Smoke City

Post-screening

2008-11-24T05:16:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Smoke City and other nine productions were screened at FINAS to mark an end of our semester. Not a crowd favourite but I am pleased to show our documentary and we met our objectives; to be the medium between the audience and the small voices, and to educate.

There will be a revised version coming soon with extra interviews and better visuals.

Smoke City: the version we screened at FINAS

2008-11-24T04:15:00.000-08:00

Synopsis: Environmental crisis is not made well known in Malaysia. People of Klang Valley has been living their everyday lives breathing in the polluted air. Smoke City features unheard minor voices of Klang Valley regarding the problem that we are facing but taken for granted.

WARNING: Video might take (almost) forever to load if you're in Malaysia with shitty internet connection. Please accept my apology.

Delayed

2008-11-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

It is November 12th as I am typing this. I know I promised to upload the video few days ago but I am extremely busy with life.

I am currently assisting in a new season of a television show. No more half-hearted college projects. This is the real deal.

I’ll resize the video as soon as possible and upload it for your viewing pleasure! If you happen to be in Klang Valley and would like to watch it on a big screen, do crash our ceremony shit that I strongly oppose on November 23rd, at FINAS. It is located right next to the National Zoo.

Final video coming soon

2008-10-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

I am almost done with the editing. I said the exact same words to the rest of our crew since last week. I can’t help it. The more often I re-look at it, I always have the urge to tweak it and I feel like adding more inserts and cutaways.

Anyway, this will be the last time me saying it. The video will be made available online starting next week, 8th November 2008. I’ll make it downloadable as well. Why waste resources (DVDs are made of plastic) if you can distribute it over the internet?

Nevertheless, we are making few limited edition DVDs with handmade packaging. The poster should be done by next week too since there have been some serious slacking issue amongst the assigned collective. It seems they are not able to satisfy my demands.

Till then, enjoy October (did anyone mentioned beer?) before it is the new month!

Trains collided

2008-09-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

People of KL found another reason for not getting on the public transportation. Sigh.

*

KUALA LUMPUR: Four passengers sustained minor injuries when two STAR LRT trains collided about 200m from the Bukit Jalil LRT station on Wednesday.

According to BERNAMA, the four passengers have been sent to the Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM).

Tomorrow is September 22

2008-09-21T02:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow people from all around the globe will celebrate World Carfree Day. Leave your motorised vehicles at home tomorrow folks.

Just for one day, get on the trains and/or buses. Skate, cycle, or walk to class or work. Let us give a chance to Kuala Lumpur for her to be beautiful and peaceful without cars.

A long wait for bigger LRT trains

2008-09-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

KUALA LUMPUR: The Light Rapid Transit system is going to see improvement in the wake of recent censure by the prime minister: 35 new trains are in the pipeline.

The proverbial fly in the ointment is that one new four-car train will only be on the tracks in September next year, clearly not soon enough for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The rest of the trains will be operational by April 2011.

Continue reading...

More trees yaw

2008-09-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Just another teaser video. This is Ng Sek San. He is a landscape architect.

More trees yaw from Uzair Sawal on Vimeo.

Cuba try test tengok ok tak

2008-09-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

The first 75 seconds of our upcoming documentary.

Smoke City - Intro from Uzair Sawal on Vimeo.

The reason behind this project

2008-09-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Many asked why I want to make this documentary. The answer is simple. I just want people to know the problems we are facing in Kuala Lumpur. Sure the theme of this video project is global warming, climate change and all but I want to focus on one issue that relates all of us – the people of the city; public transportation.

This is my third year in KL and honestly, I love getting around either by train, bus or on foot. It gave me the chance to explore the city and I’m proud to say I know more about hidden gems of KL more than my local friends that use the main roads and highways everyday. KL is a rich city but we couldn’t afford proper pavement for pedestrians or even a lane designed for non-motorised transportations such as bicycles.

In one of the interviews I did, a landscape architect revealed that the major problem our city face is; corruption. Contractors are lining up for contracts so all the developments done in our city are short terms. They would yank off existing trees that has been sheltering the pedestrians from the direct sunlight so they can exploit the budget to get new trees (and whoever is selling the trees will get richer).

With this video project, we are not telling you how to live a green life but to find out why we can’t have less personal vehicles on the streets. This project was conceived to help the people of KL develop an understanding of existing eco dilemmas. We don’t have all the answers; no one does. It is up to you to make that change for a better city.

We believe that individuals do have the power to “green” our city. Your ringgit counts. Your vote counts. Your action counts. And when all of us do the right thing, it can have a serious impact.

Less dust and noise in NYC

2008-08-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Click here for the YouTube video by BBC. Bloody BBC disabled the embedding function .

I would love to see such thing to happen in Kuala Lumpur. Even if it is only for one day.

Introduction

2008-08-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

This website will document our journey of completing our video project, from the planning right until the screening of the end product.

Basically we are just a bunch of weird media students trying to get good grades.

Whereas almost all of the groups proceed with short fiction, we took a different path by bringing presenting you the facts.

Oh, we are Mechanic Pictures by the way. Don't ask me why we picked that name. We just thought that it sounds cool.