The Dog Days Are Over

Selfie

The last week for production had been quite a ride for Spatium (#ne10c09).

From radio interviews…

Slam the tim tam

To slamming down Tim Tam Slams with Duck Vaders…

Team work!

They had to stop animating to get ready for the open house.

And it's up!

Considering they still had a lot to animate yet, it was cutting into their time as they worked together to display their jigsaw puzzle used for their story.

So crowded!

Still, the others worked while one of them presented and this was one of the rare times I got to see so many people in their tent.

Ask them, really.

Some people laughed at their joke about Spatium and no… I’m not going to say it here.

You can ask them yourself what is Spatium because there will be a time next year where they will try to garner votes from the public… IN PUBLIC.

Sad.

When open house day was over, the team continued on with the work.

Apparently they managed to finish everything but just the dog.

The dog was so much work to make it look right that they split the parts of the dog to animate between all four of them.

Lunch!

It had come to this, animating and eating next to their stations.

awesome lighting awesome chunran #prayforspatium2k15 #ne10c09

A photo posted by Spatium #NE10C09 (@spa.tium) on

At this point, they started to wonder why not a cat. A cat wouldn’t move as much as a dog but then, we don’t have sniffer cats… Do we?

chun was buried in confetti during wrap party #NE10C09 #prayforspatium2k15

A photo posted by Spatium #NE10C09 (@spa.tium) on

In any case, at the time of this post, YES they finally finished it!

HURRAY.

No more animating and now… They can chill and wait to show you their final product next year.

So watch out for Spatium!

Sing It!

It's the Duck Vaders!

Don’t they look cute in their illustrated form? That’s the Duck Vaders in their storyboards.

Anyway week 3 and it is their last week to finish up everything!

Rapping for the radio

In the midst of animating though, they got to do some radio interviews just for you all to know who they are and garner your votes when it’s open in January!

Guests!

And… welcoming guests like sponsors and even friends and family on their open house day to explain what they have been doing or why have they have to keep coming to Nanyang Polytechnic in the morning and leave at night for the past few weeks.

Pink Screen?

This is the only time you’ll see this screen because what all of you will see is the final product where their live action work is mixed with their stop motion graphics.

Go, go!

But after the open house activities, the Duck Vaders had to quickly get back to production.

They weren’t finished yet!

Inspecting

Most of their props had been folded and cut properly so what’s left is just making sure everything is supposed to be where it is.

There was a moment of panic where they misplaced their paper walkie talkie but thank goodness, they found it hidden on another table under another piece of paper.

Zoom?

A plane zooming…

Vote!

But yes, come January, don’t forget to vote for Duck Vaders (#NE10C05)

They’ve put in a lot of effort of singing and rapping and then even animating their story.


Hope you all will get to see their work next year!

And it rained

Tamago

This is not a review of Gion Dining because this post is more of a memory of what I ate there last Saturday.

Please go to other blogs if you want a review because I went there as a walk in and near the end of their lunch service.

But I needed to try it then because the previous few days I had the most disappointing Japanese food at some other place and that some woman was randomly sobbing at her table with her friends. I don’t know why, but what ever, I was just sad about my sad food and sad sobbing.

Thus, I went to Gion.

It was quiet since it was an hour to the end of lunch service and I did ask if walk ins were available. They said yes, I entered.

They passed me a tablet after I was shown to my seat.

I actually knew what I wanted so I managed to order it quickly since I had spent the previous day or so looking at their pdf menu online.

And so I waited.

The waitress told me pictures were not allowed of the menu and I went “Huh, very well” because… It’s actually already on their website and facebook.

No matter, I deleted them from my phone since I figured, I’m not going to review the place mat and cutlery setting anyway.

What I ordered… Their tempura set, tamagoyaki and wheat tea.

It did not take too long, the tamagoyaki was set upon my table.

I took a bite of one slice and oh. Oh my, it was warm and it was sweet.

Perhaps I should stop and wait for when my tempura set arrived. But no, I couldn’t stop myself since I was quite hungry.

The wheat tea came, the waitress poured the cup for me and I savoured it.

It had been steeped properly and it was real wheat grains if you were curious enough to open the top of your teapot.

Do not insult this tea with sugar for you should savour it as it is.

The tempura set

The food did come soon after.

Ah, finally a proper set. Pickles, a potato salad, a vegetable salad with vinaigrette. Chawanmushi, a small yogurt dessert in a shot glass and the tempura with its sauces and miso soup with rice.

Fluffy

The rice, it was fluffy. Warm and sticky enough for me to use my chopsticks. As I tasted it, I thought, “Ah yes, this is Japanese rice” for you can tell the difference in taste compared to normal or basmati rice.

