Victoria >>>

Thursday, July 19, 2018
6:36 PM

(G# Maj)

Back in those good days of old
I remember being told
With spirit, we could do anything.
And look at just how far we’ve come
Together here as one.
And with growth, with strength, with love
I know that here I’ll stay.
Here we stand today shining like a star
And where we belong we’ll ride every storm
Just you and me

This is my home
This is Victoria
It’s where I’ll finally find myself
Out of the wandering dark at last.
This is my flame
This is my torch and burning hope
And here I’ll make it, a bright new future
Our one and only love, Victoria

So look to the bright ahead
The future it is said
Together we will still stand as one
Cause you know that’s how people grow
And we can proudly show
That with all the years behind
We’ll look to more ahead
Here we stand today shining like a star
Blazing bright beams of light and showing the way
Just you and me

This is my home
This is Victoria
It’s where I’ll finally find myself
Out of the wandering dark at last.
This is my flame
This is my torch and burning hope
And here I’ll make it, a bright new future
Our one and only love,

(Modulated up a semitone to A maj)
This is my home
This is Victoria
It’s where I’ll finally find myself
Out of the wandering dark at last.
This is my flame
This is my torch and burning hope
And here I’ll make it, a bright new future
Our one and only love,
And here I’ll make it, a bright new future
Our one and only love, Victoria

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LSBC Youth Ablaze 11 Jul >>>

Friday, July 13, 2018
11:29 PM

I never knew how important the worship repertoire was. On saturday, the Worship Leader decided to make a last minute change to the worship repertoire. Lo and Behold. This change evoked such a worship atmosphere that the pastor made 3 altar calls successively. To myself it was quite interesting to see the number of people responding to the altar call in the small auditorium. For non Christians, it may seem shocking to see like 1/2 the people standing in front, weeping with the leaders. But the presence of the lord was so strong that day. I could feel it, even behind the sound board. It was just like all of a sudden, the knobs and faders felt different, the whole mixer felt different. It was something like an unexplained feeling of nostalgia, yet something so familiar stirring in your heart...

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88 - Piano Ensemble Concert! >>>

10:40 PM

Piano Ensemble Concert was rather interesting and fruitful for me.

I used 2 dynamic mics in the picture below plus 2 condensers. The dynamics were the best in this application and it gave the piano the needed percussiveness to make it sound bright. Unfortunately this was a big mistake.

The Secundus (i hope i spelt correctly) ended sounding brighter than the Primus. Luckily, the concert was such that the lead pianist was on the Primus at times, and at others, the Secundus. This is where two wrongs make a right. LOL.

The condensers produced a more mellow tone. But this caused the whole mix to sound muddy due to the lower frequencies. I guess those are not good condensers to be used though. But they were the best in the PT, for this application, after the dynamics. Originally there were 4 dynamics but 1 wasnt working. So, oh well... After adjusting the gain (which was very high even in the end), the pianos were mixed quite well to my relief.

Micing was terrible due to space constraints though. The positioning was difficult. The mics were initially placed too close to the piano, and thus I could hear ALOT (and i mean REALLY ALOT) of mechanical noise from the damper pedals. Sigh. I had to rectify them and after a while, (with lower gain), they sounded better.

After micing, some trouble EQing solved alot of the problems, but not completely. I had to mix it further in terms of levels. After which, panning was a problem. I could not do hard pan, neither could i pan equally. That was really a pain. Anyway, the mix sounded very nice :) even Mr Elfie agreed.

Then the horrible part came: OUTPUT FROM THE MIXER IS STEREO, BUT ONLY INTPUT INTO THE COMPUTER IS MONO! WHAT THE HELL =( =( In the end the recording is mono. I haven't heard it yet. I think might have phasing.

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TRANSFORMERS TWO REALLY SUCKS >>>

Tuesday, July 03, 2018
11:09 PM

Ok. I am not a transformer fan. The first time JR asked me if i watched transformers before, last year, the first and only reaction i gave him was "step up or step down" (-_-")

Today, i watched transformers 2. I think it really sucks. I'm sorry, transformer fans, but I am entitled to my own opinions. Maybe transformers itself is nice. But the movie is horrible. IMO that is.

