After I heard of some suggestions from classmates , I am more confident than before.
Because at that time we were really busy with other subjects and I was really worried about how we were gonna present our video C draft. But amazingly, we made it more that we were expecting. Maybe under pressure , we had a kind of motivation to work it better than before.
But here are some things we need to keep in mind for the improvements:
1. More connections between the cards and characters :
Because it seems not much meaning between the stop-motion of cards moving and the characters’ faces.
2. the speeding of camera’s moving and editing is good, but maybe we need more than that.
3. we need to recreate the conversation between those three characters
4. maybe we can out more words to explain–like putting some sentences of the poem
5. characters do not interact with each other ( i think we want that kind of feeling )
6. someone suggested that maybe we can build the connection between characters and cards, is that the characters can play cards together. Maybe the card can be seen from the particular shots.
7. Seth said we have improved our presentation , but still need more. —-Which I strongly agree, because three of us are not talkative people, but we still need to present our ideas clearly besides video playing. Though we are trying to put all of our thoughts into the video, and trying to make everything clearly presented in the videos. Hence I made my mind to do more practice on presentation and rehearsal , I am hoping during the showcase, we can bring other people a surprise.
Today ,we had our last class , we viewed the sketches of our last video. I am really happy to see all of my classmates including me and my group mates have improved a lot . Like Jim’s group’s works are always abstract and they are very cool and impressive. This time he displayed a dreamy video ,and i really like the changes of its lighting on the beach. And he got close-ups of the foot.The blur comes up, the whole feeling of this video ’s visual and sound make me think of an old projector. However I think the background sound is too much, .
And Julianna’s group : Firstly , the picture is very neat and clean . The secondly they used stop-motion of laptops to start their video, which is interesting. They used a good communication way —visual, because they put different people speaking different language in the shots, which reflects the theme of their poem. The communication between laptops, between people , has been expressed very well. But I suggested that maybe it is better they make the volume down during the people’s talking, because it is still noisy.
And for Claire’s group: they used stop motion as well, which is made up from words , shell, and trees. But i think the speed is too fast, I could not really see the words clearly. Their music is good, which has a feeling of memories.
About Lucy’s group ’s ghost story, it is a very simple and funny story. But I think the language is a little bit over the level that most audience could understand , and i m afraid that if they changed the language it would not be funny any more. And as they told me, they actually wanted to make a horror one, but it seems to be a comedy. I did not know that is a horror film at all ! But i think it is very common that happens in every students who just start making their own works ,especially the genre of horror , it is easily to become funny. However i think it could be a good try.
As our idea for the video C is that we can use more conflicts , which is different from the previous ones.
Here we used stop motion to present the poker cards. The Queen , King , Jack all have implied meanings of the three characters And we cuts between the still images and videos.which suggests the rhythm. And we adjusted the speed , the effects of the editing creates a strong visual outcomes.
And I am thinking about maybe those three characters can meet in an elevator in the future.
I think this semester’s PP2 gives us an awesome opportunity and I gained a lot from practicing and actual video producing.
During this semester we started with brainstorming, and most of our group works’ ideas are from me. And also i was active in shooting and editing. I also helped out with finding of actors. And also all my group really like trying on different things, we love doing some experiments, which give us some ideas for our projects and help us with technical practices.
And I like learning the technical knowledge about Final Cut pro, Stop-motion, and time-lapse. As a very useful tool, Final Cut Pro makes online video does not need to spend much on shooting, use of editing can bring good effects to the video. Also I got know more about Canon 5D. It is a new method that I want to learn since the first time I watched Matrix.
The main thing that influenced me most is the process from the sketch to the final project. After gathering others’ suggestions we have to look at our own selves ‘ work again and find out what we need to do Maybe we need to change some ideas also make some decisions by our own. The first step is difficult , because we have to “get over” ourselves, watch our video as a stranger, more think about if you are someone else, how you gonna read this video ? Will you think it is a good piece ? What you think is not good enough ? Then we can improve our work.
And also giving others suggestions is also a practice of thinking critically. And it also can inspire us as well.
After all, it is a quite fun subject, I am learning by doing , and quite enjoy the both of them .
