, or even tune in to Suria, alert me if the commercial for the episode airs. I'd love to see how things turned out.
It was near evening when we were done. I had things packed up and mattresses loaded back into the van. They had more shots to take and I became anxious. Uncle Jimmy saw that and he approached me,"Audi, you have an appointment later, right?"
I nodded.
"Okay, you may leave. Thanks for all your help. I'll handle all these other small scenes."
I shook his hand, bid everyone on set good-bye and thanked the production manager who took some shots for me with my camera. I ran out to the main road when I realized I was in Seletar... there are no public transports, there are no HDB estates, and the main road is about half a kilometer out.
I was running already when a truck came up behind and I hitched a ride out to the main road. I never knew you could hitch a ride like that in Singapore. Whoever was that nice uncle who let me into his truck, I thank you.
That was pretty much my day that day. I got home, washed up, put on my leather pants, singlet, jacket and fedora cap and I was out again to attend Nuffnang's vPost Xmas Party.
So yes, I'm sorry, to whoever that met me at the party, if I stank so much that night.
After my hard drive crashed and the quotation from Greenenergy totaling up to SGD1,350, I was stumped. I needed money and this came at a time when I was already saving up for a Samsung T240 as a Christmas/New Year present for myself. Yeah, I'm THAT much of a loser... I have to buy presents for myself.
Uncle Jimmy, my boss/shifu/mentor from The Stunt Production called me while I was doing duty and gave me heads up that he needed a stuntman around to teach "some actors" on stunt fighting and safety. He never really was good at giving me details of a job but I always drop by anyways because I love this profession. I agreed and he sent my name in to Mediacorp for registration. I came by right after camp.
I used to work in Mediacorp for a while and got around quite easily but that's the thing... I WAS working here. Now I'm just a visitor and I did get a few stares and a lady questioned me on my intentions when they noticed I couldn't get a fucking door open. I didn't have the proper security clearance. Long story short, I got through after straightening some things out.
It's been a long time since I met Uncle Jimmy. This was the guy who brought me into this line, professionally, and we've built quite a trust over the coming couple years, scouring the region, for me to allow him to set me on fire.
The first thing I had to do after meeting him was... set up his laptop.
There was a cameraman around trailed by a very serious-looking producer that directed him on the shots. It felt like serious business and I had to piece together the evidence to get a feel on what's happening. I found out that Singapore Media Academy was running a class on Stunts and Safety in lieu with their acting classes. Cool.
Uncle Jimmy went about to teach and showed them his library of videos and photos that we created and spoke of his experience over the years. You could always trust him to be a good speaker, I can tell you that. When asked by the student actors if anything happened after my fire torch stunt, Uncle Jimmy said in Chinese,"Nope, nothing. Only he's much darker now."
Oh, haha, make fun of my 'tan', will you?
Another of his assistant was with him, and we knew each other. He brought in paddings and small pyrotechnics to the class. Included was a dummy rifle that Uncle Jimmy built himself by hand. I was asked to fix it up with the explosives to simulate a gunfire effect. We couldn't bring in the real guns since the cost of just taking it out of the armory doesn't justify it.
Soon enough, my real job started and I was a demonstrator for the class as he set me up in padding and pummeled me with styrofoam sticks. We played out a fight sequence that included blocking and double-action which ended with me flipping over onto the mattress. But things changed soon enough and we got the girls to do the sequence. The room was then hyped with activity as bodies went spinning and tumbling on the mattress.
Uncle Jimmy then got around to teaching them how to throw a punch and how to react. I went around and gave directions and spoke to them on my whatever minute number of experiences I had doing stunts. I realized I was back to 'Student Director Mode' which I hated unlike the new personality I had in Stagmont. I have to work on that.
More pushing, more tumbling, Uncle Jimmy then showed how much he still had left in him at the age of 54 by demonstrating a front flip and landing flat on his back on the hard floor below. Right, no mattresses. After that, he had the guys and the girls do a forceful clothesline on his back... a few times. If you had ever had your balls rip apart with raw testosterone...
