#zhexian

It’s been one week back to the land of eternal summer and life of programming and debugging. It almost feel like attending hosting an educational show during Boston’s winter was centuries ago.

Thinking back about my first ever self-hosted home-made video, despite the tight timeline and amateur quality, I am very proud that I’ve completed something during the MIT exchange, and have become more outspoken and confident.

In retrospect, there are several areas I could have improved on the video given more time:

 I.                    Visual

 With more time, I would start over and run a storyboarding critique session before actual filming. Plan properly, change in response to feedback, and make the video more visually interesting.

As for visual quality, I should at least re-film the scenes with me sitting in front of the window and darkened by the strong backlight, if not re-filming every scene according to the new storyboarding plan.

Also, need to be more familiarize with the script, so that I could talk in a more natural manner, and film each scene in a continuous way without the awkward jump cuts in between.

With a smoother rough cut I would explore more transition effect options available, both by physically moving the camera or using post production software, even if I do not end up using too many distractive transitions.

 II.                  Audio

 First, use a mic.

I have tried some using the DeNoiser in Adobe premiere without understanding its working mechanism. Given more time I would systematically learn the techniques for cleaning up audio files by understanding the science behind them.

Also, I would explore the wide selection of audio effect and background music to subtly change the viewers’ mood when watching different scenes.

 III.                Interaction

 Safety is boring; take creative risks.

Examples include scenes showing interest moments that causing people to laugh: falling down, being tickled, or the high five…JELLYFISH!

It would be more interactive when instead of I talk all the time, the audience is engage by demonstration such as the jelly fish high five (need to work on the delivery so it can be presented in a video form).

Will be great to film with friends/guests/passers-by, and interact with them during the video to make the show more natural and engaging.

 IV.                Content

 The topic on why we laugh is broad and rarely known. In the video I mainly discussed the evolutionary aspect, but given more time other areas could be explored, either integrated with the current video or as a series with the same theme.

These areas include the genetic, neurological, psychological, developmental (effect from childhood experiences), cognitive (learning and education), cultural, as well as social reasons behind laughter.

Tldr: lessons are helpful; filming is hard.

This has been the most detailed and meaningful video hosting / making workshop I’ve attended so far. This is also the lesson I spent the most time and effort on during my entire exchange here. That is why I had really hoped to produce something great in response to the great course and instructors.

Due to tight schedule, I was only able to shoot on Friday for about 1 hour. Thanks @hishin (Valentina) for your generous help in filming, including running around in Stata looking for venues and standing in the cold shooting. I did not expect shooting to be this hard though, misreading the lines so many times despite having redrafted the script for a long time. Time constraint might be a reason but not an excuse.

These two days have been my favorite parts of the course so far. Thank you cute 6 graders and fellow course mates, your generous feedback has helped the script and future video to be so much better each day!

Based on the suggestions I received, here are some areas to look into:

1.       Find a natural link between the existing content with the big picture à need to read up more on evolutionary biology and other related subject à change the intro, flow, and ending accordingly

2.       The question why we laugh is not fully answered yet, some parts still unclear à again, need to read up on laughing

3.       Decide how to film it àideation (watch videos on similar subject) ,storyboarding, logistics (venue, props, other people, attire)

4.       Design the most suitable way for me to present the topic on laugh, based on my personality and style

Why do we laugh?

 To find out why we laugh, let’s first think about what do laughing and fighting have in common.

Let’s start with the eyes: do you see how we squint, and our cheeks raise up to protect our eyes? We also lift the upper lip to expose our sharp teeth, as if to scare others off. Another similarity is that we produce a loud and explosive sound, be it ‘ha-ha’ for laughing or ‘argh’ for fighting. They threaten our opponent and controls our breathing to lower our heart rate and blood pressure during a fight.

 Those similarities are so irrational – why is laughing similar to a fighting? We laugh to show friendliness and happiness, not aggression or defense!

 We may find the answer from something called play-fighting. We see it between animals from puppies to our human ancestors, where they fight with each other in a non-violent, playful way.

Let’s say there are two Apes, A and B, play-fighting with each other, and Ape A puts its finger on to the stomach of Ape B. We know that the stomach is a sensitive and vulnerable region, so when Ape A sees the finger coming, or feels the finger at its stomach, its body turns into an alert, defensive state, where we see its eyes squint and teeth exposed.

