Skills Workshops Add to Students’ Portfolios

The JMSC offered a series of two-hour-long workshops teaching on-line, photography and video editing skills.  The worshops, which accommodated 10 to 15 people each, were run during the University of Hong Kong’s reading weeks or at the end of each semester, and were open to bachelor’s and master’s degree students.

“It’s such a packed schedule during the semester that there are some skills we just don’t have time to cover in detail in class,” explained JMSC tutor Kevin Lau. “The workshops have been a great success this year in helping to prep the students for the job market.”

“In Creative Storytelling, I help students to develop their visual creative style, teach them how they can work on their framing and how to push the boundaries of photography,” he said.

“The Online Portfolio workshop teaches students how to put together a portfolio of their journalism work online to show to future employers.”

Jaime Chua (MJ 2012), attended Lau’s Social Media Workshop in mid-May. “The workshop helped me understand the commercial side of social media better – especially its effectiveness in swaying sentiments,” Chua said.

Ka Ho Ng, teaching assistant and experienced video editor, teaches Advanced Video Editing, which covers video production and post-production effects such as colour correction and key frame concepts, using  Final Cut Pro.

The photography workshops are run by AJ Libunao, teaching assistant and JMSC resident photographer, and Michael Coyne, JMSC lecturer and professional photographer.

Libunao teaches Photography Lighting. These workshops – one in the afternoon and one in the evening to vary the light – introduce students to photographic lighting techniques such as bounce flash, white balance and off camera flash.

Lareina Choong (MJ 2012)attended Coyne’s Beyond Basic Photography workshop.  “The content was very relevant to what I’ve been learning, especially in the online journalism class,” said Choong. “I saw the workshops as a supplementary bonus to my learning experience. It was especially thrilling to be taught by a veteran like Michael Coyne.”