Fortunately, we got 2 guests to give all of us a very specific and professional seminar from Rick Chen and Paul.

Rick is more focusing on creating and building up your own business, like a sort of depending on online technology i.e. social networking, in order to tell more people about yourself. Individually, I suppose that section is tightly related to our online portfolio, trying to show all of your skills, abilities, characteristics, confidence, knowledge, interests etc to the strangers and employers based on the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Blog…

Further, Paul’s talking makes me a bit confused frankly speaking, I know it is concerned with tax, invoice something in the future maybe when we get a salary. I believe that gonna be a new area for me in the workplace.

Anyway, really interested in such those seminar to make me understandable further in the media industry and  in the workplace.

As our Role Description demonstrated, I make most contributions to the event section.

I know it seems event section is considerably relaxed and free to do it compared with the completely organised and professional technical parts. But I really try my best and make my every effort to set everything under my responsibility be perfect.

To be more specifically, in the early time, I’ve actively made my contribution to the idea of our seminar. Based on my background, I’m mostly interested in the international area rather than the local culture. So a very basic idea coming in my mind is that, we can concentrate on diverse radio industries, which means making a comparison and contrast among these three kinds of radio station: a. community radio station includes 3RRR, b. international radio station includes SBS, 3cw, c. local and commercial radio station includes ABC, 3JJJ, so that our audiences could have a better understanding on the radio industry, in order to give some effective advice to the radio students and make more people obtain a sort of rethinking on the radio aspect. Obviously, people commonly suppose that radio as a kind of traditional media has become less competitive fighting with the film and TV industry with visual screens.  Therefore, our radio seminar gonna to break up that and rethink that radio is ALIVE, surviving the death of traditional media in the modern time.

Particularly, I’ve also made my contribution to the event preparation itself. I’ve designed the very different name tags for our guests which is tightly relevant to the zombie picking up the brain, though they haven’t been utilized in the seminar. Also the thank you cards. I took much time on looking for the fantastic and different thank you cards for our sweet guests.

Totally speaking, our collaborative process is greatly wonderful and runs very well, everyone is responsible for their distributions. I guess the only problem or issue is the process of finding and locking down our guests in the end. We got too many options from the local commercial radio stations such as BBC, ABC 3JJJ, Nova etc, being quite controversial on the guest list then. But finally, we’ve decided the Lauren, newsreader and presenter for Nova FM; May, producer for SBS; Jennifer, freelancer for ABC/BBC/Radio National and Damon, producer for Triple J Unearthed just according to the diverse radio systems and different areas in the radio station. The other thing is the seminar questions. That’s the key part under a whole seminar, should be interesting of course, and catch the typical points that we wanna mostly show to people to be more understandable on the radio. Lu and me, our focus is May Hu, who is a producer from SBS because we are quite familiar with the international part. For example, what is the cultural importance of the Mandarin show to the Mandarin community within Australia, and internationally? Or how important do you believe radio is as a means of global communication? And eventually, all of us set the seminar questions like from very basic aspect (like why you are always interested in radio) to the very potential and inside aspect (like any advice for the radio students, future of the radio and something in the technical and digital elements).

The interviews are great with interesting and diverse group of guests.Happy ending with the Lurch & Chief live performance!

- Proactive Learning (HD 82)

Yes, absolutely. Most of my group members are from our radio course last year, we’ve worked together a lot.

Actually, I usually do the sound design or technical stuff in a group, that’s what I’m good at. But it is a great opportunity for me touch something else, more on the event preparation and production behind the technical things. In another word, it would be another skill improvement for me in a group.

You cant decide by yourself only, team work doesn’t allow that happen ever never. I personally suppose that event area needs a quite long waiting. Just be patient!

Looking at the radio seminar, I’ve got double or triple contents on radio. To be honest, I still get some regrets after I’ve done a year of radio studying in my second year in the university. The reason why I’ve selected the radio is due to my ridiculous thoughts, I think radio would be much easier to control rather than the film and TV. One is focus on audio only, the other is focus on both audio and video, then I got the radio. What’s worse, it seems that the future of radio is not that bright compared with the modern film and TV industry nowadays. However, I changed my mind after this radio seminar. Either of film, TV or radio industry, they are equally competitive today under the media industry, and radio is undergoing a digital revolution. The only thing you need is the interest and experience, the more the better. Further, thinking about what you want to do and where you want to do it. There are always hundreds or thousands of applications for any job in radio, we need to have strong and relevant experience, so that to get a chance to come in.