The class came to an end when they learned how to hold a revolver and I went around taking pictures. The final firearm demonstration was Uncle Jimmy detonating the pyro planted in the rifle barrel. That one always draws the most Oohs and Aahs from the crowd.
The producer came up to me and asked me to sign some papers and that was usual paperwork. I almost forgot. In the Army every paper that required you to sign never really meant anything but surveys and questionnaires.
I got back home and was up the next morning for work. A few days later, my father came running into my room saying,"It's you! You're on TV!"
Apparently they showed a few clips of the class on Channel News Asia that weekend. Great, I thought, I'm on TV wearing vest and slacks with a funky US Marine haircut. I didn't catch the segment but received a couple of calls and one from Uncle Jimmy that also had another task for me. It's fun, really. I love this job.
Singapore Media Academy has been getting some airplay on the radio for some courses. During the class break I got to peek into a class that was teaching Mandarin. Thing is, they were full of Chinese people! A quick hop to their site and I was intrigued on their vocal classes. I've been singing a lot lately while on duty and I've been meaning to improve on this skill for years. Acting is another trait I would like to improve and I think taking up one of this courses would be a good starting point. The very least, you would have a rough gauge on where you are on the talent leaderboards.
FSV, the course I took in poly, invited their alumni to Movida at St. James for a party to celebrate their 15th anniversary in existence on the 4th of December 2008.
I was there to attend. Wait, I didn't know I was in their alumni....
It was a nice party and adequately packed with people. I had to squeeze and shove around a bit to get around. There were plenty of well-known faces on the floor and up stage we had Alaric Tay hosting for us. There were some high-key people in the industry lol-ing about and I watched as current and former students interacted whether it was to relive memories or boast on the kind of projects they've been doing.
Sure, I would have loved to interact with more people, but Daryl and I were pretty pissed at the fact that we're in the Army and we can't do a thing about it. The girls from our batch were either in Chapman University at Ngee Ann or off overseas. I took up a little corner, and along with our other classmates that we met, had a seat. I saw Randall Tan standing in one corner of the smoking section though he wasn't smoking. I wonder if he remembers me. I acted with him once as a bit player.
I find that I don't really like talking about whatever jobs I've been doing. Maybe because my profession isn't what we would call... creative... or... artistic. Rather, I'm just muscle. I'm just a grunt. A friend was asking around what others were doing... camera assistant, editor, graphics artist, producing, and when it came to me, he changed his tone and asked,"Are you still with the stunt thing?"
Wait... the ' stunt thing '?
I'm going to say that this was just another particular case of a person with a condition known as assfacetitis. I'm sorry I don't wear a beret and a scarf prancing around and memorizing director's names. I'm sorry I don't share your love for the arts.
I still have some affection left to the men and women I've slaved with at 3am in the morning speeding down highways and filling up petrol. I've wanted to make a short film for the longest time. I've been talking to Jayden about it a couple of times, but I'm still looking at how we can make something beautiful out of what we have. The sponsors for the party gave us quite an interesting goodie bag and I bet there are some things that Jayden would like.
I left the place soon and Don, Deborah, Daryl and I (Three Ds, one A. I'm always the odd one out) continued our conversation till the wee hours of the morning at Vivo City's Mc Donald's. I went back to camp the next day and spent the majority of the day sleeping. I remember clearly what one of my RP mates asked me, "Audi... are you drunk?"
With free flow of red wine that night and a massive hangover the next day? I'd say I'm contented.
From the 1st - 2nd November, PUB opened up the Marina Barrage, the first reservoir in the city, to the public. Aside from the green-earth agenda that Marina Barrage promotes, it's also made out in the media to be one of the best places for a scenic view of the Singapore skyline. I've been anxious to visit the place over the past week when I first saw pictures of it in The Straits Times.
It was 6pm on Saturday the first. I jumped into my clothes, took up my tripod and camera, and left for the Barrage. Dropping off at Marina Bay MRT, I was directed towards a shuttle bus pick-up point thanks to the signs put up in the MRT. The intervals for the buses were 20 to 30 minutes. Wait, what?
