I was really lucky to have been placed in a hard-working and cohesive group at random.
We began a little shaky, not knowing where we wanted to take the topic of attention and eventually settled on Game of Thrones, as we felt it would be a great idea to choose something that we had all seen but wasn’t too simple in subject matter.
We evolved our original ideas in the second week, opting to incorporate HBO as a conglomerate; discussing its decisions to take on GoT and similar shows that captivated our attention, but didn’t end up using a lot about what we found in research, as GoT served as an in-depth topic as it was. Gender alone gave us a lot to talk about, so we began to finalise and refine all our information.
We worked really well as a group, discussing and sharing articles and information on our facebook chat group, then meeting weekly in building 10 and in class. As the weeks progressed and we were shown examples of stylised and dramatic podcasts, we began to feel there was a lot more legroom for the podcast but grew uncertain as to how we’d relay the information as a narrative, feeling inspired by the examples in class.
In week 12, we presented a rough cut; an intro that encompassed the overall feel we were wanting to evoke throughout.
As we hadn’t reached a conclusion as a group as to how we wanted to creatively describe the findings, we settled on using Ben’s dramatic voice.
He began by opening the cut by posing a question to the audience as to why they watched game of thrones, thus opening a discussion about attention and it’s relevance, based on our information.
It was simple and effective; cutting the fat, much like the tv show itself.
Catherine was a little unimpressed with the lack of ‘meat’/content that was present, but in the end we all agreed that the themes worked and so we began filling it with content.
Taking on board the critique from Catherine, we settled on holding a casual discussion about the research and our personal vibes on the show as viewers ourselves, we thought this was help personify the overall feel.
We found a time in week 13 to get together and hold a panel discussion.
Unaware, or at least just exhausted from all our other group assignments for other topics, we may have missed the fact that there had been an allocated room for us to work in, so I booked an on air studio which suited us a lot better, and we looked really super professional too.
I borrowed a zoom recorder for us to use but because we had the option of using the studio, we set up the mics and began.
We ran a few test recordings and found that there was a low buzzing noise in the background. We hunted for it, screwing in cords tighter in case it was a technical issue.
We asked for the AV guys at the desk to come and take a look but we were told that this was ‘just the way the room was’ and that we would have to ‘deal with it’ because all the other students do apparently.
Studio’s are supposed to be completely silent, right?
We were running short of time, so we persevered.
This was the most difficult aspect of the project for me; coordinating written topics to spoken word amongst four people. Additionally, we attempted to make it easier in the editing process, by rounding our words off. Avoiding bringing our voices up at the end of our sentences.
As Ben had the most experience with Adobe Audition, he offered to take the cuts and begin editing them before we met again on the Thursday before submission to finalise the edits as a group.
We got together and listened to the grabs he had chosen before incorporating the youtube clips that we had all chosen to further embellish topics discussed throughout.
Ben mentioned that there were very few issues that he encountered with the clips, it was just that he found it a little difficult to tie things off seamlessly.
Additionally, the YouTube clips that we had chosen to back-up our arguments, found in articles, weren’t always cleanly done, so tying those off seamlessly was a little difficult.
Another issue we found that because we had already established the voices of the podcast, only to embedded another entirely different American man, we opted for humour and included an intro to the chosen clips.
Overall, our group was a pleasure to work and collaborate with.
We never encountered any issues and each member held up their part of the agreement of showing up when they could and doing their share of the work.
