http://www.hiradio.net/images/action/124_hiradio.html [chinese blood, irish heart] - DEFUNCT: July 2007

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Leave Queen's Pier, or else!

Quite the media frenzy at Queen's Pier. Me being on one of them. But at least I wasn't using a light or flash, something the hunger strikers didn't like. One was having a go at a Cable News reporter for not turning off his light - while doing a standup - and got into a bit of a bitch fight.

Reporters and videographers formed a ring around the hunger strikers - like an unwilling human shield when the government's stormtroopers come.

It's official though, something's gonna happen at midnight on Tuesday. It's all doomed. Star Ferry all over again? The Post's sending me out there to stake out, so let's wait and see. Once again I get to don my Press flak jacket.


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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Hung down with the freaks and ghouls

Ah no that's not fair to say to Cosplayers. I filmed the annual Cosplay Competition at the Hong Kong Comics Fair today and was quite stunned observing and filming them up close.
I had this assumption these people were rather introverted and well, disturbed.
But minority lifestyles in a heavily-entrenched mainstream society is always commended in my opinion.
The fair runs to for four more days and if you can blag your way you can try and get a press pass to skip the queues.
Guys, you've got to admit you've at least once got turned on by cartoon characters. Haha, but seriously some girls went all out in getting the classical big-eyed, multi-coloured elaborate hairstyles like the classic anime girls.
But I'd imagine the Japanese are light years ahead.
One hilarious character in this vidcast is the stumpy Spiderman. You can just imagine he's some 40-year-old perv trying to disguise himself!


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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Here's my attempt at MTV Cribs-like filming...
We, or I rather, use Steffen Coonan's music for our videos, since he's the best royalty free artist on Podshow, but I just realised he's Irish! Way to go.
This is also the first I got to use my cherished dolly tripod so I was able to do some smooth tracking shots. Now I need to find some tracks to use it on.

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The Death of a King


Hong Kong's original graffitist, the King of Kowloon (or Emperor), has died at the age of 85.

Such a shame since we had still wanted to interview him for "Tagspotting." But it was good to see him talking on Ben's Pearl Report on the topic.

Can you believe his work's been sold on Sotheby's? I better bring a jackhammer and dig out his work for myself! I believe there's one piece at the TST Star Ferry pier that's being preserved.




"From Nuisance to Graffiti King" by SCMP.com


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Saturday, July 21, 2007

A PR match made in heaven

Parkour troupe Trace Elements promotes Elements, the new megamall by the MTRC in West Kowloon.
Man this was a bitch to edit, we rushed to the place with one hour's notice, not knowing what to expect. Yet, we negotiated to get up on the balcony, bagged interviews, and I hammered out the video in four hours. Bloody hell it made me so dizzy.

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Friday, July 20, 2007

I'm in the wrong business...








An uber-luxury house for sale in Chung Hom Kok, Stanley, is going for almost HK$33,540 per square foot - a new record I believe. Imagine the sales agent's commission! Any percentage is good money eh? And all he has to do is just talk shit.

Went there to film the interior for the new SCMP Property series, a light-hearted attempt at producing our own content. Still a bit iffy in my opinion. But perhaps this video would give it a bit more push in the sort of MTV Cribs direction, which would be more fun. Not that I like MTV of course.

26-28 Horizon Drive residence is going for almost HK$350 million, a sizeable 10,000 square foot and a killer view of the bay, although slightly skewed by a nearby unit that's under construction.

It's actually split into two buildings, with an archway and pool area in between. Heh, as a bonus, the developers built this art gallery room for the eventual buyer. Actually, our guide said today's tabloids announced a buyer, though he vehemently denies it.

The actual interior design wasn't great - both its classical and modern-classical design was blah, and brimming with bourgeoise pretentiousness. It was just littered with various tacky ornaments like arts books, weird tissue boxes, dolls, picture frames of random people... found a few holes here and there too, very embarrassing.

