Darren Lee’s fashion film Remember definitely made my morning. I came across this beauty on Facebook and I felt that it was too good not to share.

Remember
He’s gone, but I still think of him. What he left behind evokes memories of his touch, his smell. I am torn between remembering him and forgetting him.

You should definitely put aside a couple of minutes to watch the video. Voting ends in two days, so click here and now!

Yong Ping Loo is a graduating Singaporean at London College of Communication, from the Graphic Media Design course. Yong Ping recently made a strong statement at the 2010 D&AD Student Awards with his work titled Disappearing Cities,  which won him an entry in the D&AD Annual.

In this year’s Moving Images category, students were given the challenge to work around the theme of mankind’s fascination with city living. The objective was to explore the concept of ‘The Disappearing City’ through storytelling, with a work of moving image at it’s core.

Yong Ping about his entry: “The short film shares the personal reflection of a young girl who prefers the online/ digital world to the physical natural world. At 16 Million strong, kids between the ages of 2 to 11 years old are the fastest growing online population to date. We are witnessing a disappearing generation who are slowly but surely transferring their existence online. The film is extended into another medium in the form of children’s shoes left empty and isolated around London in places where children used to play (playgrounds, parks). Thus, transforming the short film into an educational piece which addresses the issue of children spending too much time in an online virtual reality.”

Yong Ping’s film was also translated into an ambient ad, images of which can be found here.

Pulcinello, a short film produced by a team of animation students as their final-year project, has to date won four major awards.

Production began in June 2008 and was completed in May 2009, shortly after the team’s graduation. Gabriella Mesenas served as leader of the team, which comprised Hong Kai Wei, Lee Yong Yi, Sheetha Lakshmanan, Tan Jing Hua, Tan Tai Chi, Tan Zi Chao and Vanessa Yeap.

Gabriella about the storyline: “Pulcinello always had a smile on his face. However, a hollow smile was all it was. He lived as a puppet, chained onto his master’s hands, emotionlessly dancing to its master’s rhythm. Pulcinello’s only wish was to show his true emotions, even so being unable, ‘Columbine’, the beautiful puppet that descended from the sky, accepted him for what he was. Yet, when everything was at its peak, Columbine’s time was up and she departed against her will.”

Thousands of women travel to Bali each year in search of paradise. And many find it in the arms of  the Kuta Cowboys. Masters at peddling the holiday-romance concoction, these bronzed beach ambassadors have made Bali one of the world’s leading destinations for female sex tourists.

Cowboys in Paradise is an independent feature documentary by Amit Virmani, that gets between the sheets of Bali’s male sex trade to reveal its most intimate secrets.

Amit’s film already picked up three nominations at the Asian Film of First Films, including Best Documentary and Best Director (Documentary).

Cowboys in Paradise will be screening locally this spring. Join the Facebook page for updates.

The Karma of the Tree Sentinel who Awakes/Mind Roots MV is an experimental short film and music video inspired by Mind Roots from The Observatory’s latest album, Dark Folke.  The film is produced by local film collective birdmandog, and based on a short poem written by the band’s songwriter Leslie Low for the album:

“They have no voice for their mouths are covered. They cannot move for their bodies are stiff. But their minds are free. Their eyes are no longer prisons. When the hour of the owl comes, they will enter the tree through a triangle. The triangle is a doorway. The tree is a cave. The tree echoes their every thought, breath and step. And while there is no light, they remain hidden but not forgotten …. Dark Folke, 1 July.”

Director Yuan Ler about the video: “Using a combination of stop motion photography, hi-definition video and 3D animation, Karma tracks the journey of Sentinel 5, who awakes from a deep slumber in limbo to begin a journey that will take her to The Triangle – a monolith of unknown origins. Karma is an experimental film that explores themes of existentialism, regret, and life beyond death.”

Serene Teh is a Graphic Design student at the Raffles Design Institute, who enjoys illustrating. “Animation is new to me, and the featured work, titled the Parkour Paper Trail, is my first video,” Serene explains. “It is one of my school assignments. I illustrated frame by frame, and constructed it on cartridge papers. The video was shot and edited by Noel Lee.”

Yeo Wee Han has a passion for nature and travel photography, and places that have been untouched by globalization are his choice locations. “I am also the President of Nature Photographic Society (Singapore), where like-minded nature photographers come together to aid conversation and the awareness of nature through photography,” he adds.

“Timelapse photography was something I had always had some interest in and I was constantly shooting them using video cameras but I wanted to push the limits more and after some research and some experimenting, I found that still cameras were the ticket. I used Canon DSLRs for timelapse photography as the images are much lower in noise and way better in quality than compact cameras. The tough thing doing timelapse photography was the equipment involved as I normally work with at least three setups (a camera, a lens and a solid tripod) and they do get hefty after some walking. Final Cut Studio was used for the editing and the huge videos files pushed the system to its limit and rendering took up lots of time. Minimal cropping was done to the shots and each shot in the video is as true to the scene as possible.”

One of the screenings at the recent First Take event was Samantha Wee’s short titled Good Morning. The story is about Peter Pang who just turned 60, and all he can see is doom ahead. Birthday woes get turned around however when a surprise encounter with Bhangra injects Peter with a newfound zest for life. Through the magic of this Indian dance, Peter attempts to get his life back on track and to rekindle lost sparks with his wife.

Samantha Wee completed her degree in Film Studies at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) and returned to Singapore last year to work in the local industry. She has been involved in various productions ranging from corporate videos to TV dramas to info-tainment material. On top of this, she wrote, directed, produced and edited her first Singapore-made short film. She is currently developing another short film script which will be shot later this year.