The Challenge of New Media POLITICAL Video Production

As the key person that is in charge of the production of NSP National Day Message Video, I would like to thank The Online Citizen's critique. What are more enlightening are those comments that follow the main article.

I have pushed for Web Video to be produced for a long time in NSP. But due to constrains and strategic considerations, we have to push it back till now. But as someone commented in TOC, political parties in this era could no longer be "no sight no sound but only text" on the internet. The internet Video has opened up a new whole spectrum of possibilities for political engagement.

PAP knows the power of media, especially the motion visuals coupled with emotional voices. This is the main reason why it has put a very tight grip on ALL the mainstream media in Singapore. It monopolized the TV & Radio stations right from the beginning and subsequently, took total control of the print media in Singapore after completing laws that subsequently force the merger of the "defiant" Chinese papers, Nanyang Shang Bao. It has made the mainstream media its tool of propaganda and image building while deprive other political opponents from gaining any space nor exposures through it.

The new era of internet has opened up a New Media frontier. Many Singapore opposition politicians, after years of deprivation of utilizing the mainstream media, have become more reserved, conservative and even skeptical in utilizing the internet as the New Media to enhance their political work. The common view is that the New Media is a double edged sword. But some are more willing to make use of the New Media to breach the Media barriers that PAP set up in the past and present.

The Singapore Democratic Party is one fine example that has been more advanced in utilizing the New Media opportunities provided by internet. Well, some may argue about who is the First to put up a website, use Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and so on to have that super facial "feel good" ego painted on them but the truth is, utilizing New Media for "networking" is very different in exploiting the media to the fullest in terms of carrying political messages to its intended audience.

For example, a "politician" may start a blog or use Twitter, but if what he puts up in his blog or transmitted through Twitter are just some political irrelevant content (like gatherings and complains) and not political messages or ideas, then he is not effective in utilizing these mediums for his political work. Never mind if you are the first politician to write the blog or use Twitter but the truth is you are not effective in utilizing them as political tool.

Web video is the most powerful tool that Internet has provided us thus far. The born of Youtube and other free video portals have provided wide opportunities. But it also poses the great challenges to Singapore opposition who have been a stranger to TV political evangelism for the past 40 years. Video, with sight and sound, is a very different animal from just writing plain text message. It involves a lot more of technical production skills and personal skills than just writing words.

My comrades and I have first hand experience in the web video production processes. Although new technologies and software have somewhat made video production tools more easily available for us, but the key still lies in how individuals perform right in front of the camera. Apart from that, the post production work on how the speech is being edited.

PAP has the opportunities and help from professional producers in the TV stations to make them look good in front of the TV but we do not have such luxuries. SDP is fortunate enough to have the help from some freelance video producer and editor but most other opposition political parties, including NSP, do not have such support. We do not have a proper studio to start with!

Nevertheless, such lack of expertise, proper equipment and venue do not deter me to push for the final production. Whether we like it or not, we have to start somewhere somehow. Although we will be at the lower end of learning curve, but I believe that in time to come, we will be fully ready to fight the New Media Warfare in the next GE.

I am fortunate enough to get the help of friends like Uncle Yap and some people who were in TV production to give me pointers and advice. There are at least three versions of edited video before the final ones are made. I have put up all the versions for public critiques and made respective editing amendments after such critiques are being consolidated.

Some may ask me why do have National Anthem in ALL the three language video production. This comment is most probably made by people who have watched all the three videos. But the respective videos are meant for different people with different language background. In the very spirit of our National Pledge (yes yes, I will be touching on this one later), I do not think we should have different treatment to different videos produced using different languages. The National Anthem is meant for ALL Singaporeans, not just those who use English or Chinese or Malay alone. This is a political video production, it has to be politically correct right from the start.

Some have made comparison to SDP's National Day Message video and said that we could have done something like them, combining all languages into one video. I was pretty impressed with their video production as well but the professional advice I have received is that I should do the same. The reason being that not everyone understand Malay, Chinese or even English. For a political message, it is important to get your targeted audience in different language segment to get the full picture of the message, not just the little different parts and pieces.

Subtitles may help in solving the problem of producing multi-language video but that would mean that at any one time, we will have to put up two different subtitles of two languages. This approach will make things look complicated visually. We cannot assume that everybody can read English subtitles, even though most people do.

Just take for example, if someone who only know Chinese watch SDP video, he may be lost for the rest of message except for the Chinese part. Same for those who only knows Malay or Tamil.

