Chris Ang's Resume

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Chris Ang's Resume

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Media Industries 2 

Self Assestment

For This Seminar project, I've chosen to join the group that caters to the events industry. Having Previous experience in the Music and events industry and my interest to join the events industry in the future, this group proves to be the ideal group for me to work with. 

Contribution and collaboration

From the start I went around to discuss with school mates and previous group mates from Media Industries 1, my interest in the events sector and thus forming a dynamic group. Clare O'donnell was elected the executive producer for the group as she was the most proactive and vocal among the members, I went ahead and took on the role of Technical Director due to my previous experience in events management and also due to the fact that i own and run an events company back in singapore that deals with a lot of technical support relating to events. During the planning phase, I contributed to Ideas of organizing the main event itself, from the marketing, advertising and promotion of the seminar to the operations of the seminar itself. I also gave advice to other group members, especially clare, on how to manage and run an event and briefed the members on their roles and responsibilities of the event itself. The group was very dynamic to work with and my ideas were taken very positively and no disputes were present during all our meetings. 

One of my main responsibilities was to organize the equipment needed for the event itself, I came up with a list and ran through it with the Techs to work out equipment that is available for loan. I brought down my own equipment to reenforce the setup. 

I also aided Clair Renehan in the audio recording of the seminar, helping her setup the recording devices and wiring the entire setup on the day itself. 

I setup, sound-checked, mixed and coordinated all technical aspects relating to live sound , visuals , lights and sound recording on the day itself. 

I also Prepared the visual cues and designed all the slides that was shown on the seminar day itself as well as did the video playbacks of showreels. 

The lighting cues (stage and audience) were also coordinated by me.

The main issue for our group was the short time of 2weeks that we had to prepare the seminar. I believed my experience in events management helped eliminate all problems relating to the operations and I am happy that my group trusted this all on me. 

Proactive Learning

I've learnt a lot during the short process of organizing this seminar. Back in my company in singapore, I had the luxury and comfort of using state-of-the-art equipment for live shows and events. Most of the time I would have ample time for the planning and coordination of an event. In this case, a limited inventory of equipment was available from the tech store and i had to use what i have , access the situation and make the best out of it to produce a show with as much professionalism as we can achieve. In the process, I learnt to work with speed and accuracy, and learnt valuable communication skills with my group mates that allowed us to produce this seminar in such a short time. What we've learnt from this experience extends way beyond the four walls of the classroom as we have to get in though with industry professionals and apply our PR skills. Much my learning in this process was self motivated and unsupervised and had to take a lot of responsibility in delivering the work to my fellow group mates. A lot of good advice was given to us by out tutors but it was up to us to take the advice and transform it into reality.

Participation

During the planning stage, I participated in all the meetings and classes. I was there during the seminar itself to run the event. However I was not physically present during the postproduction as I was not needed to be physically present and my group mates involved in the post production was fully trustable to come up with a good job. I did give comments and inputs for the post production work and offered my assistance to any technical issues but it all was smooth sailing. During the meetings, I believe i contributed a fair amount and did engage thoroughly throughout the meetings. even though I was an international student and have limited contacts in melbourne, I contributed by contacting 2 of my contacts, Louis Chan from Fling Entertainment & Daniela Djuric from BigBang&Fuzz to attend the seminar. regretfully both of them were unable to attend due to commitments on the seminar days itself. I am glad that my effort was appreciated by my group mates. 

Lists of responsibilities:

-Organizing and booking of equipment with the Techs

-Setting up/ tearing down of All sound Equipment

-Mixing and running the sound during seminar

-Coordinating Lightings

-Visual cues

-Creation of Visual slides

-Music playback

-coordinating of event

-Recording of sound

-involvement in Planning and facilitating

-general operations

Connections & Intersections

The value of these seminar series lies in 3 things, The opportunity of meeting industry professionals, The opportunity to work with group mates that are potential industry partners int he future and the learning opportunity when placed with such tasks and responsibility. 

When in this process, I discovered the importance of People skills. One can be really good at what he/she does, but if no one wants to work with him/her, the chances of success are relatively low. Interactions within the group is very important as it is important to leave a good impression of good working attitude and strong sense of responsibility to your group mate as you might never know who you will be working with in the future. Networking is upmost important in this industry and also in almost any industry, it's people whom you want to impress and it's people tha will give you the opportunities you want in life. 

In this process i learnt that I have the confidence to manage things. I like to work with flair and failure is not an option. I learnt that I can work under pressure when i am confident and when i am not confident about something, I make sure I end up know enough to be efficient enough. In the future, I believe that this trait I have is important for development in career.

