Contribution and collaboration:
I felt that I did what I could to contribute to the group, as nobody was confident in being the host for the seminar on week 9 and everyone was stressed as the guest speakers were not confirmed until the very last minute, I felt that I should step up and undertake this task as I am a freelance host and emcee for major events back in Singapore and thought that this would be good for my area of contribution.
My group was the only group that did two seminars for this assignment. Unfortunately, our group left things to the last minute and because of that, I do not think that we had ample time to prepare for the seminars. Fortunately, Shu Shu, Liane, Tiana, April, Emma and Dengli managed to secure our guests for our seminars. Shu Shu did a good job of keeping us updated and managed to keep things running smoothly. Frankly, I think we did a relatively good job for both seminars, especially week 9's seminar, considering we only put together the guests 3 days beforehand.
Proactive learning:
As Rachel told me on the last day, "I felt that you missed out on many opportunities." I have to admit, this is true. Due to my part-time work that I have undertaken this semester, I have missed out some classes as the work the day before involved mainly manual labour and I was worn-out from it, hence I could not wake up on time for Friday's morning classes. However, I made it a point to go to the seminars to see how it was organised and what the guest speakers wanted to share with us.
However, it is through this hectic and busy schedule that I have learnt how to better manage my time. Unlike many international students who can afford to come here to study as they are from a well-to-do family, I am not one of them. My father simply works for a public transport company as a Bus Captain and does not make a lot every month. The fact that I am able to study here is nothing short of the good Lord's blessing. However, my family then has to scrimp and save back home. Finding a part-time job here helps to ease my family's financial burden. I really have to thank Rachel for being patient with me as I came late to her classes. :)
I managed to contact Steve Thomas and Stephen Amis that I found could really contribute to our seminar as Steve has make many documentaries and Stephen is a director who has made feature films. I thought that the both of them would be able to share with us their experience and thoughts on the ethics and trends of film and TV. However, I did not get them to come in the end as it was preferred to contact people who had not come to RMIT in the past.
Participation:
Through the weeks, I scouted for people that would be relevant to our seminar on Film and TV. I managed to get the email of a famous professionals like Steve Thomas and Stephen Amis. I got Steve's email through asking Christina, who asked Christine if she could give his email to me. I thought that Steve could really give a clear and concise message as he gave me a lecture on what making a documentary was like and he even had many related clips and PowerPoint slides to show us.
As for Stephen Amis, I got his name card after a 3 session intensive workshop with him on what directing was like. As he had made many films before, I knew that he would have many experiences with how to survive in the industry as he started out by making many short films and eventually got his big break.
I asked the both of them if they would be interested in attending our seminar and both of them were kind enough to oblige. However, I did not ask the both of them to come down for the seminar due to the reason that we wanted to establish new connections with other professionals.
I attended 3 out of the 4 meetings that were held to finalise the details of the seminars. For week 9, I was the host for the seminar and I also did the guest bios. In week 10, I did the bios as well and for this week, as the speakers went over time in answering their questions in the previous week, I was assigned to stay close to Daniel and keep him informed of how much time has passed so that he could lead the guests onto the next question and not stay on one question for too long.
I volunteered to be the host for the seminar as that was one of my strengths and it would be good to contribute in this aspect. I emceed on that day only introducing the guests in general first and wanted to do a more in-depth introduction after the break. This was one of the styles of hosting where the host can maximise interaction between the guest speakers and the audience. Furthermore, the information on the guests were clearly written on the leaflets given out to the audience, the in-depth introduction was only done to get the audience prepared after the break and to give the speakers time to settle in as well.
For my role as the host, I received mixed reviews. Some people were not used to this style of hosting and hence did not like it, others found that it was good as it allowed the guests and audience to interact more and many people went up to the guests to continue asking them questions. When the guest speakers came up to me and said they liked the way I hosted, and that I did a good job, it was like a pat on the back and I was glad they enjoyed themselves in this seminar.
Connections and intersections:
I have also learnt many things about the media industry here and in general through all the seminars and I will certainly put the knowledge to good use. An example of networking here with the professionals is that I have managed to get to know Ruth Cullen as I have worked with her on my documentary as well and I have really learnt many things as to how to to go about doing documentaries in future.
One of the harsh realities of the industry here is that international students are not given priority for jobs and many of the professionals that were invited to the seminars were honest about it. That is one of the things that I am upset over as Melbourne is a really nice place to work in, and if possible, I would like to work here for a couple of years to get work experience abroad.
All in all, my networking skills have improved over the semester but I need to improve my time management skills now that I have a part-time job, this is one thing that I still lack and need to improve.
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