Portfolio - May 2013

Highlight Activities in May

As I told before in previous entry, this month was very busy for HAI team member. There are so many events for us to cover at the same time busy preparing inside story for the next magazine issue. Not to forget, our schedule also packed with photoshoot for Raya Bumper edition.

For information, HAI team members are consisting of four people only.  Two senior executive reporters and two junior reporters including myself. But due to one of the senior executive will be taking leave for 2 months by the end of this month; some of her work will be taking over by me. 

I was asked by the editor to do the Close- Up column section. Usually Close-Up is specialty section for the rising star artist in Malaysia. 9^th May is my first photoshoot assignment for Close-Up. Bil Azali the new rising star was chosen for this month issue. He was one the participant in the reality programme ‘Pilih Kasih’. It was a challenging task also though since we need to deal with the artist schedule. But thankfully, the date I set up, he was free from work at that time. All the photoshoot were taken at UKSB studio and all pictures taken by my phone.

Photoshoot session with Bil Azali

Camera in action

With the new rising star

While on 15^th May, we the intern students were asked to attend Utusan Karya journalist course along with the journalist who are working below 5 years. It only took one day for the whole course. Below are the lists of the course.

1. Journalist ethics & communication

2. Creativity of writing

3. Entertainment writing style

4. Journalist relationship, promotion and commercial

5. Emotion in writing style

6. Special report writing style

7. Travel & documentation writing style

8. Proof reader

9. Images, Graphic & Layout style

With Editor of Ibu dan Anak

Editor of Entertainment giving speech to the journalist

Assistant editor of Al-Islam magazine presenting the Special Report Style

Workshop on Proof Reader part

Then, in the evening, UKSB also giving us the intern student experiences to attend food review for Ramadan Buffet promotion for SAJI magazine at Residence Hotel with SAJI member. 

Venue - Residence Hotel

Hmm..the price!

Left to Right: Iela Rahman (Saji Magazine crew) & Qilah (UKSB clerk)

Side Dishes

Variety of Salad

Sambal & Ulam-ulaman

Dessert - Kuih Muih

Another side of dessert

Most favourite - Chocolate Fountain

Local dessert

Nyummy!

Other than that, in this month also I was assigned to interview the international artist, Jo In-Sung from Korea. This press conference event took place at Hilton Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on 21^st May 2013 at 3.00pm. So far, I think this is my biggest event assignment that I had to cover. Moreover, never thought that this event will be the next cover story for HAI magazine, June issue. So, this was a very big responsibility for me that my editor trusts me to do this task.

As usual before interview, I already prepared of what question to asked him in the press conference except the personal question. I already wrote article about him three times already. He is sure now the famous and popular actor in Korea and Asia, when his latest drama That Winter, The Wind Blows becomes a big hit in Asia including Brunei. Therefore, it was a very meaningful to me having this opportunity and at the same time got a chances to meet him personally and closer. 

Jo In-Sung embarked on his publicity tour to Southeast Asia in promotion of this popular Korean drama series on ONE HD (Astro). Following his scheduled, Jo In-Sung first meet with us members of local media before he gracing meet and greet event with fans at Paradigm Mall.

Jo In-Sung with his charming style

Interacting with local media

Focus in listening

The smile that could melt women heart!

A date with Jo In-Sung

Photo session Jo In-Sung with media members. Image courtesy of ONE HD Facebook.

My second photoshoot session with Sura Sojangi the other new rising star artist in the entertainment industry for Close-Up column. She was also one of the Pilih Kasih third season participants.

With Sura Sojangi 

 While at the evening, I was assigned to assist my colleague to attend the Fashion show and interview some of the celebrities at The Weld, Raja Chulan, Kuala Lumpur. 

With the coming of Ramadhan month, preparation for Hari Raya Aidilfitri this year,The Weld brings together some of local top fashion designer and celebrities at the Amazing Red of Baju Kurung, Kebaya and Hijab at this event.

