HEY! STOP SEARCHING GILLIAN CHUNG!
Yeah I'm talking to you perv! You're not going to find the real nude pictures on the net so don't bother!Go buy one of those worthless tabloid magazines and go jerk off, wanker.That perverted Easy Finder magazine really caused a shit-storm about press freedom...
anyone think a conspiracy with the government is too far-fetched? Even with the recently proposed laws of spying and crack down of dissident journo's in China? This is exactly the type of controversy that will warp the public's minds for greater control on the media.
Personally I could't give two shits if the government cracks down on press freedom - maybe then will people finally cherish it and use it for more noble and honourable causes.
It's times like these when independent media or guerilla news-making really shines.
If only
InMedia was in Englihs... English.
Goodbye my sweetheart, hello Vietnam
So going to 'nam is on for sure now.
Mom's coming here next Monday and we'll fly off on the following Friday, staying till the Tuesday after that.
Haven't finalised the details with my boss yet but it should be okay. I can just work the extra days on the weekend - it's all relative as I'll be working the required amount of days per month.
Doing Newsline this week was stressful enough knowing my shaky track record for the past two episodes. I was extra cautious during transcribing, even more so because the guests' English was atrocious. But good thing is that while they stutter and talk slower than normal English speakers, it also means less typing overall. I'm splitting the Newsline duty over two days from now on - first day to transcribe and proof, the second to proof again with another person. After all it's difficult proofing your own words. It'll mean putting in more work but alas, for the sake of ATV English News' reputation, it'll be worth it.
My flare-up is dying down now, I wish we had gone to 'nam this week instead while it was its worst. But I should still have some traces left by the time I get there.
It was weird explaining that I'm going there for medical reasons. What kind of lame excuse is that? They'll think. I'm half-excited in going, I don't know what to expect of this doctor (that's if we can find him). I've misplaced my confidence before so I guess I'm not expecting much really.
Taking pictures around the city would be cool though.
Update
Been a pretty traumatic week...
My hard disk with footage taken for our graffiti documentary got ruined - but luckily I still kept some backed up on tape. I give it away for a few days and then that happens... never lending my stuff out again!
Another subtitling disaster - after the "Standards of English" fiasco I really tried to be more cautious. But still somehow last week's Newsline was worse. I got so pissed off and frustrated while doing it cos Chugani kept interrupting, one of the guest's English was horrid and all three of them would occassionaly talk at the same time the dialouge became incomprehensible. Hence I couldn't concentrate and was more dazed afterwards than usual.
Guess I don't take it seriously enough. Plus I got a bad flare-up on my hands going on.
If I didn't still have this fucking skin problem I could go on and dedicate to freelance work or seriously go and seek out production companies. But sadly with this condition I can only manage part-time.
Ooh can't fucking wait till all those losers cry little piggy to the SCMP or those conservative government cronies lash out for using the word 'crap' on TV.
More petty tabloid shit
Tabloid magazines here in Hong Kong are much like the Brits', but only more petty and immature.
A local magazine Easy Finder published compromising photos of Gillian Chung, better known as 'Ah Q'(?) of the dim pop group "Twins." The cover showed Gillian fiddling with her bra. It's pretty timid stuff.
But the booming controversy is that the photos were taken by a secret camera in their dressing room at a concert.
No naked photos were published but the magazine did admit they had full-on naked photos in their possession.
What's worse the sales of the magazine are sky-rocketing, they even need to reprint several more issues to cope with demand.
Sickening, real sickening and just plain fucking vile - and that's just about the public.
There's an online petition going on somewhere to support her, go search it if you're keen.
I don't particularly sympathise with her or any pop star for that matter - you're all in the public sphere so expect this kind of shit.
PS: Look at this other spread (one of many) in the same issue.
If the women's rights groups have their way, you'll be seeing alot less of this lads.
More down the pipeline
So Trevor Morris, a renowned producer and screenwriter, asked me to be cinematographer or 1st AD on some indy short film called "Gushy Pussy." The director's apparently a hot Norweigan babe.
I'm either going to really regret this or you are a saint Mr. Morris!
Endtroducing...
NANAHARA SHUYA!!!
Some of you may know Arthur Urqiuola (top) from my ATV News on World.
A mild-mannered, quaint young man in the office (I sit beside him).
"Oh so you're in a band?" as we conversed... "Yeah check out my website at
MySpace."
Talk about hardcore! He's part of a two-piece thrash-metal band Nanahara Shuya (character from the fuckin' cool Battle Royale) and has put out four records so far.
Their latest work is featured on "Cross the Unjust Line" a compilation CD against WTO.
