This weeks workshop was the last day of the ‘conceptual’ stage of our project on Media Audiences. We’ve made mind maps, we’ve brainstormed, we’ve come up with our concept and we have a rough draft which we presented to the class.

Now comes the hard part.

For me, and maybe for others, this is the most challenging part of any project, removing yourself from the relative safety of the conceptual and moving on to the practical. This is the point of no return, you can’t change your idea once you’ve already got a script and half the footage. It can be harsh, finding out that your grand ideas just aren’t feasible, or beyond your limit.

I find it comparable to making to do lists. Now, I love to do lists. I have at least fifteen scattered around my home and handbag. I write them down, lose them, write new ones. I write to do lists for school, work, exercise, whatever. And once I’ve written down everything I can think of i’ll often sit there and strain for more I can do, more I can add. Seeing them all laid out like that makes me feel so organised, so in control of myself. And then you get to actually doing things. And its hard. The tasks it took two seconds to write end up taking an hour to do. And it feels like having written them down should have somehow made those tasks complete, that you’re finished, when in reality you still haven’t started. But once you cross them all off, the feeling of satisfaction as you drag your pen across the last line makes it all worth it.

So now I have to keep that in mind as I buckle down to the actual concrete aspects of our project. The research, script writing and filming aren’t as fun as drawing mind maps on butchers paper, but they bring the most satisfaction.