Week 15 | Jwhiteual132024

Week 15: 13th-17th May

Monday

The main task that I was able to achieve today was gaining confidence and understanding what I’m going to be doing on the night of the End Of Year Show. The reason I was able to achieve this was because on Monday morning we had a full run through of the show in the actual location it was going to be done in. Despite it being a proper run through, unfortunately we could not play back the sound as exams were being taken in the building and it would have caused disruption. Despite this set back, it still meant that everybody was able to stand out at the front infront of the big screen with their titles on and say their short speeches. Furthermore, it also gave us a chance to double check any visual errors such as video being too dark to see.

The image below shows my video on the big screen. I was really happy with how it looked – it was clear and timing and pacing was good as expected. Everything was very positive.

The main problems we found were that there needed to be screens for when the hosts speak at the start, interval and ending. This meant that I needed to produce a new edit with these changes in place. I spoke with Aimie to check what she would like on the screen during these times, and she suggested that the logo would work just fine. To add to this, one persons film was not fully edited, so this was either going to be kept in and explained on the night, or changed in the edit too

with different depeartments achieving different tasks that needed to be complete. My role over the past 15 weeks has been to produce the graphics for the show. Through multiple versions, lots of discussions with the directors of the show, and set department, I would say that I have done a very good job at achieving an overall brand and feel for the show. A great example of this is through the logo I created, and the effect that my logo had on the set departments programmes. This can be seen below.

That afternoon I began the final evaluation to get the ball rolling with it. I find starting big writing pieces like this quite daunting and difficult, so by just starting it, it should make coming back to it after the end of year show far easier. The stage I was able to give a good go at was the unit 12 reflection stage where I was able to determine how useful what I did in unit 12 was regarding my unit 13 production. This was interesting to look back on as I now realise how many changes I made, yet how much I learnt along the process of doing this.

Tuesday

On Tuesday I made the changes that needed to be made to the End of Year Show video sequence that I had found yesterday. The original plan was that the person who had not completed their video would let me know what they wanted to do, but this was not the case. A lecturer came to me and said that he would no longer be able to attend tomorrow night and that it would be ideal if I could take what I had of the video they sent to me, and stitch it together to remove any black screens. As I was generally happy with the position I was in regarding my own personal work, I said that I’d spend the next hour cutting his piece together and trying to make it flow. It’s only fair that his work is presented in the same ways as ours despite not being there, so I didn’t mind doing this at all. I had to do a bit of re-jigging and place some audio transitions in to try keep the flow of the music sounding right, but overall I was happy with the outcome of his cut: it was a lot more presentable.

Now that I had made all changes that needed to be made, I had the very final version. I spoke with Jenson, the person controlling the computer on the night, and gave him this new edit. It was a good thing that after college today we had a full sound and video check, as we actually had the proper, final video to check now.

Between the times of making these changes and getting to 4 o’clock, I produced part 3 of LO7 which was the presentation in front of my 2 lecturers to discuss 5 main questions. This would be a chance for me to reflect on everything I have done, and speak through the decisions I made and why I made them with someone. The purpose here is to evaluate and explain the entire process of the production (including unit 12, specialist study). I tried to make this powerpoint clear with simple bullet points as I only had 25 minutes to present my ideas. These bullet points are essentially little reminders for me to help me branch off when answering the questions. An example of one of the slides I produced can be seen in the image below.

Now that it was 4o’clock, a few of us stayed behind to do a full sound and visual test in the location for where it’s being held. This was vital in ensuring that sound was good across all films throughout the night. The image below shows us working out the most optimal sound levels for the main speakers on the video wall and bleachers. To overcome this problem we set one person at the front, middle and back of the seating and played someone’s production. From there, we were then able to see where it suited everyone’s preferences for volume. We ended up settling on 8 notches down from the top and max volume on the latop and media player. This can be seen in the image below.

Furthermore, the photo below shows me sat listening and watching the video to check it’s its quality and suitability.

Wednesday

Today was the big day that this entire production has been leading up to – the end of year show. This was a really important day where we were going to be able to showcase our work to an audience of over 80 people. As someone who has never done public speaking to this many people before, was going to be a big mental challenge.

Every Tuesday, and Friday in the final weeks, we have worked as a group to collectively come together and bring together a show for this very day. We had set our selves roles amongst the group, with different depeartments achieving different tasks that needed to be complete. My role over the past 15 weeks has been to produce the graphics for the show. Through multiple versions, lots of discussions with the directors of the show, and set department, I would say that I have done a very good job at achieving an overall brand and feel for the show. A great example of this is through the logo I created, and the effect that my logo had on the set departments programmes. This can be seen below.

