Peek Behind the Scenes – Mingjie

by Ng Mingjie

The newspapers only publish entrepreneurs who have succeeded in life. But for each successful entrepreneur, there are probably ten or more other entrepreneurs who failed. Well that is what my parents always tell me. So when I told them about my team’s business ideas for HeyChinaTV!, they asked me why I was taking this course that did not fit into what I’m supposed to be studying. Initially in the first few weeks, my reply was simply “It is compulsory.” But I realised that as the weeks went by, I spent more time trying to justify to them why my business idea will work. On hindsight, I guess that is when I actually started to become more serious and passionate about what I was doing with my team.

The truth is that before this class I too felt that I could never become an entrepreneur. Ok honestly, I’m a person with no big visions and no big dreams, and I always felt that these were crucial elements in becoming an entrepreneur. Yet over the past few weeks, I learnt from the many CEO talks that what truly matters in becoming an entrepreneur is to be passionate about what you are doing, no matter whether it is big or small.

It is perhaps ironic, but after we came up with HeyChinaTV!, I actually started to work harder in my other subjects. During my accounting courses, I took the initiative to discuss with my other more well-read friends about the valuation of start-ups. I started analysing the strategies mentioned in my strategy classes to see how they could relate to our business model. And even today, when I opened the newspapers and saw the report on stricter enforcements by RIPs (Recording industry Performance Singapore) to make users pay for copyrighted music work ($2,000/year) or use royalty-free music ($80/song), I wondered if that will add extra costs to our video production, if we were to have music in our videos to make them more attractive.

Since we are on the subject of videos, I want to share a major takeaway I had during filming.

Me: Hey, go watch my HeyChinaTV! Video, it’s on YouTube!
Friend: Why? I don’t even see you in the video?!
Me: Ya, I’m not in there, but I’m part of it too you know!

When this happens, I always feel a bit sad. I guess even when watching major films, the audience generally focus their attention on the actors and actresses, but they have little idea how hard the crew work behind the scenes too. I learnt to be more appreciative of the work that goes on behind the cameras. Of course it is difficult to be an actor too! But with all the limelight placed on them, the people who work backstage taking the videos and photos, editing the films and preparing the props seem to become somewhat invisible. As I worked on HeyChinaTV!, I become more aware and grateful of those people behind the scenes, who may not receive accolades, but put in a lot of effort as well into creating the success of the final product, which I previously took for granted.

Lastly, I just want to say that I really appreciate my friends. I think it doesn’t really matter whether HeyChinaTV! turns out to be a success or failure. If it’s a success, GREAT! If not, then we will learn from our failure and start something else, maybe HeyDubaiTV! But in these 13 weeks, I have made many wonderful friends during the course, people who share the same passion as me; the love for Chinese culture, and the passion for filming, acting and simply trying new things. Thanks Marilyn, for always being the energiser bunny of the team. Thanks Jolene for sharing all your funny videos like Clicktv. Thanks Zhihao for being the neverending flow of creativity and thanks Steve for extending your knowledge in your current work to our project. And also throughout the course, to the classmates and Prof Pam who really inspired me, I’m very grateful for all of that. =)

SO HERE’S TO MORE HEYCHINATV! PRODUCTIONS! CHEERS!