Sacrosanct

Contribution & Collaboration:

I put my hand up to join the documentary seminar group because I was enthusiastic about meeting industry professionals and learning about their life experiences. From the very beginning of the preparation phase, I tried to contribute to the group discussions by suggesting that we invite someone from an established documentary company that produces contents for television stations in Australia in order to compare him/her to other panelists who maybe independent filmmakers. I suggested we try someone from 360 Degree Films, and Lincoln and Caitlyn actually managed to get hold of Helen Gaynor in the end.

Our group decided to divide up the work into little subsections, and so I worked in the promotional trailer and the introduction cuts for each panelist with Melissa. I collected relevant footages from different platforms and went through them to pick out the parts that best represented their style of filmmaking and storytelling. It took awhile to finalize the videos because we added little animated movements with the graphics that Dom provided us. On the day of the shoot, I helped arrange the set up, bringing tables up and down and checking the equipments with the help of other students from the Filmenstein group. I also operated the second camera that was placed on the right side of the theatre during the seminar. In terms of on-the-day promotion, I used social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to invite other students from RMIT photography courses and TAFE film students who might be interested in non-fiction filmmaking.

Proactive Learning:

While trying to put all the videos together, I wanted to do an extensive research on each of the guests. I watched many of their films and looked into some of their previous interviews to see what their personalities were like. This alone gave me a lot of insight on the way different kinds of documentaries were made – how hard it is to find an interesting subject matter and how fun it could at times. Whenever I attended other seminars, I took notes on the guests and try to follow up on those that were interesting as well. For example, I found what Damon Hughes (from Triple J’s Unearthed) had to say really helpful, especially because it could be related back to one of my industry reports from last semester about new radio trends, so I did some more research into that area. It was similar when Rick Chen came in to lecture in week 11. I started following him on twitter and tried to get a better understanding of his business Pozible. I was genuinely intrigued by his story and the company’s philosophy. I have recently seen some of my friends using crowd-funding platforms to start their film/dance projects, so it felt like it was a perfect time for me to be exposed to that sort of information.

Participation:

I feel like have put a lot of effort in to the preparation of the seminar and did what was required of me. However, I could have definitely improved by suggesting more ideas and throwing in my opinions during class time and not just settle to what was given to me. My primary job was to make a quality introduction video, which took quite a lot of time but I think we managed to create something that was well-made. It involved communicating with other group members in both the online and offline space and also with the stirring committee in terms of getting necessary graphics and linking them to the final product.

Connections & intersections:

The seminar sessions turned out to be extremely helpful for me in forecasting my future careers. Through organizing and setting up our Digging Up the Truth event, I got a glimpse of the Australian documentary scene and I got a lot of inspiration and new ideas just by listening to them in person. I was also able to network with Genevieve Bailey, director of I Am Eleven, who was present at the seminar and I am now working in her documentary company in Richmond as an intern. Going to other group’s seminars was useful too, as it ensured me that our future careers could intersect and there was always a possibility that I could change my path into some of the other media areas. This course gave me a lot of courage and determination to go out there and do great things in the industry along with everyone else who is graduating this year. It was a great way to end our 3 years of university study by acting as a segue to the outside world.

For these reasons, I gave myself an overall mark of D (75%).

Dawn of the Digital: How The New Media Consumption and Production Is Changing the Industry was the last part of the Media Industries seminar series. By adopting and utilizing elements that were used in previous seminars, the group managed to pull out a well thought out event that impressed many of the audiences. It was a pity that not many people turned up (since it was coming closer to the end of the semester and students were busy doing their project), but I think their use of promotional video and social media posts were great leading up to the event. Not only were they putting up photos of the making of the videos, but also little snippets of how they were preparing for the event in order to make people interested. Facilitation was fantastic, with zombies greeting you at the entrance and giving you packs of sweets and brochures. They exhibited the theme well and it definitely added to the audience’s experience of the seminar.

The guests were great too. They were outspoken about their thoughts and feelings, and the conversations got heated at times as Dan Monheit from Hardhat Digital and  Misha Ketchell from The Conversation disagreed on certain characteristics of online media marketing and advertisements. Christopher Harrop, online producer at ABC, talked about how it was important to keep track of all the new platforms and technologies out there in order to be successful in today’s media industry. Misha pointed out some of the shifting changes that are happening in the mediasphere and the role of journalism within that ‘ecosystem’. Dan also talked about how digital agencies are more flexible in terms of how they handle their work compared to traditional media agencies.

The seminar was full of valuable contents for everyone, regardless of whether we wanted to go in to the film, radio, social media, or any other industry. Audience participation wasn’t bad and the emcee also did a great job all throughout the event. He was relaxed and was able to throw in a few jokes to make the guest panelists loosen up. It seemed like he knew what he was talking about and was able keep the conversation on the right track.  As mentioned above, everything was set-up well, even in terms of little details like replacing chairs with big couches and lighting the space according to the theme. For these reasons, I gave them a mark of HD average.