- Participation (HD 87)

Yes, I’ve attended all the group meetings.

Just as my previous mentioned, I’ve made the contribution to the idea brainstorm.

The structure is below:

Radio

Community Radio                  International Radio               Commercial Radio

(3RRR)                                             (SBS/3cw)                                (ABC/BBC/Triple J)

Just due to some reason, we’ve cancelled the COMMUNITY one, just dividing into two parts, the international and commercial one finally, to explore their programs further.

And also have a contribution to the style of the intro recording to the guests, as well as the Powerpoint making. We all love the intro videos come from the TV seminar, so we do some changes, making them tightly relate to our radio theme, the intro is quite fabulous anyway.

- Connections & intersections (HD 89)

The six seminar series are Film 1, Film 2, TV, Radio, Events and Digital Media. All of them are always around with the media industry and closely connect each other. All the seminar series provide us media students the damn useful and effective advice for our future, looking for jobs after we graduated in terms of the debate from those producers, directors, writers, creators, presenters, managers…

The other thing is the spirit of team work. We have group task in every course every semester every year, quite evident to see the importance of the team work. Working with international students is much easier and relaxed than working with local students. Because most international students get the very similar background (mostly with the Asian cultures). I usually feel quite equal and free in terms of the skills, abilities and professions. However, I sometimes feel much upset and disappointed when I’m working with those great local students, and feel less confident to organize something as usual I did among the international groups. Anyway, that is the situation when I was in my first or second year in the university study. I feel much confident to work with the local students right now. They are so nice and encourage me to show my ideas, my thoughts, my viewpoints on a topic that we discussed in the group.

Because of the course “Media Industries 1 & 2″ and “Production Project 1 & 2″, I also feel much confident and free to talk with some professionals not in the RMIT and get the relevant internships to rich my experiences before I graduated in the end of this year.

Finally, I give myself HD (86) for my Media Industries 2. I think I did quite well and practice a lot no matter as a group or as an individual.

DAWN OF THE DIGITAL. How new media consumption and production is changing the industry?

In my opinion, the growth of new media is considered to change the way media products are produced and consumed. Likewise the impact of new media on the media system has challenged it pose to traditional media, and the impact on audiences’ media use and habits or preferences.

In today’s seminar, which is always around the digital media, and explores its potential influences relationships with the traditional media currently. Christopher Harrop, who is the online producer for the ABC; Dan Monheit, who is the founder for the Hard Hat Digital and Misha Ketchell, who is the journalist and editor for the Conversation.

All of them have touched diverse media areas, such as journalism, TV and they are mostly talking about how the “new” or “modern” has broken up the “traditional” advertising in terms of a sort of media convergence or participatory culture in the new media industry. Radio and newspaper as the typical representatives among traditional media, obviously, both of them require their audiences get a bit high literacy ability, so that they have got poor audiences compared with the TV fans or film fans. However, most of the newspapers and radio have been innovated through the Internet, the social media platform, the new media system, “electronic newspaper” and “digital radio” are commonly believed to be more and more popular and welcome in both old and young generations. That is to say, digital media is transforming the traditional media but I don’t think that digital media gonna usurp the traditional media in someway. Further, digital media as a latest and creative area under the media industry, needless to say, digital media brings more jobs for the media makers but also requires them to have boarder skills at the same time.

Finally, they are concerned with “how to maintain the audience online”, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, 4Chan, MySpace, and such those popular ones aim to give the audience the opportunities to tell more about themselves to others without distance and space problems.

Thereby, I personally suppose that digital media and traditional media are at a crossroads.