Getting out of the MRT I was greet to a long line of the public shuffling their way across muddied ground and onto the pavement leading to the MRT. They didn't look particularly happy and many were there with their families. I walked the same muddied path which lead down to a tunnel. It was there that I found a traffic jam of pedestrians just spilling over onto the road. Add to that the foreign workers cycling to the constructions sites around the area. Cement trucks were rolling down the road at great speeds. The temporary bus stop for the shuttle bus was packed. I'm not gonna wait 30 minutes to get on a bus that I'd have to squeeze to get into. No, thanks, I'll walk.
I activated my Yankee Route Marching legs and walked to the Marina Barrage. I knew where it was thanks to the banners along the road and the fact that Joey and I went there the night before at midnight just for kicks. We were made to turn back by a security guard. It wasn't a particularly short walk. I think I walked a good half an hour, chin dripping with sweat. And I'm not exaggerating. I freaking walked from Marina Bay MRT to Marina Barrage. What the hell was I thinking?!
I wasn't the only one that was walking, though, and I overtook groups of families walking along the road towards the same destination. Add that to the heavy construction happening on both sides of the road and the occasional stench of buffalo poo. The journey there was dirty for public standards and it's a contrast to the banners on lamp post celebrating the clean-green-we're-so-clean opening of the Barrage.
I reached the Barrage in a while. I was confused at where I ended up. I didn't receive the whole "Wow" experience upon arrival. Was I supposed to? There were rows of tentage and a ton of people walking all over the mud and sitting on the road sides. But I didn't bother much (though I am complaining, aren't I?) since I was there to try out a few photography techniques.
I didn't particularly find the main complex nice or anything. It's the same old, same old. Then again, I didn't explore the exhibitions inside. The surrounding little gardens and water features, though, were turning out to be quite a haven. The city skyline peeks between the saplings of the garden. In a way, it reminds me of the time when I was a little child laying in a big box, looking up at the world. Did you get that or is it becoming flowery nonsense?
A long curved ramp leads visitors up onto the famed roof garden of the complex. The grass path that runs together with it in the center expands on the top to form the field itself. The view that greeted me up there was, simply put, awesome.
I was delighted at the vast open space. The sky was huge. The sea was huge. The fact that I could see these two meet at a point called a 'horizon' sealed the deal for me. The skyline occupied the entire span of the shoreline with the Singapore Flyer to the East and the CBD area to the West. Looking at the skyline from the Barrage, the moon shined brightly with Venus, just to the right of it, clearly in view. Yes, I was surprised as well to learn that what I saw beside the moon was Venus.
I came down to the Barrage this time to specifically have a go at HDR. I've never done it before but read a lot about it. There's a variety of photos out on the net claiming to be HDR. Some are flat out ugly and others are interestingly eye-catching. Personally, I fall for the more realistic version of what HDR is supposed to look like. At the same time, I've never really gotten to taking proper night shots of anything save the occasional snapshots while in the car and giggling at the streaks of lights.
I set up my Canon 450D on its standard kit lens (EF 18-55) on my tripod. For a moment there I felt like I was setting up a Matador. Any sooner and I'm afraid I'll be checking my backblast area.
What I planned to do was to shoot at a normal EV setting, then climb it up to +2, then -2, and then come home and combine these exposures together. Following that is a tweaking of what needs to have more light, which less, and finally recreate a scene that represents what we might see, on location, with a little dose of artistic interpretation. I hope you got that, I hate writing this way.
I shot at a an aperture of around f8, sometimes more, and simply because I read somewhere that this creates a nice star-like effect to lights. Also, I've had too many disappointments with my pictures when I find the camera focused on some random thing other than what I was interested in. This was due to the usual 4.5 - 5.6 aperture size that I usually lock down my camera to. In effect, I did away with auto-focus as well.
Switching on Live View was a ton of help for me. My tripod was extended to the max and there wasn't much things lying around to climb up and look through the viewfinder. I switched on the camera's Live feature, zoomed in my lens, zoomed in on the image on the LCD, focused, zoomed out the LCD, framed up my lens and shot the photo. I took exposures that lasted from 2.5secs to 30secs.