It’s Alive: Radio Survived the Death of Traditional Media was the fourth group to organize their seminar, and the things that really stood out for this one was their facilitation set-up and the line-up of the panelists. From the lighting of the stage to the lay out of the chairs, there was a great mix of formality and informality in the way it was presented. The emceeing was done very well in terms of getting the right kind of reactions off the guest panels even at times when the panels wandered off with their answers. The way they invited each panel onto the stage separately and gave them a chance to talk about their specific areas of work allowed the audience to get a clear idea of the topic.

The panelists were from different industry backgrounds, which was good in terms the variety of information. Damon Hughes talked about some of the ideas behind Triple J’s Unearthed program, which showed his passion for his work, and other elements that differentiated original music shows from other radio programs. Jennifer Bowen from Radio National and Lauren Brain from Nova FM also provided us with detailed insight on commercial & government funded radio stations and their past experiences in the industry. It was interesting to see their exchange of ideas but also how they disagreed in certain aspects about the future of radio. May Hu from SBS Radio’s Mandarin Program provided the audience with a different perspective of the industry which most of us may not have thought of before, adding to the diversity of the conversation. And although some of the guests struggled to answer with concise, well-ordered response at times, the emcee conducted the seminar in a way that these seemed like minor problems. The same goes for audience participation, as the face-to-face QnA session flowed well and people were able to ask what they wanted in a relatively comfortable atmosphere.

The band playing their song at the end was a good way to end the seminar – it made us feel as if we were at a real radio broadcast studio. The seminar did lack certain promotional aspects but I think they did good enough to send out a clear message prior to the event. For these reasons I gave them a mark of D average.

Filmenstein: The Director’s Cut was the first group to start off the 2012 Media Industries seminar series, and they managed to set the bar high for the rest of the groups to follow in the weeks to come. In the begging of the course (as we were all preparing for our seminars), I spoke to some of their group members and it seemed as if their were having trouble getting what they wanted in terms of appropriate guests and presentation ideas. However, they handled everything well once the seminar date came closer.

It was good to listen to professionals from different areas of the Australian film industry. Glendyn Ivin, director of Channel Ten’s TV series Puberty Blues, was obviously the one that most students could relate to, as he was the youngest in the panel. But Don Linke, who works as a producer in Story Box Films, also gave us some very important information about getting our films out there and marketing and promoting them in an effective way. Sue Edwards from Film Victoria was an excellent panel who had a substantial understanding of the industry and she helped the conversation going by responding to what Don or Glendyn had to say. It was also good to hear about what kind of films Film Victoria (or any other government/cultural organizations) tend to look for in film productions.

I quite liked the way the seminar was set up. Although the table looked very small and the panelists had to squash up during their speeches, it made the whole thing very intimate and perhaps made the interaction between them more interesting to watch.

The way they made the panelists watch a short film and comment on how they would have approached it in their own practice was also very refreshing. It was a concept that seemed a bit odd at the beginning, but I think both the panels and the audience enjoyed it by the end of the seminar. Furthermore, I would say the audience participation in Filmenstein was one of the best in the entire course as they approached it through twitter feeds which allowed people to asks spontaneous questions using relevant media platforms and not having to wait till the end of the seminar. The only negative thing about the seminar was that the powerpoint presentation in the background was changing continuously and kept on showing irrelevant slides, which made it hard to focus on the panels at times. There weren’t much promotion compared to the other seminars that followed but I think they did a great job as the first group. For these reasons, I gave them a mark of HD average.

Role – as it evolved/changed throughout the project, your position and function within the group structure, the issues you faced and your part in formulating solutions.

For our ‘Radio in the Digital Age’ project, each one of us chose different areas in the radio industry to see what changes has been occurring and what we can expect from it in the near future. My role in the group was to look into the technological advancements of radio and examine the ways in which different radio stations and service providers are experimenting with media convergence. My initial focus for the project was on the ‘visual’ side of radio, but this shifted a little as time went on due to the lack of available data. I still wanted to engaged with the visual elements, but I thought it would be more useful to the project if I could explain what made it possible for the broadcasters to utilized these components more effectively – through methods such as metadata and hybridization. Since our subjects intersected in many ways, it was important to constantly monitor each member’s contents and reduce the amount of repetition. I think I have successfully completed my own section and communicated well with the other members throughout the semester, but still lacked enthusiasm when it came to organizing the layout of the website or suggesting ideas for the direction of the project. I did all I was required to do within the required time frame, but I did not push further than that. I could have improved by sharing my thoughts more often and helping out others in managing the website with more consistency.

Mark: C

Progress - in your research capability, in observing your learning behaviours, in identifying your strengths and weaknesses.

