AS THE age of hi-tech software continues to progress, a wider variety of editing tools and special effects programs are available for everybody’s digital needs—from color-blending options to layer-filtering preferences, sharpening picture selections to animated graphic alternatives.
But actually doing them may not be easy. Raul Beo, a master multimedia designer and head trainer of the UST Educational Technology Center, says people who become involved with hi-tech media still have to learn the nitty-gritty of the programs.
“When there are innovations, the demand for up-to-date computer skills goes up as well,” he said.
The Varsitarian took a peak at steps taken by this year’s seminar workshop conducted by the Ed Tech to help aspiring multimedia artists.
Welcome to the digital world
Called Multimedia Jam 2006, the Ed Tech workshop is on its sixth year. Core instructors were Ed-tech’s own Rommel Rivera, Erwin Logina, Andrei Dacanay, and Beo, together with invited multimedia developers.
This summer, the workshop concentrated on digital media arts and digital audio production. As most programs today makes personalized pictures, animated graphics, retouched videos, and remixed music, the workshops focused on the mastery of these popular features.
“Exposure to these features helps multimedia artists go along with the trends of technology,” Beo told the Varsitarian.
The digital media arts workshop was designed for budding artists interested in all kinds of production, from digital to video-editing. It included sub-courses on photo retouching using Adobe Photoshop, drawing and artwork creation using Adobe Illustrator, web development using HTML and Adobe GoLive, basic digital video-editing using Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, basic digital animation using Adobe AfterEffects 6.5, and desktop publishing using Adobe InDesign.
“Incorporating each type of popular software today aids multimedia artists in choosing what they find useful and easy to use afterwards,” Beo said.
On the other hand, the digital audio production workshop dealt with the intensive, practical, and theoretical processes of making commercial music. Digital recording, pro-tool basics, and recording and mixing basics were main topics of the course.
“Since we are living with hip music today, knowledge in sound innovation is needed. We included these trainings to give tips on how to capture music through recording and mixing different sounds,” they said.
Giving out sample output and extra activities also helped in further explaining the adjustments applications can make.
“Successful multimedia artists can only be produced through complete training,” explained Beo.
Although the registration fees range from P2,500 to P8,000, the trainees said what they have learned is worth the price. In fact, they were very appreciative of the lectures and hands-on exercises they got from the workshop.
“This workshop not only taught me a lot about the digital media, I saved a lot of money too,” said UST Professor Gwynne Bondoc, a participant of the workshop.
“It’s very enjoyable. I’m happy to have earned additional skills using Premiere,” also said Del Jimenez, a UST Social Research Center staffer.
With successful workshops held for this summer, the Ed-Tech team only needs one more thing to accomplish—continue giving out workshops as the technology continues to rise.
“We hope the trainees would no longer fear computers, and appreciate how productive and helpful these computers can be to their lives.” R. R. T. Calbay