Their also the work of my new music video/documentary project. Ideas are floating around of a 'Sabotage'-esque type video. Pranjal the drummer was wearing a cool wrestling-type badaclava during the last gig - maybe the two can wrestle and make a scene in Central.
It's been awhile since I did stuff for a band.
Want to know more on "Snakes on a Plane?"
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane
If you found this through a search engine then
fuck off and die!Enough of this moronic blogosphere hype!
The greatest "so bad, it's good" film to date is Evil Dead's
Army of Darkness... petty Hollywoodians take note.
The broadcasting authority TV ad...
There's a TV ad outby the Broadcasting Authority to notify citizens about 'improper' programming and how to make a complaint.
There's three scenes:
A young girl with her parents - she flinches when she see's some violent scenes (audio of fighting sound effects)
Another youngish girl listening to a radio who seems to fear for her life at something...
And an elderly couple - the woman covers her husband's eyes, obviously something pornographic.
They then proceed to make their complaints and everybody lives happier ever after etc. It seems to picture a very bland, censored age we live in.
What the hell happened to free choice? Is Hong Kong such a victorian society that can't handle the odd violence, sex and profanity? If people don't see or hear something you don't like, CHANGE THE CHANNEL dumbasses. We live in a free society (OK, well psuedo) and there's plenty of other ways our children can be exposed to violence, sex and profanity other than the mass-mediums.
To add insult to injury, here's a quote from the BA's chairman Daniel Fung:
"We cherish freedom of expression in the community.
For this reason, we eschew any pre-censorship of broadcasting material."
Memorable first trip to Lamma...
The 'Inside Story' crew asked me to join along as an extra camerperson on a shoot about illegal mountain biking.
After quarreling with the dim transport driver, he didn't allow people to sit in the 'BB car' along with the equipment. So we had to hike up the hill with our cameras. Once the top was in view, storm clouds were moving closer in so I hit after-burn and managed to reach the shoddy shelter erected by a drinks vendor.
It was so stormy the rain was in coming in sideways.
So after getting pumelled by rain we had to cancel the entire shoot.
I wouldn't be dissapointed as such were it not the fact that I don't get paid for today unlike everybody else!
Standards of enlighs... English
So some fuckshit called Kevin Blackburn in Wan Chai squealed to the SCMP complaining about a subtitling mistake I did for last week's Newsline.
In all fairness, it was real careless of me forgetting to check up on that word 'war-count,' he actually said 'walk-out.'
When you have to squeeze in Newsline and helping out with the sub-editing on the same day, let's just say it takes a mental toll on you. I know it's not a viable excuse for such an erroneous mistake. However I subtitled every other poxy word accurately, even with one of the guest's broken english and then this shit-head gives out this spiel in his letter about the poor standards of English - all because of a little mistake?
I can take the criticism when it's directed at me only but his letter made the whole department look bad and worse made me an embarrasment in the face of the editors. (they're not perfect either anyway.)
And his spiel about the 'standards of english'? Who the fuck do you think you are, a fucking walking-talking Oxford dictionary??
ATV is one of the few establishments that genuinely pursues 'pure English,' unlike all those other Americanised mediums which shall remain un-named.
Didn't even have the balls to forward us the complaint. Preferred to see your pathetic little sentiment printed on the paper hmm?
This is Hong Kong and English is always going to be a second, or even a third lanugage. So if you think the standards here are so crap then why don't you hightail it and go back to the West you fucking cheebye gweilo F.I.L.T.H.
Tough day
There's been few occassions where I had to stay up for 27 hours, but yesterday was just absolutely tough, not to mention the equally brutal humid weather.
On Friday, the SMS said 'tommorow night at 4am' but we got mixed up and it was actually this coming 4am, not on Sunday's 4am. Therefore I didn't have any prior sleep.
At 4am we hooked up with the graffitists in North Point, filmed them a bit and then the cops trashed the party.
Then instead of going home we had breakfast, then took a nap for 45 minutes and met up with the other graffitists for their interviews at Igloo studios at 9am.
So eventually I got home (lugging all my gear) at 4pm on Saturday.
But then I was like, I better get used to this routine if I want in a career in film-making! Ugh...
Interesting short trip...
So my mom's Vietnamese friend back in Ireland used to see this herbal doctor in Ho Chi Minh's Chinatown. He had suffered a similar skin condition to mine, albeit much more serious. The symptoms are similar but not exact to mine. But interestingly, this doctor gave him a similar diagnosis to mine (one of many) that I had always reckoned to be true, but none of the traditional herbalists and dermatologists here agreed - they all gave me more liberal and common diagnoses.
So anyway my mom's friend was suffering badly and this doc cured him within a month, with no traces of the illness left.
Now, the last time I got all excited about a 'miracle doctor,' he still didn't do any good for me at the end.
