Tribute to Michael Jackson - our cover of "Heal The World"

A year has passed since the departure of one of history's most beloved pop icons and so, in his honor, A.B.C would like to dedicate this video and our cover version of 'Heal The World' to the one and only - Michael Jackson as well as all his fans. We are not professional singers but merely passionate fans of his work.

So enjoy the video and lets all honor his legacy by remembering the love and joy he gave to the world through music.

For the King of Pop.

We recorded this song late last year in the recording studio at RMIT - I just wanted to try out the studio because it's always been there, so I figured why not? And one of the sings I really wanted to record was this beautiful MJ song, because that way we could get a lot more people involved in the one song. I also thought we could film it and do some sort of tribute to one our most beloved pop icons, and had this whole nice MV planned out where we would have a fedora, placed onto a lonely mic, with one spot light shining down.. it was all very epic. But alas, not even time since recording the song alone was difficult enough. But it was really good fun and I reckon everyone did a fantastic job. Big kudos to Peter for putting it all together in what is a more than fantastic, sweet and solemn tribute to the one and only Michael Jackson.

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Rising Sun - a mini-series

One of the outcomes from my honours.

It is a draft of an opening credit sequence to a mini-series I am developing about Asian ANZACS. I reckon such a story is highly relevant at the moment, in light of the Billy Sing feature film fiasco.

It is a DRAFT, so not perfect. It's just a way of exploring our options. Will hopefully be able to get out there and shoot the real thing soon.

The title Rising Sun was an interesting decision process. Whilst brainstorming ideas for a title, I started off literal and dragged out titles like "The Diggers" and "The Forgotten". I was trying to capture a sense of the forgotten nature of the ANZACS that have slipped through the cracks of mainstream modern Australian history, including those from the indigenous population.

I arrived at Rising Sun because the symbol of the Australian army is the "badge of the rising sun". But what also occurred to me was that the term Rising Sun is often associated with the Empire of Japan - land of the Rising Sun. Because of this, I became a little unsure, and a began to ask everyone around me what they thought when the hear the phrase "Rising Sun". But then I thought, maybe this plays to an advantage. Since I am focusing on Asian ANZACS, and Rising Sun has the Asian connotations of Japan, maybe the confusion would suit the series purpose on the whole.

I reckon it's interesting that the symbol of the ANZACS is similar to the symbol of one of the former enemies of Australia, and I dunno, that might add an interesting element to it, especially in terms of marketing the show.

Anyway, here are some details of the vid:

Filmed by Changas, again on his d3s.

Music composed by yours truly in garage band, with the orchestra JamPack.

Ending title graphic was knocked up in 10 minutes in AfterEffects with just some jpegs of a hill, the Rising Sun badge, and a digger - sunset flare created with Video Copilot's Optical Flares.

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Changed the name of my project to "My Accented Lens".

The change came upon further reflection of the title 'The Slanted Screen' - it was referring to how representations of the Asian male was slanted or skewed, and thus referring to the racist connotations of the term Slant.

It would only be appropriate for my project if I was exploring the negative and stereotypical representations of Asians by non-Asian filmmakers. However, my project is about me dealing with my Asian-Australian heritage through filmmaking, and through my own lens. If i called it Slanted Lens, I would be referring to myself as a Slant. This of course can have it's positives for certain themes of Asian representations in Western media, but it's not specifically related to what I want to say in my project. It is far from it, though it does deal with it somewhat in one of the projects that I am currently developing and hoping to pitch. More on that after this Friday!

Anyway, settled on My Accented Lens since I have been using Hamid Naficy's 'An Accented Cinema' to frame my project, and since it's from my perspective as a filmmaker, thus me looking through my lens... you get the imagery.

Anyway here's a preview of what the main menu looks like. The transition is cooler, but no time to upload that - I shouldn't' even be on here writing this! gargh!!!

Wish me luck guys... :s

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