It's the end of university. After the screening, at the pub, I had a chat with Paul about the journey that I will be taking in the next stage of my life, especially when I'm in my last semester. I am considering to either go back to my home country and get a job or stay and do the Masters or Honours program provided by RMIT. Afterall, this course has been really helpful and I have learned a lot over these 2 semesters. I realized that I have developed and eventually equipped myself with those necessary skills and confidence. And honestly, I really enjoyed this semester's production process. Although there are glitches here and there, we work very well together as a group - we joked, we laughed, we had so much fun. =)
But I know that there are still many other things that I need to learn - whether it is academic field or employment. Approximately a month ago, a Malaysian career fair was held in Arrow on Swanston. Many significant Malaysia companies like Astro and Media Prima (they own lots of Malaysian TV and radio stations) were there. So I went and had an opportunity to be interviewed by them. I was so proud to present myself as an RMIT Professional Communication student and tell them what I have done for the course and what I am able to do. Media Prima's person in charge was very much impressed and she instantly wrote my name down as a candidate for Chinese Entertainment Group (8TV)'s assistant producer. Even though I don't really know what an assistant producer does, but I'm very very glad and thanks God for the opportunity of (may be) staying in the film and TV industry.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Screening (Reflection)
Being the last documentary to be screened after 3 and a half hours, it was pretty obvious that the audiences are too tired to laugh at Caroline.
The screening night totally trained my heart because I almost got a minor heart attack when Paul came over to us and told us "I invited your subject, Caroline to this screening.". And he looked super serious when he said that! But it was a joke!!! Besides, I was very nervous about our film being screened. Totally did NOT expect it to be the last one so I kept making sure that my friends I invited to stay on their seats so they won't miss my group's production.
Truthfully speaking, after watching our film, together with everyone else, I realized that it was, indeed, a bit lengthy. And I have also spotted some parts where I can cut out and still not affect the content of the documentary. Despite the fact that we got tired watching the same thing over and over again, it was like watching it with a fresh pair of eyes (after watching many other documentaries).
The screening night totally trained my heart because I almost got a minor heart attack when Paul came over to us and told us "I invited your subject, Caroline to this screening.". And he looked super serious when he said that! But it was a joke!!! Besides, I was very nervous about our film being screened. Totally did NOT expect it to be the last one so I kept making sure that my friends I invited to stay on their seats so they won't miss my group's production.
Truthfully speaking, after watching our film, together with everyone else, I realized that it was, indeed, a bit lengthy. And I have also spotted some parts where I can cut out and still not affect the content of the documentary. Despite the fact that we got tired watching the same thing over and over again, it was like watching it with a fresh pair of eyes (after watching many other documentaries).
Screening
The screening was fun! It was the last night for me to meet my course mate as I am graduating end of this year. So exciting, yet so lost, confused, nervous and... gloomy. An indication of a new phrase of life, an indication of ending of university's life.
So my number 1 favorite of the screening was, Melissa Toh, Louise Chang, Hui Xiong, and Ao Xu's Kaleidoscopic Views. I especially love their animated images (brain, calender image) and words in the documentary. The effects are just so amazing and it adds life into the documentary. When I talked to the girls after the screening, I got to know that the effects were done with Motion 4, a software that came with Final Cut Pro. How I wish I know that earlier so I can play around with it. Too bad uni is about to end for me...
Speaking of which, the approach they took for the documentary - with elements of 'behind the scene', was relatively entertaining. It takes the audiences away from the interview subjects for a while, give us a break before going back into the topic. Besides, their effort of going all the way to Sydney to film some part of the documentary makes it even more outstanding!
Other than Kaleidoscopic Views, I really enjoyed watching some other documentaries like Silent World by Nuraliqa Sendyalaras, Albert Satya and Jerry Wang and Banana Boat by Erni Wijaya, Deanna Adnan, Yi Cieh (Rebecca) Tien and Wen Jia (Susanna)Wu.
Silent World is all about a subject who talks using sign language. Even thought there was only one subject, I find the subject really strong and interesting. Also, it matches the theme, Language, very well. Unfortunately, it is a little too long. There are some contents that can be cut out in the middle of the documentary when she talks about her books.
As for Banana Boat , it's a documentary made on ABC, Australia Born Chinese and his life journey in his original mother tongue, Mandarin (which he's not good at) and English. It's interesting in the way this group structure the film and getting opinions from the parents and also from a friend of the main subject, who is an Australian but speaks better Mandarin than the subject. The documentary's length was pretty appropriate. As an audience, I felt like every minute of the film was brilliantly utilized. The documentary also ends with an interesting ending, where the subject sang a Chinese song and couldn't finish it due to language barrier.
Even though there were some documentaries that have bad sound, odd framing, and even out of sync sound, overall, I think it has been a great night and a good opportunity to look at others' film and pick up some good elements involved.
So my number 1 favorite of the screening was, Melissa Toh, Louise Chang, Hui Xiong, and Ao Xu's Kaleidoscopic Views. I especially love their animated images (brain, calender image) and words in the documentary. The effects are just so amazing and it adds life into the documentary. When I talked to the girls after the screening, I got to know that the effects were done with Motion 4, a software that came with Final Cut Pro. How I wish I know that earlier so I can play around with it. Too bad uni is about to end for me...
