When you're working and doing school during the week, it's easy to tell yourself that you'll just kick back and do...well, nothing, over the Labor Day weekend. For someone like me, however, who has basically been waiting for a free day in my schedule to actually block out time to get the things I wanted to accomplish outside of work / school done, Labor Day weekend peaked as a point of productivity.
One Jump Ahead of the Blogline! (yes, I'm resurrecting this pun lol)
Use this to jump ahead in the blog by hitting "Ctrl" + "F" and then typing in one of these titles if you're only interested in a certain portion of the blog post :)
Eggs Benedict-ish Brunch on Saturday morning
My Love Sinema BTS - Recording the Audio
My Love Sinema BTS - Filming
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Eggs Benedict-ish Brunch on Saturday morning
This was something that I had tried out a couple of times before my parents got back and it was only right to make it for them, since I knew that I could do it successfully! :)
I'm pretty sure anyone who has actually made a PROPER eggs benny is probably a little disappointed with my attempt, so we'll just call this eggs benedict inspired. lol
making the hollandaise sauce, courtesy of powdered version from Kroger lol
it's JUST a little sour though, so you can tweak it if you don't like the taste of the sourness
I changed up the recipe by adding in a layer of mashed avocado (seasoned with salt and pepper)
my parents also wanted to use a cheese bagel instead of the traditional english muffin
Mum cutting into her eggs benny inspired brunch
what you're seeing here:
Left: a cheese bagel, spread with mashed and seasoned avocado, topped with a poached egg
Right: cheese bagel, ham slices, and some leftover steak meat Mum wanted me to finish off
I toasted all of it in the oven before putting the egg and steak on, and then put some hollandaise sauce and paprika on top
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My Love Sinema BTS - Recording the AudioI've been sitting on the My Love Sinema cover project idea since I got Tosh Zhang's permission (THAT'S RIGHT, I GOT HIS PERMISSION) on Oct 27th, 2016. Now that I finally had a "free" day, Aletheia and I went to go and actually RECORD the audio for the cover at Altgeld Hall, School of Music, on SIUC campus.
But before I continue into that, here's a large praying mantis that was perched on my car watching me leave and then flew off my car when I finally started the engine lol
Our original plan with recording both the audio and Aletheia's piano footage was to do it at Altgeld, but given that they'd be closed on Labor Day (the day of our shoot). When I first found this out, to say I was in a panic would be putting it lightly. Thankfully, our church's pastor granted us the use of the church's chapel (with a piano) for our shoot and also gave us permission to turn the air conditioning on so that we wouldn't be dying in there...God really hears our prayers and answers them! :)
Since our filming situation was taken care of, Aletheia and I wanted to make sure that we at least got the audio down at Altgeld due to the better quality instrument. All in all, we didn't actually experience too many problems with recording, just your run-of-the-mill human error that you have to account for as far as playing an instrument. It took a few takes, but I believe we got everything that we needed.
Pictured to the left is the chair situation. We realized after a slightly more dramatic audio take that when Aletheia leans forward, her chair creaks (the one closer to the wall). To fix the problem, we went and got an adjustable piano bench from an adjourning room that had a large cushion. Problem solved!
It had been a long two and a half hours for us, so we went home, had dinner, and then we had...drumroll please...an ice-kachang / bingsu inspired dessert! We made sweetened green tea ice, put it into the ice kachang shaver, and topped it with vanilla ice cream and sweet red bean paste. DE-LI-CIOUS!! <3
After dessert, Aletheia and I spent another hour and a half working on her makeup look (and also teaching her how to use said makeup) before finally deciding that it would much less stressful for her if I were to handle the eye makeup for her.
By the time I sent Aletheia home, made it home, and took a shower, it was about 11pm. I picked out my own outfit, chose a makeup look, and recorded a few rounds of my flute audio. It was about 1:30am by the time I made it to bed, but all in...time well spent. It was a long day / night, don't get me wrong, but I was so hyped up on the fact that we were actually DOING this the next day that I didn't regret a single second of it. :)
Pictured to the right is my outfit for the shoot. I ended up changing out the distressed denim jacket for an elbow-length cardigan due to the weather (WAY TOO HOT FOR DENIM). The dress is one of my faves though :) I paired it with rose gold sandals.
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My Love Sinema BTS - Filming
Aletheia and Daniel (my SIUC friend from my undergrad years, also a graduate of the MCMA program) had never met before, in addition to both of them having never been to Blend, so we met up for a brunch! Figured it was best to treat these two wonderful individuals who were doing me a HUGE favor and giving up quite a few hours of their Labor Day, in addition to making sure everyone had energy for the shoot and for Aletheia and Daniel to grow comfortable with each other to ensure optimum communication capabilities for the shoot (the next few hours).
Daniel and Aletheia! A very successful first meeting, I think :)
Daniel is unfortunately backlit here...oh well.
Daniel got an ice-cream crepe, Aletheia got Smoked Turkey, and I got Ham Egg. :)
Aletheia also got a chocolate milk tea and I got a matcha milk tea.
They were out of boba, so we got the fruit jelly instead. It was pretty good!
No photos for the rest of the behind the scenes, unfortunately, as I was personally actually in front of the camera for a lot of it and my phone (which I would have used to take BTS photos) was the main thing being used to play the music for the shoot (we sync what we're doing with what has already been recorded audio-wise).
We shot at three different locations:
- Faner Hall (flute / footage of me) : a long exterior hallway like area, where my flute echoed and bounced all over the concrete walls and I have never been more thankful that no one was on campus for us to disturb lol
- Altgeld Hall (flute / footage of me) : the doors were locked, but there's an exterior, though sheltered hallway that we could use. It was, unfortunately, being lived in by a horsefly that I eventually murdered when it got too close / distracting. The sound from this location was even louder, as the hallway basically functioned as a funnel of sound haha XD
On a side note, I'm quite happy that Aletheia's shoot was indoors. I was feeling exhausted and disgusting by the end of mine :P
- Calvary Campus Church's chapel (piano / footage of Aletheia) : the dramatic lighting coming in the windows was a lot of fun to work with for Aletheia's part of the shoot.
And that's a wrap on the BTS for My Love Sinema!! I'm really hoping that I get time over the next couple of days to properly edit everything and give you guys a video that I'm proud of. Pictured here was our "end of the shoot!" commemorative photo, one with Daniel and one with Aletheia, taken at our church parking lot.
Stay tuned and thanks for coming on this creative journey with me.
It's an honor and a privilege. :)
I would LOVE to hear from you regarding any other cover / creative ideas that you think I would do well. Please leave a comment below if you think of something.
Love you guys! ~ xoxo
~ Ariel
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