Congrats
Up until yesterday, my batch, the Class of 2005 of MCKK reigned supreme among other batches for having the most number of people achieving straight As in PMR. Alas records are made to be broken. My brother Arif's batch managed to beat us by 3 people: 95 vs. 98.I may not be a fan of the examination as I noted previously but still it's a good thing to rejoice about. Batches with good result in PMR are often noted to be a united batch.. if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, I believe it would be a long time before another batch beat us at the other record we made on the night after PMR back in 2003. Ahh.. The good life.
News' like this reminds me of that so we love to sing back then. We are proud to be Collegians, How can we ever make you see?
Congratulations 0509, you made us proud.
Posted on Friday, December 28, 2007 | 1 comments
18 December
Today is 18 December. Today in 1863 the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand was born. 18 years later, Josef Stalin was born. Today is also the birthday of the directing extraordinaire, Steven Spielberg and The Rolling Stones' guitarist, Keith Richards. In 1963, Brad Pitt was born while Stone Cold Steve Austin came out of the womb a year after. Speaking of wrestlers, Trish Stratus was also born today in 1975 while Rob Van Dam was born in 1970, on the same day with DMX, the rapper. On 18 December 1980, Christina Aguilera was born.
Then later in 1988 in the quiet city of Alor Setar at around 1 o'clock in the morning, I was born.
Thank you all for the wishes. Neet, Puwe, Hrr, Teeno, Geto, Putq, Matdin, Kimal, Am, Kandaq, Maché, Nik, Abé and everyone else. Thanks, really appreciate it.
Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 | 3 comments
On being mainstream
I was busy editing the promo clip for the movie Cuci yesterday when my sorta boss came into the editing suite.G: Banyak dah belajar?
H: Haha.. banyak. Amatlah banyak.
G: Okay la tu. Later when you go back to College I bet you'll be better than your peers. You've got a real working experience. You know how to cut a promo, what to look for when editing and all.
H: Yeah, I guess so.
G: You lucky you know. Belum grad dah jadi editor. Most of the people dah grad pon tak dapat buat kerja macam ni. Biasa-biasa buat benda kecik-kecik je, drama, promo simple-simple. This is for a movie you buat ni bro. This is mainstream. You're already in the mainstream, bukan independent or underground filmmaking. Mainstream. You continue doing this and you'll definitely be sought out in the industry.
And then he left the room. I was like.. Wow. I don't really know but he did sound very honest. Nevertheless, it wasn't the hope or the expectation that got me thinking. Rather, it was the word: mainstream. Oh my God.
Truth be told, I was never a fan of the mainstream. Need examples? Well, most of my friends end up doing 'mainstream' courses like engineering and medicine. I'm studying films. I listened to Linkin Park only to stop after they started to get regular airtime on the radio. I love My Chemical Romance.. before I started to notice kids wearing red ties to Sungei Wang. While everyone else seems to be happy with Windows, I'm much happier with a Mac.
I don't know why. I like to be different from people, I love discovering things on my own. I don't like something just because it's the in thing at the moment. I don't like it when people ask me why I don't buy 'cool' brands like Quicksilver or Nike and Adidas instead of going to FOS. What is cool? Coolness is arbitrary don't you think? Just like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder. The same goes for people who laughed at me because I've never been into a club. Why? Because I study in Limkokwing where most of the people there are club addicts. So what? That doesn't make me less of a Limkokwing student. The best years of our lives is also an arbitrary statement. Sure, to most people it was their university days but to me, it was 2001 to 2005 in MCKK.
Okay, well.. so you can see why that simple word got my mind changing gears. The more I think about it, the stranger it feels. I was never really a fan of Malay movies other than some nicer ones like Cinta but now here I am, doing a promo for one. Nevertheless, I remember reading an article in ROTTW a few years back by an artist. I couldn't remember who he was but he was talking about people accusing them of going mainstream and make music for big corporations and money instead of staying true and underground, making music for the fans and as medium of expression. He said something like this:
Sampai satu masa dalam hidup ni kita kena fikir banyak benda selain daripada nak stay true. Kita hidup kena usaha cari makan.
I don't know about other people, but to me there is already that feeling that I need to start earning income on my own (No, I don't want to do MLM. Please, don't bother). Nevertheless, I don't think that being mainstream have to mean that you need to push aside your dreams, ideas and aspirations for the sake of producing something that can make money. I see it as a starting point. You work for people and do what you are told to do first, earn a living, gain reputation and build up your name, everything you need to get to the top. After that, you are free to be true. Nobody starts from the top right?
