As a filmmaker, James Nguyen is the worst of the worst , he has no business being behind a camera. His "romantic thriller" Birdemic is dimwitted and amateurish in all aspects, from the script to the cast to the direction to the dirt-cheap special effects and yet, people still find it hilariously entertaining. If Nguyen had been a better filmmaker or had had any training whatsoever, Birdemic likely would never have been picked up by a distributor. As it stands, Birdemic is an epic showcase of high school filming at the worst level. Within the first post-credits minute, the uselessness begins: abrupt cuts, awkward silence, stilted dialogue, actors who seem like the only English they know is what they memorized from the script. One scene features a different angle for almost every line of dialogue. Another sequence just shows Rod driving, getting gas, waiting in traffic, arriving at work and walking into his office. Inside, a follow-up scene features 75 seconds of applause (with looped audio). Later, one of the group's "adventures" is walking around yelling "Tony!" after a boy wanders off. They find him. He's fine. End scene. The CGI if you can call it that looks like GIFS copied and pasted off a website and incorporated into the film, with suicide birds who manage to blow up petrol stations in a single swoop. Overall the film is awful, if you can call it a film, but has been voted as the "best worst film ever" and is a must see to be believed.

Concepts camera

I'm Back

Well back at Aut again and the first 2 weeks have been fun. Different lecture room which is located in an isolated, desolate part of the university. New lectures with people who say "circus" instead of circle. All good fun.... We've been given our new assignments now, one which is a written paper and the other is to make an auxiliary piece of equipment to support 2 cameras that show unique and not frequently seen footage. We are into the third week now and have designed and built our equipment. It's a rig that has a glass carrying suction cup with a secondary handle and a small 1.6mm sheet metal box that houses the cameras. We test ran it today on the side of Yuta's car which was quite cool and the footage collected was quite unique and unexpectedly good, which i will upload as well. I will also upload some sketches of ideas and concepts i came up with before we came to this final result.

Event 1

Mousse recipe review

300grams of chocolate drops (preferably dark)
300 grams of cream
4 eggs with whites and yolks separated
4 tablespoons of white sugar
2-4 teaspoons (tablespoons) of rum

Melt the chocolate on on the stove top using a pot of heated water with a smaller pot inside holding the chocolate. Meanwhile separate the eggs and keep the yolks as well as the whites. Once the chocolate has melted let it cool slightly for 5 min then add egg yolks and mix thoroughly (add the rum at this point if wanted.) Mix cream in a separate bowl until thick and add chocolate with a spatula making sure to mix it in by folding not stirring the mixture. Beat egg whites until light and fluffy adding sugar slowly near the need mixing well. Combine the egg whites with the cream and chocolate again folding the mixture not stirring. Leave in the fridge for 30min until firm.
I quite like the recipe as its simple easy to do and tastes a lot better than the premix moose sachet's that you find in store. It has a very light and creamy texture and with the dark chocolate has a beautiful rich taste to it. i recommend leaving in the fridge for a bit longer than 30min if you want it to be firmer. It tastes great by itself and can be served into smaller dishes before cooling for presentation purposes. Also i find that when you add rum to the chocolate mix it soaks up the moisture and becomes hard to mix, I solved this by adding small portions of hot water and mixing it in till it came to a smooth runny consistency.

Event 2

Last night at 12.30 the Fire siren sounded. Upon arriving at the station and getting suited up i was told to wait and not get on the first appliance as other people who hadn't gone as much needed to go. Disappointed i waited to see if the second appliance would go. When i heard over the roar of the first appliance that the call out was to a car vs pole persons trapped my spirits dropped further, these were the events that i looked forward to. Standing there waiting for the second appliance to be called upon I knew that we would be on road duty. The second appliance is almost always there to secure the scene never to get fully involved unless needed. Degraded and let down i stared out the window as we drove to the crash. As i looked out into the black veil covering the land bright red, yellow and blue lights lit up the sky. Two fire appliances were already there along with an ambulance and 3 police cars. The first thought that came into my head was how amazing all the colours lit up the scene and how beautiful it looked, then i thought "Ok, come on guys bit over kill for one car crash." Jumping out of the appliance with a jerkin on i was told to go on road duty on one side of the road, with great reluctance i did, and trudged down the road with flashlight in hand. As i stood there in the light rain i became steadily more disappointed as time progressed and light specks of rain lashed at my uncovered face. Light refracted through my visor as i stared longingly at the car wreak, lighting my face with a mixture of red and blue. It sucks so bad to be on second appliance...

Event 3

The A-Team Movie Review

Today i went and saw the A-Team Directed by Joe Carnahan. With actors such as Liam Nesson (Hannibal), Bradley Cooper (Face), Jessica Biel (Charisa Sosa), Quinton Jackson (B.A Baracus) and Sharlto Copley (Murdock) It was looking like a good movie. This is the second time I've seen Sharlto in a big screen movie his last one being "District 9". The opening scenes are dedicated to introducing the characters and is done beautifully for each one with each scene showing the characters personality down to a pin point. My favorite introduction was to "Mad Murdock" who is slightly insane but the funniest out of them all with his introduction scene placing him in a mental ward posing as a doctor.
Considering that I haven't seen the original 80's series so have nothing to base these characters off i think that they are well presented. From start to end the movie is utter chaos on wheels, with such unbelievable scenes it just adds to the light heart-ed humor and intense fast passed action which if you ignore the impossibility of it all becomes an amazing well shot film. The special effects in the film were good and quite realistic the only part i found a little off was near the end with the cargo ship but besides that the effects were mind blowing.

If you love action comedy's this is the movie for you. It had me laughing almost the whole way through with fist fulls of action that left me wanting more. A must see movie this year which i give two thumbs up.

Event 4

While i was on the train this morning listening to the radio off my phone a guy sat down to me wearing the same jumper as me. In my head i laughed and though what a coincidence. Then i started thinking. Of all the people and of all the times to catch a train and this particular carriage and to sit next to me. I started thinking about coincidence and probability and how people see it differently. Some people call it fate, luck or destiny. I'd be more inclined to say luck or coincidence. There are multiple ways people see this some don't think about it much and say "oh thats lucky" some say god's watching over me and looking out for me and others like to think of it through science such as Schrodinger's cat theory or the multiverse theory. I prefer to see it from the science side. A good example of this would be last Friday night my mate and I were out and he had forgotten his keys to his flat, we decided to go home anyway and see if a window or something was open. Upon getting to his house we found his keys sticking out of his car door. We had been gone for about 3 hours. I was surprised at the chance that his keys were there and also that no one had stolen his car yet, it was pretty much sitting there asking for it. He then said that god must be looking over him being christian and all. Which i shake my head at. I don't like the idea or possibility of a higher power controlling what i do as it gives me no point to live as everything is pre-determined and no way to change it. But the idea of Multiple "me's" moving along the same time-line choosing the choices i didn't choose is a bit of a mind fuck... but incredibly interesting to me.