Some one did ask me why I teach when its hourly pay is low. I am just giving back to the school (now faculty) for the knowledge I gained when I was there. Lecturing on techniques also gives me the requirement to further enhance my knowledge. I can further refine my teaching techniques. Since Mass Comm students are not Art and Design students, I need to keep it simple. Last semester, my project assignment must be based on KISS concept. LOLZ Not making out kiss, just an abbreviation for KEEP IT SIMPLE .... . The dot stands for STUPID LOLZ.
Simplicity is important if we want the idea to get across to the audience. Making it difficult will stress us out. As long the element taught is added, it will be added bonus. But there are still some who misunderstood this. Simplicity to them is delivering half-baked animations.
Being Mass Comm students, if you lack the skill to illustrate characters, you make the story interesting and worth watching. Make it funny, make people think. The synopsis may sound great. Explore it in storyboarding. If you find it lack elements for audience to enjoy it, find a different angle on the story to make it interesting.
When we did our advertising final campaign, (BTW, I am not a broadcasting student.) there was three person in our group. Financially deprived, we tried to complete our objective as simple as possible. Instead of outdoor shooting, we did it in the studio which was free. After our two proposals were thrashed can by the lecturer, we proposed a much simpler concept. Ohh yea, our ad campaign was DUREX CONDOM Ad for Malaysian TV screening. Our talent was a golf putter, a golf ball. That was it. These was borrowed from one of the lecturer, Mr Sankaran. (Wonder where he is now?)
We explore ways to produce it. We used PSPP studio (Then PSPP was where broadcasting students do their studio work. Now, Mass Comm has its own studio.) To give the element of elegance, we made the backdrop black and used smoke from kemenyan. Imagine the smell of kemenyan suddenly can be smelt down at the library below. Musta give other students goose-bumps.
We can't afford to rent a steady cam, so we used a simple Video8 camera from my uncle. To give a steady movement, we tied a bungee cord to it so it can be stretched up and down without any hand shake from any angle. The shoot took less than 5 hours. 2 hours shooting, 3 hours chatting. LOLZ.
Next the editing process. We wanted AB Roll editing and the school only had VHS deck to deck suite. So I convinced the lab technician, Abang Zul. (He still in Mass Comm) to do an experiment. I rigged the Video 8 to the deck via the mixer and voila, we had AB Roll editing. BTW AB Roll editing give smooth transitions from clip to clip. Now we can do simply do this transition in nonlinear editing system like Final Cut, iMovie, Premiere, Edius, Vegas and God knows, many others in the market. Then was not that easy. Deck to Deck will freeze the previous clip and dissolve over it, making it look a bit weird. The editing was completed in just a few hours and I did my own editing. I craved for knowledge that I really spent a lot of time in the editing room pushing buttons until I was even thought by my juniors, I was a broadcasting student. LOLZ
Disaster struck when I completed and want to make a copy, the deck chew my tape. To salvage my work, I re-edit at PSPP using Umatic Deck to Deck system. It was my first time using it. Took me two days to understand the process but I managed to recreate but as good as what I did using the AB Roll rig.
So on presentation day, instead of showing my Umatic edited ad, I used the chewed tape. Luckily the lecturer liked it. Fooooh. Got 4 flat for it.
Here is the video I salvaged from the 18 years old VHS tape.
My point for telling this story, we keep things simple, cost as minimal as possible, explore methods to deliver our work. I hoped my future students (that is if UiTM still hiring me next semester) will make the project KISS and explore the software they are taught in, manipulate the methods to give me a good show worthy to show at Festivals outside the walls of UiTM.
And the winner is the one who learn and keep on learning for their own benefits.
Cheers,
-bob
4 am and still wide awake.