They cooked their rice properly. It was comforting as the rain started pouring outside. The tea kept on steaming away in its cup as I left it to cool and dipped my tempura in its sauce.

Oh… it was crispy, the saltiness of the sauce glancing against the battered exterior as I bit into it. Not oily, just crisp and full of the sweetness of the prawn itself intermingled with the sauce.

What a balance.

The grated radish was garnished with fresh ginger, an interesting choice, I thought. It brought a bigger kick than what preserved ginger would have.

I looked out to the side where the other few diners were eating their food. Did they realized what skill this needed? It was far simpler than what other dishes they might have ordered and that was why it was even more impressive since it was the simplest which was easiest to mess up.

I tilted up the bowl of miso soup, taking a sip of it. It was light, instead of tiny tofu cubes as I came to expect from many places, in place were small Japanese mushrooms. A delightful surprise at this tiny detail.

The side dishes, I polished off quickly, darting my chopsticks back and forth.

I half wondered if there would be any other disaster would befall in Orchard as the rain kept getting heavier.

I dipped my small spoon into the chawanmushi.

Ah yes, it was still warm and it had been freshly steamed.

It was still soft, so soft.

Finally I managed to eat a proper chawanmushi for the week as I scraped the spoon trying to get every bit of it, clinging to the cup.

Pouring myself another cup of wheat tea, I started on my dessert.

A tangy yogurt to finish the meal.

The rain stopped as the last drops of tea was drunk.

I left since I had paid for the meal before the lunch services was over.

As I like to say to eating such delicious food, itadakimasu, baby.

Crunching Down?

The wall again

Ah yes, we have come back to Spatium (#NE10C09) and what’s this?

Another Shia

A hand drawn Shia because they didn’t remember to print one of it. But alright, looks like they’re getting onto their work.

Ah yes, N.E.mation. Week 2 always makes the teams wonder why did they even join this because they’re all working continuously just to get their scenes done to see their project come to life!

Ok, dramatic much but yes.

I mean, they might have little or no animation experience and just for this competition, they have to complete a whole animated story in a few weeks.

One scene done

One scene is done though. Hurray for saluting people. HURRAY! ONE DOWN. So just a few more scenes to go till completion.

Doing CPR

I learned that for their team, the scenes are actually split up via difficulty. So we have level 1 to 4 and each of the girls have scenes according to what they can handle.

Water...

With that said, even with all of them having their own work cut out for them, they’re starting to create mistakes here and there.

WATER IS NOW BANNED in their tents or at least away from the computers…

But somehow there seems to be some accidentally spilled still.

Beautiful Knees

I should mention, theirs is the first tent if you walk into the main area for N.E.mation and you might hear weird singing.

If you do.

That’s Spatium.

At the time I was visiting and look see-ing, there was repetition of “Beautiful knees, such beautifuuuuul knees”.

Animating

The moon represents my heart.

Here we see someone animating a ‘level 4’ scene. This is how actual animators look like some times. I know because I’ve seen animators animate during crunch time before.

But hey, what’s that on the table?

Shame Jar

A shame shame jar?

So far I see the money is made out of the koufu vouchers that all the teams get to pay for their food in NYP’s canteen though…

Such promotions

Never let it be said that Spatium aren’t good at trying to market themselves.

Working

Whoops, their instructor is glitching while I panorama-ed.

The pieces on the floor are the jigsaw puzzles for their production. It’s the only place they can keep it safely so that no one would accidentally break it.

Twirl

Onwards to week 3 where they have to finish their animation. JUST ONE MORE WEEK.

so deng drew this just now and pasted it on the curtain which closes the tent #NE10C09

A photo posted by Spatium #NE10C09 (@spa.tium) on

Also don’t forget to like their pages. SPATIUUUUUUUUUM.

Time for a break?

The 'bar'

If you guys haven’t known what N.E.mation is, it is a competition where the teams animate their stories according for the theme for this year. This year’s theme is Together We Keep Singapore Strong.

And all these teams, yes, they have to animate it themselves so besides having their instructors guide them, they have to do all these things on their own.

Cocoa break!

MEANWHILE, Duck Vaders are having a hot cocoa break. Week 2 and they are still cutting and folding their props for the animation.

Folding

Break OVEEER. Here they are learning how to make their characters have more depth by folding the edges.

The people

And they were SO SCARED to mess up in folding because they had cut so many pieces so yes, it is just that one step to make it look better but so scary if they made a mistake since they’d have to make it all AGAIN?

That’s the stress part.

