The film and media industries are constantly evolving and LASALLE’s alumni from the Puttnam School of Film & Animation have adapted well by employing a diverse range of established and emerging artistic practices as well as technologies across their respective disciplines to push the boundaries of creative excellence.
Hi Jun Ming and Su, congratulations on the success of My Only Sunshine! Could you share a bit about the background of this film?
Jun Ming: Thank you! It has always been my dream to make films that touch on social issues. Before making this film, I definitely did not know enough about Deafness. I spent time doing research on Deaf culture and also on the psychology of child bullying, which really opened my eyes. I am especially thankful to Lily Goh of ExtraOrdinary Horizons, who taught me and Su Singapore Sign Language (SgSL) and shared stories of the Deaf community.
BA(Hons) Film student Cho Jun Ming has numerous works to his name but My Only Sunshine is his first attempt at shooting a film without any dialogue at all. The story follows a young mother's attempt to understand her Deaf daughter's silent world, and the touching film has already received many positive comments on social media.
With a wide range of programmes in a world-class campus, LASALLE College of the Arts offers an unparalleled arts education designed to nurture industry-ready creative professionals.
If you have the flair and passion for the arts, LASALLE College of the Arts will bring out the best of your creative talent. It offers 30 contemporary arts and design programmes taught by a faculty of award-winning artists, designers, educators and researchers.
How has COVID-19 affected your work as an educator? Have the teaching methods changed?
Before COVID-19, online communication was usually perceived as an alternative by both the College and the students but now it has become a norm. Being a tech-savvy person myself, I would say that the new ways of teaching have not affected me too much.
As the graduating batch of 2020, my friends and I had high hopes for the year. After three years of picking up knowledge and skills in film production at LASALLE, I thought I would finally be out in the real world, pursuing my dream of becoming a writer-director. Who knew the coronavirus had other plans?
Before graduating, I was already on the lookout for job opportunities but only a few got back to me for an interview. There were times where I felt so defeated. But after a while, I grew accustomed to it and instead chose to focus on the silver lining.
Kayson Lau
BA(Hons) Film, Class of 2020
Entry: Elephant In The Room
Directed by Hariz Zulkifli
BA(Hons) Film, Class of 2020
What are the challenges that you and your colleagues are facing? How have you overcome them?
For my colleagues and I in the programme, we prepared earlier and took initiatives even before the circuit breaker was implemented. For instance, to slowly ease everyone into home-based learning, some classes were migrated early to online teaching so that everyone could familiarise themselves with softwares such as Zoom. Thankfully, these softwares are extremely user friendly.
