NUS – colination

Crowned Goodness for FYP

There has been lots of undeserved grace for FYP. Before my presentation, I was preparing by researching on the presentation style of Steve Jobs, reading some articles, watching YouTube and getting inspired. Beside that, I was a little worried that my work done in my project was not substantial and convincing enough, even though it is only a one semester work.

And so I prepared my presentation in a slightly different way. The report helped to formulate most of the points for the presentation. I wrote out a rough script then created my slides for it, instead of creating the slides first. And this is the first time I practiced so many times (despite having another SS test on Monday), so much that after 5 times or so, you don’t need to refer to the notes anymore.

However on the day itself, I was still nervous. Who wouldn’t be? But if God is for us, [which evaluator] can be against me? I remember singing that just the Sunday before. I asked God for crowned goodness, took holy communion, and anointed myself with oil. My friend who presented before me was attacked quite badly by the evaluators, and me and the others who were presenting next were quite stunned. We were like looking at one another whenever the first person was questioned. And then my turn came.

My evaluators were Dr. Zhao and Dr. Steven Halim. Although they stopped me intermittently throughout the presentation, they were mostly satisfied. Dr. Zhao’s questions were answered in my presentation, and he was happy with my arguments and thought it was a good presentation, although he was not fully convinced by some of my ideas. As for Dr. Halim, he was asking more standard questions, like why didn’t I include this and that in the report, and also about my technical accomplishment, of which I demo-ed the Etherpad. He said that my case would be stronger if I have a working prototype of my interface proposal, but since it is only 1 semester’s work, it is good.

After the presentation, not 1, not 2, but 3 industry people actually mentioned that I presented well! Praise God! When I came out of the classroom, a few industry people sitting at the bench talked to me for a while. Later, the founder emailed me to invite me to present at their company next Monday. I also heard from my professor that they are trying to get IDA funding to develop my product. Wow! The second industry person is from a startup company, and asked me if I am interested to work for them as their UI/UX designer, because they saw that I have a good eye for design and user interface. So unexpected. And the last person, a lady, just passed by and said she thought it was good, my arguments were sound, and asked me if I am looking for a job, which I said I was not.

And one more thing, my professor requested me to convert my report into a conference paper to submit to HCI India too.

Thank God for all his providence and paths that are dripping with abundance. Finally, it is all over.

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Update: One week day, I went to a small company, which develops a similar e-learning product, to present my project to the developers there, with an intent to collaborate with me/us. This was the feedback from the founder:

With your strength in UI and interface design , I believe that the route that you are currently heading will entrench great potential for your future. Another talent that i have identify in you is your communication skills. It is definitely crucial to continuously hone these skills that you have. I believe you will be a powerful tech player / entrepreneur in no time.

Unmerited favour! But due to my limited time left here in Singapore,they were not able to engage me this time. Maybe next time!

My Last Semester so far

I realised that I haven’t blogged at all this semester, even though this semester is relatively slack since I’m only taking two modules and FYP, and I don’t have exams!

So far, there has been Grace to meet my everyday demand. I have learnt how to not worry about tomorrow and just live each day by grace. I just finished editing my 7-min short film, Mix or not, for my Singapore Film SSA2218 module. My two friends kindly helped to act, and we went to Albert Food Centre and managed to finish everything in half a day, praise God! It turned out to be pretty interesting, and it’s not easy to shoot people actually eating food because the food may run out, and we had to buy another plate! We also secretly filmed beside Raffles hotel for a short opening scene.

As for my NM3223 photography module which has now been modified to interactive imaging, the first few assignments were individual ones, from photo taking to digital manipulation. I particularly enjoyed the urban fantasy themed one, which can be seen here.

Lastly, my FYP is going slow but good. I’m not sure if it is a blessing by having a modified one-semester FYP, but I still managed to read a lot of readings and came up with a prototype. I was setting up a Linux virtual machine for the first time, and I’ve never typed so many Linux commands in my life! Because the CentOS was installed with zero software, I had to install Apache, java etc. Everything myself. What a chore. Thank the internet for tutorials. I was playing with Etherpad Lite (the precursor to google wave) and tried to include MathJax in it but failed. Then I tried Etherpad, the original version and included mimetex, a Latex to image converter and it worked! Now I can type math symbols in an online collaborative space. Just like Google Docs, which I realised has an Insert Equation option now too. My report is due in one week and so far I wrote 18 pages. God will multiply my time!

