The Full Stop for 6 Months

Tactical √

Legislations √

Nepal √

OJT √

Graduation √

The last thing I could do to commemorate the 6 months of unique memories, in view of how the squad was being ‘forgotten’ in all aspects, was to consolidate them into an equally unique Memorabilia DVD that contained not just the pics and clips from Nepal (that was the original plan), but also all those taken throughout the training.

ya… From a simple notification to Harvi (‘I help you burn the Nepal pics for the others’) made during the last week of our residential training, the project bloomed into a massive undertaking, from the plain sifting through the files to rename and reposition their orientation, to the labeling of the discs and sourcing for and design of the cover. All these, within 5 weeks so we could be in time for distributing them to everyone during our graduation.

The most sweat-inducing was the creation of the Leadership Video, that was supposed to ‘commemorate the 4 weeks of leadership training the trainees underwent, underscoring the process of growing up and bonding of the 22 individuals into ONE united squad’. I busted 1 week of free time in between work (remember I work in shifts) to come up with the 1st version, and another 1 week to fine tune it to what it is today. It was not my sole effort, cos people like Harvi and MM gave precious feedbacks after the 1st version, and so did Mr Teh after the 5th version. I learned to balance my ideal expectations with the practical viewpoints of people around me.

It was really tough for me, since the last time I did a full video like this (the last time I tinkered with Windows Movie Maker was for the video in my book review presentation 2 months ago) was like 3 years ago (for my dear ZPS gang). Comparing both videos, I lost touch to certain things (transitions, subtitles), but I improved on my timing with the MP3, graphic manipulations and ‘video effects’. The main thing was the zeal to maintain consistency throughout the video (Mr Teh once criticized me for being sloppy halfway through my work).

Enjoy