My progress was slow at the beginning of the project, but the momentum picked up in the second half of the semester. At first I was struggling because I felt that the topic I chose was not clear enough and I had to go through many adjustments. But the feedback I got from other group members and classmates during the presentation preparation period helped me in finding a distinct path for my research. I found myself not only discovering new facts about the radio industry, but also finding new ways to do my research along the way. For example, there were certain websites or experts that I kept on coming back to because other people also referenced their work (i.e Joan Warner, CRA, EBU), which meant that was where the crucial contents were hidden. This realization made my research work more effective and less time consuming. I started linking each section of my part to other parts in ways that I never thought of before. I have also broadened my horizon by looking at examples outside Australia, which was different from what I first set out to do, but it was a good choice in retrospect because it helped me get a better sense of the developmental stage in both the local industry and other industries that are in a similar situation. My weakness was not being able to analyze the data I found in great depth and leaving out many of my findings in the actual report. I did deconstruct many complicated information and graphs, and presented them well on the webpage, but I must admit that there was many that were left out because I was afraid to deal with their complexity.

MARK: D

Strategies – research strategies, collaborative strategies and personal learning strategies, which ones did you try, how appropriate do you think your choices were, what worked/what didn’t work?

My research strategy consisted of reading current news articles or industry reports that gave me an overview of all the significant issues. From there I went on to search for factual data to back up my findings. I carried out quite a few case studies in order to provide the reader with a variety of examples – including EBU’s hybrid radio and Novanation’s internet radio. Watching Youtube/Vimeo videos that are related to radio industry turned out to be surprisingly valuable because these are the sites where companies/stations now share their latest work. These videos are more or less hidden because their content cannot be searched on search engines, but once you find a good video, it provides you with links that point out to great sources.  In terms of group collaboration, we shared our findings on our Facebook page and helped each other when carrying out interviews. Our group also had constant meetings to see where we were, either face-to-face on campus or online through Skype video chat. Like I mentioned earlier, I could have improved my cooperation by notifying others about my progress and my decisions. I did, however, joined other member’s interviews and try to learn their techniques of conducting interviews and also listen to the things that the interviewees had to share (during & after interviews). So I think this was a good learning strategy for me.

Mark: D

Problems - nominate a few key problems or difficulties that you faced and discuss how you resolved these.

One of the problems I faced was time management. As I mentioned earlier, I lacked consistency in writing out my report whenever I found new things. This lead to a lot of workload cramming by the end of the project. I got everything done in time, but it would have been great if I had finished it before the deadline and allowed myself to really read ever my findings. This would have helped me find the irregularities in the report and cut out any unnecessary bits in order to  make it easier for the reader to understand. Another problem I had was a technical one. When I interviewed Timmy Byrne from KISS FM, the way I recorded the interview had some problems and it was hardly audible. The background noise was too high and the recording level was set too low. The audio file could not be used, but I resolved this by writing out certain parts of the interview in my report and integrating it into my case study of the radio station. Lastly, I had a hard time preparing for my presentation and trying to make it interesting. My pre-presentation was a very boring one because I literally read out my report. It was too much information squashed into 5 minutes and it was hard to get people interested in it. This was resolved as I read through the feedback papers other students gave us after the pre-presentation and altered a fair bit of my script in order to make it more easy to understand and relate to. I also changed my messy slides into a simple sequence of images and graphs.

Mark: D

Connections & intersections – what do you see as the value of this course, what have you learnt overall about your problem solving skills, your learning, your group interactions and your networking abilities? How do you see what you have learnt about yourself via the process the content of your research fitting into your future career development and future work?

This course taught me many things; one of them being the ability to carry out substantial research in a short period of time. Collaboration has always been my weak point, but I had the chance to learn new communication skills through this project. Whenever I followed other group members to interviews or meetings, I took note of how they conduct their interviews and interact with experts in order to get the information they want. Moreover, it was my first time using Google Docs and doing ‘Skype meetings’, which are great tools that I will continue on using in future projects. Networking was another thing I gained from this course. By searching for radio industry experts and actually going to talk to them in person, we gained both practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge of radio’s current developments and its future. We were also able to get a sense of what it would be like to work in these environments after we graduate. I was never really interested in radio until I started doing this project, and it completely changed my perception of the medium and its strength. I initially focused on the visual elements of radio because I believed that the aural aspect of radio was slowly dying out, but after a couple of weeks in my research I realized that this was not the case. Lastly, I incorporated some of the things I learned in other courses such as PP1 in this project. Examining the concept of ‘convergence’ in both courses helped me get a broader understanding of today’s media landscape and apply it to analyze other forms of media outside radio as well.

Mark: HD

Overall Grade: D

The EBU (European Broadcast Union) seems to deal with radio & tv related technology from all over the world. Their publications page include reviews and reports written by media experts from countries like Australia, UK, USA, Norway, Belgium, and France. This is like a gold mine of information because they are constantly experimenting with new devices and services. Their hybrid radio plan is the most interesting project I’ve seen in terms of recent radio industry developments.