Shadow Penalty Kick

Was riding by the Arakawa riverside today, and spotted this empty football field. Was excited of course given that I'm a big fan of football lol.
Stopped awhile, had this crazy idea of taking continuous photos with me taking "shadow penalty kick" hah. Managed to compile the pics into this "video".

[Youtube link]


[Flickr link]



This time instead of using Windows Movie Maker, I've decided to try using Picasa.
It's different compared to WMM, not as flexible but the positive side is the video quality is better compared to WMM's.

Next time, I'm gonna get a tripod, prepare proper football gears (boots + ball etc.) and had the proper settings on the camera. This was my first time exploring the continuous shot on my cam heh.

Maybe some might find this video vain, but I don't think I'll stop doing it given the chance lol. Well this is the side-effect after din't play proper football for so long lol.

TARC Landscapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7hIeeKupWs

One of the college videos that I promised to made. This first one features the landscape around the college.

Well, I tried to copy the intro style from a previous video, but I think that the previous one I made feels better, perhaps is because of the effects and the song used?

To simply put it, this is just a picture slideshow with some fancy transaction effects put in. Too bad I didn't have enough materials to put in, result in the short video. There're actually more places to be captured in the college, the crucial one like the lecture hall, tutorial classroom & canteen, ah well....

My First AMV

* AMV = animation music video, which basically is anime/cartoon video couple up with a music/song/score, thus making it like a music video.

[Link]

This is my first ever try to create an AMV. The music used is "RECOVER", from Gundam 00 OST 2. It's the theme of the antagonist in the series, mainly for their ace pilot Graham Aker. 

It's quite fun to play around with the vid, though to synchronise the video and the music requires a few rounds of trials & errors. 

The song length is not long enough to fit in the whole video so I've to trim it here and there abit. The conversation part between the 2 pilots had been shortern, and the main focus is on the battle of the mobile suits.

Aesthetically, I did not apply any much fancy effects this time. The only effects I used is Ease In & Ease Out, which are just zoom in and out respectively. This is to create a little different feel when the mobile suits are engaging each other.

Feel free to drop any comment on this vid, this should serve as a warm up for my upcoming movie-making project.  :D

Bat Guy VS "Serious" Clown VS Twisted Luck

If you've watched "The Dark Knight", you might be familiar with the descriptions I mentioned in the title, heh.

Last Friday went to KLCC to catch this movie with Theng Tsing, don't wanna go watch alone again as it'll be rather dull. I need a company.

After finish lesson hop up LRT to KLCC. Collect the booked tickets. Noticed that now the ticket price is RM 11 rather than 10, WTF!

Since we still got quite sometime to spare so decided to go Sushi King to had our lunch. We ordered the sashimi set meal which cost RM23 each. Pretty good deal since we wanted to try sashimi, heh. The good is it comes with tempura too!

Movie starts 10 mins later than stated, never mind then. I've used to watch the trailers and ads before the movie begins. Noticed Star Wars The Clone Wars animation trailer, am a fan of Star Wars but I don't think the animation will be as good as the real movie though.

I shall be writing things bout the plot and spoilers from this onwards, skip it if you don't want to be spoiled.

The story in Dark Knight is continuation from Batman Begins, at the very end of Batman Begins already hinted that Joker's involvement in the new movie.

Like most people said after watching the movie, the Joker rocks! Heath Ledger's performance in the movie is brilliant! Too bad he couldn't live up to receive his award though.

Storyline-wise, it's kinda exciting to follow the heroes running here and there fighting crime, and to bust the mastermind behind everything, which is the Joker. The plot is pretty much straight forward as the Batman and Gordon are rushing here and there to capture the evil.

Technically, Batman's equipment is still as cool as usual, like the reincarnation of the Batmobile into the Batpod. I do however, felt for the Lamborghini Gallardo used by Bruce Wayne which was crushed badly in the scene. I know this maybe fictional but to see a car that worth millions crush like that, ouch!

It's kinda sorry to see Harvey Dent/Two-Face turn from a "white" character to a mixed up character. I think his role in the movie is apparent at the beginning, but after he burned his face, things went ugly for him. His demise at the end of the movie isn't handled that good though, it feels like it's too easy to get him killed by falling down from the building, as oppose for Batman who suffered a bullet wound in the stomach, managed to stand up after falling down together with Harvey Dent.

Overall I left the movie theatre fully satisfied. Thumbs up from me yeah!

Definitely one of the best movie I've ever watched! I'm definitely wanna rewatch this movie again!

Akatsuki

Just made this AMV (anime music video) based on the organisation "Akatsuki" from Naruto.
Video length ~2 mins. [Link]

UPDATE:
The vid uploaded to Youtube has been taken down due to copyright infringement. :S
I uploaded it to IMEEM, hopefully it wont be taken down heh.