 But moments later, when Ape A realized that the ‘attack’ comes from its friend Ape B, and it’s only a harmless play, the defensive Ape will turn its halfway exposed teeth into a smile-like expression, and produce the ‘ha-ha’ sound, as a signal saying that ‘this is a false alarm; there is nothing to worry about’.

This is also why we laugh when being tickled by a friend. We don’t laugh when we tickle ourselves, because we have expected it to happen. We also don’t laugh when a creepy stranger suddenly tickles us.

 What we see in the tickling case is summaries in a theory called a ‘Benign-Violation’ theory. Benign means the action is harmless, it doesn’t hurt us in any way, and violation refers to the unexpectedness, that we don’t see it coming. When the ‘benign’ and ‘violation’ happen at the same time, we laugh.

 This benign violation is not limited to physical ‘attacks’, but to social ones too. For example, [two people high five, one takes back his or her hands like in a jelly-fish movement] we laugh in this case, because normally when people high five, we expect the two hands to clap, this jelly fish is unexpected. At the same time, this violation of our social expectation is benign, because it doesn’t hurt us in any sense. Because there are both benign and violation factors happening, we laugh.

 So this is why we laugh when we laugh, and here are some fun facts about laughing:

1.    Why laughing is contagious

Why do we laugh?

 What is the similarity between laughing and fighting? We can find out by taking a look at our facial expressions.

We first squint, so the skin on our cheek could pad and protect our eyes. We also lift the upper lip to expose our teeth, especially showing our sharp canines in preparation for an attack. Another similarity is that we produce a loud and explosive sound. This not only threatens the opponent, but controls our breathing to lower our heart rate and blood pressure that prepares us for the fight.

 This seems so irrational – why is laughing similar to a defensive fight? If we laugh to show friendliness and happiness, what is the purpose of sharp teeth and threatening sound?

 One theory suggests us to look at play fights. For many mammals, including human ancestors, play-fighting is an important part of development, because it trains our basic skills. However, play-fighting usually carries a high risk of injury, so it needs to be carefully controlled.

In a play fight between Ape A and B, success means breaking the defense, and making direct contact with the opponent’s vulnerable body part. For example, Ape A may succeed in a play-fight against Ape B by getting its fingers on to the stomach of Ape B.

Now, Ape A’s body is getting ready for a fight – its eyes squint, teeth exposed, and breath controlled. The signal means, ‘You’re getting through my defense.’

But if the play fight stays as a harmless play, the defensive Ape will turn its halfway exposed teeth into a smile-like expression, and produce the ‘ha-ha’ sound to suggest a ‘false alarm’.

This is also why we laugh when being tickled – when we sense the touch at our vulnerable stomach, our body is ready to stop the attack. But if it is done by someone we trust, we will turn the defense into laughter. The trust factor is important, because we usually don’t laugh when tickled by a creepy stranger.

 There is a ‘Benign-Violation’ theory that summarizes the reasons why we laugh. Benign means the action is harmless, and violation refers to the unexpected threat. When both happens at the same time, we laugh.

As humans evolved, the types of violation expanded from simple physical threats. It could be violation of linguistic norms, like the unusual accents [insert video]. It may also be social norm violation, like this high-five [insert video]. It could even be violation of moral norms, like this [insert video or screenshot].

Anything that threatens our sense of how things “should be” is humorous, so long as the threatening situation also seems benign.

While developing a steep learning curve in video visual production in these two days, learning skills from hosting to camera framing, I was also constantly reminded how my original script is no way suitable for turning into a video presentation. One main problem is that the script contains too much technical information, resulting in insufficient attention to details and not lack of breath time.

The question I asked myself is – what is the one interesting point in my script that I really want to share to others?

There is one thing happening during the 3rd day’s session that made me ponder for a long time.

We were asked to give a hosting practice based on a short passage. Carmelo, one of our non-native English speaker classmates, presented two trials in parallel, the first in English, and the second one in his mother tongue Italian. Despite his mastery in English, we could still tell that his latter presentation was much more confident and relaxed – two characteristics highly valued in good video hosting.

It makes me think about my own situation. I spent the earlier part of my life in China learning mute English, where I can read and understand English as a second language but not speaking it well. During my later life in Singapore, I picked up oral English skills while at the same time learnt Singlish – a version of English with unique accent and grammar as a result of the interesting mix of several south east Asian dialects. Singlish is sufficient for my daily life and studies, but is it enough for hosting an English based educational show?