I never took a 30 second exposure shot before. The first few times I pressed it I felt stranded as I stood there like a dumb ass with arms crossed and biting on my nails.
I shooed any kids getting near my tripod and gasped loudly as any auntie or uncle was about to walk in front of my camera. It's hilarious to see them get down and duck walk under the camera's field of view... In actual fact, they could walk as per normal and not even cross my camera's field of vision. But that's just sadist talk and nothing related to photography. I'm sorry.
I realized that a remote or a shutter cable of some sort would be helpful in these situations where repeated images needed to be taken. I think they call this technique 'bracketing'.
I've never seen a shutter cable before but I expect it to have a dial to control the aperture and a button to release the shutter. Amirite? It'll help a lot because I found myself playing Jenga with my camera as I adjusted setting and pressing the shutter was a game of Traffic Lights. Incredibly annoying and a big problem when you're in a crunch.
I took about 160 shots that day on the roof. For I had at least three different exposure settings for each scene I was capturing. I tried out different things and thought of theories while shooting. Like why not I shoot this exposure just for the highlights... that exposure for that area... and so on. Another thing I believe in is to have a rough idea of your workflow, whether it's shooting a film, a home video, or photographs. Know the tools and how they work, and the process. That way, when out in the field, you can plan your shots and be confident about it because you have an idea on how it'll be processed later on in the workflow. This confidence doesn't restrict but, rather, it encourages experimentation. I think that is an invaluable trait: experimentation.
I found a secluded corner of the Marina Barrage. It's on the far end of the pavement and beyond that was the construction site of the upcoming Marina Gardens. The place was pitch black, save the lights from the Barrage complex itself. By the way, I gave up taking a picture of the complex... I simply didn't know how to frame it up. It's a weird design!
I tried shooting with flash, without flash, very long exposures, and the whole jin gang.
Processing them with Picturenaut by HDRLabs, and open source free software to create HDRI, I got this image by combining a selection of exposures.
A quick export to Photoshop I did the usual tweaking and styling I like to do for the sake of fun. It's one of my favorite pictures. I like the water, the composition and the floating thingy on the water.
But I wasn't satisfied yet. The picture grew old after a while and my hands were itchy again.
I re-did the photos again with a different selection of exposures to create this image. I experimented again with the blending and got to this picture, which had a different mood to it altogether.
It's not the best, but I really love this photo. I'm quite amazed at some details I see here that I didn't even notice on location. Remember that this whole area was pitch-black. I took notice only recently that there seem to be an altar of some sort just ahead of me with a deity on the top. I could be mistaken, but that's just freaking creepy.
After two hours on the damn Barrage, I bailed. My illness got back at me in the form of massive headaches at weird parts of my face and I rushed to a bunch of gay guys, who were in quite a big diva-mood, behind the counter. I bought a bottle of 100plus and gulped down three pills of Panadol Actifast and proceeded to finish the bottle.
You're right... I walked out of the Barrage wondering whether I just OD-ed on Panadol. Sure as hell felt high.
I took the public bus back to the MRT this time. I waited a good 40 minutes at the first bus stop from the barrage which was a nice fifteen minutes walk. I found a comfy seat on the train, laid my things down and stretched. Soon, I'll reach home to Yishun.
That's that. If you're wondering how the hell I could update on a bloody Monday night... Aren't I supposed to be in camp now?!
On the 31st of October, Halloween, I received a call from Joey at about 11pm. I called, and he had that creepy dopey voice on again.
"Where are you? What are you doing? Are you bored?"
For a moment, I thought I'd be having another round of phone sex. The last time I did that I fell asleep feeling a million times more sorry for myself.
"Yea I'm bored.", I said. "Okay. I'll come by your place then. We'll go out."
