Greetings friends, and I wish today is a good day to you. Speaking about Wednesday, what comes to your mind? Middle of the week? The day you can watch movie before its official release? Or the day where you can meet Daphne Iking? For me, it’s the third one.
Thanks to Wyomia and Tracy, I had an honour to attend a short emcee training session with Daphne Iking, one of Malaysia’s most sought-after professional emcee. Orang Sabah baini. For me, since I was born and raised watching national TV channels (cannot afford Astro back then), the one I remember most about Daphne is her work as Explorace host, which I used to watch a lot when I was in secondary school. She has a lively personality, and a truly friendly person, on-screen and off-screen.
If you were thinking that this is thinking of changing my direction of business, it is actually not really accurate as I am always running a mixed business. Apart from freelance photographer, I also a freelance emcee for hire, and sometimes sing for the event that I am hosting. Sometimes, I miss my old band, Taruh Dari (3D), where we always cover Muse songs such as Plug In Baby, Hysteria, Knight of Cydonia and Starlight. Recently, I am inclined to learn more about Freddie Mercury after watching his epic biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Anyway, the main objective for me to join this training session is to get myself exposed to the people from the industry. In this case, Daphne is the right person to give advice from the industry, and she is truly down-to-earth person.
Today, we are also honoured to be part of The Studio’s history, where it is officially launched today. You can always contact them via Instagram, @oongid_butiza for your supply of essential oils.
Joining me in the training are like-minded persons like Fariza, Tracy, Priscilla, Irene (she drove all the way from Kuala Belait), Sue, Karen, Balkizz, Andy “Afgan”, Muz and Sabrina (our sole participant from Curtin University). As usual, Joe is charge of the media as he double-hats as photographer and videographer (and drone too).
Talking about the training, there is truly a lot you can learn from Daphne. She is very generous with her experiences, and she will do her best to answer all of our questions. She structured her session in such a way it is easy to be understood, regardless of your experience years in emcee job. I love how she explains the role of an emcee as the one-single person that make or break an event. One can almost tell that an event will be successful or not by observing the opening by an emcee. Such is the importance of an emcee. A good emcee should be able to command the crowd eloquently and keep the event true to its intention. She goes on to share her personal story througout her career as an emcee, and I think that is one of the thing that I would not hear elsewhere.
Despite all of the technical advises, it should be accompanied with due amount of practice, practice and more practice to perfect the art of emcee. Should you want to learn more about the art of Master of Ceremony, The Studio will be offering more courses in the future. So, stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy these photos captured during the event and like what Thorsten would say, “always wear a camera”.
End Note:
For me, everyone should have a dream, and pursue it. At least, if you cannot do something about it for now, talk to the person whom you would like to be in the future. They would give the advice to you, “Ask, and you shall receive” – Matt 7:7. Even if you cannot make a huge progress due to various reasons, e.g. you are working full time elsewhere or family-bound, take baby steps at one time. Most importantly, you are making a progress. If you wish to speak eloquently like Daphne, learn from her, and practice daily. If you want to create an amazing images, create images daily, and review, and create more images. The examples are endless, and all you need is some self-love, and pour it onto your dream. Don’t be your own dream killer, but be a dream chaser. God bless.