N.E.mation! 10: Cedar3 And Their Most Unconventional Painting Tools

Having gotten to know our 2 teams last week, we were eager to visit them again this week to check on their progress! And we brought a couple of surprises this week for our teams too!

[MinuteManSG: "Supplies!!"]

 

If you don't know what we are talking about, [MinuteManSG: "Or why I'm always interrupting with my square brackets."] you should catch up on our first N.E.mation! 10 visits first:

Our First Visit as N.E.mation! 10 Ambassadors: Team Cedar3

and

Our First Visit as N.E.mation! 10 Ambassadors: Team ZLS and the Legendary Milo Thief

This week, Miss Koala visited Team Cedar3 during their 2nd week of production to check on their progress!

The bubbly girls from Cedar3 only took 3 seconds to recognize me! They are so smart! 

[MinuteManSG: "I think it also works the other way round..."]

Before we kicked off with our official visit, we gathered both Teams together to play a little ice-breaking game called 'Give Me Tempo, Ready Go!'.

We had lots of fun and laughs while getting to know remember each others names a little better through the game! And in the end, we even had a mini-competition where Tanya from Cedar3 emerged as the winner! Congratulations again Tanya! We hope you like your prize!

[MinuteManSG: "But oops! We forgot to take photos of the winner and her prize presentation!"]

At least we managed to get a group photo of all of us together! Yay!

[MinuteManSG: "So what have the girls been up to for the past week?"]

Well, let's take a look!

Looks like they have been busy painting! But wait, did you notice something peculiar in the photo above?

[MinuteManSG: "You mean other than the pixelated painting?"]

Apart from that... Did you notice that those don't look like normal paintbrushes that they are holding in their hands...

[MinuteManSG: "They look pretty normal to me..."]
That's because you're abnormal by nature.

Anyway, that is what actually makes their paintings so special! Part of their project is to use unconventional tools to complete their paintings! Just take a look at some of the creative 'paintbrushes' that they have been using...

See if you can spot all these creative 'paintbrushes' in the picture above...

Coloured chalk...

A whiteboard duster...

A scrubbing brush...

 A balloon...

Toilet bowl brushes!!

Even real lollipops!!!

[MinuteManSG: "!!!!!!!"]

Hold on... That isn't what you think it is. Those are FINGER GLOVES. You know, those things that you wear on your fingers when handling items which can be damaged by exposure to the skin's natural oils?

[MinuteManSG: "And my personal favourite: A real hammer! BOINK!"]

Ok... And they even have an authentic coffee sock!

And they even captured the entire painting process using a time-lapse video!

[MinuteManSG: "Well, technically until we came and brought them out of their working area, so now they have a time-lapse video of them disappearing  =P"]

Check out their instagram account @_cedar3 for more pictorial updates from the girls!

I'm sure many of you can't wait to see the actual results of their creative painting sessions. Unfortunately, you guys and girls have to wait for another week or so before the final animation is released to the public! And here's a teaser for you: They actually have more than just 1 painting!

In the meantime, here's a little aluminum boat floating peacefully across a clear blue sea to keep you calm and relaxed before the actual unveil.

[MinuteManSG: "Those are actually their hand-made disposable paint buckets because they said they were too lazy to keep washing bowls. Laziness is the mother of all invention."]

Another interesting fact we discovered about these girls was that they really really love their snacks! Check out their waste bin! 

[MinutemanSG: "Actually other teams also contributed to this because their waste bin was located near the entrance where everyone walked."]

Oh. 

*sweats*

To our surprise, these thoughtful girls even got us little gifts wrapped with handwritten notes. So sweet of them.

[MinuteManSG: "Awww. That's so sweet, but I still don't understand why a whole chunk of text is smaller than '3 CEDAR3'"]

Maybe you'll finally be able to get it next week.

Keep up the good work girls and we'll see you again next week!

Visit N.E.mation! 10 for more updates of the Top 10.

Our first visit as N.E.mation! 10 Ambassadors : Team Cedar3

Since the very first time experiencing N.E.mation! 5 five years ago, I have always been amazed by the creativity and determination of all the teams in every N.E.mation! challenge. And they only seem to get better and more creative every year! The sky's the limit for these impressive kids!