This is not the first time The Weld creates a platform for local designers to showcase their talent. One of the big events since it brings about 50 popular celebrities including Rozita Che Wan, Ning Baizura, Sofea Jane, Dinas Mokhtar and Vanida Imran the famous artist that wins an award through ‘The Red Kebaya’ movie.

Below are some of the pictures taken at the event. All pic taken by my phone.

All the celebrity that are participate in the events wearing Red theme.

And for the next day on 23^rd May, again I am doing my third photoshoot for Close-Up column with Alif Hadi. He was one of the participants of the reality programme Astro Fear Factor celebrity.

Alif Hadi in action

Focus

Portfolio - April 2013

Highlight event for April

It has been 2 months already working as an intern in Utusan Karya Sdn Bhd (UKSB). I am still trying to do my best on the job that are given to me. Since my position as journalist more into K-Pop area, so it is not much for me to do an outside assignment. It was only a certain time that I was chosen to do outside task and assisted my colleague. 

The main highlight event that I was assigned in this month was to interview Aida Jebat. She was one of a former participants in popular reality TV show Academy Fantasia (AF) season 9. Besides becoming a singer, this talented young celebrity also spread her wings into acting. This event took place at Shah Alam, Selangor, Ashanim Dress Lab boutique when she was shooting for her next drama ‘Epilog Cinta Kirana’ for TV3. All the picture below taken by myself using iphone cam.

Exterior of Shooting Place

Interior of shooting place

(From Left to Right: Aida Jebat, Raja Ilya, Nazim Othman & Tasya Shilla)

As usual before interview her, I research all the latest information about her. What attract people attention to read the articles is either about career or personal life. Therefore, reporter job is not an easy as we think due to our job as reporter is trying to dig in as they much as we can about people life especially the celebrities. Controversy story is the most hit one that could increase the article.

For the rest of the time, mostly I spent time in the office research about K-Pop doing the translation for my next article. It become more challenges to me because the dateline to submit all the articles now is shortening into 3 days. Therefore, need to fight with the time since it is very limited. Other than this, HAI team now busy  preparing 'Raya Bumper' for Ramadhan and Raya issue.

Week 12 - Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that creates images in order to reveal a story behind it. Photo is a representation of a person or scene taken by a camera on light-sensitive material. The photo tells a complete story of an image. As we know, journalist is a medium for the people in knowing the news. It is everywhere in the world, either in the television news, newspaper and etc. Journalism is the timely reporting of events at the local, provincial, national and international levels.

Instead of words a photojournalist uses pictures to tell a story. They also can combine their images with some text to give brief information on the details or events. This known as caption as earlier I explain in week 8. There is a different between photographer and photojournalist. Photographer are only tend to capture the people, thing o place only, while photojournalist take the picture which got an action or emotion that give a little bit information inside it such as shout, kick, cries, explosion and etc that could create a story. They also tend to take that noun picture also but still need a story behind it also.

Thus, there is an ethic for the photojournalist what they need to do or not to do, so that it did not bring the misinterpretation by the audiences through their images. There are some rules and regulation for the photojournalist to be followed below,

1. Take the picture – tell the truth.

This is because the picture does not lie. Photojournalist has to take the picture on the event itself. It needs to be an accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects. Photograph resembles in size and shaped of what our eye see. However, photograph cannot tell us what is happened before or after the photo is taken. But, we still believe that the photo give us some information of the truth.

2. Do not manipulate the pictures

With our modern technology, sometimes people are tending to modify the pictures. As a result is would give an opposite story of the pictures, where is the original element of the photo has been changed. This is because the photojournalists want to enhance its impact. As stated by Lester (1995), “But because of computer technology, digital manipulations are relatively easy to accomplish, hard to detect and perhaps more alarming, alter the original image so that checking the authenticity of the picture is impossible”

3. Avoid stereotyping and bias of the person and groups in the work.

This only showing that the journalism are being unprofessional, racist, ignorant or lazy when they capture pictures of ethnic, gender, physical characteristic, sexual preference and job-related cultural groups.

4. Give respect and dignity on the subject. 

Give some kindness and concern to victims or subjects on the events.

