Nope, I did not read about it this time, I got this from the man himself when I was at AMEC 2009. Ted Leckman from Lucasfilm, the world famous studio responsible for the legendary films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Although I did not get a seat in his class through the official registration, I went in anyway with some like-minded friends, and boy, he is really good.
The title of the class was "Short film making on a shoe string" and what really impressed me was how well prepared he is. From the video clips he had discerningly selected to all the most current web and equipment resources he was sharing with us, the state of his preparedness really showed that he cares for the value his audience reaps. It is not just about the smooth delivery, but his mindfulness that the time we had traded in to be with him is well rewarded with something valuable which we can all take back. This cannot be taken for granted as the very next presentation (by another industry guy who I will not mention) I went to was really disappointing, with the speaker so ill prepared that he kept asking the facilitator how much more time he had left.
This reminds me of the importance of preparation we should have for our pupils' learning experience, and we have ourselves to blame when things fail in class as a result of us not doing our part.
There was an example of AFL in an advice he was giving too! He mentioned about the importance of the ability to 'reverse-engineer' shots which we see. How we can learn quickly by analysing a clip repeatedly until we can find out how to rebuild the scene having a strong reference point of 'the-end-in-mind'. This opinion about the importance of reverse engineering a shot is also consistent in the advice by David Hobby, founder of the famous photography lighting site Strobist.
Ted is an inspiring man who is a great teacher and a practising CGI artist who is at the top of his game. It is the blessing for those who have benefited under his charge. As the opening slide of the conference had so aptly stated, "The quality of an education cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." - McKinsey Report 2007. (How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top.)
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1 comment:
sounds like you had an exemplary lesson!
yes, the quality of learning cannot be better that the quality of teaching, thus making teachers the single factor that will determine the success of pupils.
tough call, since the teacher is under pressure every minute and hour to deliver, engage, inspire, motivate, admonish, shape, mould. any slip up or let down is like the second lecture you saw; failure
do we care enough about pupil's learning and do we learn well enough to care?
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