2009 Watching The Film, 2022 Making The Film

Blue folks running about,

Tails, ears, cheers aloud,

Blue Sphere, skies and clouds,

Oceans alive no doubt.

Here was what I've seen,

Dreams, goals, inbetweens,

Never thought I'd be,

Standing here by any means.

~

Costs of Dreams & Buckets

Foolish-ism vs Sensibility

Sleepless Nights

A leap of Faith

and....

32500++

~ Jack. Did you steal my brain?

The Time the World Stood Still

It's interesting times, 

... what was once bustling streets filled with cars and people is now a dead lifeless soul of a concrete jungle of what was a vibrant city, and this it's not the only place. COVID-19 has made the world hit the big fat Pause button. 

Maybe its for the betterment of Mother to take a breather after all the crazy forest burning this past year. Maybe She's weeping for all the lives lost. Maybe She's just so sick that her antibodies are here to help to bump up Her immunity, eradicating viruses....

... maybe we just need to be more symbiotic than a venomous parasite, life can be stranger than fiction, karma...

Interesting times indeed.

Dreams

Flash back ~ April 2003, Day 00, The One Academy, Sunway, Subang Jaya, M'sia.

It was a blistering hot day, the day I've made my first step towards my career of choice ~ art. Induction into then one of the few art colleges around, known to be one of the more creative and diverse pushing creativity in design, architecture, fine arts, advertising and digital media. I have never felt more excited going to "school" a school where I don't feel like an odd ball as everyone else was that "kid" who drew at the back of the class. The arty and creative, nerds of nerds, we all enjoyed geeking out on games, manga, film, anime and all things "normal" kids would shun away. 

In a way it was a dream come true to be free and express myself creatively with my peeps, people who support and not having to worry about being ridiculed for being different, being some one who has to take risk and breaking the boundaries and convention of our culturally conservative. Pushing ourselves and each other to be better at our crafts, learning to give and take criticism so that one day we would follow the foot steps of our peers, peers of the past, peers who set the foundation of arts we all have the leisure to learn from and follow so that maybe one day we young lings could reach for the stars and reach our goals, to fulfill our dreams. 

Mine? ~ Gun Dream : Battle Angel Alita. 

Was the 1st manga I read picked up and watched the pages flow, and boy did it blow my puny 10 year old mind.

Maybe one day some one will make it, maybe I'll make it? That was the goal set that day I step through those doors, I would work my way to one day fulfill my dream, after all it's just a dream right? A target so far away and unreachable, a nice goal to try to achieve, something to strive for, something to hope for. It was wishful dreaming.


May 2003....


HotDog Magazine Article

"What I like about it is that when we first meet Alita she's very young, she's sort of almost pre-pubescent in a way, and she actually matures throughout the story. I like that, that the development of her mind actually affects her physicality. There's a lot of really great things about it, and there's a lot of things ? whether the artist really intended them or not ? that I read into it, and so I think it'll be a good fusion of what Kishiro created and how I would do things." 

"The manga is very episodic and very discordant ? it's not internally consistent, meaning sometimes she looks like one thing and has one set of abilities, and at the whim of Kishiro he'll go off on a whole different tangent. It needs to be fused and focused and given a centralised storyline. But the character will be very, very true to Alita as she is in the manga." 

"Motorball might find its way more into the second film ? I definitely want to do more than one film. I want to create a world and a character that can go through at least one more film, possibly more. And that's not just for the classic financial reasons, it's just that I think there's a possibility for a real mythology here, so I feel that this is a good canvas to do something big that's got more scope." 

"Battle Angel is a very real possibility, and that's the film that I fully intend to direct, that I *will* direct ? the issue is will it be the next film, or will it be the one after the next film? That's really all there is to it at this point. We've done a tremendous amount of design for the film, we're fine-tuning the script, it's just a matter of time.", says James Cameron. 


*Tick ~ Tock ver.2.0


Days turn to night,
Day in day out it's flight or fight,
My fruits of labour sours, where's the light,
My source of power, my dreams at night.

Seasons bloom into years, I truly fear
Missing the only boat, unfurling at the seams,
Reasons of fear; Time crawls up my rear,
Snickering, oh they gloat, as I yearn for my dreams,
Grinning ear to ear, their intentions clear,
My goals are so far fetched and it's no where near,
Their long slim grin, truly a sin.

I push on, blood, sweat and tears.
I push on, but I fear
Shattering my mind, fragmented by Time,
Pressure of Time, slowly losing my mind,
My only actions are mine,
Rushing on, my life on the line.

Like the sentence in this line,
Optimism in the mundane I find,
To lift me up, to not give up,
To scream fuck fear and crawl out of my dump,

My hearts pounding, my psyche pumped,
It's now or never, times run out.
The last push I make, is the last bullet I'll take,
Gambled my life for my dreams, I sailed across the lake,
I held my breath ~ approached The Gate,
The thoughts of standing in my very own wake.

The longest breath I took,
The farthest goal in sight,
There I stood, my body shook,
My dreams, The Dreams I dreamt that night.

All those feelings of regret,
All those remorse and tears I've shed,
All those stares, the glares I get,
All in time will I never forget.

Here I stand.

The boy in the man.

Here, me, I am....


Flash Forward ~ 2018 Sept 27th, Ports B, Windy Wellington, NZ.

... Here, I am.

7 Year Itch

Can't believe it's been 7 years since the last post and has by far been a really interesting ride.

It's that time again, culling season and time to replan and schedule my goals.

Guess it'll be 7 years from now when I look back when times weren't actually as bad as they seems to be.

On a brighter note and anim related check out the podcasts from Taught by a Pro.

Joy Batchelor

**If you're in London this weekend (13th April, 2014) at Barbican Arts Centre.
**Cartoon Brew Article on Joy Batchelor

Joy Batchelor

b: May 12, 1914, Watford, Hertfordshire, England
d: May 14th, 1991, London

One half of the award-winning British husband-wife team noted for their influential animated films and who co-founded and co-owned the largest animation studio in Britain, Halas & Batchelor, producing more than 2000 films including informational and educational cartoon shorts, series and features since 1940.

Halas & Batchelor

Most notable film Animal Farm (1954)

Director, Producer & Writer.

5 Months in London

Soho Square here I come! Holy ground of Richard Williams Studio.

Here's a Link to everything you ever want to know that came out of his studio;

The Thief Archive

Expressions

I tend to get hooked on to these youtube vids which really amazes me as an animator. This particular one really shows an extremely pure and honest expression change from sullen to intrigued and finally appreciation. Really great subtle expression changes, yet so effective.

Always brings tears to my eyes.

Ballet

It's been almost a year since my last post, this place is old.

Anyway thought I'd update it with a music video I thought was really interesting to watch for it's ballet sequence. Firstly I'm no ballet fan but there was something in that short sequence where the main ballerina was just so mesmerizing to watch. she was graceful and smooth but not soft, there was power in her movement and every thing was timed and executed with intent, but it just flowed so well. Just watch her arms, it feels weighted but light at the same time, the drag and overlap is so well controlled and her finger poses just accentuates her arm movements even more.

And I really like the song and band, enjoy!


Edward Sharpe & Magnectic Zeroes - Man On Fire