Sure you leave and might think 'gosh, I wish I had a place like this.' But when I went home to my cosy little pad in Mong Kok, I thought this place is cool and humble, it's got the contemporary Japanese feel and it's just the right size for me, what the fuck would I do with 10,000 square feet? Sure I might throw huge parties all the time, but I believe a home should match one's personality. And that HK$350 mill fortress is just too much of an ego-trip.

Still, I felt flattered taking a piss in one of Hong Kong's most priciest real estate.

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Latest vidcasts

This one to mark World Refugee Day has been delayed for over a month, but heck it's finally here. They were some actual refugees that made an appearance that day, so we had to avoid filming them.

"Marking World Refugee Day"


Here's a rather boring one I did for the new design of Tamar. Equally, if not more boring was my voice over!

"Tamar gets its new look"


Now here's a shoot that was filled with obstacles - filming in the open lounge of the SCMP office with several Posties walking around, washing dishes, using vending machines... ugh, luckily the segments I used didn't have too much annoying background noise. And that mingin' TB photographer who made a fuss about me filming the photoshoot, apparently thinking I would mess up her concentration. Bollocks.
Anyway, Eternity Girls are a self-proclaimed Christian pop group that aims to spread the gospel, Cantopop style. Can't say I approve of both elements, and I dunno, they seemed to snigger a lot when they talk about their 'praying', and other subjects which were cut out. Kinda made me feel they were bullshitting.

"God's full-time singers"

Here's one started ages ago but I put on the finishing touches. So no, I wasn't at the filming. But hmm, my favourite model is the one that comes out during the first set of captions @:50'

"Showing off China's textile might"

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Pig farmer to give up porcine ways

Here's the latest video report I did:
It's about a pig farmer, Ng Ping-leung, a former camerman at Cable TV, who runs Ng Man-kee Pig Farm in Fanling.
The Hong Kong government is seeking to get rid of livestock farming due to fears of bird flu and swine disease, and have offered farmers cash incentives if they gave up their operating licences.
However a new intiative to promote organic farming is quite interesting; the AFCD is supporting those who are making the transition to growing organic fruit and veggies, and about 20, including Ng are taking up the offer.
At the moment, he still has about 100 pigs left, but he's already erected two greenhouses to accomodate bitter gourds and cantaloupes. If the stuff's good for the upcoming harvest, he'll invest HK$1 million in converting the 10,000 sq foot farm into a blossoming organic garden.
Let's hope his success will encourage others to join up, and for us to have more choices than dodgy mainland produce.



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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Another day, another sexed-up scandal

First of all, what a mongoloid this Chu Pui-hing chap is. Some reports say he was well oiled when he came out of the club with this CoCo character - apparently after paying her a hefty 5 G's - but then being able to dash and criss-cross through restaurants and toilets to escape would've needed quite a sober head. So hands-down what a moron... look at him, shrivelling behind that mainland hoe! Not exactly a prize-winner given his stature at RTHK and a soon-to-be-retiree.

Of course, the equally moronic tabloids had a field day with this. Chu Pui-hing is by no means a celebrity, so why the tabloid frenzy? I couldn't care less about what he does with his money or who he solicits with, much less my view of RTHK. Yet this is what tabloids seem to force on us, the chief of RTHK mingling with mainland hoes, is something worth scrutinising in the public sphere.

But yeah, not to deviate from my primary rant, and I'm sure Chu's a grand fella, but that picture will haunt him for ages! I'm sure he could've forked out more for a better looking bird. Civil servants get paid shitloads!

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Friday, July 06, 2007

My long-to-be-published vids for Style Magazine has finally hit the SCMP website, and of course YouTube.

This one is with Isabella Leong (or Leung?), a Hong Kong actress and singer. Recently starred in Isabella and the lesbo flick Spider Lillies. She's almost 6ft, and she's only 18!