Experience, experience, experience.
Posted on Saturday, December 15, 2007 | 2 comments
Don't cross!
Okay, sorry. Apparently it took more time than I assumed. Did I mentioned that I've been busy?
Anyway, a few days back I was taking a sweet slow ride on the oh-so-unreliable KTM Komuter. I have a bad karma with KTM Komuters, I don't know why. Most of the time it's jam packed with people, while some other times it's very late and unpunctual. Often it's both that it makes you curse everytime you see the one single advertisement in the coach: KTM Komuter: Jimat Masa, Jimat Tenaga, Jimat Belanja. Ah.. Marketing at its best. So anyway, I'm kindof used to be frustrated with the service that I'm kind of adapted with it.
Okay, back to the story. The train was chugging down the track just after Kepong Sentral towards the Sungai Buloh station when suddenly there was a loud bang. LOUD. BANG. I guess that gotta have something to do with my preference to always ride on the frontmost coach or maybe it was just plain loud. Instinctively I know that something was wrong as the train started to slow down and stopped at around a kilometer from the bang. The driver came out from his cabin.
Terlanggar orang la..
A few minutes into the commotion, the driver was still on the track looking for the body with some other people helping around came a big burly guy, around late 40s or something. He doesn't look happy. He stood at the opening, looked at the driver on the track and yelled:
Dah buat report dah la, nanti biar la diorang datang cari! Ni ramai orang nak balik ni!What the fuck is wrong with you? Someone died. Hello? Mati, meninggal, gol. Does that mean anything to you? Everyone wanted to go back, I know I did but at least wait la for a while. It was bad enough for him to die being ran over by a train. You are suggesting that we just leave his mangled remains on the track? Sick.
Anyway, we finally departed a while after the body was recovered. It was scary I know. Personally, I've crossed the train track a few times myself. One of those was in Kuala Kangsar station. I was just fooling around with Nono and tripped one a cable and landed on the tracks. That is one dense steel. Sakit. The other one was from Kg. Abdullah Hukum to the Abdullah Hukum LRT station on the way back from MidValley. Kids, back when I was your age we don't have a MidValley KTM station. Back then we either took a free shuttle bus from Bangsar LRT to MidValley or we cross the track at Abdullah Hukum. Haha.. scary. I swear I'll never ever do that again. Ever. And neither should you.
So yeah, the moral of this non-fiction story is be patient and have compassion. Most importantly however is do not cross any rail tracks ever. No matter how tempting it looks. Al-fatihah to the person who perished that night.
Posted on Sunday, December 09, 2007 | 3 comments
Getting to know the taste..
I'm at the office in my room staring at this glorious 23-inch Apple LCD display on the oh-so-powerful Dual 2.5Ghz PowerMac G5 with hundreds of gigabyte of FireWire storage and dozens and dozens MiniDV tapes, the bigger DVCAM tapes, a rack full of VHS tapes as well as its legendary rival, the Betacam tapes. Oh ya.. I forgot to mention the 40-inch Samsung LCD display on the wall. Nice isn't it?Anyway, I haven't been doing anything else much other than work. Just finished capturing 3 tapes of footage and still got 3 more to go. Then I need to edit all the stuffs for promotion. Sound easy? It is quite easy actually, it's just that I'm trying to understand the taste of the industry. It's different, editing for a college assignment with friends and editing for work. I had to redo my promo for the upcoming Cuci movie 3 times because the boss said that I didn't create the impact he was looking for. Well, I'm young and I still got lotsa things to learn.
Okay, so I guess I'll go back to work for a while. I'll post something by tonight. By the way, my car is out of the workshop. Yeeha!
Posted on Friday, December 07, 2007 | 2 comments
Work!
Hi, how are you doing?Phewh! What a week. Sorry for not posting anything dear but I truly doesn't have any time. Yeah, I'm working now and for the whole last 5 days I had to be in Bangsar for the Harith Iskander show, 'Got Free Ticket, Ah?'. Yeah, that's what they call it.
Anyway, it was produced and organized by the company I'm working at, Tall Order Production. I'm one of the backstage crew. Yeeha! Kindof remind me of the school concerts and the Merdeka theaters I worked on back in MCKK. But man, it was surely different. Well, most of the part is we are doing this for a paying crowd compared to eager school children and the people on the stage are professionals. Jit Murad, Harith Iskander.. right?
Well, I'm relieved it's over. It was a great experience, it really was. I also got my first paycheck! Haha..
Posted on Monday, December 03, 2007 | 3 comments