In other news, circle line has opened to Kent Ridge and it saves my travelling time by 10-15 mins. Now the missing link is the not trustworthy NUS shuttle bus. Also, I realised that The Star is now already on the Bouna Vista MRT map! And the travelling time is about the same as travelling to Promenade, which is awesome.

Last month, I attended a 13 Little Pictures Film Lab as part of Singapore International Film Festival. While I didn’t manage to watch anything during the festival, which had many hiccups, it was an excellent opportunity to “film jamming” with other like minded people. As everyone is already an expert in their own field, it was more of an exchange session than a workshop. One interesting thing is that there were participants from overseas, 2 Thai, 2 Filipinos, 1 Polish and 1 Chinese, and some of them came all the way here just for the lab! I particularly enjoyed bringing the tourists around to places like Tekka Market to eat good food. One of them, Joe, wanted to eat chilli crab, and I brought him to Melben in Toa Payoh. It was my first time there as well. I really enjoy being a tour guide, and it’s always interesting to see Singapore from a tourist’s eyes. One of them took photos of all the weird signs, such as ‘No Loitering’, and it was pretty funny. At the ene of the week we produced a short 5 min experimental piece about nostalgia. Update: Joe submitted the piece to a Filipino film festival and it is selected for screening.

And one more thing, I am addicted to Cities In Motion!

Rag to Riches Sneak Preview

Last Tuesday, I organised a sneak preview screening for Rag to Riches, a documentary on NUS Rag and Flag. We invited people that we know on Facebook 1.5 weeks in advance, and 80 people responded to come. In the end, about 50 people came, which is pretty good! Mr. Donald Wyatt kindly graced the occasion too, and I hope the documentary did justice to his legacy. I knew about half the people who came, while the rest are from various faculties, and two groups from Sheares and Eusoff Hall.

I decided not to have a Q&A session, although I commented that we have no agenda, and asked people to send us feedback by SMS or facebook. Not many people sent the SMS, so I’ve to message them on facebook.

After the screening, feedback from Mr. Donald, someone from Sheares and various people that the documentary is pretty good, but is also pretty balanced and neutral, with the good and the bad. To the raggers, it presents information which most people know but do not say openly. To the non-raggers and some raggers, it is an eye-opener, and very informative, and questions the purpose of the event, and make them think about it. Pretty good feedback, and we’ll see how it goes from here.

It feels good to finally finish the documentary and screen it to an audience. I wish to edit it further based on the feedback.

Godspeed

Recently, I’ve been thinking about some stuff which I’ve been thinking why I haven’t thought of it earlier? After struggling through various vector-based algorithms in game programming, I realised that I’m okay with coding, just that when there is some form of math involved, it kind of turns me off. And then I thought that maybe I should be studying in a creative school, or studying film somewhere overseas, and why did I torture myself in NUS? Why didn’t I just stick with NTU? Or why didn’t I make an effort to apply to some overseas university earlier in JC? What if I am somewhere else now instead of studying a science-based degree? Perhaps I will excel better? I like to study something else other than computing that I’m actually taking 3 arts module now. Am I not maximising myself? Would I be happier elsewhere? And it doesn’t seem to be fulfilling the purpose and destiny that God called me to – to use film and media for His Kingdom.

And then, last last Sunday, pastor preached a sermon about hope, a confident and joyful expectation of good. One of the things he mentioned was that, don’t dance in the “what if” or “if only”: God say NOW, today is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Why am I thinking so much? I’m not satisfied, and I don’t seem to be doing anything about it. But God says to hope in the future, He has seen it, and it is so bright and good. That’s the only thing I can trust in.

Reminded me of another teaching about being at the right place at the right time:

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. – Ecclesiastes 9:11

Happen (קָרָה: qarah) means to bring about, to send good speed. God certainly can bring me to the right place and and the right time, and I trust that he has the best of my interests in His heart, and my next 7 years will be AWESOME. (Come to think of it, 7 years is a long time.) I’m still trying to believe and #walkasif I already have it. And they say God will not put you in some place which you do not need Him.

If God has not brought me to the right place at the right time, then I would not be in NUS, I would not be in church, I would not know the friends that I know that I have now, and I would not have such friends in my facebook now, and come to think of it, I would not have such a hope that I have now.