This one was a little boring to do, I mean I know most models have that scrunched up, constipated look about them, but do they have to be that grumpy all the time? Narrated by Style Mag's associate editor, Carmen Li. Who drives a kickin' purple Aston Martin Vantage.

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

A plea to the geysers at the OAT

A special message to all the media chums out there:
Here's a message from a friend of a friend who needs our help:

Dear friends,
I don't know if you've heard about Hong Kong's embarrassing episodes of Michelangelo's King David sculpture ruled "obscene" with the need for censorship (the grand, nude statue exhibits a little peepee that would give children...some... idea! gasp!), or the more recent Chinese University student magazine sex survey that got classified "obscene", then of course Ming Pao, the only less obscene local paper reports on the issue with a sample survey and gets sent to the OAT for classification. There's also the person who was fined $5000 for putting hyperlinks to overseas (NOTE: not even within HK's jurisdiction) porno pictures in an adult forum.
This time, my friend Oiwan wrote an?
article?for Inmediahk.net against the censorship of obscene hyperlinking case, which has now also been catagorised by the Obscene Articles Tribunal at grade II. (Link above; Chinese only) PLEASE! Our city is getting retarded, and far more issues stem from a normal and prevalent topic being repressed in an abnormal way. Who on earth are they even trying to protect from WHAT?!? Oiwan is hoping to collect as many signatures as possible (with title and affiliation details) and hand the statement together with the revision application to the OAT the coming THURSDAY (5th July), which is the deadline for revision appeal.?
Please sign and get your friends to sign. Unfortunately this is only in Chinese, but it's oh so important to support this fight against stupidity, so please get someone to translate for you if you can't read it! If you'd like to co-sign, write to?
inmediahk@gmail.com?, or use the comments section: http://www.inmediahk.net/public/article?item_id=226978?

Don't bitch about the city's stupidity unless you actually do something about it.
Cheerio chums
D.
xxx



Here is a translated statement by Inmedia HK:

We express our regret on the Obscene Articles Tribunal's classification of the article "The beginning of censorship politics, urge for hyperlinking erotic sites" posted at inmediahk.net as Class II (indecent). This classification has once again proven that the OAT is very mechanical in evaluating speeches, expressions and creative works regarding "sex" and "body" and lacks basic judgment on an article's content, and the differentiation of beauty / ugliness, good / evil. Moreover, in recent year, the government's department and OAT's attitude towards descendent voices such as sexual minority, Chinese university student press and inmediahk.net, makes us worry that the departments have been hijacked by some social groups for oppressing sexual minority and descendent voices. Bureaucratic orientation in obscene articles evaluation is more indecent
We believe that the featured article "The beginning of censorship politics, urge for hyperlinking erotic sites" is not indecent. The article is an urge for civil disobedient act to protest against OAT's classification pornography hyperlink as Class III (obscene article). Hyperlinks by nature is a series of code linking up the contents of two internet websites, it is not by itself "content" and shouldn't be regarded as indecent and obscene article. It is very proper for the author to question and protest against the classification by hyperlinking to erotic site.
The photo is also a hyperlink streaming of content. It is a nude picture. Let's put aside the argument on whether the html codes are indecent or not and focus on the photo's lighting, setting, postures, the photo belongs to a body art photo genre. It is an insult to our education to evaluate the photo as indecent by simply looking at the body parts. The case reflects how rigid and bureaucratic the present classification system is.
In the past few years, the classification system has resulted in many international joke, such as the classification of David Statue as indecent in 1995. Last year the local classic movie "Autumn's Tale" received a warning, this year the questionnaire of Chinese University Student Press's questionnaire on sex attitude, and etc. have already enraged people in the creativity, culture, art and academic sector. If this kind of absurd, lack-of-common-sense classification continues, it will result in even bigger public resentment. Reform the obscene articles evaluation system ASAP
Apart from voluntary application for evaluation, the present system mainly follows up complaint. In recent years, some organizations with religion background (most of them are hostile towards sexual minority and diversified expression on sex) have actively organized complaint campaigns. They want to make use of the existing classification system to uphold a mono attitude towards sex in the society.
The Auditing Department has already pointed out in its report last year that, 90% of the present committee member of the OAT is over 40 years old. The tribunal lacks representatives from different sectors, such as racial and sexual minority, youth, lower class, cultural and art sectors, and etc. As a result, the classification has been very rigid and the system has been hijacked by some groups. If we don't reform the system, it will only be a governmental harassment to its citizen. It will eventually turns this multicultural international city into a mono-color ghost city. We demand that:
1. The government withdraws the classification of "The beginning of censorship politics, urge for hyperlinking erotic sites" (Case No: OAGO000147/2007) and the classification of the Chinese University Student Press erotic page (as well as the report of the case in Sunday Mingpao).
2. Set up a committee that can reflect multi-cultural, age, racial and sexual orientation differences to reform the classification system by abolishing the mechanical evaluation and bringing back in the articles' content, genre, nature, and etc.
This statement would be handed, together with the classification revision, to the Obscene Articles Tribunal on the coming Thursday (July 5). For those who would like to co-sign the statement, please send your name, title / affiliated organizations / websites, and comments / advice to the government to inmediahk AT
gmail.com. Please help forwarding the statement as well.
This statement campaign is initiated by
Hong Kong In-Media
inmediahk.net
Hong Kong Federation of University Students