Thus, I was advised that mixing the three language presentation into one is not feasible politically. Political video, it seems, has more considerations than a normal video production like advertisement or just plain home video. It has to be all encompassing and all possible considerations have to be made to cater to the different voters.

Of course, presenting a 5 to 8 minutes speech in a mono-language will have its challenges. As I have mentioned before, Singapore opposition politicians have little real life practice and opportunities to stand right in front of the camera and speak naturally, convincingly etc. It is a LOST ART, so to speak. But we intend to rediscover it.

It is easy for anyone to put up a 5 to 8 minutes speech without video. Any inappropriate gesturing could well be forgotten there and then. But the video will capture every bits of it and present it pure and naked as it is. Of course we could edit away such portion using cut-away (i.e. using other visuals to replace the person while he or she speaks) but for a political message delivered by a person, it is the person's presentation as in voice, body language and gesturing that is important in carrying fore the message.

I was tempted to use cut-away but was advised against it. The politicians will look more like newscasters if such cut-away is used intensively.Another trick was to cut-away to audience just like what they did for PM Lee's National Day Rally but we do not have that.

Many have commented that the film shot was too wide, should have a mid-body shot. However, my production adviser would prefer wider shot! As stated before, politician's gesturing is an important part of a video presentation. It would be frustrating to see the politician gesturing while part of his or her arms are cut off from the video! (Watch Ken Sun's and Wai Leng's presentation for example). When I take a second look at PM Lee's National Day Message Video, yes, the framing does not cut off the hands.

As for the National Day Message itself, I find it quite comprehensive and focused personally. It has raised at least three important issues of Singapore, Housing, CPF as Retirement Financing and FT Policy that affects jobs as the key problems that cause great anxiety to Singaporeans. And such anxiety may diminish our National Identity as a whole. Of course there are much rooms for improvement in terms of messaging but I do not find any big problem in its approach at all.

The most challenging part of a New Media Video is of course, the presenters themselves. But I think for a first time try, they have performed reasonably well, though there are pretty much room for improvement. This actually brings back an important issue, training is vital in political presentation.

All in all, I think we have a good run in the production process, accumulating valuable experiences. We have to address all the challenges we faced in our first run in order to move forward with better production next time round.

I would like to thank all those people who have took the trouble to comment, critique and more importantly, providing valuable feedback to us. I would like to thank TOC once again for their effort in providing us the critique on their well read website. We take all comments and criticisms with great spirit as the necessary nutrients for our growth and progress.

Goh Meng Seng

News from 93.8 Live

This is what was broadcast in 93.8 Live:

Former Workers Party member announces plans to groom future political activists


A former senior member of the Workers Party has announced plans to groom future political activists.

Mr Goh Meng Seng, who quit WP over a posting he made on the Internet last November, is forming a group that will be under the ambit of a non-government organisation.

The group is aimed at aimed at cultivating young talent for future General Elections.

Members will be exposed to media and speech training, and be versed in political education and the running of a political campaign.

Speaking to 938LIVE, Mr Goh, who has since joined the National Solidarity Party, said opposition parties here need to have a systematic way to renew its leadership.

"Our aim is actually to build up the political system towards a more balanced system with more checks and balance and more political participation, so we actually have a systematic way of grooming future political leaders. It's not only for opposition, it's non-partisan in that sense."

The group is in its planning stage and is likely to be up later this year.

Mr Goh hopes to groom 84 candidates to fill all the contested seats in future elections.

The 37 year old will also work with NSP in developing the training programme.

Generally speaking, it is a very accurate report on my interview without much distortions.

I have chosen to break this news to 93.8Live exclusively basically because I think the broadcast journalist has shown sincerity. Furthermore, there will be less tendency of distortion due to the fact that they need to broadcast the original sound bites.

Goh Meng Seng

Project on Cultivating Political Talents

After a long retreat from active political participation on the ground, I have reformulated the direction that I should move for the next 5 years.

I have just given an exclusive interview to 93.8 Live about this project. I will be joining Think Centre as well as NSP to embark on this project of cultivating a critical mass of political talents for Singapore. This is in line with my vision of developing a progressive democratic political system for Singapore. This could only be done when there is more balance within the present political system and without the necessary political competition, this could not be achieved.

