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~

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.

Rare Gallery and Lee Kong Chian Reference Library tour

As part of National Library Board's (NLB) 20th anniversary celebration, I sign for their Rare Gallery and Lee Kong Chian Reference Library tour! The tour was led by Ong Eng Chuan, who is in charge of the Rare Collection.

Named after Dr Lee Kong Chian in honour of the Lee Foundation's S$60 million donation, the reference library is the premier resource for works on or about Singapore and the region.

The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library occupies 7 storeys (Levels 7-13) at the National Library Building. The start-up collection size exceeds 530,000 print and non-print materials. It has a full range of services, such as access to electronic databases, document delivery service, reprography, microfilm and audio-visual access are available.

We were told that the library had high ceilings because it plans to expand its collection all the way to the top! I can't wait for that day to come.

We were told that all local publications has to give 2 copies to the library. One copy would be stored here and the other will be distributed to one of its branch. The reference library on the ground floor is open to public but the books here cannot be loaned out. You may want to do your reading or research here though.

I borrowed a copy of Nini Eat First Talk Later at a branch library and it was stamped with the word "GIFT" Is this the one of the copies given to the library? 

Serious researchers may want to write in to read or examine the rarer books on the upper floors, where there are individual cubicles to work in.There is a dark microfilm room with reading machines to view microfilm archives. Rare books can sometimes be accessed this way; the only reason why the actual copy is kept from just any person is because of preservation purposes.
Next we come to the Rare Collection which is normally inaccessible to the public. The materials located here are preserved under controlled temperature, humidity and light settings. The oldest book in in the Rare Collection is dated back to the 1500s.

Mr Ong elaborates on some of the collection on display.

Inheritance from the Raffles Museum and Library. Look at how these are stored in casing.

Below are some of the exhibits we saw.

Scroll addressed to Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, by the Singapore Chinese merchants on the occasion of his visit to Singapore in 1869. It was signed by several prominent business man such as Tan Kim Seng

A Malay translation of the Chinese classic"Romance of the 3 Kingdoms " These books were popular among the Straits Chinese Peranakan.

The autobiography of Munshi Abdullah Abdul Kadir – a translator employed by Raffles – which gives an account of the early days of the East India Company settlement of Singapore. Written in Jawi, his memoir is a valuable Asian account of the founding of the British settlement by one who was familiar with the British administrators.

Letter from Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles to Lord Lansdowne , displays his pride of finding the settlement

The journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, Volume VI. On display is a detailed sketch of one of our lighthouses, do you know which one is it?

Old maps, ancient books and postcards were on display

Some of these materials were exhibited in exhibitions. Eg, some of the displayed maps were on displayed in the recent Geo|Graphic: Celebrating maps and their stories exhibition which ended in July this year.I believe the library would conduct the tour again in another 5 years time to celebrate its  25th anniversary.

Reference:
https://www.nlb.gov.sg/About/LeeKongChianReferenceLibrary.aspx