EVENTCEPTION – INSIDE THE MIND OF THE EVENTS INDUSTRY

Individually, events include diverse festivals, therefore, it is more close to the propaganda or a sort of “public relations”. Most of the festival shows are trying to demonstrate the media events under the media industry, film, TV, radio…

Today’s seminar is definitely concerned with the very potential and inside criteria under the events issues. Michael Carrucan who is the festival director of Queensclift Music Festival; Bruce Keebaugh who is the director and co-founder of The Big Group and Ryan Barwood who is the production manager, Midsumma Festival Artistic administrator for Orchestra Victoria. All of them are talking about their own experiences of building up the events production area on the road several years ago. The most important element that they mostly mentioned is the “passion”. Follow your passion and interest plus understanding who you are plus “attitude”, you will succeed then. Besides, they have also touched some detailed viewpoints such as “sponsorship management”, “organisation”, responsibility” and so on which are exactly related to a perfect festival/project in the events industry.

It shock and surprised me a lot. I always suppose that EVENTS is locating a very weak position in the media industry compared with the film and TV, even the radio. However, EVENTS is  the most basic and fundamental  member to bridge the relationship between the traditional media and the new media. It’s not that easy as it looks. EVENTS stuff really need you to manage communication to build good relationships and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics and the audiences, in order to give organisation a chance to communicate with publics and achieve targets. Sometimes, EVENTS staff has to seek to persuade and gain endorsement of the third party to pass and smoothly run their events.

Looking back to today’s seminar, the new structure has come. I know they have too many group members, so that two of them have been the hosts, that is quite less stressful to do and hold down the whole seminar. But one thing, I guess the “Q&A” lasts a bit longer time, taking away my sensitive brain. The others is quite awesome, I damn love their staff cards! :p Anyway, well done.

IT’S ALIVE! Why radio survived the death of traditional media?

My group working this week (includes Rose, Stephanie, Natalie, Diana, Til, Mia, Lu, Paddy, Heath and me).

Guests:

Lauren Brain – Newsreader and presenter for Nova FM

May Hu – Producer for SBS International Raido

Jennifer Bowen – Freelancer for ABC and BBC Radio National

Damon Hughes – Producer for Triple J Unearthed

Live performance by Lurch & Chief.

Well done! Yah!

28 Minutes Later… (Twitter: #28MINS@PYBRMIT)

As we know, with the emergence of upstart cable channels and new revenue streams through DVD sales or iTunes downloads or free Internet delivery and product placement, the medium has moved beyond, thereby, not only the popular one, Hollywood is facing some serious problems, for example, more and more viewers are cutting the cord on their cable subscriptions, watching films online instead of going to the cinema, and turning to online streaming sites to watch old films, also television episodes instead of heading to their local Blockbuster as well.

In terms of that nervous situation, this seminar is absolutely awesome and wonderful. It is concentrating on a sort of exploring how to survive the TV industry under the strong competition from film industry. Guests Chris Gist, who is a commissioning editor and ABC/executive producer; Lawrence Leung, who is a writer, actor and comedian; Matthew Saville, who is a director. All of them are separately talking about their very first experiences and perspectives in the TV industry. Besides, they are also talking about what they actually do in that area and take some specific works as examples to do a kind of explaining and better understanding on their position.

Individually, I always think that TV is smaller than the film based on films’ huge process (pre-production, production and post-production), it has to take too much time, and TV is absolutely a small-screen compared with the film, therefore, TV is like a kind of micro-film. However, TV is longer than the film in terms of the duration more or less. Further, TV has been willing to take more chances lately and do more with characters and storylines.

The greatest element is their structure, I really love their promotions, which is definitely concerned. And the format is fantastic as well. No desk, no namecard, which are felling very relax and natural to the audiences, just like a talk-show rather than a normal interview or a kind of. Anyway, those guys are very creative.

Digging up the truth

It really narrow down in the film industry compared with the first film seminar, quite concentrating on further exploring a documentary film feature during the pre-production, production and post-production with Nicholas Hansen, Helen Gaynor, John Safran and Dennis K. Smith.

The most remarkable part is their introduction. I really love and appreciate the video to introduce for each guest at the beginning rather than showing their details by texts on the PowerPoint.

Nicholas, who is a renowned Melbourne based documentary director, producer and cinematographer. Helen, who gets over 25 years experiences as a freelance director of both documentary and fictional film, she is one of Australia’s most respected and talented filmmakers. John, who is a popular documentary director, writer, producer and radio broadcaster. And Dennis, who is an award winning director, writer and producer. Therefore, first question come in my mind is what makes a documentary?

