Light, Camera, Action!

This is the second time I had participated in One-North Festival with Little One. Light, Camera, Action! is one of the tours conducted during the One-North Festival. When I find this tour available, I was pretty excited. How often do you get to visit a multimedia studio? Much less to have a tour conducted in one. This trip, we are going to 3- Infinite Studios, AMX Audiophiles and Globecast.

What is One-North Festival?
The One-North Festival, organised by A*STAR and JTC, celebrates how Research, Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise are bringing us new and exciting possibilities for the future. In short, this festival celebrates Science and Technology. In the festival, you can expect workshops and open houses.

In my opinion, most open houses and all the lab tours are more suitable for upper Secondary students and above. Nevertheless, there are some open houses, eg "Light, Camera, Action!" which are suitable for primary school kids and above. Comparing this year and the last, not much activities are suitable for the toddlers and pre-schoolers. Like last year, we participated 1 tour only. Although we had ample time to spend the whole day there then, most of the open houses were not suitable for pre-schoolers. There was an outdoor carnival where Little One spent time playing. This year, as we went on a weekday, we could only participate 1 tour in the afternoon. Any way, most of the open houses and lab tours were only available that day.

The Tour

We arrived to Mediapolis in a chartered bus. Below is the gathering point.  While waiting for the tour to start, we were told this was the place  they filmed Masterchef. We were split into groups according to the bus we traveled in. We started visiting various studios depending on which group we were in.

Green screen

AMX Audiophiles

The tour begins at AMX Audiophiles where you will experience what an audio mixing facility looks like and how a sound designer uses music and effects to bring a TV commercial to life. We were shown to the theater studio and how the room was made soundproof. We were shown a trailer without any effects and music. Then, then other clips in which sound effects, music and recorded voice introducing the trailer is added one by one to make it complete. Such a trailer may look simple but lots of efforts are made to ensure it looked more attractive and appealing to the audience. 

After that, we started to explore the recording suite which was adjacent to it. We have seen similar recording studio but this is a smaller one.

Top: Theater studio
Bottom: Recording Suite adjacent to the Theatre studio

Infinite Studios

I guess this must be the studio that Little One loves most. She kept photobombing with her balloon. Reason being, she can see herself on the TV screen in front of her. Here, she can see how a green screen works. Many children were fascinated with this place as well.  This is the high end Virtual Reality Studio. The cameras are fully automated and  are operated by the control room adjacent to it. All the cameras, except one, were in a fixed location. The exceptional one is attached to a curved slider. All top of each cameras were monitors that would show the presenter/s and guests their cues. This is so that no matter which camera they face, they would be able to read the cues on the monitor which is on top of the camera. I always thought they still hold up a board of cues! How backward am I!  In this studio, one can be "transported" to any place virtually. How fascinating!

Top :Virtual Realisty Studio
Bottom left: We are being "teleported"
Bottom right: the control room

Globecast

This is where you will see how TV networks broadcast their channels in a "live transmission" environment! We learnt about cable programming, recasting, editing and many more! There were editing studios and they also do live telecast and are able to provide commentary in different languages. Sorry that I could not provide more information about this studio as I had to take Little One to the washroom.

Photography is not allowed inside Globecast

TV Film Set
We were then brought to the film set of the TV series, Tanglin. This set is a specially-built double-storey set for this drama. This structure, which took two weeks to design, sits in a studio with a floor area of nearly 800sqm at Infinite Studios, and has been built with the utmost thought and care.

We got to explore what it is like to be one. We explored the cafeteria and the home that was located on the second floor. Everything here is real except for the food. We are also fortunate to see Sherly Devonne Ng up close, although she was introduced as Pam. She is very pretty!

Little One enjoyed exploring the set with me. She even played with the fake eggs in the fridge and also pretend to be a cashier at the cafe!

Double storey set

Left: TV set tour
Middle: at the second story
Right: 'Pam' at the set addressing us.