If I am confident in what i do, People tend to trust me more. And when someone trust me, I get that job.

Self Assessment Grade : 90% HD.

I give myself this grade because I believe I not only did my part as a Technical Director, I went beyond my responsibilities to ensure a smooth sailing seminar. 

and also in the words of Clare , "we couldn't have done it without you"

PS:I hope i didn't sound too over the top like trying to sell myself as a product.

Media Industries 2 , Seminar Critique.

Seminar #2 - Melbourne Hub.

Firstly I must say that our own group did set a bench mark for other groups to follow, we're very proud of that and had indeed worked hard for it. 

The Publicity material for this group is quite good. It enticed me to actually turn up and the facebook group was quite informative. As I am interested in events management and music festivals, the guest speaker from  Future Entertainment attracted me alot and i feel that what he had to say was very relevant to my interests. There is a very nice spread across the media industry, in terms of choice of guests invited: TV, Events and Digital media. Thumbs up for that one!

Upon approaching the Seminar room, We were greeted by an assortment of refreshments and sweets for us to eat during the seminar. There was even a Channel 9 Pen for everyone to write with! that was very thoughtful of the group and also helped channel 9 to do a little bit of product placement. 

The flow of the Seminar went pretty well, with the guest each coming up individually to introduce themselves and showcase their work and after that sit down together for a panel discussion about the different industries. I must say that all the guests speak with upmost relevancy to the topic of the seminar and the MC was very professional in asking questions. It was an enjoyable seminar and very informative. 

How ever, The Sound setup was rather sloppy , with messy wires crossing the stage. The Tech provided   Dynamic microphones together with small table top mic-stands which caused a distant between the speaker and the mic resulting in a bad pickup. there were a number of feedback sounds during the seminar but it did not really compromise with the clarity of the dialogues. 

All and all i gave this seminar a Distinction, for the appropriate guests and relevant topics and the professional MC. 

Seminar #5 - Indie Online

The Indie Online group have the nicest Poster ever. It suits the theme too, the drawing being very "indie" looking. It definitely caught my attention and interest to attend!

This group too, has a Facebook event Page that is Linked to the main "Media Industries Seminars" page.  I feel that the area that this group explored into is very important and interesting. Alot of Us choose Media studies because we want to get out of the 9-5 job routine. Alot of us want to be different and want to create our own things. whats better than starting an independent lable or production company and be self-employed. This seminar really caters to the budding entrepreneurs that are within our cohort, and the Panel is impressive too!

I am upmost impressed by the group's ability to interview Zack Klein or Vimeo, although it's only a recorded webcam interview, it's an honor to listen to what he has to say in our context. it is very informative to listen to what this successful entrepreneur has got to say for us.

The Seminar itself was pretty smooth flowing. with the panel engaged in a light hearted , yet informative conversation about the happenings in the independent media industry. Lots of tips and tricks to starting a business were given and it is really inspiring to learn that we can be our own bosses and creat our own content someday!

Once again the sound was not fantastic, but i can see ample effort put in to keep the quality of the seminar up. This Group deserves a High Distinction for the smoothness of the seminar and the excellent choice of Speakers and the nice publicity pior to the seminar.

Seminar #6 - Film & TV

Firstly I must say that the Poster is very eye catching an loud. The fancy colours and bold words gives an impression that the seminar will be fun and interesting to attend. This group also made use of social media to promote their seminar on top of just using posters and word of mouth. Facebook was once a gain proven to be the best medium for advertising, much of their seminar details could be found on their event site, which i was politely asked to attend. Although I'm most likely not looking into joining The film and TV industry when i graduate, i was enticed to attend this seminar to broaden my horizons. 

One of the reasons why i choose to attend is the impressive guest list of filmmakers and directors. The International guest, Jeremiah Oh, a director from singapore that was interviewed via a recorded webcast is one of my personal friends! The out look of the seminar itself was good. The refreshments were good and ample. Light music was played prior to the commencement of the seminar helps lighten the mood a little. 

However, when the seminar proper started, it was not as excellent as i thought it would be. The MC was inefficient and the guests seem to ramble on on insignificant topics. we can;t blame the guests as it's up to the group to brief the guests on what the seminar was about and it;s the MC's job to steer the guests back to the main topic of discussion. I wouldn't say they did a bad job, but i can see some room for improvement. The sound was bad though. most of the time I could not really make out what some of the softer speakers were saying and the feedback situation was quite bad. but all in all, they manage to pull it off and nothing seriously bad happened. However the lights in the room were too dim and it was impossible to take down notes during the seminar. 