What is N.E.mation! you ask? Well, N.E.mation! an annual digital animation competition organised by the good people at Nexus for youths to express their thoughts on Total Defence. These students, having no prior experience in animation before the competition, have been able to produce amazing video clips that were screened on free-to-air television! This year, the theme is "Together We Keep Singapore Strong", and as always, the winning team will win a trip to visit renowned animation studios is the USA!

This year, good things come in pairs, because I will be combining forces with my Man Man, Colin Chang, a.k.a. The Minute Man SG, as the ambassadors of our 2 teams! [The Man: "Hello Everybody!!!"] So throughout the rest of the N.E.mation blog posts, whenever you see square brackets with italic words in it, it's Colin speaking!

So without further ado, let's introduce the M&M [MinuteMan: "That's short for Mint & MinuteManSG!"] teams!

Team Cedar3 #NE10C03

Our first team was a team of bubbly girls from Cedar Girls' Secondary School! Say hello to Tanya, Shyn, Kayla and GL from Team Cedar3! [MinuteManSG: "Cedar rocks!"]

The girls shared with us an interesting story on how they got their group name. Initially when they were submitting entries for the qualifying rounds, they were using group names that represented their school. E.g. Cedar1, Cedar2, Cedar3, Cedar4 etc. And after they got into the finals, they didn't know that they could actually change their group name, so they stuck to Cedar3!

But I think it's fated because they were the 3rd Cedar team, and they picked ambassador number 3 (ME!) during the drawing of ambassadors, and guess what is my favourite number? 3!! So it's no surprise that our group chat is called...

[MinuteManSG: "Why is 3333333333 smaller than 3? I don't understand??!!"]

It's a girl thing, you won't understand.

When we first got to their working area, there was no a single soul in sight. [MinuteManSG: "They must be eating snake!"] But before we could draw any wrong impressions of them being lazy and "eating snake", James brought us around the back of their working area to another room at the back, where we saw this...

The girls were busy tracing and drawing out some of their props using a projector!

[MinuteManSG: "What happened to your camera? Is it spoilt?"]

No, we intentionally blurred out the pictures so that we won't spoil the surprise for our readers when the video comes out! [MinuteManSG: "Ohhhhh..."]

[The Man: "Say cheese!"]

Anyway, while Tanya, Shyn and GL were busy drawing away, Kayla was in charge of the BBQ!

[MinuteManSG: "Wah! Still got food! I thought no food and drinks allowed?"]

Well, actually there wasn't really a BBQ, but she was given the very important job of making sure the projector didn't turn into an actual BBQ!

Keeping the projector cool is hard work...

[MinuteManSG: "I guess we can call her the projector's biggest fan!!"]

OMG... *Rolls Eyes*

We managed to peel them away from their work for a short chat to get to know them a little better!

Our first official proper photo together! Yay!

Chatting with girls from Team Cedar3...

Did you know that these girls were one of the youngest teams among this year's finalists? Not to worry girls! Don't worry about who is younger or older, just take it as all of you are finalists in this years N.E.mation! 10 competition, and every single one of you are standing on equal ground!

They even shared with us their timeline and schedules required to complete the project. Having only 3 weeks to produce a full length animation clip from scratch is really no joke, and I admire the passion and dedication these students must have to make it come true!

During the chat, we asked them what did they want to achieve at the end of this competition. The girls shared with us that they'd love to make more friends, sweethearts :)

As we were nearing the end of our session, we spotted the girls trying to move a huge piece of wood into their working area. They were having some difficulty trying to get it in without damaging the protective plastic sheets on the floor...

...so naturally, our 2 muscular men came to the rescue! Woohoo!

[MinuteManSG: "M&M Movers to the rescue!"]
That's James, I used eye power instead... 

And to end it off, here's a little teaser for all of you. Can you guess what they have drawn here? It's going to be a part of their completed project!

[MinuteManSG: "I know! I know! It's some branches from a big starfruit tree!!"]

Cedar3 regularly pens their updates HERE.
Maybe they'll tell you what they've drawn.
Go read!

Read up on what happened during our visit with our other team, Team ZLS, here!

For more stories, videos, photos and updates on N.E.mation! 10, visit https://nemation.sg/.