Serving in ministry has been awesome, learning how to program the light console is really like a dream come true. I always wanted to play with gobos and effects, and now finally I have the chance to do it, instead of just playing with a slideshow on a projector! And I like how I can apply my theatre and film knowledge in this area. And I just did my first interview video, it was really fun and exciting. Can’t wait to work on more projects with other exciting beloved people!

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On a side note, sometimes we may be actually focusing too much on ourselves without us realising it, and sometimes, in sermons, too. “Believe that I have receive, walking as if I already have”, seems very self-centered. What is more important, I think, is that, we walk, not for ourselves, but for Him.

Playing Host: When Exchange Truly Happens

When my international pal from UCSC visited Singapore, it really loops back the student exchange programme, since now I am sharing my culture with her.

She was exchange in Thailand, and hence it was convenient for her to pop by over the weekend with her Argentinian boyfriend, who happens to be able to disguise well as a Malay if no one asks. I let them try a durian puff near the Chinatown MRT, and also the mooncake i brought. Then I brought them to Maxwell Food Centre on their first day for a wonderful breakfast: carrot cake (which doesn’t contain carrots), bak chor mee (minced meat noodles), hainanese chicken rice, you tiao (dough fritters) and sugar cane drink. It was a sumptuous meal and I described each dish to them before eating. It was interesting as the Argentinian friend said they also had such fried bread and it’s called dougha frittas! Haha. Before I left, I gave them a quick introduction on the various places they could visit over the next few days, such as Sentosa, Singapore River, Clarke Quay nightlife and Night Safari.

And on their third and last day, today, I brought them to Little India Tekka Market for another breakfast: roti prata, nasi briyani, Indian rojak, Ya Kun Kaya toast and Milo! I probably bought too food this time, they liked the nasi briyani as the rice is very tasty. I described the Milo as Hot Chocolate and she said it does taste like Hot chocolate.

I told them it was better to come Little India on a weekday as there are less people. After that we took a walk along Serangoon Road, and coincidentally there was a Chinese funeral possession, in Little India of all places. It was the (Taoist?) kind with a huge band playing and huge lorry hearse. My guests were quite fascinated. I brought them to a Hindu temple before I had to go to school. She wanted to go Ubin for the nature but I told her it’s probably too far away for her to finish in half a day. Mount Faber or Botanic Gardens is probably a better choice.

Some of the interesting comments from them was that they were quite amazed by the Singapore Flyer and the architecture of the Marina Bay Sands as they arrived in a taxi in the ECP at night. Looks like the plans of developing Marina Bay has paid off well. They also commented that Singapore is so close to Thailand yet so very different. After a few days, they are quite amazed at the cleanliness of the streets and subways. She asked how do we keep it so clean? And I talked about faithful janitors who sweep the roads and how we are taught not to litter since young, and how there’s a govt department to plant trees. The guy also asked me how’s the ethnic distribution of Singapore like, and I described to them the mandatory policies of bilingualism and of the race-proportion rule in terms of housing. They were also amused at the friendliness of Singaporean taxi drivers, with one offering her a packet of tissue when she was sneezing. Lol. She also said that Singapore is cooler than Bangkok, and I said probably our air is less polluted as well. Over the meal conversations, I also talked a bit about Singapore’s history, our culture, our relations with Malaysia. The guy also mentioned he noticed a lot of security cameras, but they have not spotted any policemen. My response was Big Brother is watching you and the fines are enough to deter crime. Haha. They mentioned that Night Safari was a fun attraction with its halloween theme this month.

Walking through a little of Little India (pun not intended) makes me think that most normal non-Indian Singaporeans probably never bothered to walk this stretch of roads in their life, and how ironic is that the tourists do so. And that most of us probably never stepped into a Hindu temple, and never knew there’s a old Chinese villa there, including me. I was somewhat a tourist too. Hmm, we should start organising tours for Singaporeans to queer places which people don’t normally go! Fancy a “road trip” around our island? Who’s on?

As always, I am pretty proud of Singapore and to tell people more and give people directions. I should print a t-shirt that says “ask me for directions” and work as a tour guide!

The Rag Dance Experience

Joining rag dance is a unique and memorable experience, something which I do not regret joining, as it adds vibrancy to my university life. I always wanted to be part of such a group of people, practising together for a common goal, although it also means sacrificing lots of personal time and social life.

This year’s SoC rag dance is considered quite slack as compared to last year, for the practices started later in the holidays. From 3 times of 4 hours a week (2-6pm), it gradually evolved to everyday 8 hours per day as the days to the actual rag day were numbered. The dance choreographers, Alicia and Jazreel, worked very hard to train us, most of us first-time noob dancers. For myself, it was also good way to continue my dance classes from UCSC.