I would give this group a Distinction, despite the setbacks. I can see effort being put in the pre-seminar activities and the effort to keep the seminar as interesting as it can be. 

PP2 Self assessment :Sonic profile, Sonic Exploration.

Throughout the course of PP2, I've definitely Learnt alot.
Some of these things I've learnt are academic and some of them are life skills and some stuff i didn't even expect I would learn!

I started out with confidence, thinking and knowing that I can kope with any situation with regards to Audio. Though my diploma trained me in Studio and recording sound, I worked in the Live sound field mostly; seldom touching the process of studio sound.
But, I was confident.
over confident.

Confidence can be a good thing, but when you fail to perform to your own expectations, it can be devastating.
I hate to blame it on equipment but i got no choice but to blame the zoom H2 and the dynamic mic i was issued. well, the fault was entirely mine as i could have put in more effort in booking out equipment that i'm more comfortable with, but instead, i was relaxed with the equipment as i was confident of my skills to use any equipment to record good sound. the one thing i've learnt is to not be over confident.
I should step back abit, take my time to access the situation and tighten loose ends.

My strengths are that I can produce content fast. solve problems fast.
but sometimes in that speed, i create more problems to solve.
Thats the characteristics of live sound engineers, to fix problems within a short period of time and to create a good show at face value, whereas a studio engineer's job is to nick pick at the very fine details to produce the finest job.

Lucky for me I realized it in time for sonic exploration. I believe I grew in the process of learning , to produce content that has a deeper meaning than just technical work.

After all the emotions and trail and error, I manage to produce a piece that had good reception from the class and Robbie. Taking in the advice of everyone and applying it to my work,  I believe that my work has touched the essence of this course.

This project means alot to me. Not only do i want to get a good grade and pass all the criteria of this project, I'm using this as a platform of self exploration and as a learning journey. I want to produce something that i can keep. something that is different from my other work. and this has motivated me to an extend.

Looking at fellow student's work, they all impressed me to a certain degree, how they put in ideas and methods that i would never think of in a million years. How they could grasp the intricacies of sound editing in such a short period. I am inspired to learn more and explore more.

Right now I'm still at the process of fine tuning the Sonic Exploration piece, and together with michelle and her unrestricted methods of doing things, I believe I've achieved what i've set out for. The goal of this piece is within sight and i'm proud of what i've done.

I would give myself a 8/10 for this course work. a HD.  judging from the effort i've put in and the emotions i've gone through and the feedback i've had from fellow students. Most importantly, from what i've learnt. A good project means nothing if i don't learn anything out of it.

thank you!

Sonic Explorations.

So, now We've done a rough cut of the sonic exploration piece and I've ventured deeper into the journey of "what is art."

During a previous discussion with robbie and Jess, I realised where my direction of the sound piece is going. Previously, I was quite, upset , by the notion of art . I wanted to Prove my point that There are no rules involved in art and that the results are based on the judgements of others.
Having talked to Robbie, I realized that by trying to break the conventional rules of sound and music, I boxed myself in with rules that i've written myself. I would have been working with the rule that i "have to break all the rule" that would not have made my piece flexible and i would cease to explore more into the subject matter.

In stead, i decided to have a through listen to all the fellow student's recordings and searched with an open mind on what inspires me. I did have an agenda, it is to extract each artist's notion of 'art' their explanation and justification of what art is in their own theory.

From the exercise, i realized that that is no empirical answer to "What is Art?". Art is not a thing, but i can be a thing. Art is not a subject, but it can be a Subject.
Art is any thing you want it to be and yet it can move away from what you want to define it to be.

Just like the questions "What is the meaning of life?" and "Why do we exist?" , "What is Art?" is not the correct question to ask.
As the Author , Douglas Adams , wrote in his books
 " Before you want to understand what the ultimate Answer is, You got to know what the Question is."

It is not the Answer I am searching for.
it's the question.

So, from here These are the revised ACTS within the Sonic exploration Project.

ACT1 - An experimental Music Piece set out to explore the percussive nature of tools and the studio enviroments.
ACT2 - Working on the Experimental music piece, Bits and piece of Artist's Take on 'Art' is edited in sequence in an attempt to search for the question that defines art.
ACT3 - And Abstract Soundscape of Percussive and vocally driven piece at an attempt to create a piece in search of Artistic value. This is not an attempt to answer the question posted, but an attempt to let listeners question this piece and formulate their own answers.

Chris & Michelle