I strongly recommend to visit if given a chance as it was very interesting and enlightening. 

Linking with~

Painting with water colour, salt and glow paint

These were the outcome of a painting workshop some time ago organised by Art Outreach. Glow in the dark paints were used together with water colour and salt. I love the effects. These are glowing chandelier print inspired by "Crystal Palace" by Ken + Julia Yonetani.

The effect of salt on water colours creates stardust like prints

Love the details on the chandeliers

24 Hours in Singapore (metal spheres in front of Asian Civilisations Museum)

This piece of sculpture installation, 24 Hours in Singapore  by Baet Yeok Kuan, in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum consists of five large, polished steel spheres that reflect the surrounding landscape every minute and act as an audio time capsule retaining the memories of our present day. Unfortunately, the audio recordings were not working when we were there. 

I was being told that this place is also popular for wedding photos. This I can't verify but I could tell this is a rather popular place for welfies. I spotted several people taking photos with the metal spheres. Below is one beautiful spot to take photo. Don't you agree?

Just some of the spheres. 

Linking with~

The art of batik

The word batik is Javanese in origin. It means either 'to write and dot', or 'to tattoo'. Have you ever notice the pretty prints on the batik and wonder how they are made?

I was lucky that I managed to sign up for 2 programmes over the last weekend to experience the art of batik. One of them was "Batik Trail with Lee Chor Lin" whereby I learnt the history and get to know that there are different types of batik. The another was a hands on workshop where I get to experience all the way from drawing  to painting my art piece from scratch.

The art of batik is most highly developed in the island of Java in Indonesia. In Java, all the materials for the process are readily available — cotton and beeswax and plants from which different vegetable dyes are made.

In the batik trail organised by Aliwal Arts Nights Crawl, we have the privilege to be led by Ms Lee Chor Lin. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Arts House Limited. With her expertise, we visited Toko Aljunied and Basharahil Bros on Arab Street, followed by the more contemporary Kiah’s Gallery. 

Ms Lee with a piece of inland batik

Ms Lee provided lots of information on the history of batik. I learnt there are actually different types of batik, ranging from "inland batik" to "coastal batik".

Inland batik has earthy colour such as black, indigo, brown, and sogan with symbolic patterns that are mostly free from outside influence. Certain patterns are reserved for royalty.

Toko Aljunied

Coastal batik has more vibrant colours and are influenced various culture as a result of maritime trade. Motif such as European flower bouquets, Chinese phoenix, and Persian peacocks appears on these batik.

We were taught how to wear a sarong ( a long cloth piece that is to be wrapped around the hip) too! If you do not like traditional batik, you can visit Kiah's Gallery for contemporary ones. Unfortunately, I do not have photos of the gallery. 

Basharahil Bros

The following day, I went to Kamal Arts Limited at the Goodman Arts Centre. This is a workshop organised by NLB. The instuctor told us we would be doing Malaysian batik, whereby the colours are more vibrant.

How to do a batik? 
You can draw free hand on the cloth which was provided or trace using the templates which was provided.
Then, we need to fix the cloth on a frame.
After which, hot wax is applied. We do this by using canting ( a sprouted tool ) , This contained the hot wax  and drawn over the cloth.
Check for places which are not waxed properly.
The final step is to paint the cloth with batik paints.

I have done several batik painting before but this is my first time using a canting. So, it was pretty exciting moment for me. I think the same can be said for the rest of us. Painting was easy but applying the wax on the cloth was not. I dripped some hot waxes on places which should not have. At other times, I moved the canting too slowly till too much wax flowed out.

The instructors are pretty friendly. We sought help on colour mixing and they gave us advices. Some of us encountered problems on painting. They would come over and help us.

Below are some batiks on display. Very lovely.

I still can't believe this is batik

This is done by layering.

The studio organised open studio every Wednesday. For more details, please visit their webpage. The cost is $20. I do hope to go back again to do layering.