At first, it was quite fun to learn the new dance steps, although some of them, especially the “Do you remember” song, were quite difficult and fast. Audacity helped in slowing down the tempo of the song, and we learnt from slower tempo to faster tempo. After a while, it got a little repetitive as we kept practising the same dance steps, waiting eagerly for the newer steps to be taught. Somehow, I could not get some of the steps initially, and was accused of skipping steps and doing shortcuts. Haha.

Then, the people who did the cheerleading stunts last year started practising for them. At one of the sessions, I was asked to try to be a backspot base for one of the flyers as the original person was not around. After 3 or 4 tries, I successfully lifted up the girl from in front of me to sit on my shoulder. However, it activated my old injury in my bicep/tricep, which is probably a muscle tear from army (and is also the reason I could not surf). Hence I was not able to continue anymore. For some reason, the muscle pain reoccurred quite a few times over the next few weeks, even during some seemingly minimal action like doing a star jump or swinging my arm upwards. However it was a good experience to be able to try the cheerleading stunts.

As the day drew closer, we stayed over in school for practices with the float at night, once during the fow camp, once on Monday, and the last two nights before the actual day. The nights were filled with waiting for midnight, which is when the shuttle buses stop operating, and practiced till like 3am or so. Not forgetting playing lame games like mi-mi-mi-re-mi-fa-so-mi and the nightly supper from the now popular Al-Meem Northern Indian restaurant, with Naans, roti-johns and Teh. It was also always a hassle to find a place to bathe, whether is it ICube or SRC, and we always end up sleeping close to 5am.

Very soon the actual day arrived. Before that, it was filled with pep talks from Peide, Ziqing and lots of scolding from our choreographer. Our energy level was not enough, we were not up to performance standard. We always also screw up our blocking and centre marking. There was also a lot of time spent on decorating and painting our weapons, as well as buying materials and sewing our custom made costumes. We wore a vest made from old CGF shirts, and lion-dance-like pants wirg blink blink shiny stuff. The actual day arrived, we woke up at 5.30am to start doing our make-up, hairdo, and everyone was transformed into “pretty boys” in 4 hours. Super gay.

We had free McDonalds for breakfast and was transported to CP10 for the pre-judging posing and static displays. Looking at the other floats and costume-clad people, the mood was exciting and colourful. Our float is the biggest and best one so far as compared to the previous years, yet it was still smaller compared to other faculties’. But it is still beautifully done.

After lunch and a few practices, we were ferried to a holding area in a tent near SRC. The mood was anticipating yet tiring, due to the hot sun and warm weather. Peide say we must not go into shag mood, but we must hype and warm ourselves up and prepare for our performance as we were the first group. After some warm-up excercises, we did the dancers-woosh, and we were ushered to the SRC tracked.

Soon our moment arrived, the float was pushed in, and the initial twinkling of the tea party song was played. We jumped unto the stage enthusiastically, and I was clapping my hands up in the air. Then, OUCH my old injury was activated again >.< by the clapping, of all timings! I was struggling to dance tea party, but fortunately managed to twist my arm back before the fighting part with Julian and Brandon. The diagonal lines were good, and the second fighting seen was done well. Everything else was good, except the end when some of them were not able to finish their stunts successfully, and they were quite sad after that.

After our dance, it was a fun time to watch and admire other faculties’ dances, as well as taking photos and videos. The highlight of the night was the SYOG flame arrival ceremony, complete with fireworks and fanfare. It arrived on a modified open-top coach bus (similar to NUS Shuttle Bus), in a safety lantern, before being transferred to the torch, and then it lighted up a cauldron by President and 2 athletes. It was the first time rag ended with such a big bang, and I guess it was a good addition and also interesting to see the halls dancing in different countries’ culture. I must say the Mexican dance is a pretty good rendition, as I have watched some of it in California.

There was a post event party in which they played some cool songs and the SoC people got very high and we started forming a human train along the field and running all around. We then proceeded to the float for a massive photo taking session and multiple camera horing, cheering, some tau poks and crowd surfing and what not. It was a tremendous wonderful cheerful ending for the whole orientation week.

Joining rag dance allowed me to make some new friends, as well as bond better with existing ones. It also gave me a chance to experience the discipline and effort needed in a dance performance, as well as learning how to respect the choreographers and fellow dancers by dancing with all our might, putting in 100-150% of effort (often any figure >100% is an overly exaggerated figure), and putting on a great big smile unto the audience. =D

And as they say, for us, it’s about the process, not the final result. Although many other groups will beg to differ.

Why I join rag dance

Many people are surprised that I actually joined rag dance. Probably because my personality doesn’t seem to be the dancing type, I don’t seem like the dancing-on-stage kind of person, but always the person behind-the-scenes, like a photographer or similar.

But ever since VJC mass dance, I always liked dancing with a huge group of people. It is a fun activity, a good form of exercise and it has somewhat synonymous qualities with cheering: it bonds people together, it shows unity and teamwork, it creates camaraderie. And there’s also a saying that if one person does it, it looks stupid, when a group of people do it together, it looks beautiful.

And also, it is about trying new things. I joined ballroom dance, hip hop dance, and zumba dance classes when I was in UCSC. So why can’t I do the same in NUS? It’s probably one of my last few chances to have fun and do something different, something which I do not want to regret not doing when I grow older, something to be involved in, as part of SoC, as part of NUS. It’s a good way to get to know and bond with other SoC people. As much as I do not support the idea of float-building in rag, dancing is a different story in my opinion.

David danced before the LORD with all his might (2 Samuel 6:14).
As the Switchfoot song goes: This is your life, are you who you want to be?

camaraderie

No More Deadlines!

Praise God, for finally I finished all my projects and there’s no more deadlines (except for exams of course).
It has been an enjoyable semester so far (except for a few cases), and it is good that I managed to finish everything well on time!

NM3215 Advertising Strategies

After one of our group members left, it is still quite comfortable to work in a group of 4 I think. The project was to do an advertising campaign for Kia Motors Singapore for the launch of the new Kia Soul. This project was a lot of work, I spent a lot of effort on the creatives such as the poster designs and presentation. And although we did not intend to do a video initially and it was not the requirement, we decided to spend one afternoon to do a simple photo shoot and we shot a short hilarious video. Thanks to Daryl, Shuhui and Majella for the wonderful teamwork! Okay, the video is too embarrassing to share, but here’s some nice posters which I came up with

CS3240 Human Computer Interface

I thought I would like this module, but the lecturer didn’t make me like it. But she’s very friendly though. But I think our project is over and above what the module requires. There’s too much programming involved for a GUI (graphics user interface)-based project. It was meant to be a Silverlight/Flash project, but we used Javascript/HTML/PHP instead. Nevertheless, we still managed to come up with our very own NUS Shuttle Bus website. I learnt a lot of jquery along the way. The timings are just dummy values, so don’t trust it. haha. Thanks to Chris for all the coding, and also Rachel and Meng. Here’s a screenshot:

CS3249 Elements of User Interface Design

Again, as with most computing modules, the requirements for the project are above what is required of the module. However, I enjoyed this one especially, because the project was to code a (Wii)Flash game which uses the Nintendo WiiMote as the controller. How cool is that! The WiiMote is connected to the computer via bluetooth, and you can use infrared transmitters or candles (yes they work too) to transmit infrared signals for the translation movement. For the first time, I volunteered to do the coding instead of doing the design. I ended up being one of the main programmers. It was quite amazing, praise God for I managed to pick up ActionScript quickly and we managed to finish our project on time! Wish I could export the flash as a game playable by mouse, but maybe next time. Thanks to Chris, Favian, Angelin, Ling Wei and Melissa for the fantastic teamwork! Here’s a cool screenshot:

Thank God for all the wonderful time and time abundantly that he has multiplied! I managed to get enough sleep for most of the days, except for last weekend in which I was in school till 1am on Saturday and I slept at 4am on Sunday. But only one weekend. The rest of the weekends were miraculously wonderful.

And now, for the exams. 2 more weeks =)

Of Weddings, School and Wii

Last Friday, I went for my cousin’s wedding at Swissotel Stamford Ballroom. Before the day, I was considering whether to wear a tie or something different. I was suddenly inspired to buy a scarf. I went to look for one at Bugis Village but found none. Over at Bugis Junction, most of the shops don’t sell, and of those which did, there were limited selection. As I was about to leave, I stumbled upon a pushcart which sells all kinds of scarves. I asked the saleslady for recommendations for scarves for men and I bought 2 for $20. On that day itself, I contemplated for very long whether to wear one or not before deciding to do so. I went Youtube (yes…don’t laugh) to find out what are the different ways to tie a scarf. It would be quite unusual, very experimental, and slightly out-of-this world of me to wear the scarf which I bought. I was afraid that people will think weirdly. On hindsight, as I was trying it out, it looked like tablecloth with checked black and white.