It can be seen that the font, colours and overall style of the logo, played into the outcome of the inside of the programme. My contribution goes beyond just performing my role and task, as I also communicated with my team. I think that this is just so important for making a cohesive and well-thought out show, so I’m glad I did this.

Upon arriving at college, though my role within the production was technically complete (all graphics work and putting the video sequence for the productions and music together), there was still a lot to get done in the other departments – particularly set department. Therefore, instead of focusing on my own personal work, I helped out with them to ensure that their tasks were done before the opening tonight. The tasks that they needed to complete were to cut out all signs, laminate all of them and organise them into piles ready for putting on walls later that evening. Furthermore, they also needed to organise all the sweets and popcorn into bags too. They had made the decision to do the popcorn just before the doors open for the show, as this meant it wouldn’t go stale, but the sweets were okay to be divided up now. Therefore, I volunteered to help cut out all of the signs as this was a very simple but long job to complete. I did this because it meant they could focus on the other tasks with more specific details they had already discussed with each other before hand about. The photos below show this being taken place.

However, one problem that I encountered was that there was no ‘Row F’ posters. I double checked with set department that this was the case, and confusingly, they had managed to miss out ‘F’ on the file that they sent to be printed out. To overcome this issue, I downloaded the template of the original posters, created a new slide for F and printed it out myself. Though I understand that the outcome of this print was not as high quality as all of the other posters, it was 100x better than having no poster at all – people needed to know where to sit. These posters can be seen in the photo below.

After the posters were complete, and the sweets had been divided up, I talked with Jenson, person in charge of playback on screen, to check everything was okay and that he was ready for tonight. Throughout working on this show, I have often found myself checking up on people to see if they were alright. This is not because it is more job role, but must be something that I just like to do – it allowed me to understand that everyone was happy, and if not, I could try help them or report it to Aimie who is in charge of the show as a whole. I actually wasn’t aware that I was like this before taking part in this show, so I’ve been able to discover something about myself – this is very interesting and makes me think about the role I could have undertaken if I wasn’t in the graphics department (Aimie’s assistant or something similar).

Returning back to my conversation with Jenson, he stated that he thought that playing it back on a premiere pro timeline was going to be a better option for us tonight as it meant that when he paused the video, nothing came up from the bottom of the screen like a normal mp4 video being played back through media player does. I was skeptical at first as we had only just done a full sound a video test the night before, and this was using media player, so I didn’t want to start trying to change things now. However, despite this, I told him and another person in tech to go try it in the venue now and see how it runs. Roughly half an hour later he returned with very positive news stating that it was a much better option as it looked far more professional – so I spoke with Aimie to have it checked with her and we said that he should use Premiere Pro to play back on. This was one of those moments that we had to just trust Jenson – there was no reason not too, especially as he was head of tech, but due to time restraints, there was no time for me or Aimie to come check too.

I think what I have learnt through this experience is that communication is good as we were able to make a conscious decision as a group, and that I must trust other's expertise and job roles, as they probably know more than I do.

As 5:30 came about, everyone now had to be back in college and working on achieving their roles. My role on the night was originally to be standing outside and directing those from the car park to the main entrance, however, this changed, and I was now performing multiple roles at once – overseeing all departents and checking everything was okay for them. To add to this, if a particular department needed more help/support, I could help.

As it was 5:30 and doors didn’t open until 6:30, it was the preparation stage. During this time I performed 5 main roles:

As I had mentioned earlier, set deparment needed to create the popcorn bags just before doors opened to ensure that it did not go stale, so to help with this process, I helped to do this. I was told by them to use a scoop and a half of popcorn for each bag, so this is exactly what I did. The image below shows me doing this, and the outcome of moving the table appropriately and organising the sweets/popcorn too to make it look presentable.

I checked up on those in the car park. Though we had tested the radio connectivity and distance at which it could radio from, Aimie was having problems reaching those in the car park. Though it wasn’t for any specific reason and it was just to make sure everything was okay and they were having no problems, it was just a bit of a problem. Therefore, I offered to go outside and check up on those in the car park. Everything was absolutely fine, the connection was just a little off and it would occasionally cut off. They were doing their jobs well and they had actually made the conscious decision to start using the smaller, closer car park as there was plenty of spots here, which was good to see. I let them know how much time they had until they needed to head back too, as I wanted to ensure that they wouldn’t forget to return/come back too late.

