Monday, April 18, 2011

Reflections - Canon-VJC Seminar - Mavis Cheng

I am extremely fascinated with the photographs captured by the professionals who were gave the talks at the event. The photos gave off a totally different aspects of the certain event or object. I guess great photos can convey what the photographer is trying to get over by the photos. A picture can really tell a thousand words.

I am totally clueless about the professional cameras terms and settings. I should be upgrading myself .

Bird Photography by Mr Lee

Mr Lee's photos seemed to bring me to another world beyond the common. The birds seems to come to life in the photos. When Mr Lee presented his ' girlfriend' camera , I was shock beyond words as I have never come across anything thing like that. The lenses of Mr Lee's camera seems to be wider than my face !

Personally I really enjoy the talk about sports and action which was given by Ms Wong Maye-e. Her photos reflected a lot on her personality and a interesting perspective of life. The photos from what she took were totally different from what we normally think photography is - abstract , art and serious. Ms Wong's photos were fun and funny . Her talk totally blew my vision about photography. I have understand that photography can be fun . Look at the same thing from the different angles.

Mavis Cheng

Canon VJC Talk Reflection

I learnt many thing at the VJC Canon seminar and it was very engaging. The first talk was from a bird photographer, and I enjoyed it a lot. He said about how to get good shots and angles of birds, and which locations we can look for them. It was really fascinating to watch his breath-taking shots of birds right here in Singapore.
Next was the talk about photojournalism from Mr Terence Tan. He gave us an overview of what journalists do. He told us that there was not many ‘big’ things happening in Singapore so they have to open their eyes wide to look out for events that can be written about. I enjoyed his talk as well.
The last talk was about sports and action photography and I benefitted from it. The speaker said to look out for unique angles to take pictures of. 
The exhibits were also very interesting. I enjoyed the DSLR cameras with far range lenses.  The other exhibits such as Lamborghini Display were also interesting.

Canon VJC Talk Reflection

After attending the talk,I know how to take different photos from different angles and this will result in a different effects.I also know what are the difficulties of taking bird photography and how to overcome that from Mr Lee.I know how to take sports photography.Photography is not only about taking the situation but also about being creative at the same time. Example we can take photos from different angles and it does not need to be focus on the athletes,we can take photos of the athletes like between a judge legs etc.

Canon VJC Seminar- Reflection

For the first segment of the seminar, the Bird Photography talk, I had learnt multiple things about prediction, background and actions. Just like in bird photography sometimes we have to photograph actions, we have to predict these actions. The speaker on stage had mentioned how he would study about the bird and set up bait or habitats for the birds so he can take the picture of the exact time. Then we learnt how actions could be captured in film. We can apply this by thinking how we can take pictures of rare opportunities by predicting ahead. The speaker mentioned that he loved to capture the birds' actions, he would always make sure he had the proper zoom or lens to capture actions. This is because the actions can tell a lot about the subject, how it reacts, how it moves and what is its nature. He also talked about backgrounds, how a background can emphasize the subject. A bright background could convey something lighter or gentle whereas a black background could mean a threat. It is important to choose a appropriate background as it can help the picture or bring it down.

Next Mr Terence Tan came on stage to talk about photojournalism. What I learnt from his talk was how the angles of taking pictures mattered and how a picture can create its own story and to always take a picture when you find the opportunity to. He mentioned taking so many pictures had to take from different angles, and those angles could each tell different things about the subject. He also showed us how one picture could have told us the whole story. Also he said he always brought a camera with him, in several incidents he had encountered accidents. Being a new photographer for the Straits Times he could take a picture of it as he had a Canon camera with him, this proved to be useful as he could to a coverage on it quicker.

 Lastly in the last talk, the sports photographer talked to us about the reactions of sportsmen, the different angles causing funny shots and how she got bored during the process of taking photos. With relevance to the sports meet, we learnt about how it important it was to capture the reaction of the sportsmen. Eg. When they win, when they begin, when they start. These reactions show how sportsmen react or their attitude. 

Canon VJC Seminar-Reflections

I attended the Canon VJC Seminar last Saturday. It was an eye-opener for me as I have zero-knowledge on photography. There are 3 talks that we attended :

1)Bird Photography
This talk is mainly about how we actually find birds to photograph, the skills to use and the settings to use in different places. The speaker also showed us the photos he had taken and the camera that he used. It is a big telescope-like camera which has a very big lenses. This camera is also referred as the speaker's girlfriend.

2) Photojournalism
This talk is actually more useful to us as we are currently in journalism. The speaker is a Straits Times journalist. Being in their job is not easy as they have to be ready at all times, especially when reporting accidents. He also said that photos tells a story. In short, photo speaks a thousand words.

3) Sports/Action Photography
I find this talk the most interesting as the speaker seemed to be very interesting. She takes great pictures of sports and action. Normally,this kind of pictures are not easy to take as there is a lot of movement around. She says that pictures can be taken in many different perspectives. Most importantly, we have to capture the emotions,feelings and reactions. This makes the pictures very interesting to look at.

Then, we went around the booths to explore. However, as time is short, we didn't went out too much. I personally didn't really go around as I was stuck in the queue for the photo printing service. This event let me learn a little bit more about photography and I hope to attend such events again.

Sandy Khoo

Cannon VJC seminar/reflection

During the seminar, we were given 3 talks bird photography,photo journalism and sports and action photography the talks were given by MR lee,Mr tan and MS Wong respectively. The talks were very interesting and useful, i also learnt a lot skills like when taking bird pictures,we must find their favorite perch so that we can know where to focus on. For photo journalism i learnt that we must be creative and lastly for sports i learnt that i must take from different angles to better illustrate the competitor.