What I thought to be a more of a drive around the neighborhood turned out to be a rich experience of nicotine-hungry youths strapped of cash. We found ourselves digging our pockets for every bit of coins we had in order to buy a packet of cigarettes that we'll share. It's quite an irony when Joey's there in his Altis and dressed up so smartly. The scent of his perfume completes the whole image of a confident successful person ready to take life by its horns. Wait, how many coins do we have now?
In line with the Army's respected skill of precise and accurate planning, we found ourselves over at Clarke Quay, surrounded by people dressed up as their pop-heroes, whether it was tongue-in-cheek or simply because somebody needed an ego boost. I still wonder how the hell we ended up in town. I really wonder. We were just over at AMK buying Reds.
Halloween in this town was, nicely put, a sorry sight. I think we've had enough of those devil horns. That, and the fact that half the time it was teens in gawdy cosplay outfits. It was the usual horribly done vampire make up, or an afro wig (in pink!) added in as an afterthought to whatever they've been wearing. I was expecting a lot of Jokers but I only caught one as Nurse Joker. Wasn't the best... but he tried playing out the character.
Jack Sparrow was there. Cool. Some guy in a full Pedobear get up was there waving at the crowds though I think not many people got the reference. They probably thought he's some cuddly bear to be hugged but YOU DON'T CUDDLE UP TO PEDOBEAR! I came anyways.
I think one group deserved a mention and that was a handful of Indians parading around as the full Ghostbusters team. It's a breath of fresh air from the other generic costumes. What made the whole thing work was the fact that they were drinking from a bottle of beer in their hands. I bet that raped a few childhood memories. Joey and I supported them with hoots and shouts. It really was a refreshing sight.
Soon enough I got home, and Joey dropped by my place. Great... I knew I should have sorted out all the porn on my desktop. I showed Joey my small collection of porno DVDs and he urged me on to give them a spin. Two guys watching porn in a room in the dead of night. Don't only REALLY close friends do that? I mean the kind where you don't mind sharing his underwear with. The show didn't happen, and he left to pick his girl up at Attica in town.
Yeap, he went all the way back. What a night that was.
I seem to be having the flu. It happens every time I get home but it's normal... I have two cats at home and they love shedding their fur all around my room. It's a kind of a love-hate relationship: They love me to bits but I hate them just the same. I was doing my thing in the late night when I heard, right above me (My bed's suspended in the air) the all too familiar gagging of my cat. Next thing I knew the damn thing vomited hairballs and all the gooey junk went splattering on the floor below. I kicked him out of the room. And no, those dopey eyes don't fool me anymore!
The flu this time round was bad. Really bad. Is this normal? Whenever I sneeze a sharp pain travels from my chest all the way to my inner elbows. It's paralyzing to say the least. A quick check on Google confirms this phenomena and it may be high blood pressure (I'm fine), or something stemming from a past injury.
The last injury I received was falling off the pull-up bar last week and landing on my ass. Kinda funny, that.
Emo be gone, I don't really bother much about posting out anymore. I've come to terms with myself and decided to enjoy wherever the hell I am now. I've thrown all the OCS, MDC, Armoured Driver dreams out the window. Come what may, they say, and it's a big load off my mind.
Just this week another two guys were posted out to RP. One went to the Guards camp, and the other to Commando camp. I congratulated them. Sad, though, since one of them, Ashwin, I loved to talk to. He was the only one I could have spontaneous debates with regarding marijuana, piracy, and the death sentence.
I bumped into Jayden again this week during lunch. He's lucky enough to be able to go home after office hours. That leaves him a lot of time to do whatever he wants then. I spoke to him again yesterday online and he called upon me to help him in making a short film he was planning. Needless to say, I'm honored, and I would love to pick up a camera again to shoot a film with him. My creative juices are fermenting again and I'm in need to let quite a few farts off.
I caught the Pulau Hantu show yesterday on OKTO. I was amazed... amazed at what turned out. Wow... I'm sorry if anyone watched that. It was miles away than what I was expecting. They didn't even mask out my face for the human torch stunt! It was clear as day!
It's my sister's birthday today and we had an early "celebration" a couple of days ago down at Eatzi, SAFRA.