The mid-term aim is to cultivate and groom enough candidates to contest in all 84 seats as a whole. The long term aim is to build up a feasible model that political renewal could be achieved at all levels in a continuous, sustainable way.

The programs that I intended to start with Think Centre is as follows:

1) Media Training I : Rally Speech Training (Scripting & Speech Delivery)
2) Media Training II : How to Conduct Media Interview
3) Media Training III : How to Conduct Press Conference
4) Media Training IV : Branding Strategy
5) Media Training V : The Tricks Camera Can Do
6) Media Training VI : The Strategy for New Media
7) Political Education I : Political History of Singapore
8) Political Education II : The Electoral System in Singapore
9) Political Education III : Political Ideologies
10) Political Education IV : Political Systems
11) Political Education V : Overview of Singapore's Political Development
12) Political Education VI : Political - Economic Structure of Singapore
13) Political Education VII: Legal Perspectives of Politics in Singapore
14) Electoral Campaigning I : Pre-Election Preparations
15) Electoral Campaigning II : Overview of Campaigning (include logistics aspects)
16) Electoral Campaigning III: Election Agents, Polling Agents & Counting Agents
17) Electoral Campaigning IV : Candidates & Election Strategies
18) Electoral Campaigning V : Post Election Management

The above are the basic skeletons of what I intended to do. They are not fixed yet and subject to changes. Most probably Guest speakers or trainers will be invited to conduct these sessions which will be in a form of interactive learning and experience sharing.

Goh Meng Seng

Political Rally Speech Training

Workers' Party has initiated a few Pre-General Elections training sessions for both its members at large as well as candidates in specific.

We have conducted an in house GE seminar last year, open to all our members. This is to bridge the gap of knowledge and experiences between veterans and new members in running an election campaign effectively.

Following the main GE seminar held last year, specific closed door seminar and training have been conducted for its potential candidates. One of these important training involves political rally speech writing cum speech delivery. I would say that we learn from past experiences as well as PAP MPs who may well have very good "paper qualifications" but when it comes to delivery of rally speeches, they failed to "move" the ground.

Many people assume that giving political speeches is just like any other speeches we used to give in our professional working environment. This is a very dangerous presumption. One may give effective board room speeches, delivery good lectures to a lecture room full of students or even a put up a persuasive legal argument as a lawyer in a courtroom, but when it comes to rally speeches, it is totally a different ball game.

We could adapt an off the shelf standard menu on speech writing and speech delivery but it seems that alot of modifications must be made. Rally speeches should be written differently with different emphasis. A political rally speech is not a lecture, trying to teach something "NEW" to the audience. A political rally speech is not a business proposal that is to be delivered to a small number of audience. A political rally speech is definitely not meant to be delivered to an audience which we expect them to pass judgement. Writing a political rally speech needs specific niche skills but least of bombastic wordings. The potential audience may come from many different background with different intellects. The most difficult part of writing a good political rally speech is to use the lowest denomination of language vocabulary to win the hearts and minds of the people that have different levels of intellect.

The delivery of political rally speeches is totally different from "reading" a speech. One should deliver but not read a speech. And to deliver a speech nicely in a wide open space fill with thousands of audience needs specific skills. How not to sound soft but yet not "fierce"; how to speak clearly and slowly and yet not to make your listeners bored....

Practice makes perfect. Lots and lots of practices are needed to prepare a candidate adequately for the final D day. Besides practices, we also need to watch more political rally speeches delivered by others, especially from those veterans who have given wonderful speeches back in the 1950s and 1960s where intense political competition has nurtured a generation of good speakers.

The recent memorial TV program featuring the late Rajartnam is a very good learning tool. People of that time deliver wonderful speeches with a natural flare. If we make a comparison between the present political leaders' delivery of rally speeches as compared to those veterans back in the 1950s and 1960s, we could see distinctively the wide gap of quality. This is mainly due to the lack of political competition.

I believe that if we are not born a good speaker, we could learn up to 90% of the skills of a good speaker. Watching how good speakers deliver their speeches is an important learning process. Getting into the REAL environment whereby the good speakers give their speeches is a great experience for learning. In today's context, we may not get too many of such opportunities but we could get it overseas. I have deliberately flew to Taiwan during its last Presidential Election period, just to observe and learn from the Taiwanese speakers. The atmosphere and how the speakers move the crowd is really an eye opening experience.

To win an uphill battle against a giant opponent, it will take more than consistent ground work. Personal development in various aspects must be made progressively. Writing good political speeches and deliver them effectively is one very important aspect that we must spend more time on.

Goh Meng Seng

Political Press Conference & Media Image

14 Jan 2006 WP Launch of Manifesto

From left: James Gomez, Dr. Poh Lee Guan, Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim, Mohammed Rahizan bin Yaacob, Tan Wui-Hua

For any political party in the world, it is inevitable that it needs to engage the press and local mass media to maximize its public outreach. Holding Press Conference is one important way of getting political messages and ideas across to the masses.

In Singapore's context, we all know how bias the local media could be when it comes to political news and reporting. I am a very keen observer of local mass media reporting of local political news. For the last election in 2001, it was really an eye opening experience to see how skewed and bias the local mass media could be in putting up the WORST shots on alternative parties they could get from rallies or walkabout to put up on newspapers and prime time TV news on all channels. We have Dr. Chee's close up shots of his shouting incident, TV shots on the falling of chairs and speakers during one of SDA rallies, TV shots on a man wanting to go to WP rally stage and speak but was wrestled away by police, shots on candidates stretching heads, shots on the commotion and SDA supporters stopping buses and vehicles to paste SDA posters on them....etc etc.

A picture speaks a thousand words, a stream of films speaks a million words! It is important for us to learn how to make use of every opportunities provided to put up the BEST images to the press so that they could take good camera shots from whichever angle they choose to.

The recent press conference for our launch of Manifesto 2006 is pretty successful in the sense that we have managed to improve on the image front for good camera shots. Take a look at the following photos which were taken last year on 5 March 2005 for Casino Forum and 15 Oct 2005 Youth Wing Forum. Make a comparison with the photo above, taken on 14 Jan 2006 Launching of Manifesto.

5 Mar 2005 Casino Forum

From left: Goh Meng Seng, James Gomez, Chia Tilik

15 Oct 2005 Youth Wing Forum

From Left: Michael Cheng, Sylvia Lim, Tan Wui-Hua, Dr. Kelvin Tan, Glenda Lim

I hope you see the vast differences betwen the three photographs. We have come a long way to learn and progress from the amateurish set up to a more professional image. We could observe that in the first public event, CasinoForum, that we held in our new HQ in 2005, the setup of the "stage" was not properly done. The speakers (yes, including me in it) were not seated in a conducive way for good photo shots. We were all seated too "spread out" and it would make photos produced to become "loose shots". Furthermore, the party logo and wording was not up yet. If it wasn't for the charts that I have put up, the back would look very bare.

For the Youth Wing Forum, we have improved tremendously by putting up the party logo and wording. However the sitting arrangement is still a bit loose as there was a gap between Michael Cheng, our guest speaker, and Sylvia Lim. Furthermore, if you observe carefully you would be able to see there is a vast difference between the photo on Manifesto Launch and the Youth Wing Forum. Although both photos are taken with the WP logo and wording at the back, the distance between the heads and this logo are different in the two photographs. Loose shots could occur by having people spreading too far from each other. It could also occur when the distance between the people and the object of interest (in this case our logo and wording) is too wide apart.

From a camera man's point of view, it is difficult to get a good camera framing or shots when the distance between the object of interest is far away from the people who are also the focus theme of the camera shot. You would feel that the first photo on our Manifesto Launch looks good at first sight but most people cannot explain why it looks better than the one on Youth Wing Forum. If you have seen the photographs published in the local newspapers or the TV news report on the Manifesto Launch, you would feel that the images are "good" as compared to previous coverage of WP's forums without knowing exactly why. The reason is very simple. Under the environment that is within our control, we try to do our best to fine tune the setting so that it could provide us with the best camera shots. If you click on the various photographs to enlarge and observe carefully, the main difference lies in the chairs the various individuals are sitting on!

The new chairs that we used in the Manifesto Launch are able to provide a "higher" seats to all the speakers on the panel. It provides adjustable heights to each different individuals so that they could adjust their seats according to their heights. If you look carefully you would find that the "head level" of each of the speakers in the Manifesto Launch are basically quite even compared to those in the other two photographs.

It is a common "camera trick" for studio or film makers to "adjust" the heights of those involved by various means; eg, adjustable chairs, wear high/low heels or simply put planks for the shorter one to step on it. Thus it is also important for us to learn how to make adjustments to the environment under our control so that we could present the best images for the mass media.

Goh Meng Seng