While undertaking the first semester of my media course I have learned many things, from beginning to use premiere pro, to the intricacies of pre-production, production and collaboration. In the first few projects I was given a bigger scope in using editing programs such as premiere, which I lacked any experience in, and I was able to complete the tasks successfully although I still have a long way to go. This course has also been quite effective in teaching me about the process of collaboration and working as a media practitioner. I was able to understand the importance of pre-production and having a clear framework of what your media text is aimed to do and how it will do it. We had set time for researching in our final task and having this research helped to understand and base the structure around. Previously I may have been more disorganised in the production stage because of a lack of research but working in a group with a set time for researching prevented this from happening. I was shown through an important lecture and through the final group project that being able to collaborate well is vital as almost every job in media involves working with someone on something. In the final project we collaborated with group meetings and discussed our aims and expectations of each other, something similar to what would occur in a workplace. This opened my eyes to the importance of teamwork in media as a practise.

 

I figured out that the best way to learn is by action, and by getting involved as the lectures weren’t as effective as the actual projects in teaching me things. I also realised I need to take more action in gaining experience as this is key in the media field and I don’t normally put myself out there much.  Another part of the course I found both rewarding and challenging was the blog each student had to write and monitor. I found it impossible to consistently write on things I found uninteresting such as copyright laws. It was also hard to fit in the time to blog at certain points, but it felt very rewarding at the end seeing a whole site setup with blogs/articles of work all over the place. It gave me the opportunity to improve my writing skills and expand my thoughts on things I was interested in. As a way of showing my style of writing and the standard of my blog, I am including the five blogs I believe are most enjoyable, which are(in no particular order):

 

  1. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/dominic-haley/2015/03/03/learning-reflection/
  2. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/dominic-haley/2015/04/14/collaboration/
  3. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/dominic-haley/2015/03/24/the-phenomenal-world-of-closure/
  4. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/dominic-haley/2015/05/19/documentaries/
  5. http://www.mediafactory.org.au/dominic-haley/2015/05/05/daniel-day-lewis/

 

 

I discovered throughout the semester that I have many creative ideas and a hunger to create/explore them, but that I can at times be slack in doing the correct preparation and research for them. Rather than take risks with ideas, I played it safer. I found the practicals engaging and enjoyed bouncing ideas/learning off others, but struggled to pay attention at times in lectures and found these less helpful. Overall, the course was successful in introducing me to media as a practice and preparing me for our studio’s in the coming semesters which I look forward to.

I have included below the learning graph completed in my last practical display what I believe my learning progress in 4 categories looks like! Oh, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

learning graph