A music video shot for The One Dream Initiative, a social project which aims to encourage youths to pursue their dreams and along the journey, help the less privileged in the society .

As you can probably see from Darren's earlier post, never underestimate the power of a filter - especially when you fall from the ledge onto your bum. But that is a story for another time.

Last week, I went to Hanoi on a volunteer trip with The Hemispheres Foundation and the Australian International School Singapore (AISS). The trip was part of AISS' community building program and it involved doing volunteer work (general cleaning, painting, farming, building a playground) at Kim Bang Social Centre, which is an orphanage located at Ha Nam Province. I was there as a facilitator and videographer/photographer for the camp.

There, I met an orphan called Lan, who opened my eyes to his life and it was a truly humbling experience. Neither of us speaks each other's language and we communicated through hand gestures. During the two days I was at the orphanage, at some point in time whilst everyone else was busy with their activities, I would find him standing outside his room staring into the distance. To some extent, it almost seemed rather stoic. On the second day, I tried to engage him but he would brush me off and return to his position by the steps. So we stood there, for at least a good half hour in the cold. It then occurred to me that he was waiting - for something or someone, his family maybe, who might never return for him.

What can you hold on to when there's nothing to ground you? When you have everything you need but nothing belongs to you? When people come and go but it's never the right person?

What else can you do but wait? I once thought that a year's worth of waiting was long. But that is nothing compared to Lan's wait.

And for that, I really admire this little boy and hope that someday his wait will come to an end.

Whenever Adeline goes on a solo mission to film. Something like this will happen.



Lesson learnt - Buy filters or keep Adeline away from cameras when she's overseas alone.

A couple of months back, we were asked to be involved in a social cause. The initiative calls for the empowerment of Singaporeans, especially the young, to pursue their dreams and by doing so, give help to fellow needy citizens along the way. The founder of the project - called "One Dream" - roped in a talented musician named Ling Kai to pen the project theme song.



Ling Kai also happens to be a classmate of ours back in Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, and it was her who called us onboard.

The song, simply titled One Dream, is her interpretation of the project and what it seeks to achieve. On Wednesday, we did half an MV shoot of the acoustic version, filming in a small home-based but commercial recording studio.





The rest of the shoot happened outdoors this morning. It was a simple affair, absolutely fuss-free, which kind of suits the song pretty well because the song had simple lyrics but yet still very soulful and heartfelt.



And for the last picture, we want to introduce Keyuan, our new guy in the office, who actually took most of the pictures here. More info about him in the upcoming posts as he slowly unveils his true self in the office.

Stay tuned for more of him and the MV!

We had a full day photo-shoot for SilkAir 2 days ago. We can't show any pictures now but what we can show is Darren and Yan Zhao doing some white balancing act and Kang Li pretending to pose like his air stewardess models.

One thing is certain, the SilkAir girls are really really really nice. They don't complain, always apologising for the slightest of concerns and more importantly, have great smiles and poses so ever readily, making our task easy. And they sure know how to have fun. Throw them a beach ball and some golf clubs and you will be surprised what they can do with it!

The Chingay parade in Singapore is the equivalent of a Mardi Gras, an annual street parade, showcasing local and foreign cultural performing groups.

We were commissioned by MOE to produce a series of short documentaries about keystone events in schools - such as First Day of School, Total Defence Day, Racial Harmony Day etc. This project is still ongoing. Recently, we added "Transition to Primary One", "Enhanced Facilities" and "Choosing your Primary School"

A MCYS commissioned video that tells the stories of three foster families in Singapore.

Build quality: Quite good. The shell of the camera is hard plastic, feels quite solid though. The buttons and the wheel at the back of the camera are abit finicky, maybe it's because I have fat fingers, but often I hit the wrong button.

Image quality: Astounding. ISO 3200 images are very clean. Images are pin-sharp, even at F2.0

Lens: Auto-focus is reasonable, a tad-slower than the GF-1 have a tried before, but could be my imagination. The aperture ring clicks nicely and firmly, but for stubby fingers like mine, it's a bit hard to tweak because it sits really close to the camera body. In manual focus, the focus ring takes quite a lot of revolutions to get from infinity to macro, the movement itself could have more dampening in my opinion, but overall, it's smooth.

Video mode: Tough to access to the mode and the camera is too small to operate as a movie camera. I don't think Fuji wanted you to use this as a video camera.

Operation: Knobs on the top panel of the camera turn with a reassuring click. The camera comes in several colour profile modes to choose from, emulating Fuji's notable film stocks, namely the Provia, Velvia and Astia. The useful ND filter is also a bit hidden in the menu, but there is a Function button that can be assigned to any of the menu items. Overall, the menu and controls sure could be a little better-designed, but that's just nitpicking. :)

Size: Slightly smaller than the M6. Lighter too. Fits nicely in the hand.

Some images! Indulge.