This semester’s seminars are fanatic, they bring a lot benefits to us . I like inviting people from different areas and meet them . Because media this environment is communicating with different groups of people not only in a narrow area. I learnt a lot from group work about how to organize a seminar and how to work with people.It is very good practice . Here is my self -assessment for my work in our seminar—Indie Online.
Contribution and collaboration
At the first stage, I did brainstorming with my group mates and discussed our topic. And there were several ideas about our seminar’s topic and content. So we decided that make several different parts to make indie online. After that I did some research on the basic knowledge about our idea. And I shared the link on our facebook discussion page. And then I also did research for our potential guest speakers, and I created a list of them. Furthermore, I got 4 professionals‘ replies and all of them would love to come to our seminar . But unfortunately because there were too many people, and my group leader told me to cancel with the last one who replied me. And then my group leader thinks that the second guy is still studying, so not ‘professional’ enough. so i have to apologize to two of them, because they were really nice and help us out. Maybe the second is a mistake. but I have enough reasons for why i want to ask him to teach us something, is that because he already has his own production company , and his professional life is successful. What is more , he did marketing research and practice for his own film productions and he has his own theory ,which is quite good for our topic.And most students would like to listen to him , because he started his career far beyond others . I think those above is really worthy us to learn. But the thing may be is that our group got 5 parts , only our one part already has more than 3 guests , that is too many . After we confirmed with those 2 guests –Ron Brown and Anthon Umit. We decided each roles. I did staff name tags and table tag for guests. Also I went to purchase the table clothes with Melissa. I believe the staff tag showed a kind of serious and well-organized impressions to everyone, and the table cloth gives the guests some sweet and home-like feelings. During the seminar, I arrived on time and helped with setting-ups and other preparation works. And I also helped with the food supply with Melissa, no one asked us to do that. But I think even this tiny little thing will make a big difference. Because at that time, we only got cookies and not enough donuts for students. So we got yummy sushi, though we paid ourselves. At the end, we are happy that we got a lot good comments and feedback from students and our teachers, even though some people only told us that they love the sushi, we are still happy that our classmates did enjoy this seminar.
Proactive Learning
Communication skills are really important for our graduates , like contacting with potential guest speakers , and how to get them to our seminar , we have to be active and well-organized. During the process, I found why other group mate can not get reply , maybe that is because that they used hotmail or yahoo, which is not professional and efficient. And what makes me think further , that we have to choose the right communication tool, I contacted with people , mostly I use uni email because it is for my study. And facebook can get people closer, so I used it to contact some professionals to our seminar. But this method is not suitable for everyone, only because our topic is about online. so i think the related professionals should have a facebook account and often use it.
Also how to be a good team player is my long-term research and study subject. Because in different team work , we meet different people and deal with different things. So for this time’s seminar, I am responsible for my part but not only responsible for myself—should be responsible for the whole team, which is a little bit different from what I learnt before.
Participation
I attended most of the seminars, group meetings and the event. And I was active in group discussion online and gave my feedback to others’ posts, not only just click “like”. And I also put my problems (e.g I had a problem with too many guest speakers) on our group page, and asked my group mates’ opinions. The reason why I did not attend all of the seminars, was because I got a play (drama) in Melbourne University to help out.
Connections & intersections – what do you see as the value of the seminar series? Overall what have you discovered about your learning, your group interactions and your networking abilities in relation to this series? How do you see what you have learnt about yourself via the process (and via the content) fitting into your future career development and future work?
As I mentioned before, our topics have been changed once. My part has been changed once , from ‘online advertising’ to ‘online marketing’, but I am still happy to find some interviewees who are not doing advertising. Because it is a good chance to practice with my communication skills. My future career is working in advertising industry , it requires me to deal with different clients and work with different types of people. So I think our seminar series are extremely helpful for me , because you can learn from professionals working in different media industries, and learn from the students who did a good seminar, also i learnt from my own practice. And career development requires me learning by doing , it is about self-training . Also during the process of our own seminar , i learnt more about problem-solving skills. No one’ s career has no problem , but problem can also bring benefits, the point is about how you treat your problem.
Overall, I will give myself a HD. Thanks to the seminar series , one of the best part of my university life.