It's become my dad's default eatery whenever we have a celebration. Cheap prices, quiet ambience and nothing too lavish. I love western food... real ones... and ordered the Meat Lover's meal that I should say hit me in the right spot.
We don't really hang out as a family and I don't really complain about that. It's never come across to me as something that requires attention. Anyone could easily foretell how our dinners would end - my dad will start talking about his dreams on something like money, house, or how the family should bond, then my sister would say something against it, I would chip in, then we'll have this sort of debate which usually ends in my father blabbering about religion and culture with my mother occasionally nodding her head and commenting on how right my dad is. We then keep quiet and let him talk. Personally, I find it useless to argue once he's in that mode. It always ends up with a bad taste in my mouth. And I never liked have these dinners.
I think we, my sister and I, hit the nail right on the head when we argued we weren't brought up in the "traditional", "normal" way.
I'm glad though my dad heeded my advice that I told him on his birthday on the first week of BSLC - that he should start exercising... from brisk walking, at least. He's swimming now at SAFRA and I just received my SAFRA card this weekend. Well that's just great for him.
No plans were made with Joey or the guys this weekend. Well, actually there were, but the plans disintegrated as the hours went by. I didn't even call Nick this week simply because I didn't want to. Everyone's busy now with their own commitments and I don't wanna get involved. I guess it's just one of those things that will eventually come and the faster I accept it, the better.
I think that's one of the biggest lessons in life. Besides, I may have been a bit of a clingy prick lately.
Rearranging myself, I got back to what was important and that was running the stunt company, doing research, reading the news and putting the left side of my brain to work.
I'm currently using Minefield from Mozilla, the creators of Firefox. It's a sort of in its alpha stage but it's fast. Very fast. I'd recommend it while Google Chrome is still getting things ironed out.
My guitar is getting a lot of love from me now. You'd find me every night with my little baby just strumming and fingering her while reading notes of "Don't Cry" by Guns and Roses. It's a lot of fun and it's an avenue for me to silently weep away all the heartaches of missing that special someone. What? You didn't know? I'm in love.
I carry around a thick journal with me everywhere I go in Pasir Laba. I made up a little bag out of the gas mask pouch they gave us and some were quite intrigued in what the hell I was carrying. The CQ even took a new one out for me to fix up for him.
I doodle anything whenever the situation permits and started drawing web designs and headers. The new header you see is a result of one of those scribbled drawings.
The Stunt Production website, abandoned as it looks now, was a little project I did for the company. It's my first website and I still have nightmares from those dark days of Dreamweaver and Filezilla. I've matured a wee bit from those days and drew out a new web design on my journal. The result, of course, is the one of the left after a couple of hours on Photoshop. One of the biggest problems I had on the current website was how confusing and plain everything was.
Then that's another problem... it stops there. I still have no freaking idea how to code and this "Dummies Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" is kinda useless right now. I'll save that for next week. Time to book in.
A cigarette never tasted so good. I looked across me and gazed into the reflection of the Altis. There, Joey was leaning beside me, dressed smartly casual as usual. We both took another puff. What the hell were we doing at Yishun Dam?!
It's become the norm to spend the company of another by emo-ing at some random place in the middle of the night. But I don't think about it anymore.
We had a whole week of field camp and, luckily (in a way), I was excused from uniform and out-field so I had the delightful opportunity of sitting in the office. Carrying stores out of the tonner? Pfft... I'll hide here under the conference table, thank you.
I did manage to do some different things. Once, we had a trainee who reported sick in the middle of the night just as I was about to sleep. I knew I couldn't sleep anyway so I accompanied him up to his bunk, the showers (yea... sigh), and finally to the MO at midnight.
To manage my loneliness, I brought over my guitar and iPod. People seem to wonder why did I bring an electric guitar without an amp.
I hate going to sleep now. My brain starts working overtime and I start to wonder and fear for things that don't exist. I play the song "Champagne Supernova" on a loop. It's a nice song, and it brings me back to the times I was back in my Yankee bunk and having this ass of a rat climbing into my bed to share my iPod.