Reflection- Video Production 1

My role was being the scriptwriter, prop master and assistant. I think I did my role well, and enjoyed the job. The whole process was tedious, tiring, but very fruitful in the end. I skipped a lot of meals, came home in the evening everyday. Sometimes I had to stay up late with group mates to discuss about what we were going to do the next day. There was a lot of pressure, stress and tension in completing the video in 2 weeks.
In the whole process, I learnt many points on videoing, acting, and video production. It was difficult to assemble actors and organizing them. Many of the actors were reluctant to be serious and we had to reshoot. I also learnt how tedious it was to produce a video. Our cameraman, Ying Liang also gave me some pointers on angles and how to operate the camera. I learnt on how to work as a film crew too.
The entire progress was tough and we met with some challenges. But we overcame them and managed to produce a fine video. I think we could have improved if we have more time.

-Jiajun

Reflections - Video Production 1

I was the main actor (I acted as the main character), the main editor (I edited most of it), and the storyboarder. I quite enjoyed the acting and editing, however it was extremely tiring. (I stayed back many times to complete this) It was quite stressing to complete the video in a short period of time.
While producing this video, I faced quite a lot of challenges, for example getting many people to act. I have learnt that planning a video with lesser actors is much easier, and it is better for us students to create a video with lesser people.
I have also learnt a lot about editing as well as acting. I learnt that subtitles should be of the same size and font, and that they cannot be more than a line long.
I think that I can improve by trying not to laugh so much while acting. (during 1 scene, I almost laughed) I think I can also improve on my editing and subtitling next time.

-Jerome Heng

Reflection-Video production #1

I am the script writer and co-director for the SCIFF Film.
Dustbin have an interesting point of view. Lol. I learnt more about script writing and directing the  film. From writing a script, I learnt how to write and improve a script and when I directed the film, I learnt to use different angles to make the video more interesting. I think that the script can be improved as I find the script not interesting enough. I also think that the video can be improved as it is too short and there are a few interruptions.

Joshua Leong

Reflection-video production 1

My contribution:
I help up in the filming and video editing.
What have you learnt?:
I had learnt that filming can be from a different point of view.
Areas of improvement:
I think that the part of carrying out the plan as one of the scene is not filmed

Reflections for SCIFF competition - Video production 1 - Mavis Cheng

- My contributions

I am one of the actors in this video production as well as the voice-over person for the last scene. I did not contributed much as I was just on of the actors.

- my learning points

I had learnt to get along with my team mates and the importance of co-operation. With quality co-operations and teamwork in our group, I believe that one group can accomplice their end product. I must also be committed in our work so people can trust me . Concentration is another important factor in our character in working with our team mates .

- Areas for improvement

I felt that I must improve my acting skills and try to be more natural and relevant.

Mavis Cheng

Reflection- Video Production (1)

My contribution in this video-production is a script-writer. I wrote the speech that Joshua had to say for the voice-over. The voice-over was for the voice of the dustbin.

I learnt how directors actually work and how they have to make sure that the angle of the camera and the position of the actors/actresses have to be exact. As we were filming from a dustbin's view/angle, we have to make sure that our actor/actress cannot be seen in the camera's view before entering the scene and before the camera starts rolling, otherwise it would be a bit too obvious.

I can improve by helping to position the actor/actress before we have actually started filming as the position is always a little wrong/out of place and we have to retake a few times. I could also make sure nobody disrupts our filming by walking pass the dustbin while we are filming.

Canon VJC Seminar Reflection

  The event was very interesting and I found out many tips about professional photography. I also tried out the lenses at the exhibits and tried out my hand at photography at the sports car exhibit. The speakers had many interesting stories about their photography job in the press. I especially enjoyed the talk by Mr Terence Tan, who had some good tips about photojournalism.

Reflections-Video Production 1

My contributions:
I'm one of the actors in the video. I'm acting as the owner(Tom).  I didn't have much contribution in the production,so,I'm quite guilty.

My learning points:
I learnt that video production is not as easy as I thought and a lot of work is needed. All the way from pre-production to post-production,planning and efforts is needed. Group work is very important in this group production and we are very lucky as the group we are in is very cooperative with one another. Things are a little worse when having a actor like me as I don't know how to act.

Areas of Improvement:
I think that the problem lies with me. I am not a good actor and is really unable to convey the feelings needed in the scene. I often need lots of takes to get a scene right. I will laugh uncontrollably at wrong times. I hope I can focus on better and take lesser takes.

Sandy Khoo

Reflection Video Production 1

I am the main cameraman of my team video production.I help to take videos of the scenes.I learnt how to take videos scene by scene from different angles.I think we can improve our video by doing some more professional editing to our videos as there are some flaws in our video.We also can improve by choosing the right location as some locations there are too much background noise and thus we have to do voiceover which is unnatural.

Reflection- Video Production 1

My roles in this production are: Writer, Director, Actor, Producer. I had helped to write out the overall script so that some of the extra details that would have dragged on, and to write the dialogue script. I directed the film and helped to specify the certain aspects of editing. I was a 'calefare' in the film as a AppleCare centre helper.

I have learnt how hard it is to create a film, in terms of acting and finding resources. I have also learnt how different camera angles can effect each film and how different levels of zoom can intensify a certain subject.

I think I could have improved when it comes to plotting. Ms Seah had to help with our 'plot twist' and I hope I can improve on creating the plot so maybe next time I wouldn't need help/

Justin...is awesome

Reflection - Video Production 1

  During the video-making, I learnt how to edit videos better. I also learnt that I had to pay attention more as I did not turn up for one of the filming sessions, so I had to do most of the editing. I also learnt that even if you shoot many hours of footage, you may end up with only a few minutes of the actual film as in the editing process, a lot of the video is cut and edited. From this experience, I learnt that you need to have a good script and keep to it in order to have more footage.