5. Maintain the elements of the photo when editing.

This is to avoid the wrong idea of the subjects story.

Therefore, photojournalism must follow the code of the ethics since it could shaped the people perception and interpretation towards the images shown. According to Bersak (2006), the National Press Photographers Association's Code of Ethics “Photographic and video images can reveal great truths, expose wrongdoing and neglect, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the globe through the language of visual understanding. Photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.”

References:

• Bersak, D., R. (2006). Ethics in Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future. Retrieve on November 10, 2011 from http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/
• Lester, P. M. (1995). Photojournalism Ethics Timeless Issues. Retrieved on November 10^th, 2011 from http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html
• National Press Photographers Associations. (2011). Code of Ethics. Retrieved November 10 2011, from http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/ethics.html

Week 11 - Information Graphics

This week we are given task to analyse the data of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) report on rising fuel & operating cost and use the information given by using the visual graph.

Figure 1. The IATA report.

Task:

1. Generate an information graphic that explains the relationship among gross revenue, gross expenses, cost of fuel and cost of fuel as percentage of expenses from the year 2000 to 2009.

Answer:

2. Explain the consideration you made in designing the information graphic.

Information graphic is a visual representation of data, knowledge or information. These graphics are used where complex information such as the in the figure 1 above are needs to be explained in simple and clearly. As stated by Lester (1995, p.187), “informational graphics are primarily visual displays with the accompanying label & text that help explain an illustration’s meaning”. Therefore, although the table 1 figure above just a simple figure or images, it can present a rich amount of information without messing your head.

From the table 1 above, I am using the line graph. This is because line graphs are usually used to represent changes in data over a period of time. In a line graph, the data is first represented by points, and then line segments are drawn to join the points. In the table 1 above, we can clearly see the line of revenue, expenses and etc of the company rise   and fall along the year from 2000 - 2009. Generally, the horizontal axis is used as the time axis and the vertical axis is used to show changes in the other quantity. In some line graphs, values along the lines themselves have no meaning; they can, however, show a trend.

References:

• Lester, P., M. (1995). Information Graphics. Visual communication: Images with messages. (p. 195). California: Wadsworth Publishing

Week 10 - Games & Avatar In The Information Age

Do you believe that you are cyborgian in nature?

Nowadays, with the era of globalisation, people are exposed to much more information than ever before. I like to call that "information flooding".  We are growing up in a world that is more different from our parent’s life than any generation before them. We are adjusting to a culture that our parents or grandparents do not understand. Technology has improved our standard of living in many ways and digital technologies, in particular have provided us with amazing opportunities.

Therefore, in consequences, people are now too relying on the technologies as it gives benefits to our life. Hence, we all are cyborg. Cyborg is part of human and part of machine. Yes, this maybe sound awkward to you, or you maybe thought that this only sci-fiction but actually in reality this is true. As stated by Case 2010), cyborg is an organism “to which exogenous components have been added for the purposes of adapting to new environments”.

However, it does not mean that we are robot cop or terminator. It means that in our everyday life that we are never missing using the computer or mobile phone or any other devices.  We are no longer control the machine, but the machine is control us. These technologies help us to travel faster, communicate differently. 

Well I admit that I am one of the cyborgian in nature. This is because my everyday life is full with this technology. There are 2 important things in my life, which is mobile phone & laptop. 

 

Seriously I cannot survive without both of it. Laptop is the tools for me to engage with other social networking such as Facebook or twitter to interact with my friends. I have spent more time with this social networking than spent time with my family. It saves times a lot rather than have to make an appointment again with my friends and think where we should meet up. Similar also with the cell phones, imagine it just lose one day only, for sure I going to be half insane without it. 

Technology is now replacing our body such as leg, hand, mouth, eye and so on. For example, if we want to purchase ticket, we are no longer to go to the counter at travel agency or airport. Now we are able to purchase it through online directly. See how this technology made our life easier.

Reference:

• Case, A. (2011). We are all cyborg. Retrieve on October 15, 2011 from 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1KJAXM3xYA
• Robins, K. (2000). Cyberspace and the world we live in. In Bell, D. and Kennedy, B.M. (eds.), The cyber cultures 34 reader (pp.77--‐95). London: Routledge.