Four of our thirteen OOCs have been posted out to the guardhouse. It's good though... they got rid of a couple of bastards. I smiled as they left. I think I've moved on.
I hung around Eunos MRT again yesterday just sitting on the seat across the 7-11. I've been here a couple of times before, sitting on the same seat and placing my hands on the steel pillars. I was looking forward to bringing Justing over to Daryl's place for some fun together with Joey and Nick. Let's just say it didn't happen and Joey and I were back in the car again, driving aimlessly.
The rest of the night consisted of us playing out the MMORPG lifestyle of traveling to towns and meeting people. After that, traveling again to the direction the wind blows.
We spoke at lengths about the economic recession. When I received my bank account transaction letter I took it and met up with Joey to show it to him. I was shocked at how much my SAF allowance has been deducted - close to a hundred dollars. God fuck me for signing up for the magazines and cards and useless nothings during BMT. I mean, who would have thought that your bloody TIMES magazine will come only after BMT? And where are our free gifts and SAFRA card?!
Joey and I came up with plans on how to cut costs. We calculated our smokes and meals. It's a freaking burden to smoke now. A pack of Reds cost close to 12 dollars. I finish a pack in two days!
Being and OOC doesn't help at all, financially. With the freedom of a permstaff on vacation, I've been eating most of my meals at the canteen. Don't blame me... the canteen food I've been sent to sucks. I spend at least 5 dollars a day at the canteen. Let's not count the times I wander aimlessly at the gift shop. It's really not that I have something to spend... there's really no rhyme or reason for me to visit the gift shop. But I'm always captivated to enter and look around at the items... even though I've seen all of them hundreds of millions of times.
We planned to buy an account book that we'll keep with us. I figured, why stop there? And we agreed to challenge each other to see who has saved the most by the end of the month. I guess I'll have to live poor. No more dreams of buying leather jeans. We drove over to Salvation Army at Upper Serangoon the next day. I was looking for a new pair of slim-cut jeans. Or maybe I could get that leather jeans I've always wanted.
I'm amazed at how big their collection was. I felt like a hippy walking down their isles and rummaging through their items. Who knows, I might find something unique. I did, actually. I found a stack of flasks. They're tiny and concealable. Great for smuggling whiskey in. I paid the cashier five dollars.
Joey got himself a hell of a heavy silver watch for about eight dollars. It looks cool and futuristic with the LEDs and sleek chrome finish. I asked him what was that for?
"I'm buying this to chiong-sua." He was serious.
As we were shopping around the furniture areas, I can't help but think how much I could save if I ever wanted to furnish my room. There were tables that were still strong. Some just needed a bit of touch up. TVs and LCDs were going at rock-bottom prices and tables were aplenty. Just think of the money I can save!
I'm waiting for that one guy to donate away his 24 inch LCD TV. My CRT died infront of me last week, leaving me with only one monitor to look at now. Oh well, it served a good seven years.
I called back our old friend, Jimmy Low, and I asked him for some help. I needed to kick-start my savings account after the bombing a couple of weeks back. Shamelessly I asked if there was work in the weekends. I didn't hope for much - it's difficult for us to get hired in Singapore. They say we're too expensive and niche.
I was surprised though that there's a shoot this 28th that's run by the Army (apparently). They needed explosions so we're coming down to give them some. I hope I could come. In times like now, having just another 50 dollars means another week for survival.
OKTO, the new channel by Arts Central, would be showing "Pulau Hantu" on the 26th of this month. This film's one of my biggest breaks... especially when I was stunt doubling for at least 3 guys (and a girl) and acted as myself in the last few scenes. I remember carrying over my Ultimax 100 everywhere I went on set until the director forgot that it was meant to be used in a scene. Well the scene went on ahead without the SAW and we had to replace it with another weapon later on. I wrote a bit about the shoot here in this post.
Another week, another rambling blog entry. I'm currently in 'Zen' mode where everything just zips by around me and I don't really give a damn. I need some excitement... something to break this monotony of everyday military life.
Having a girlfriend doesn't sound like a bad idea anymore.