Grandfather's 80th birthday presentation

Should be one of the best piece of my work so far, but dunno why I felt this video is not perfect.

Video length: 5:55

[link]


A little comment on this work:

If you've watched my previous work, you'll notice that I repeated the same BGM in the video. I think that the 2 songs there are very suitable for this time's work, especially the 'oriental flavour ' of the songs is just what I need (I'm from a Chinese family so naturally we prefer eastern music).

I was given a time-frame between 5 to 7 mins for this video, as my relative-in-charge asked me to put as many pics I can into the presentation. He even asked for me to put 1 sec/pic, which I think is out of mind because people cant see things so fast at this rate! I later then switch to 3 sec/pic setting, but then my sis, who's the narrator, told me she needs a little more time to narrate. At the end I set the pics slightly longer, range from 3.8 sec/pic to 5 sec/pic rate.
The reason why I'm reluctant to change the setting too much is because I want the pics to be synchronise with the background music. Oh well, this time I cant make it happen. :\

At least I'm pleased people praise the work, and the final video's projection is better than I expected. This is due to the high-quality output I've selected while exporting the video file from Windows Movie Maker. It looks pretty good too on Youtube. Anyhow this video eats up 55MB space in total. Normally I'd just export it in lower-quality in order to save space.

That's all for the comment on this video. Comments and critics are welcomed, of course. :)

Preparing Grandfather's birthday presentation

I'm absent from Blogger's world recently to rush for that reason above.

Well, my grandfather's gonna celebrate his 80th birthday next Saturday(2o Oct), so I'm gonna get things done real soon.

Need to sort out lots of photos from the early 50s 'til recent pics. Luckily the presentation will last for 5-7 mins(as I previously thought it'll be more than 10 mins), so the video should be just nice like my previous masterpieces.

I dunno whether I'm allowed to post the vid up here once I'm done with it, due to privacy of my family members. I wouldn't wanna upsets anyone for putting that up, but as the creator for the video I think I've the rights to decide whether to put it up or not.

Maybe my sisters can give me a hand when they get back? They should be back here by this weekend.

Talk about my sisters, my father planned a series of lunch and dinner appointments while sisters back here for bout 10 days. He'd promised to bring us for a big feast, so this is the chance to fulfill his promise hahah.

I might get things updated again when there's something new.
'til then.

Movie Making experience

So far I've made 4 videos using Windows Movie Maker(WMM), a program I once thought it's very sophisticated to use. Now I'm still learning how to master WMM. Everytime I made a new video, I'll learn new stuff hidden in WMM, which I feels good.

To make a good video(in my opinion), first of all you'll need a handful of resources, the photos, videos & music. I get most the photos & videos from myself(either I took it or sneak it from somewhere else), as well as from friends. Finding suitable source is not so easy when you've too many pics together, like the problem I faced during making the latest video. I've to go through all the pics I've took from 2004 to 2006. (@_@)

Secondly, the arrangements & effects are important too. I start from the base, line up all the pics/vids together in a line, like a train, then slowly tweak it one by one, like the train conductor check every cabin in a train.
I just learn that repeating a same pic using some effects will make the pic looks like an animation. I just tried that during the intro of the last video.

So after you've settle the pics & vids, now is the time to decide what mood you want to inject into the video. I personally favor instrumental music in this case, however sometimes I do insert songs with people singing, depends on what kind of atmosphere I want to create. Music with piano is my first choice for background music so far.
Here's a sample: "Purity of Your Smile", from Ragnarok Online.(2MB)

When you think you've done everything, replay the video and check if there's any mistakes or so. One thing I'm not good is that whenever I tweak a part of the music or the pics/vids arrangement, I'll neglected the other parts that will be drag along with the changes too. Like I said, it's like a train, if you move the front to elsewhere, the back will be effected too.
If you watch the latest vid properly, the scene between the videos & pictures in the 2005 part, the word "Showtime!" & the song is a little off beat, that's because I've made changes in the intro so mess up that part. Mistakes are unavoidable sometimes.

Here's a list of videos I've made so far.

March 06, 5S2-2006.

July 06, friend's birthday video(unreleased).

Nov 06, Graduation.

Dec 06, Chong Hwa Fragment of Memories 2004-2006.

I do edited few videos from other occasions too, some of them are available on my Youtube page but I dont include those vids in here because I just simply make it to save spaces in the computer without much editing. The vids included this year's School Band final, last year's my birthday party.

That's all I want to share bout my experience of making movies. I enjoy doing this, because it feels good when people enjoy the video, and I've learn another skill. :D

Masterpiece Video

Presenting:
"Chong Hwa Fragment of Memories 2004-2006"

7 mins 17 secs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjMQOF7Xv08

This vid might take awhile to load, but it's worth it, believe me. :)
Also, this video will be better if you understand mandrin/chinese.
Took me 6 hours to finish up. :D