Individually, a documentary film is a movie that attempts to document reality. It is not scripted and the people in the movie are not typically actors. Sometimes, a documentary film may depend on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage, or in other films, the images  speak for themselves without commentary.  All of the guests mostly concerned with a key word: “story”. Yes, that is true. It is commonly believed that the most important element for a good documentary film is to have a “story” – a story that will inform, evoke and educate. Since the filmmaker chooses the story, he/she needs to figure our how the story can be talked or how to tell that story in an exciting, believable and compelling way, and to clarify a documentary gets a success or not might rely on the reflection a sort of after the film, that is to say, upon the films’s ending, the viewer has a much different perspective on the subject matter and may even be motivated to do something about it.

After that, Nicholas and the other three guests have touched the feature of a documentary film. And finally, all of them mentioned that “research” is a significant tool to craft a story in a documentary film, as well as their obligation for documentary/narrative.

All of the contents are following with the pre-production, production and post-production process, which is to give the audience a better understanding not only in the documentary film, but also in the whole film industry.

That seminar is absolutely awesome and fantastic, but the BREAK is really necessary, hard to me to keep my attention all the time.

#Filmenstein (Results on Twitter)

It is commonly believed that this crew really get an awesome start to the 2012 “Pick Your Brains” seminar series today. These guys greatly provide a high and further standard on the film industry.

Individually, this seminar is exactly well structured, which is clearly classified as three main sections along with a real film process: pre-production, production and post-production. These three are absolutely understandable for a freshman (me for example)  primarily touching in the film industry. Based on those three stages, director Glendyn, producer Don and film funder Sue are separately talking about their own roles in each stage.

Particularly, as a director, the most frequent words that Glendyn mentioned, are “idea”, “script”, “vision”… It seems that a director is responsible for overseeing every creative aspect of a film, from start to finish. From the “look” of the film to trademark lighting or mood. Therefore, pre-production is the most important time for any director because it is the where we go through a “process of discovery”.

I have worked on my PP2 short film project, it is likely the location scouting is one of the first activities you will be doing in the pre-production stage of filmmaking. Then during the script development, filmmakers produce a very rough budget to convince film producers and film studios to give them a green light for production. After that, when the director first starts pre-production, will have a meeting with the producers and the casting director to discuss their ideas of the characters. That is what our group has done so far. And following with Glen’s speaking, it quite makes sense for me.

Besides, a producer and film funder are always around the words such as “budget”, “market”, “contract”… Film producer is highly self-motivated individual, who has the final responsibility for all aspects of a film’s production. They are often responsible for coming up with the underlying premise of a production, or for selecting the screenplay at the developing stage. Also be responsible for the day-to-day smooth operation of the production team during the production. And finally, they are expected to liaise with the director and post-production departments, including editing – both picture and sound, music and visual effects, etc… However, I’ve heard the “film funder” at the first time. I guess it probably connects in the marketing something.

I really love this seminar today, and only one thing I suggested it that, I know it might be hard to lie a communication between the three guests before the seminar, but I suppose that is quite significant for them to bridge a sort of agreement during the presentation.

This week is pay more attention to the CV and application letter producing and polishing in order to successfully looking for the work opportunities in the future after we graduated. Unquestionable, it is damn useful and sweet.

Basically, a perfect CV structure will probably like:

- Contact detals

- Career objective

- Education

- Professional & Media skills

Which really needs you to show to the employers how professional and fabulous you are during the university studies.

- Employment

This section gonna be a bit shamed for me, because I’ve never been employed so far, only doing several internships.

- Achievements

- Community involvement

- Further/Additional training

- Extra-curricular activities

- Referees

Which is also a very key section to prove and strengthen your values by someone who knows you very well  in your university.

It really makes feel much confident in seeking for the work opportunities under the media industry in the future.

This week is quite relax and less stressful.

Just showing to us some criteria on the blog posts of seminar critique in each week starting from week 5 to week 10.

Example: we are required to submit at least 3 blog entries among 6 seminar series by the end of week 12.

One more thing, I’ve attended to the ACMI – “Friday On My Mind”, which is talking about sets of very further points under the film industry according to the pre-production, production and post-production. . I cant completely catch all of them but it’s definitely amazing!