Students from the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC), Laventille Campus were given an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of bmobile's Zombie Island when they visited the set on May 2, as part of an annual educational field trip sponsored by bmobile. Zombie Island is a main attraction once again at the 5th edition of the Republic Bank Decibel Entertainment Festival, which will run for 4 days from May 3rd to May 6th at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain. The educational tour occurred on the day before the start of the Festival and the tremendously popular scare house was undergoing the final touches required. The NESC sound recording and music production students met with Scot Sardinha, Festival Director and Rebecca Foster, Zombie Island Creative Director, who walked them through the Zombie Island set to give the students a first-hand look at what they do and how they apply their ideas and skills to bring the theme attraction to life every year.
Rhonda-Lee Yhapp, Senior Manager of Marketing Communications at TSTT, stated that bmobile was an ongoing partner and sponsor of the Festival for the 5 years of its existence and the annual NESC educational tour is an important part of this initiative. "It is always an honour for us to spend this time with the students as they explore their career options in a real life environment outside of the classroom. The tour provides a tangible experience that they can see, walk though, experience and immerse themselves in. Besides learning how they can apply their sound and music training to a project like this, the students learnt that Zombie Island is locally produced by Trinidadians and they can as well. This is 4th year that we have partnered with NESC to support the educational development of these very creative and bright young people and bmobile will continue to support the development of our country's youth in whatever way we can."
Sardinha and Foster discussed the integral role that sound and music plays in the Zombie Island experience and encouraged the students to think about careers beyond traditional music roles. "In a horror movie the sound is what brings the scenes to life and make them scary. So even if a person closes his eyes he can still feel scared from the sounds and music he is hearing. The same concept applies to a scare house. Sound is an important part of film and scare houses in terms of using the right sound to produce the right tension and scare." said Sardinha. Noting that he started off building furniture and later got into set design in the film industry and that Foster is a painter and visual artist who also transitioned into set design, Sardinha advised the students that the music industry may have areas that are saturated so they should try to find their own niche while always striving to become better at what they do. "Trinidad and Tobago is a great location for shooting any kind of movie, however not many people here do sound effects and this is an area with room for growth. But don't try to mimic what you are seeing in the music industry. Tell our own great story. There is always demand for new sounds and new content."
Sardinha added that the Festival Directors were very grateful for the immense support they received from bmobile over the 5 years of the festival. "I really enjoy doing this field trip with the students every year. I see a lot of myself in them and I know that once they believe in themselves, with the right support such as this, they too can attain their dreams." Jumarley Simon, a21-year old NESC student, shared that he loved the idea of Zombie Island and was looking forward to experiencing the final concept over the weekend. "I am grateful for the behind-the-scenes tour because there aren't many opportunities such as this available to us. I enjoyed the talk and advice from Scot and Rebecca. I'm always looking for different ideas so this was inspirational to me. It was great to hear directly from people who are actually working in the industry, especially because they are Trinidadians." His colleague, 19-year old Kayla-Rae Jules said "I was impressed that it is Trinidadians who are doing the Zombie Island set and that I don't have to visit another country to experience something like this but can see it in my own country. I am very happy to be on this tour. It was very interesting."
Christopher Morris, the students' Sound Recording and Music Production Teacher shared that this was the 4th year that he had accompanied the students on the field trip and it was a great opportunity for them because the tour provides greater insight into the course that they are doing. "Every year the students look forward to this field trip. It's great that bmobile is investing in our youth this way." The educational field trip also included attendance at the Festival so the teacher and each student were presented with complimentary 3 - day passes from bmobile.