But this time, I found someone who actually treated someone similar like me and with a diagnosis that I myself had always percieved: some chemical had leaked into my body through a wound and causes an allergic skin reaction.
My mom seems up for it, she's even coming to HK soon and we're both gonna go to the 'Nam!
It's not guaranteed we'll even find this clinic, but my No. 1 priority is to get better, so I will take the chance, even if I can't get holidays from work - I'll just have to quit.
Worth the bother?
Well it's official - "Lights Out Hong Kong" failed to live to its expectations... d'uh.
I remember when the first news of this campaign reared its head months ago.
Everyone was so estatic at the idea of a blacked-out Hong Kong.
But after watching the live feeds at the studio, "Lights Out" was a worthy albeit doomed-to-failure attempt in my view from the start.
If it had worked and a significant number of lights did go off particularly on the harbour, I'd say it would've even been worthy of global news coverage.
My initial pessimistic view almost came immediately when I first saw the posters around:
Hong Kong people - by that I mean most middle class and lower locals - don't care for such events that would cause even the slightest inconvenience.
HK's a 'night-ghost' and it needs light to feed its nocturnal nature! Businesses were the biggest obstacle as some were afraid due to insurance reasons, loss of business and just simple ignorance. At 8pm, it must've been bustling anyway and I don't believe the organisers were that naive to ignore that.
The marketing was all wrong and all too weak. First off, they didn't have TV ads - the best medium. And to be honest it's all a bit too gimicky for me. Not to mention it probably wouldn't have made the slightest dent towards the government. Oh and the event organiser, what's his name Alistair something, is a gweilo who's appeard numerous times on TV. For that I turned into my localised perception mode and chuffed at him: "Who the hell is this gweilo thinking he can tell me what to do? You don't even speak our language, we've got businesses to run, things to shop for!" Generalised stereotyping I know, but try and prove me wrong eh?
I hope future organisers learn from this lesson and getting around (and understanding) local people's attitudes of apathy is the key to successful campaigns. That means it has to be something not too inconvenient, doesn't affect their shopping and gluttonic addictions and costs them nothing.
Wow, good luck.
But look here, the source of most (if not all) this smog is coming from those heavy industries from Guandong. China needs cheap (therefore pollutive) factories and industrial production capacity to fuel its monstrous growth and compete overseas.
It's a big fucking exhaust pipe that's blowing past HK.
Taking it out on the SAR government or Donald Tsang is merely a stage before several more bureaucratic obstacles - namely the Communist Party. Do you think the commies really care about HK's air pollution problem? They're already pissed off that the Falun Gong are given freedom here to practice and more importantly to stage rallies.
Face it: it's a lost cause people.
We should focus on treatable problems like reducing litter, better recycling facilities and invest more in health care.
The real people who can help curb the air pollution coming from China are the engineers that are working on cleaner production machinery and environmentally friendly work ethics that hopefully will become cheap and affordable for the masses.
Back on the road...
Feels good to be back on projects and filming... It's been too long! The last project I did was for New Idol Group's annual party... which sucked in the end because they edited down my video - in the end it had some horrible jumps and incontinuity. Argh, but it's okay because I have the original on my showreel.
Just started doing this short documentary on graffiti in HK. Our aim's a bit blurred atht the moment, we just got to see how things go with the artists themselves, a fair few of them are quite media shy.
So far our team is:
Me - D.O.P., co-director + editor
Cassandra - Producer and P.A. (she's a film noob)
Emma - Director, Producer and editor
Manami - D.O.P. and co-director
Manami's a freelance producer who's pitching some interesting ideas to Discovery Channel and BBC that we may collaborate; one's about lesbian culture in HK and this South African training for a gruelling 1,000km walk across Alaska.
But best of all... I'm gonna get my sweet new camcorder next week... *more drooling*
That montage...
I was quite disappointed in that montage on our ATV news last night, the intro labelled it something in the words of "images of war." (in the Middle East)
Before it aired I heard the subs and my editor praising it etc.
It was just a bunch of gut-wrenching scenes of Lebanese deaths mashed with conflicting images of Condi's piano playing and Bush slouched in his chair chatting with Blair - that infamous
"Yo Blair" and "...stop doing this shit..."
Yes a majority of innocent deaths were among the Lebanese populace but Israelis died too; something the montage didn't show at all.
It was quite embarrassing recieving those emails about our biased reporting.
Even worse, on the same night we had a live interview with the Saudi ambassador and he gave out the same one-sided rhetoric against Israel.
The Israeli ambassador wasn't happy at all since he had invited our editor to the embassy a few weeks ago to discuss how to "improve the Israeli image overseas."
Was this a calculated decision? It's hard to believe if it was a complete coincidence.