Speaking of which, the approach they took for the documentary - with elements of 'behind the scene', was relatively entertaining. It takes the audiences away from the interview subjects for a while, give us a break before going back into the topic. Besides, their effort of going all the way to Sydney to film some part of the documentary makes it even more outstanding!
Other than Kaleidoscopic Views, I really enjoyed watching some other documentaries like Silent World by Nuraliqa Sendyalaras, Albert Satya and Jerry Wang and Banana Boat by Erni Wijaya, Deanna Adnan, Yi Cieh (Rebecca) Tien and Wen Jia (Susanna)Wu.
Silent World is all about a subject who talks using sign language. Even thought there was only one subject, I find the subject really strong and interesting. Also, it matches the theme, Language, very well. Unfortunately, it is a little too long. There are some contents that can be cut out in the middle of the documentary when she talks about her books.
As for Banana Boat , it's a documentary made on ABC, Australia Born Chinese and his life journey in his original mother tongue, Mandarin (which he's not good at) and English. It's interesting in the way this group structure the film and getting opinions from the parents and also from a friend of the main subject, who is an Australian but speaks better Mandarin than the subject. The documentary's length was pretty appropriate. As an audience, I felt like every minute of the film was brilliantly utilized. The documentary also ends with an interesting ending, where the subject sang a Chinese song and couldn't finish it due to language barrier.
Even though there were some documentaries that have bad sound, odd framing, and even out of sync sound, overall, I think it has been a great night and a good opportunity to look at others' film and pick up some good elements involved.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
2 Editions of Animal Speak
We have produced 2 editions of Animal Speak - one is for submission and screening (our official ones) and the other one is specially produced for Caroline herself to watch.
For the ending of Caroline Pope's version of Animal Speak, I have removed the last bit where she said "My off button is very strong.... I heard that, no I'm not quite nut yet; Almost, but not there...", added her explanation on human telepathic and changed the ending song.
I am not too sure if this ethical (even worst if she finds out), but we have to do so because the original version of Animal Speak is too obvious that the focus is not entirely on the topic animal communication itself.
Good thing is, her internet is not working and, she can't read human's mind. So I guess it's still alright :P
For the ending of Caroline Pope's version of Animal Speak, I have removed the last bit where she said "My off button is very strong.... I heard that, no I'm not quite nut yet; Almost, but not there...", added her explanation on human telepathic and changed the ending song.
I am not too sure if this ethical (even worst if she finds out), but we have to do so because the original version of Animal Speak is too obvious that the focus is not entirely on the topic animal communication itself.
Good thing is, her internet is not working and, she can't read human's mind. So I guess it's still alright :P
Editing Process
It's such a torture that I can't find anything else to chop off even though I find the documentary a little lengthy. After editing the same documentary for a while, I feel like there's nothing much I can cut because they all sound equally important to me!
Anyway, many thanks to Robin, our tutor who gave us an idea how to structure our documentary to make it more interesting and it's not so much on Caroline herself as the audiences will get bored with her very soon if that's the case.
Anyway, many thanks to Robin, our tutor who gave us an idea how to structure our documentary to make it more interesting and it's not so much on Caroline herself as the audiences will get bored with her very soon if that's the case.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Cafe Shot of Esther
It was a great shame that our final shoot's image quality did not turn out to be good due to the dirty lens. Such a huge huge disappointment to realize that when we were exporting it. We would not be able to do the Janice and Ron shot again, so I decided that we have to at least get a better quality of images of Esther. We then immediately get Paul to sign another form (it's good to ALWAYS keep another copy of the form with me) and get a Z7 camera to film Esther at the cafeteria, which is basically the only place we can do at that point of time as everybody was pretty tired already.
It was definitely worth the hassle as the scene's quality turned out to be awesome. Well, even though Esther doesn't like her face to be on camera. We then went into a production suite to record Esther's voiceover. She was reading off her script, which includes words like 'such as'. I reckon they sound quite entertaining, so I decided to keep them.
It was definitely worth the hassle as the scene's quality turned out to be awesome. Well, even though Esther doesn't like her face to be on camera. We then went into a production suite to record Esther's voiceover. She was reading off her script, which includes words like 'such as'. I reckon they sound quite entertaining, so I decided to keep them.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Documentary's Behind the Scene
Today we all learned something fresh about documentary - is that no documentary is 100% real. Well, it is not exactly something new for us, but we personally experienced it today. Even how hard we try to not 'alter' the truth / the reality, at some point of the production, we have to make choices and those choices can somehow affect the genuineness of the representation of truth.
For the sake of the visual aesthetic of this documentary, we had to set up the scene to make it looks better on camera. Similar to drama's shooting, today's cutaway shoot was very much staged and acted. We had to ask Ron and Janice (the clients) to wear the same clothing, sit on the couch with the same pose and nicely place JR (their dog) in between them. Another example would be us shooting Esther's part. After shooting an over the shoulder shot of Esther, I had to tilt her computer a little to the left so it would look better on the camera.
No wonder they call it 'True Lies'.
For the sake of the visual aesthetic of this documentary, we had to set up the scene to make it looks better on camera. Similar to drama's shooting, today's cutaway shoot was very much staged and acted. We had to ask Ron and Janice (the clients) to wear the same clothing, sit on the couch with the same pose and nicely place JR (their dog) in between them. Another example would be us shooting Esther's part. After shooting an over the shoulder shot of Esther, I had to tilt her computer a little to the left so it would look better on the camera.
No wonder they call it 'True Lies'.
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