Ling Sans

想去日本的心情

Out of excitement, I once mentioned to my friends, I wanted to visit Japan so much I could easily write a 500 word essay justifying why. Now that I'm pretty sure I won't be visiting Japan so soon, I thought maybe I should write down my insistence on heading there for a trip.

There's a quality about japanese things that inspire me. Its simple yet sometimes crazy even ideas, the comfortable look and feel of things (albeit of course not all styles are like that), the earthy light colours I most often see graphics in. A lot of my design idols are japanese, to name a few, the product designer that I worship the most is Naoto Fukasawa. I'm still in love with the watch he designed years ago. So timeless, I still desire to own it. There's also Kenya Hara, who's the art director of MUJI — my favourite shop that sells the most beautiful minimalistic things that looks only what's its needed to function. I love its concept of emptiness that's so zen. My favourite pop idol is still Kimura Takuya, because of his zesty perfectionist attitude towards his work, be it in acting, hosting, singing or dancing. Some of my favourite composers are japanese too. Heck, even my favourite video game is Final Fantasy.

I just want to see the place where my idols live.
To experience myself what is it in this place that shaped how my idols to be.
To perhaps even catch a glimpse of them before they grow old.

And of course, more of the things they made.
Gather more new things inspiring.

Maybe I've been influenced so much by japanese things around me, it has become a part of my life. From music to animations to dramas to books and movies of which I've watched, read and listened from the rectangle screen of my computer. I've had enough. I want to see them in a larger canvas, and step in the world that I've always watched on my screen.

Somehow I feel I'll gain something from this country even if it's not that fascinating as I picture right there in my head. But just thinking of seeing the birthplace of my favourite things excites me to no end. Just the zest I need to get back after draining so much of my soul for fyp.

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This is written so that in the future when I'm really going there, I won't forget these feelings I had for Japan at this point of time. Mm. I'll go there someday.

L'echec

This song is so beautiful.

L'echec (The Failure)

Artist: Yann Tiersen
Vocals: Yann Tiersen and Natacha Régnier

I would like to see our failure
Face to face one beautiful day
Scrutinize its very self
Distinguish its shape

And in the crude atmosphere
Of a town during summer
Slowly get away (from it)
And never cross paths with it ever again (I would like to)

Move amidst the crowd,
Be it a benevolent or antagonistic one
Making up jokes for once
In a supermarket

And, my arms full of groceries,
Realize that we finally overcame
Its (the failure's) shadow's boundaries

It will come back eventually,
the kind of morning where,
with delighted faces
We used to eat slices of bread

The window slightly opened
Before going to shower
Laughing because we were so late
Comparing to other people

And with a nonchalant pace
And a smile firmly in place
We will walk self-confidently
Into the familiar streets

Toward some place in the city,
Some unknown place,
To find again our failure,
And its shadow.

(Translated lyrics from a youtube commentator: Lyseven)

visual communication

21 years, living in this small island called Singapore leading a safe and contented life. What triggered me to study this creative field was the desire to create beautiful things. Yet this desire remains hungry to be filled, despite trying to figure this stomach out and filling in things for 4 years. What is lacking all these while that no matter how sometimes I want to work, it’d never turn out the way I desire it to be. Nah, never is too strong of a word, sometimes it did work didn’t it?

Can the mind be trained? To do what it lacks, to organize all these seeming impossible hopes and desires and slowly fulfilling them one by one. So many successful examples I wonder if I can be one of them. I can’t wait to grow up from my ignorance and start see the world, experience life.

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Sometimes I wonder the kind of discipline that we've been pushed right of now, we're on our way to become the kind of designers we all desire to be aint it?

The profs in my department have upped expectations a thousand level higher for our final projects this sem, I'm pretty much still at amateur level so to speak. To make something that I myself have no mental image of what the end product would look like, what kind of level is that. There's always this mysterious cloud of unknown translating thoughts in your head into something that you can see. But I'm still quite keen to experiment.
If by the end of year four I can figure all these out and reach my profs' level of thinking, I'd then become a really successful visual communicator wouldn't I? Whereby brain and hand beat together as one. I wana be as awesome as them.

I wrote this when I was in year 2. Now that I'm in year 4, I don't think I've exactly felt what I hoped I would be at this stage. I still feel lacking the skills I need to articulate. My brain seemed to have a growing spurt the past 2 years that my hands couldn't keep up with. I feel empty inside because my soul has been poured into my works. Again, I have barely a vague image what my project outcome would look like and I'm still a long way despite a short schedule to reach there.

