reported
by: Rafael Oei
Committee Member
(Term 1999/2000)
On Friday, 21 January 2000 at
7:30pm, 12 members and 15 guests of the AES Singapore Section waited eagerly
outside of a lecture theatre at the Division of Electronic and Broadcast
Media, School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University.
| The evening was
to be hosted by Robert Fröhlich
of the School of Communication
Studies at Nanyang
Technological University. Robert V.W. Fröhlich has had more than 20
years of experience in sound production for radio, film and television.
He has taught and served as acting Head of Sound at the Australian Film,
Television and Radio School and has also taught sound production
techniques at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and New South
Wales Tertiary and Further Education Commission (TAFE). |
Mr. Robert
Fröhlich talking about the AV production and post-production training at
the Nanyang Technological University's School of Communication Studies -
photograph by Robert Soo. |
Professionally, he has worked as a
consultant with TAFE, helping develop courses in film/TV production
techniques and theatre technology. He has consulted for the Sydney
(Australia) Opera House and Australia's Seven Network.
He specialises in Audio production
for music, radio, film, television and new-media technologies, designing
instructional programmes and course curriculum incorporating Information
Technology. And so, tonight, he was going to introduce us to a
constructivist approach to cost effective audio and video production and
post-production training.
|
The official
launch of the new AES Singapore Section Web Site by Dr. Preston Murphy
(right) at the invitation of the section Chairman, Mr. Jibby Jacob
(left) - photograph by Robert Soo. |
At 7:45pm, the
talk was underway, and Chairman Jibby Jacob warmly welcomed everyone and
gave special mention to the presence of an honoured guest, AES VP
Northern Region Europe, Dr Kees Immink. The longest serving AES member
in Singapore namely Dr Preston Murphy was then invited to officially
launch the new AES Singapore Section website, now mastered by Dr Roland
K C Tan who is also the Section Advisor. With the formalities done, Mr
Fröhlich then took the floor and casually brought us through a brief
introduction to the facilities that he had set up at the School of
Communication. |
By way of an introduction, Robert
then brought us back to the days of traditional editing, to the present
where production work and post-production mastering are now in a digital
environment. He also mentioned the high cost of equipment as well. With the
advent of digital systems, audio and video production and post-production
provided facilities to archive, digitise, edit and mix using digital
non-linear methods. As added flexibility and automated functions in the
editing and mixing processes became more complex and hardware similarly
evolved to accommodate these functions, costs of maintaining and setting up
systems and facilities increased. This made it difficult for educational
institutes, who are in the business of keeping students updated and abreast
of current and available technology, to maintain facilities that would keep
up with developments.
A special guest at
the seminar was Dr. Kees Immink, a Fellow Member of the AES and Vice
President of the AES Northern Region in Europe -
photograph by Robert Soo. |
What has occurred, according
to Mr Fröhlich, is that through these developments, production processes
have been refined to the point where high quality audio and video have
become an integral part of modern communications. With the introduction
of High Definition Television and Digital Radio and Television,
consumers will become even more conditioned to perceive audio and video
programmes as being of low or inferior quality where previously the same
standard had been thought of as acceptable. Fortunately, where the
training of students in audio and video production used to be capital
intensive, recent non-linear digital audio and video editing systems
have been available inexpensively through names like Avid Technology
Inc. which produced 80% of America’s prime-time television and 90% of
all feature films. |
(Avid 1999 cited by Fröhlich) Avid
systems have a price range beginning from US$10,000 that excludes the
computer, monitors and disk-drives. This has enabled the School of
Communication Studies at Nanyang Technological University to install five
Avid suites, four of which are networked to a central server incorporating
an array of 18GB disk drives to provide 360GB of storage for high quality
digital video. Through this networked system, students are able to perform
edit sessions for their projects in any suite and even edit identical video
footage for exercises simultaneously in all suites.
|
During the
studio tour at the Nanyang Technological University's School of
Communication Studies facilities with the speaker, Mr. Robert Fröhlich
(left) - photograph by
Robert Soo. |
For audio editing, seven ProTools
systems have been installed, located in two suites, equipped with Yamaha O2R
digital audio mixers and dual video monitors. Mr Fröhlich then brought us
through the rationale in installing these systems and the choices in the
equipment. The set up also enables students to work on identical exercises
in small groups or individually. Once the material is digitised, students do
not have to spend time waiting for their product to be transferred from a
playback source to a recording medium. This enables them to evaluate the
quality of a given change within the post-production process.
In terms of learning, Mr Fröhlich
believes that non-linear production and post-production environments lend
themselves to providing students with valuable experiential learning – a
point that I agree with. He went on to say that student participation is
enhanced through the interaction within the non-threatening, non-destructive
environment. With the aid of non-linear video editing systems and digital
audio workstations (DAW), students have more individual hands-on control of
their exercises, and a richer and more flexible learning experience. And
with the relatively low cost of the present equipment compared to high-end
equipment in the past, multiple workstation laboratories can now be
established. As the quality and quantity of audio/video production increases
to satisfy the demands of a digital age, the need to equip people with the
adequate skills will increase. With this in mind, Mr Fröhlich suggests that
cost-effective facilities like the one at Nanyang Technology University will
be needed.
|
Mr. Robert
Fröhlich talking to the audience at the studio facilities at the School
of Communication Studies at NTU after his lecture -
photograph by Robert Soo. |
Mr Fröhlich then led us out
of the lecture theatre for a tour of the facilities at the School of
Communications. Apart from the suites he had described in his talk, Mr
Fröhlich also included a tour to the television and radio broadcasting
facilities. It was a fairly informal session, and members and guests
freely asked questions during the tour. |
| The evening
ended at about 9:30pm with guests still milling about after the tour,
still engaged in discussions concerning the facilities they had just
been shown.
The AES Singapore Section
thanks Mr Robert Fröhlich for his presentation and for opening up the
facilities at the School of Communications for us to walk through. |
AES Singapore
Section Chairman, Mr. Jibby Jacob (right) presenting a plaque to the
speaker, Mr. Robert Fröhlich (left) -
photograph by Robert Soo. |
|