Another contribution I made in this set up time was helping to solve a problem we faced. The original room we had planned to use as the cloakroom was locked, despite having checked with out lecturer that we had access to it. This room not only had space for us to use as a cloakroom, but also had the seats that we had planned to use for the front two rows. The main problem now was that we didn’t have a whole two rows worth of seats. To overcome this issue, luckily there were some rooms avaible to us that had chairs in, so we made a group effort to bring all the chairs out and organise them. This then leads onto my final contribution I made...

With the cloakroom being in a different space, I now needed to set up my cloakroom sign in a different spot. We decided to use the room right next to the enterance of the building, as this makes most sense. After attaching this poster to the wall next to the door, I then proceeded to go and put all other posters up too, working with set department too instruct people where to place all of the row posters too. The image below shows me putting up a poster outside of the main entrance doors, directing people and telling them that it is this way.

After everything was set up, the audience members started coming through the doors and it was all starting to feel real! During the time between the audience members coming in and the show starting, I greeted audience members, showed them to the seats and to where the toilets were (overall just having a smile on my face and inviting them in).

Once the show begun, I was situated in the corridor down the side, along with everyone else. I was quiet throughout speeches and films being shown, but often initiated the clapping with loud applauses to signal the crowd to applaud too. This was important to keep the show feeling positive and boost overall enjoyment of the night. I also made sure to congratulate people for going up and speaking, as it’s a very nerve wracking thing – companionship is important when working in a large team as individuals can often alone despite their being lots of people being around them. By individually walking up to an individual and speaking to them, I’m able to boost their morale and confidence.

During the interval of the show, as my documentary had not yet been shown, I didn’t have an opportunity to speak to audience members for feedback, but I did make sure to continue being positive and smiley, directing people to where they needed. Just as I had before at the start of the show, as the time got closer to the end of the interval, I instructed everyone that they needed to return back to their first positions ready for the show to begin.

As it was getting closer to my speech, I went out into the stairwell to practice what I was going to say as I was getting very nervous. This seemed to help me and calm down the nerves. To prepare going on, I made sure everyone was stood in line of the order we were going on. After the person infront of me had their film end, it was the my turn to go up. I waited for Aimie’s instruction to go up as this is what we had practiced and been told to do. This was vital as Aimie knew when the title screen was paused and mic audio was turned on. The actual speech went well and I’m proud of how well it went. The images below show me doing my speech and having my documentary on the big screen.

I think that the show went really well with very little problems. Despite all the disagreements we had in our meetings throughout the past 15 weeks, it all came together in the end, and it was nice to be able to work together to produce something engaging and fun for everyone. We managed to raise £223.25 for a local charity which was really nice to be able to achieve.

However, one improvement that I would have made to the show is the way in which we got feedback. It was really hard for everyone to get feedback, especially as there are 22 of us all asking for it. I think it should have been done in another way as the QR code situation just didn’t work – seeing as I was in the second half, I also didn’t get an opportunity to speak to people during the interval. I could have spoken to them after the show, but everyone had already left and photos were being taken so I didn’t get the chance. I did manage to speak to one lady however who stated that she really enjoyed my documentary and found it very powerful, particularly Eddie’s interview with the waveform on screen. She found that because it was a child’s voice and all you could see was a graphic on screen, it felt very powerful. What I can interpret from this is that she was able to gain a emotional connection with the interviewee without there being any physical face to look at. This is interesting as body language is a big way in which we comprehend emotion, so I’m glad that the technique I used paid off. As a reminder, the interview can be seen in the image below.

Besides this, however, I only had one other piece of feedback which was through the google forms survey QR code on the programme. This feedback stated that a 36-50 year old female really enjoyed the documentary and found it ‘informative & gained greater understanding of misophonia’. This obviously shows that I’ve achieved my goal for the documentary but doesn’t leave me with much left to improve on. It would have been nice to receive more feedback than this, but I think the technique we used to receive such feedback perhaps wasn’t optimal.

Thursday + Friday

Throughout these 2 final days of the week, I was able to reflect upon all that has happened regarding the show, and also start the formal evaluation where I'm able to reflect upon the whole process of producing my documentary too. After producing something for so long, it was really nice to be able to take a step back and look at everything I have produced. I was able to complete Impact of Your Specialist Study, Your Intentions and The journey within this time.

Furthermore, we also had a final meeting regarding the show to discuss who we were going to say thankyou to, and to see if we could get any marketing material from the college about the show too. What ended up happening is that some members of our team spoke with marketing and they asked for little comments from each head of department. As I did a lot of the graphics work, I was asked to write a little note about this.

I'm writing this as of Week 16 Thursday to say that this marketing material then got published on both Cirencester College's website and Instagram. It was really nice to see everyone's collective team effort being shown off as we all deserve it for such a good night. This can be seen below.