I have to run. I have to run real fast. I'm tired but I must run. Run and finish this race. I hope I'll grow up a little after this race.

Pause

Why do I always have to squeeze my soul dry for fyp.
So tiring. Can't it be fun with no expectations? Long gone is my excitement for doing a project of my own. Can I get it back?

The Artist

When I first read about this movie in a magazine — A black and white silent film made in our time. I knew I just had to watch it. How awesome is that, for somebody to be bringing the old silent back in this age where everyone's going forward with 3D, effects and all. I can watch a silent film in a CINEMA, not youtube but high quality, huge screen presented in the format just like films of the past. Just the thought excited me a little, and I've read reviews that it's good so I went.

Definition of a silent film (from wiki) "A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue.""Showings of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the pianist at the first public projection of movies" So a silent movie doesn't mean it's silent completely, there's music at times.

The story is set in the late 1920s to early 30s, the transition period between the end of silent films and the talkies(sound) came into movies. A melodrama about a popular silent film actor George Valentin who refused to come to terms with technology (the inclusion of voice in acting and sounds) and a budding young actress who's in love with this silly man. There's also the clever dog too who took some of the spotlight. To provide some history, many silent film actors lost their jobs when sound came into movies. It changed the acting because now that the actors can talk there's no longer the need to mug or move so much to get the audience's attention. They had to adapt to that. Another point is the image of the silent star would also change if he speaks.

It's a different experience watching a silent in a cinema. The actors have to dramatize their movements. When they smile, they put on their widest shiniest grin. It just seems to make everything happy. And when they're sad, the whole world seems to be crashing down, it rains, makes you wana go "awwww" for them. Although the lack of sound and words (though not completely), the set sometimes plays a commentary role that I laughed and aww-ed to myself for its apt use of words. There was this scene I remember where Valentin was walking dejectedly on the road and passed by a cinema called the Lonely Star. That "Lonely Star" was definitely referring to George Valentin.

Well here's the trailer if you're interested to check it out.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Just a short 30 minutes ago, I finished a book called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick recommended by my dear friend potternuts a day ago who asked me whether I know a certain picture. Back a few more days ago, I remember a certain "Hugo" movie was mentioned during one of my conversations with another friend. Afterwhich I soon realise the connection, the movie was based off this book. These are reasons strong enough to convince me to read this.



Beautiful cover ain't it?
I got it off the book shelf from my school library the next day.

"The Invention of Hugo Cabret" concerns a 12-year-old orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station in 1930 and a mystery involving the boy, his late father and a robot. (from imdb)

I think this is as much I want to say about the story to prevent spoilers. Reading the book/watching the movie without any expectations offers the best experience. I didn't know I was little spoiled of the story after watching the trailer and reading some of the reviews online that I slowly made sense as I read. But anyway I'll just continue to write about my two cents of this book.


Each page of the book is framed by black rims, like a cinema in a book form presenting the story in black and white, imitating one of those black and white films in the days of early 1930s where the story is set in. Like the pictures you see above, words were on a page on its own and the illustrations in a full page, frame by frame. Each page zooming in to see the character's expressions. In this book illustrations serve more than guiding the reader's imagination, it tells the story as well. Again the distinction between visuals and words reminded me of the inter titles in a silent film. Marvelous book form to stage the story.

It is definitely more than a children's book as it exposes the reader's to early cinema's beginnings. I couldn't be more glad for being in film history classes when I see references to those early shorts I've seen being introduced in a story like this. There even was a small tribute to "The Train Arrives in the Station", one of the earliest films ever shown in film history.

"In 1895, one of the very first films ever shown was called A Train Arrives in the Station, which was nothing more than what the title suggests, a train coming into a station. But when the train came speeding toward the screen, the audience screamed and fainted because they thought they were in danger of being run over. No one had ever seen anything like it before. ― An excerpt from the book "

Okay, read more to find out! If you're not familiar with film history, I'm sure you'd be fascinated after reading the book. Or catch the movie coming up in March in our local cinemas.



To end off this post I present this quote that pretty much tells why people make movies.

If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from when you go to sleep at night, just look around. This is where they are made. ― Brian Selznick. The Invention of Hugo Cabaret