(During the event, some people said the scarf looked not too bad, and I need to have the self-confidence to bring it on. My cousin said I looked like Rain? I guess I need to be less self-conscious and more Jesus-conscious! As You are , so are we!)

The place looked very familiar, then I realised that I went there before 5 years ago for VJC’s 20th Anniversary Gala Dinner. Ah…we had a cocktail reception before proceding in for the dinner. First time there was the ROM solemnization ceremony incorporated before the dinner. Quite interesting. The food was good, my favourite was the cold dish and the dessert was not bad. Coincidentally, I met yongxue there. Somehow, he knew my cousin through his workplace. What a small world after all…

My cousin hired a pretty impressive video team, which did a short-film-quality MTV-like same-day highlights video, which showed what happened during the tea ceremonies in the morning. It was very cool, the colours were graded very well and the film-like HD quality was quite good. Some samples of similar videos can be found here.

Going to a wedding also makes one think about what would yours be like in future. But I guess it is too early for me to think about that now!

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School has been good so far. God is good, I have been praying for abundant time and God is certainly faithful in many occasions to multiply my time. On one occasion, I actually reached school half hour earlier. I also managed to finish my CS3240 report in 7 hours on the deadline itself, and the other projects are going on schedule. CS3249 has been the most interesting. Although the project – designing a Wii game – has little to do with the module name, Elements of User Interface Design, it is one of the most fulfilling projects so far. I did not want to the usual design role, and hence I took up the courage to do the programming role for this project. I had to figure out ActionScript, which was my first time, as well as using the WiiFlash API to program the Bartender game (which another group designed). I had to find out with my teammates how to ‘pour’, ‘shake’ and map the cursor based on the infrared sensor. We managed to create a prototype last Monday, and it was fun and amazing to see the game work. Everyone’s been cooperative and the other groups were quite impressive too. NM3215 Advertising Strategies is going to be stressful as our report about Kia Motors is due next Friday and presentation after that. As for Maths, it is a struggle as always to learn and keep up, but by His grace, I will. NM2101 has been interesting but I hope it is not too difficult to score. Somehow, my essay-writing skills are going raw.

Last Monday, I attended the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum with MM Lee as Guest-of-Honour. It was an interesting but short event as it was my first time in such an event hearing MM Lee speak life. Quite insightful and it is obvious that many people are still interested in politics and Government, just that most of our generation tends to be more nonchalant. MM Lee said that in order for our generation to survive the next 50 years, we need the ruggedness, roburst attitude, will make it, do -or-die attitude like our grandparents/forefathers and understand what it means to be poor. Our forefathers fight against all odds (just like how now Foreign Talent fight with us), and built the Singapore as it is today. I think our generation still has some way to go to learn that, living in so much comfort.

It’s week 10, and 4 more weeks to go. Not long later, after exams, and I will be flying off! For my SEP! To the land of freedom and liberty…in a flight that will cost as much as a computer. haha. I am looking for flights now, it is hard to find a cheap one. Trying to arrange to meet Josh P. there for Christmas too.

Anecdotes from Jack Neo

Jack Neo came for a talk in NUS for Dr. Brown’s Digital Media Production module, and here are some quotes:

Write about what happened to your own life – Script is king
Film industry is about cheating/convincing people, you can make 4 policemen look like 100 policemen
Money No Enough had a lot of background noise from the old 35mm camera. And there was also a lot of noise from nearby construction sites when filming. However, a film critic from the West said the film’s sound is an authentic showcase of Singapore’s state of development with all the construction noise (unintentionally) placed in the background
MDA should have a computer graphics (CG) fund to fund productions to make more use of CG so that our industry can grow to a newer level. Because many directors do not have the capaibility to try and experiment, and hence we will never get to grow in that area.
Drama training is important for scriptwriters and directors to know how actors act and portray themselves

I asked a question on how local audience don’t like Singapore films…how do you reconcile the fact that you are producing for an audience who don’t watch their own films? He replied that it is hard to please everybody. But don’t give up, if you have a good script, there will definitely be an audience who watch your film(s). Jack Neo has proved that with his films’ box office takings despite the many critics around.