"It stood for over a century and it took minutes to tear it down..." says SapphireBombay .
Our government decided not to keep Pudu Jail as one of the heritage site although it is more than 100 years old. The Pudu Jail wall, stretching about 300 meters, was demolished at 10pm last night.
I think it is such a waste to tear down the wall, knowing that it was once the world longest mural painting on the prison wall, painted by 3 prisoner during that time. At least I think they should preserve part of the wall because it has such a great history. As for the prison itself, I always thought it is a nice scene for a movie, it looks old and creepy, but now I would never have the chance to be filming in it anymore.
Last night, after I heard about the news, I decided to head over to Pudu Jail with my 550D to film part of the demolition, no tripod, no tracking, no steadicam this time... but just a camera and a lens, to capture what witnessed from my eyes. Leaving its memories and the last few pictures of the wall into a short video.
The lighting condition at the main entrance area was very poor, I got to set my camera ISO up to 3200, even 6400 with 2.8 f-stop. But when I moved to the side where they actually started the demolition, because of the spot lights, the ISO could decrease all the way down to 100, which is alot better. At there, you can see so many photographers and videographers making their chance to get the last coverage of the walls and broken pieces. Big cameras, small digicams, camera lights, external mic... lots of equipments, then I started to regret I should at least bring a monopod to get some steady shots.
After the shoot and supper with Gary, I reached home about 2am. Immediately I proceed with the editing and it's about 6am in the morning I uploaded it onto the web. And now I feel so grateful that this clip has been spreading so widely in the facebook and twitters, receiving lots of comments like I never had from all my previous videos.
THANK YOU very much! Not only for liking my works, but more importantly to spread this to the world, and to many many people who has or has not realized this action of government, who grew up walking by pass the wall, and who would remember the name... Pudu Jail (1895-2010).
Some of the video snapshots:
Shot entirely with 1 Canon 550D + 17-50mm f2.8 Tamron. Edited and color graded in FCP.
Last year I helped Sheri and YiShen to take video on their ROM, half year later, I'm so happy to be invited again to be part of their big day, the wedding ceremony.
Congratulations to Sheri and Yi Shen!
Sheri is a very best friend of my sister. They have been very close like sisters since they were kids, so it is both pleasure and pressure to handle the shoot. It was fun shooting on the day because the sisters are nice and pretty, and the best man is very funny while playing the games. I enjoyed the shoot very much, as well as editing this piece, it got me laugh for a few times!
Here's a video shows how this new wedded couple reacts to the screening of their morning ceremony SDE:
I was there at the next day's dinner reception of Wei Wei and Kah Win, and was glad to be able to capture the dinner for them. It was a great night, I got to meet up with many old friends and school mates.
Speaking of Wei Wei, she is a friend of mine since we were at primary school. And all I could remember about her was that she has a good voice, a great singer! So I thought this song would suit her well... music, and love! :P
This is the first dinner reception highlight we've done. The reception was held at Bukit Jalil Gold Resort, and because it was held the next day after the morning ceremony, so we were able to be there earlier to capture some preparations. The low light is a big issue for us shooting ...in that hall, we had asked for brighten it up but guess that is the most they can go, so we just got to live with it and sorry for the graininess... :P
Once again, congratulations to Wei Wei and Kah Win, and we couldn't be more happy to be part of this special evening! :)
First of all, I must say this is one of my most enjoyable wedding shoot. Keith is my best friend from secondary school, he's one handsome boy, and still keeping it sharp till now, his big day! I'm happy for him, married a pretty and friendly wife Pei Sang. Congratulation my friend, and I can't be more grateful to be invited to this special life event and to film it down.
We went from groom place, to bride and back to groom and then to the bride again in one and half hour time at that morning, lots of traveling. But good thing is they both staying quite near and I'm glad the sequence cut out well. The brick house, one beautiful place where the bride and family had a night stay in there. I like the lighting in there, it covers by many trees and plants and light rays are all around.
The little green forest, it's actually a playground field outside Keith's house made a good scene. We had a little time at there after the ceremony and they both were so co-operative with us even though it was really tiring after the long day. The shots are so worth it I mean, it adds a little touch to the film.
On our side, it is good to see the outcome of our first try to combine slow-motion and normal speed sequence. The slow-mo is nice playing along with the great song by Daniel Powter - Whole World Around. My personal favorite shot is where the couple walking out from the brick house and we see all the colorful ribbons falling from the sky.
It is also my first time to use our newly bought lens, Tamron 17-50 VC. The whole gaming part and most of the other shots were film using this lens. And I must admit it is a great lens for using handheld because the VC, and good range you can cover from 17mm to 50mm with a pretty nice depth f2.8. The white balance is one of the issue because it is more unstable compared to Canon's, and it's very yellowish under the bulb but a bit color correction in post will save it.
Seng Pit is a gymnastic coach, Suaning is a school teacher... I think both of them made a perfect match! They painted their room together, made special gift for the guests... we saw lots of hardwork and hearts from them. Thanks to Seng Pit and Suaning for letting us be a part of this fabulous day! We wish you a happily ever after! :)
On our part, it was quite a challenge because we have only a limited time - less than 4 hours to send out this SDE. It was rush, we were transcoding the footages along the shoot, even in the car when traveling from one place to another. The editing progress was tough because the playtime is longer than what we did previously, as we hear the clock ticking it went harder, luckily the rendering time this time was fast enough and glad we made it on time. Hope you will like the video! :)
Thank you for supporting D1 Production for all these years. Now, we have created a page in Facebook for D1 Production. Please click on the link below to join us now, by just tapping on the "like" button and stay tuned for more updates! Thank you and see you there! :)
一部關於馬來西亞資深音樂人－周金亮“想說話的歌”的短篇紀錄片。片里的歌曲“寂寞晚上”是由周金亮詞曲包辦，非常的動聽。 A short documentary about a renown composer/song writer in Malaysia - Chow Kam Leong. The song title "lonely night" was written and composed by himself.