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Monday, July 02, 2007

July 1st, 2007 - over and done with

Hammered this little beaut out in 10 hours. Not the best effort since we were strapped for time but still, heh, it was better than their last shitty attempt.

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

Game plan for July 1st

Well, the day's finally here, July 1st - 10th anniversary of Hong Kong under mainland rule.
For me it's that day where it'll start to fade away into history and never again see those desperate "10th anniversary specials" that the media has been bombarding us. Sorry to sound hypocritcal on my behalf, but I'm just directing that feeling towards the newsmakers.
President Hu Jintao's rock star itinerary took him around the SAR; meeting local families, playing ping-pong with a child; petting the subservient pro-China guys; condoning Donald Tsang's new cabinet and only to scurry off before pro-democracy activists storm the streets.
At around 5pm yesterday, about 150 activists tried to make some noise outside Hu's hotel in Wan Chai, only to be flanked by hundreds of police and of course media skanks.
I suppose the authorities were shitting themselves, hoping the illustrious el presidente didn't notice. Strange, the broadcast media didn't have any mention of it today.
Even though I'll be filming the processions for the SCMP, I'm fully supportive for the democratic cause. Cudoes to the groups and individuals that won't skyve off to watch the tacky PLA musicals at Happy Valley or went holidaying.

See you on the streets my niggas!

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The agony of model shoots

People who've never experienced what's it like being in or involved in model shoots may think it's all glamour and fun but I tell you the last one I worked on shattered that theory for good.


SCMP's Style Magazine did a shoot with a famous Chinese model, Liu Dan - who's been on the cover of Vouge and Elle - posing with new sports cars Audi TT convertible and some Porsche on the rooftop of Harbour City shopping centre.

It poured for an hour and we frantically ducked for what miniscule cover we had.
But for the actual shoot, for which I was only doing a making-of video for the website, I realised it was not a very enjoyable experience. Not to say I imagined everyone hated working, but I can sense in general it's just plain hard work and it's not a lot of 'fun'.
Makeup and dress always takes long; people sitting around waiting; trying to get the model in the right position; photographers being perfectionists... all for those few photos in the end.
I make this point because I always had a negative image of this profession being such a fickle and sometimes pretentious industry. But really, it's hard work. Not to mention real hard for to make a living off.


So the next time you see those elaborate poster ads with models posing for the haute couture, know that it took a lot of fucking sweat, time and frustration and probably a good few ego-bashing to get that right shot. Hah.

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