Week 9 - Cinema & Television

Cinema and television are high profile creative industries as well as and pervasive forms of popular entertainment and cultural expression within contemporary society. Cinema is life: it inspires, it entertains, and it gets you thinking. Cinema breaks your heart, again and again, but you keep coming back for more. While, television is a powerful medium for appealing to mass audiences; it reaches people regardless of age, sex, income, or educational level. In addition, television offers sight and sound, and it makes dramatic and lifelike representation people and the products.

Cinema and television actually give us the cultural literacy on it.  It gives the basic information that we need to know to carry on a logical conversation with most people we associate with. The more culturally literate you are, the more conversations you’re able to participate in with more people. According to Puttnam (1999) “screen literacy can help us achieve a better understanding of both the medium and the message”.

The influence of cinema & television shapes our concepts of who we are, what is important to us, and how we live our lives. This stated by Kermabon & Shahani (1991), “Television has accustomed the viewers to quick changes of perspective and identification of objects within the frame, transparently denotative of concrete things and events”. 

For example, the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) on the TV shows.

Although it is to entertain people but it gives a negative/bad effect on the children. The children tend to follow their wrestler steps in wrestling with their brothers and anyone. The children want to be strong as their idol wrestler. I see thing happened on my little sister also, where she act wrestle with the pillow after watching that show.

While for me, I like watching Grey’s anatomy where it showed how our lives is very priceless. Where all the doctors are trying very hard in saving the people lives. 

And Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), where the staff analysis on surrounding environment also could improved my observation and analyse on my work.

Therefore, cinema & television could shape our identity, where the people aims or behaviour could change after watching some dramas or scene.

References:

• Kermabon, J. & Shahani, K. (1991). Ed. Cinema and television. India. Orient Longman Limited.
• Puttnam, D. (1999). Screen Literacy and Cultural Morality in the Digital Era. Retrieved on the October 2, 2011 from EbscoHost Website

Week 8 - Photography

How do captions and cutlines re-frame the meaning of an image?

Photography is a device for recording an image of an object on a light-sensitive surface; it is essentially light box with an aperture to admit light focused onto a sanitized film or plate.

Different people have different own motivations for taking pictures. Some is to capture things that have inspired them, to capture perspectives and moments others will miss. People mostly take, and keep, pictures of happy times. You take a photo to capture a present moment, and instantly it becomes a record the past.

Mostly, the aims of photograph for majority of people were mostly taking pictures to document their lives that later on could help us to recall back our experiences of our lives. This is because memory is impressionable, and as time goes the details become vanished, or changed.  And what we remember before may not actually the same as it before.

Photos are also as a tool of communication for us with the others to share our experiences or to capture and relive shared experiences. It allows understanding better the surrounding world and gives precious moment into everyday life. In other words, pictures help us memorize.  The pictures would allow us to go back and experience the feelings we had, and remember.

Last week, I have already told that every picture tells a story. Different person would have different perspective and interpretation when looking of an image. Therefore, with the help of writing caption on the picture, that would improve the people in understanding more what the image are trying to illustrate and create a meaning. A bit of explanation could shaped more their interpretation.

For example, the figure below, what do you expect?

Maybe some of you would think, there is a guy who shut the girl mouth with his hand. Maybe look like that guy is trying to kidnap the girl. Maybe the guy was hide from someone else, then girl is come across then the guy had to kidnap him and let her be as his ransom. Hence, there are many assumption of meaning towards the single image above. How about the image gives some caption and cutlines, such as “Ben Whishaw in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, based on a novel by Patrick Süskind (Europeanfilms)”? Then, it would be affect the reader or viewers mind on the story that are they create before this.

Therefore, text caption provides information that the photo cannot give. Although it is short but it is informative.

References:

• Malone, J. (1983). Read about photography. Grolier International, Inc.
• Photo captions & cutlines. Retrieve on October 2, 2011 from http://web.ku.edu/~edit/captions.html
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