Month: March 2017

Zine Research: Punggol

‘Punggol’ is apparently a Malay word. It means to ‘hurl sticks at branches and fruit trees so they fall to the ground.’ It also means the stump of a tree, like this.

PErhaps Punggol had a lot to do with nature. After learning more about Punggol’s history, it actually is strong roots to nature.

Back then, way before even Stamford Raffles (founder of SG) came over, Punggol already existed and had her own community of people. Back in early 1950s, Punggol was a fishing village where fishing docs were set up so fishmongers can make a living, kampongs (villages) were nearby, fruit trees were planted, and they had farms to look after pigs and other animals. (Picture shown later below)

First Impressions

I alighted at Punggol MRT station and walked in to Waterpoint Mall which was nearby. The mall looked quite new; they had a lot of stores, high end stores especially, which wasn’t surprising. It was clean. It was in the morning so it wasn’t crowded or anything. I had a  hard time searching for the recreational space that was suppose to be somewhere nearby. Got lost along the way, but I eventually found my way through.

Walking Along Arc Bridge

Too many tall buildings to count.

The waterway terrace was interesting. I like the look of it. It had green and white walls. And the white pillars aren’t flat, they actually jut out, like a wing, and have this wave like pattern to it (if you look closely). The leaf motifs on the white walls are quite interesting too. It’s not commonly found in HDB flats because it’s always a solid colour with no pattern to it. I guess Punggol flats are starting to develop it’s own nature-friendly character through it’s designs.

 

The Waterway Park

The place was really beautiful, very nature-friendly and there some nice architecture – such as that Kelong bridge. ‘Kelong’ is wooden blocks in Malay – they’re used to build bridges where fishermen go to get their fish. It’s like a dock. I liked how they remodified this Punggolian thing into a Kelong bridge for people to walk by.

 

Research Presentation

 

This was the Kelong Bridge I was talking about. Punggol is actually one of the few places in SG, where they have ‘kelongs’. In fact, the real actual kelongs can only be found in SG, Malaysia and Indonesia. Because of urbanization, it’s disappearing.
The 1st 2 pics from left is known to be that ‘Instagram Tree’. I dont have IG so I’m not sure what’s the buzz about. But reading about it online, the IG tree was just a famous hotspot for people to take photos, because of the nice backdrop and it’s lone position. the one that I took (far right) is newly grown, apparently.

 

Feedback From  Research Presentation 

  • My concepts weren’t strong enough, it’s vague and too broad,  so I need to be more in depth with my findings
  • Pictures were nice, but not enough to show concept
  • Can’t use cut outs with leaf motifs ( my plan for design), so I might turn to photography instead
  • Can’t use Punggol’s ring trademark for actual ring binder for the Zine, so I have to scrap that one out
  • Research more on Punggol’s trademark (like ring)
  • More visits to Punggol again

 

Project 2: “Janice Wants A Raise”

Storyline

Janice, a young expecting lady, is a long term employee in an office job. Her pregnancy has made her want to ask for a pay raise, knowing that she will need more income to support herself and her new baby. At the same time, Janice’s bosses, are in the midst of assessing her job performance and are disappointed with her overall work ‘duties’. Towards the end, we get to see where Janice goes from there. Did Janice end up getting what she want? Or were the bosses swayed by what her colleagues and she has described of her at work?

‘Janice’ played by Anna

‘Ms Betty’ played by Vania

‘Ms Carissa’ played by Audrelia

‘Janice’s Colleague’ played by Najiha

 

 Storyboards: Scenes 1 & 2

Scene 1: ‘Janice’, the self-entitled worker, who talks to herself in her room, to prepare herself to meet her bosses. She prepares herself to request for a well-deserved pay raise.

Location for Scene 1: A Room

At first, you get to see Janice talking to the camera. This is meant to give the impression that she’s talking directly to the audience. But she’s not. It’s meant to show Janice planning to talk to her own bosses. It gets revealed only towards the end.

Scene 2: ‘Ms Betty’ and ‘Ms Calissa’ are ‘Janice’s bosses. They are assessing Janice’s performances and discovers her employer has been performing poorly on the job.

Location for Scene 2: Bosses’ Office (Computer Lab)

The use of J & L

  • Ms Betty and Carrisa’s relationship is somewhat complementary.
  • Used J & L Cuts, J-Cut in parts @ 1:59 and @2:26, to show dominating role of Ms Betty, @2:22 to show dominating role Janice
  • Used L-cut towards the end, because it sums up overall scene of Janice talking to supposed ‘audience’, when actually, she’s trying to practice talking to her ‘bosses’ later. Audience only figures out towards the end.

Added some ‘sneaky background music’, got them from following links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm0qaXi9THA

To create a sharp transition, between scenes, I used sound of ‘golf hit’. I thought it was suitable. I didn’t want to use it for every transition, because I think too much would be quite annoying. I just used it in some parts.

 

Finished product is here…

Hope to hear some feedback on this. It was a lot of fun editing, and putting the clips altogether, even if it was troublesome editing the clips because they were similar to each other.

ArtScience Musuem: NASA, “Into The Wild”, “Future World”

In short, we had a class trip to the ArtScience Museum in MBS, Singapore.

The NASA Musuem was all about space, astronauts, the history behind space and all the spaceships and equipment and costumes that people use to wander off to space. These things are all REAL..

“Into The Wild” is a virtual reality game. Each of us were given a smart phone, and through the screen it pictured in a forest and look out for animals. The main idea of this game is to be aware about the wild animals which are about to go extinct.

“Future World” is entertainment/inspiration for those into Interactive Media related sutff. It was black room filled with lots of colors and large screens surrounding it. It’s basically a way to use technology to entertain and interact with the human touch and other senses. By far this was most enjoyable, even though this was child’s play.

Another was a screening of “Into The Wild”, it’s basically about preserving the wildlife animals like the tigers and lepers because they’re disappearing.