The plot is like super standard. Autobots VS decepticons (leprecon). Like good VS evil... so cliche. Like a children's movie... I wonder why don't they call it Autobot VS Manualbot. Sounds so much better!

The pace of the show is crazy. Its very fast. You concentrate on the speech/plot, u miss out the graphics (not to mention, hot babes). Vice versa. SW also correct(tum)ly pointed it out.

There was LOTs of image noise. Especially the night scene at the high school part. It was obviously digital, coz of noise at the dark areas. I strongly believe that extensive grading was done. aka film not shot well. Otherwise equipment must really suck, which I think its not the case. After it was printed to film, image noise appeared on the lighter parts. Inherent problems of image noise though. Essentially, there was significant image noise (dark/light parts) in like almost every frame.

Needless to say, CGI still has its limitations. A split second before the autobots transform, you can see the image is "flat" and unrealistic. Probably 2 or 3 frames long. But it happens so often that i can detect it. Its SOOO irritating. If I'm not wrong, anti aliasing during that part was not done properly or there were certain limitations. Sure, nothing is perfect in this world. Great job on the CGI overall though.

I liked the CGI shadows. Very smooth and very realistic. It takes into account the contours of the surface (and also texture). However, it was just clearly "Burnt in" - typical shadow algorithms i guess. Not sure if the word "algorithm is correct(tum)" maybe technique. The overburning in some parts leads to inconsistancy of black levels within the frame, which is evidently quite annoying.

Another reason to believe the film was shot digitally, (or shot in film but processed/digitised badly due to technical limitations) is the poor depth of field. The DOP made little or no attempt (more than the DOP to blame though) to increase the depth of field. Limited focus pulling in places where it would be good. Overall, shots were fairly "flat". The digital parts were worse.

To reduce the amount of detail they needed to reproduce for all the robots, they smartly added a motion blur to the movement. How very ingenious. Except that I saw through that one. HAHA.

The plot for the running to optimus(rectumus) prime was very draggy. Run here run there, you run, IRAN... yeah... actors dun get tired...

A little more emphasis should be placed on the robot-human relationship. The struggles and feelings, etc. (SEE I'M NOT COMMENTING ONLY ON TECHNICAL ASPECTS)

In terms of camera angles, some of the angles were quite nicely done, in that it portrays the "largeness" of the robots very clearly. This aspect was rather intricate. However, it is very very typical, very cliche and nothing interesting. VERY boring in fact.

The only thing that kept me awake throughout this whole movie is the LOUDNESS. I had to stuff tissue paper in my ear to keep out the high SPL. Even then, its like STILL SUPER LOUD. 2nd row from the front is not fun! :(

The transformations of the robots could be a little slower... So fast, can't see anything. Espeically the LARGE RECOMBINANT VACUUM CLEANER ROBOT towards the end. Then again, the lesser frames there are, the less to render.

I liked the 'action' behind the scene shots, where the people were on their headsets and stuff. SO COOL LAH! At least, that's my interests. Esepcially at crunch time. Things are so action packed. Just the stuff that I like. That's why I'm a comm spec anw =D

Camera movement was generally unstable. VERY disappointing. Steadicam operators need a kick in the butt. ITS TOTALLY ATROCIOUS! its called a STEADIcam for a reason, man.

You people put your fellow steadicam operators to SHAME.

HOW VERY RETARDED

There were certain 360 degrees shots whereby the camera revolves around the subjects. Boy, it can get very dizzy. I hate those shots because unlike typical MS or OS shots, you cant really focus on 1 of the subjects.

Oh yes. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEANE! SPECIAL APPRECIATION TO KEANE LOOI FOR TREATING THE MOVIE (which otherwise I wouldn't have gone alone.)

D-popotamus left his footprint here...