希望有耳機的朋友可以用耳機靜靜聆聽周金亮，想說話的歌。 We hope you can watch this using your earphone, or at a quiet place.
Director: Dick Chua Producer: Kahgiap Lee Cinematographer: Dick Chua, Kahgiap Lee, Kahooi Lai Sound recording: Xiang Editor: Dick Chua Production House: D1 Production
Had my first test with 550D at one of the famous street in KL, Malaysia - Bintang Walk
Shot with EF50mm f1.8, 720p 50fps, ISO800-1600, Standard picture style, manual setting, edited and slowmo in FCP.
Just like the 7D, there are 2 settings for video in 550D, which is either fully auto, or fully manual. It also comes with the same frame size and frame rate with the 7D, which you can shoot from full HD 1080p, 720p, to SD 640x480. In addition, 550D came out with a new cropped frame for 640x480 which is just cropped pixel that made it like a zoom. Picture quality wise, I would say it is excellent, I can't really tell the different between 550D and 7D.
Things that I don't like about it compared to 7D, is the video mode have to switch from the dial on top, and it is located too far from the creative picture mode (AV, TV, M...), means that if I wanted to take picture with the AV mode (which I oftenly do), and instantly I want to switch to video, I have to rotate about a circle to reach the video mode.
Compared to 7D, the 550D's respond time is abit slow. There is a obvious delay when I record - stop - magnify - and record again. Sometimes I have to press a few times to do the magnifying focus. I think this due to the single processor in 550D, while the 7D has dual processor.
However, the good thing is I found it's more easier to focus compared to 7D, maybe because the LCD is slightly bigger, and the screen looks sharper.
550D is definitely a camera which "You get more from what you pay!". It's handy, light and easy to bring around, and is still hard to believe that with this size of camera, you get to produce such superb quality video!
Cast: Lim Shan Fei as Zheng Hao Sir FiFi Leong as Wonton Mee lady boss Li Hwa as girl in the cafe Ahmad Murad Abd Rahman as the cafe boss
Crew: Producer: Kahgiap Lee Writer/Director: Dick Chua DOP: Dick Chua Location Sound: Kah Hooi Music Composer: Singblass Production Assistant: Xiang, Kah Hooi Editor: Dick Chua Motion graphic: Kahgiap Lee Production House: D1 Production
Special thanks to: Wei Jan, Kai Yen, Raymond, Chong Hooi, Xiao Wei, Jhunnie, and everyone else who helped and contributed the photos.
A 'Behind the scene' of a commercial shoot we did recently, thanks to Kahgiap who shot this. A big thanks to Shan Fei, FiFi, Lihwa and everyone else who helped during the shoot. The final video will be out by the 20th this month. We will also share more about this production at that time.
Congratulation to this cute couple WeiHan and WuiHa!
It was a very hot day!!! and I couldn't stop sweating all day long, non-stop! But it was fun. Wei Han is friend since college time, and now I am so happy to be there to capture the moments of his big day!
The wedding ceremony was a happening one, Wei Han has a big family of relatives, some of them came all the way from Australia. The ceremony ended around 3pm, means until the dinner reception, I had only 3 hours for the SDE editing, including file transfering and output. That's one, another challenging part was to use the Final Cut Pro to edit for the first time. I knew Avid would spend too much time on the transcoding during import, to overcome that problem, I recently bought a new MacBookPro to replace my old broken laptop, and also to use FCP for faster same day editing.
Everything went so rush, and we were still rendering the video while on our way to the dinner reception. Anyway, we were glad this video came out on time, and this was screened at their dinner reception. :)
It is our pleasure to help the HANDS Percussion team (手集團) to produce video for their drum performance. We had great time working with a group of passionate and artistic people, including the lighting guys, sound guys and the drummers who are young and energetic!
We spent one day at the Actor Studio Lot10, from setting up lights and sounds, rehearsing, and filming for 2 pieces of their drum performance.
It was also our first time shooting with the combination of Canon 7D and 5Dmk2. We hope you enjoy this behind-the-scene while waiting the video to complete! :)
Choreographer: Bernard Goh Cinematographer: Dick Chua, Ah Bak Lighting: Ah Heng Sound: John Editor: Dick Chua
Sounds and audios are very important in film making, yet they are always something not taken care by the independence film makers. From the previous videos I had made, I realized that the audio is a big issue with VDSLR camera - it's mono and doesn't allow any setting control for audio/sound, not even a AGC (Automatic gain control) built in it, so even when I plug in a external mic, the audio level can go too high and result a very bad audio.
So here's something I bought in recently, a ROBE Video Mic & a ZOOM H4N handy recorder.
ROBE Video Mic is a condenser microphone which made to mount on the DSLR's hot shoe. This directional condenser microphone focus on the sound coming from infront, and isolate the sound from the background. It is a very good mic for taking on-the-go dialogues, very useful when shooting documentary. The quality is almost as good as pointing a boom mic at the subject.
ZOOM H4Nrecorder is a combination of a high quality stereo microphone and a sound recorder. It can be taking up to 4 channels of audios, and you can control each sound level. It records in both wav and mp3 format, with the qualities up to 24bit/96kHz. Many more functions and setting you can play around... It works as an independence device, it's very handy and easy bring around, and I love that it supports XLR cable!
Here's a quick test of the stereo mic:
Now with these 2 gadgets, I can have good audios in my video! Yeah! :D
Welcome / 欢迎... Some is in English. Some in Chinese. If you don't speak Chinese, we encourage you to learn. If you don´t speak neither of them, feel frustrated, then see the pictures and try to guess.