Of course, I’m not telling you how their story unfolds (HURHUR) for the team because that would be revealing too much but it’s certainly about all walks of life helping each other.

Hands

Children get mitten hands and adults have fingers.

Go figure.

Painting!

And they have a cameo too! Perhaps you might spot it in the background when the final animation is ready for you to vote for Duck Vaders (#NE10C05)

For stop motion

All they have to do is to start their actual stop motion animation ONCE they finish folding their people.

Dancing?

But first, a dance break is needed.

So cool

And remember, VOTE FOR DUCK VADERS… When voting is out in a few weeks. Hahahaha.

Lastly…

#ne10c05

A video posted by 🐥🐥 Duck Vaders #NE10C05 🐥🐥 (@duckvaders) on

Don’t forget to follow their Instagram.

SPATIUM…?

Spatium

Ah Spatium, Spatiuuum aka #NE10C09.

Do you say it as SPAH or SPEH?

Well, it’s a team of four girls from CHIJ, St Nicholas Girls’ School: Xu Chunran, Deng Cheng, Ng Yi Zee  and Thel Su Thazin.

Puzzle placing

Theirs is a live action video mixed with 2d animation.

They look like such good girls here, looking so concerned about their production.

Fragile

I managed to visit their tent and after the whole recording of people placing pieces of a puzzle together, they had to keep it there for reference.

Cleaning?

I’m rather concerned about them though as this was week one and they’ve started to randomly vacuuming things without the plug on.

Just do it

And then I saw all the Shia Leboeufs… That was five days of work, there will be more by the end of their production.

Just doing it.

Deng Cheng says the moon represents her inner self, so alright. This is the time just doing it.

I could tell you more about the story of their production next week (TUNE IN SOME MORE or read their blog posts) but so far, they have live action video recorded for their part one and part two is a LOT of animating of scenes in toon boom.

Guiding

This was on the last day of week 1 and… And she made a mistake.

Her instructor is telling her how to fix it and she has to redo that scene.

So sad

Creys. So much creys.

It’s ok. They’re still sort of on schedule…? Sort of. They can do it! Let’s give them, our support!

What just happened?

I managed to get to witness the debrief of week 1 and Deng Cheng asked Ellery if he could take off his hoodie because she had never seen him without it before.

And that was then I knew this group was going to be ridiculous.

Ok, the Shia Leboeufs were major hints also.

They are actually sword trash (Touken Ranbu), Potterheads, K-pop and one hipster(?).

A varied group but they are all working together.

This is their tent

This is going to be about how everyone works together in their story and it looks like how everyone, though different is also working together to create this animation.

Go like their page, follow their Instagram and twitter!

Talk to them, I think they really need it if they start vacuuming things again.

The Attack of Duck Vaders

Duck Vaders

Duck Vaders aka #NE10C05 are students from CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School.

They are not ducks, nor are they invaders.

They are:

Rebekah Seow, Goh Kerrianne , Christabelle Kam Rui Ting and Lim Yean Lyi

And they are awesome girls. YEAH!

Come like their FB page first, GO GO! Click here.

Green Screen

It’s NEMation time again and I’m ambassadoring two teams, both happen to be from CHIJ and well, let me tell you more about Duck Vaders.

This is their first time animating and working with a green screen, so now they have learned how high resolution a 4k camera is and why makeup is totally needed.

Rapping

Their concept is rap, recorded and performed by themselves and for all the animation to happen around them.

Cutting

So far, none of them have paper cuts on their fingers and that’s great because they have a lot of cast and sets to make.

Part one, they had to record the song and have themselves recorded.

Part two, they have to do the actual animating part now.

The cast

Here’s some of the multiracial cast. Hey… What’s that over there? Let’s take a closer look at the NS guy.

Close up

It’s all… in coloured pencils?!

I asked them and it takes 4 hours to manually colour the digital uniform for NS army guys now.

And they have two army guys to make in total…

MAJOR HAND CRAMP MATERIAL.

So handsome.

Rebekah finds this guy the handsomest of all their paper cast because he has awesome hair.

He kind of reminds me of a broody Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Angel

Sort of, right??

Camera set up

Stop motion with all the paper cut outs is so going to take a lot of time. Here’s their set up with the camera mounted above.

So if you don’t know how it works, they have to manually take a picture frame by frame and then from there, it gets animated when it’s all put together.

Debrief

Week one for Duck Vaders and they’re on schedule. Let’s hope they continue being on schedule.

Duck Vaders tent

Come support them and watch out as we tell you more about the story they’re animating in just these few weeks.

LIKE THEIR PAGE, Follow their instagram and twitter!