Students’ attendance at the service is a must. As a matter of fact, students’ performance at the service point contributes to part of their overall subject grade. If you know that you are not free during the service period, we suggest that you don’t apply for this subject.

Former students feel that this subject belong to a heavier 3-credit subject, but it is not unreasonably heavy. They reported that the heaviest part of the subject has been the post-filming editing work of the documentary. Students need to be prepared for such work after the filming service. 

Before the service, students have to work in teams to:

• research the needs of NGO partners and identify a story that would interest audience
• develop a feasible storyboard and shooting schedule
• develop persuasive writings

Upon arrival at the service point, your team will need to:

• evaluate the situation and revise your storyboard accordingly
• conduct interviews and shooting on site
• perform initial editing
• showcase your draft to service partners before departure

After the service component, your team needs to:

• perform post-filming editing
• send the completed documentary to service partners

Part of the service requires students to develop persuasive writing pieces for our partner NGOs. We therefore expect students to have a fairly good command of written English, both in terms of accuracy and appropriacy. Certainly, one’s passion for serving the less advantaged is another very important selection criterion too. 

A short answer is “YES”. We believe if one has a will, one has a way. If you are willing to invest extra time to learn video production skills, we are sure that you can make up for the inadequacy. While there will be input from the subject, there are tonnes of online information about use of the camera and editing skills. We have seen in the past some amazing work developed by students who had zero video production experience.

We will evaluate students mainly on their performance in the four assessed tasks (details can be found from the power point). This means that in order to get a good grade, your performance in presentation, writing and video production is important.

However, doing a service-related subject requires one to have a heart to serve. If students’ primary concern is their grade, they might probably be not the right candidates for the subject.

There will be sponsorship from the non-local study fund. But students are still expected to contribute partially to the expenses incurred. Details will be announced usually in the first meeting of the subject.

Please observe this schedule: