This is Prom Night 2008, from the MJC photography club's point of view (voiced by Vicky!). This is gonna be photo-heavy...
I can't exactly pin-point when our preparation for the 'print & sell' studio booth set-up started, but from the very beginning we'd already prepared ourselves mentally for the challenge we were posed, to even further improve on the amazing job the club did last year for prom!
We began with advertising campaigns, including a one page advert on the latest issue of Musings, and we had similar 'print & sell' studio booth set-ups on Open House and JC 1 Year-End Bash. Ooh, here's a photo of Vanessa and Shirleen at the Bash! They both looked absolutely sweet in their lovely get-up, and Shirleen brought her Barbie polaroid camera!
We didn't earn much on those two events, but profit wasn't our incentive and heng we had those two set-ups, or we would not have been as efficient on prom night!
Well, there were quite a number of differences between this year and last year's set-up. We had 2 backdrops, including the new bee-yee-aye-yooooofiful red backdrop that Mr Cheng bought. Many couples were happy with it...
(can I just say that my sister was damn gorgeous lah pls, and so was Nawal, the beautiful lady she's hugging in this photo...)
Shot, of course, by Canon 5D Mark II using the one and only Mr Cheng.
Seeing the huge groups of people who came for photos, I think we're all appreciative of Mr Cheng having organised a studio photography lesson for us by Mr Tan Eng Howe. Mr Tan taught us how to arrange people for shots and how to arrange the light sources accordingly. He taught us to note the overall shape of the arrangement, the importance of discordance in a line of people, colour co-ordination and various standard but classy poses.
This was especially useful for Chin Chye, who was manning the grey backdrop, and had to arrange large groups of people...
Hi Shirleen! Do you have anything to say?No.
Hahaha... Okay. Well actually ah, a lot of very nice photos got one lor, but all in Zheng Hui's lappie, so sad!!
Here's shots of Chin Chye hard at work!
Thanks Jun Sen for the pictures!
I don't have any photo of the rest of the photography booth set-up, which is really really sad! Kingston, Eunice, did you take? I think Mr Tee did, but too shy to ask him leh... >_<
On Prom Night itself, we also helped the Councilors take photos of the prom king and queen nominees, and here are the shots of the Royal Two by Mr Cheng, Muhd Khairil...
...and smokin' Anmari!
Also, my sister was a nominee too! *proud* Being her sister, I guess I'm allowed to say biased things, so yeah I DO SO THINK VERY MUCH that she's prom queen material. :)
I remember pausing after having finished serving a customer and looking around. Everybody was busy with whatever their duty was, taking a step back, and admiring our whole set-up. In that moment, I realised how elaborate it looked, and felt very impressed and proud of, well, ourselves!
And of course, I found myself wondering at how everything, everything was literally packed out of Mr Cheng's car. I mean, you look at the whole set-up, the backdrop, the viewing gallery, the printing station, the collection bit, the stands, and you'd probably think we hired a lorry to lug everything over. But everything fit into the back of his car!
Great car Mr Cheng! ^_^
We left school at around 11am and unloaded everything around 12pm. By about 4pm, we were ready for our first dry run.
At 6.39pm, our first customer was at the viewing gallery selecting their photos! I served them, and boy, my heard raced like siao. I remember being so nervous and excited, like an over-eager puppy! I made a few blunders, but thank goodness Vanessa kept her cool! Aha, I wrote on their receipt $5 for a 4R, and when she corrected me, I gave them the wrong change! I didn't realise it until Vanessa noticed an anomaly in the receipt.
Oh, and I almost forgot to pass the CF card to the printing station. And I think I almost forgot to ask for their number (I had to run up to them to ask for it). ^_^"""
But lucky they were really nice, and I was much more careful for the rest of the evening. OH!! And Mr Cheng is such a good salesman!! He got our third customer to order and A3!! Ahaha, I was serving the customer, then he came up, talked to them a bit, did his old *nudgenudge* It's-a-good-deal-I-know-you-know-it-aiya-just-get-lah-one-night-only thing and they accepted it! Whoa! I remember we were all very happy for it. :D
The rest of the night went by very quickly! It was... well it was hectic when it got busy, dull when there weren't any customers (though poor Shirleen and Zheng Hui were pretty much engaged the whole night printing).
When it got really really busy, I don't know how the rest felt, but I remember just mechanically going through the motions of...
1. Trying pathetically to persuade people to take photos
2. Hovering about as they got their shot and not really being of much help in the arrangement of the people
3. Grabbing the CF Card from Mr Cheng/Chin Chye and rushing over to the viewing gallery, slotting in the card, and rapidly pressing F5 waiting for it to load and feeling bad for making the customers wait, 'cause it's 'their night' and all...
4. Tapping foot quite impatiently while they hemmed and hawwed selecting their photos.
5. Not really properly registering the price they were paying as I wrote it down on the receipt.
It was weird! The money Just. Kept. Coming. And I think we all tried not to think about it, though all of us had the niggling worry that we wouldn't be able to achieve our target. Part of me believed that we definitely would, seeing the crowd of customers and the more than occasional receipts totalling above $100. But there was this other part that told me not to get my hopes up so I wouldn't feel too disappointed later.
There were a number of panicky moments of course!
At around 3pm, before the set-up, we couldn't find the 3-leafed receipt books anywhere in Raffles City! So me and Vanessa headed down to Bras Basah Popular in the pouring rain. We had to borrow umbrellas from the friendly hotel staff. It was really cats and dogs big fat raindrops monsoon rain kinda rain, and the bottoms of our pants were soaked. Eheh, when we got back, Vanessa switched to her slippers, and left her sneakers to dry behind the pillar. I remember Ms Koh commenting euphemistically that there was a funny smell around the printing area...
At 8pm, the printing people (aka Shir + ZH) predicted that, at the rate orders were coming in, the 60 A4 printing paper we brought wouldn't be enough, so Vanessa rushed down to Funan to buy more Ilford smooth pearl! But! Challenger was closed!!
Dun dun dun!!
Heh, in the end, she bought from South Asia Computer, which fortunately, had it in stock... Phew!!
Later in the evening, we experienced a shortage of CF cards, which we totally did not anticipate. The CF cards were stacking up with their orders at the printing station, where, at that time, Shirleen and Zheng Hui were steadily and quietly doing their job. I guess stressed people aren't really conversational. I remember I was impressed by Chin Chye, who was delaying the people by distracting them with adjustments to the poses as he waited for a CF card, and they didn't realise it.
The issue was resolved by Elliot and Angeline I think, with minor adjustments to the workflow, and Mr Cheng praised it, which was, of course, a fantastic thing!
And even better, we made $****.40 that night!!! WOOOOO~!!!!
We closed shop at about 12.30am, and packed everything in record time. The councillors were faster though! Ahaha, like last year's batch, we stayed out later than the councillors did... By about 1.30am, everything was in Mr Cheng's car, and we all headed down in 2 taxis to Lau Pa Sat, where Mr Cheng gave those who could make it, a treat!
:D :D :D Sambal stingray! Satays all around! Kopi-peng and fried rice! :D :D :D
Okay, and I'll just insert here what I typed in the tagboard, 'cause it's more permanent here right?
Great job, everyone on the success of this Print & Sell!! It was fantabulous... Thank you Mr Chengand Ms Koh for the support and all the help. Without you two greatgreatgreat teachers, our club, just wouldn't feel right.
Thank you to the members who came down to help out, VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! Chin Chye, Humairah, Syaz, Soon Siang and Kar Mun. Exco, wonderful job, yeah? XD
Alumni, thank you also for the encouragement, Jun Sen, Eunice and Kingston for coming down (and even covering event photography), and those who were actually attending prom (and looking damn unbelievably hot), Cherish, Suerya, Xiuqi and Yongen for taking out their time to help out or visit! Not to mention all the preparation and planning assistance, especially Quentin for the advice!!
Also to everyone else I've missed for the miscellaneous, but vital, help! Every single person was important in contributing to the event!!
<3
Prom Night 2008, was a good night for MJC Photography Club.
Especially it's pet cat.
