THE CATE KLANCEY EXPERIMENT

https://cateklancey.wordpress.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cbqrbdOx6Y

 Individual Written Reflection PB4

This Project Brief was rewarding but challenging. To be a successful project, it relied on an initial idea and then the input and consistent collaboration of the group to grow and develop the idea into a tangible creative response. Initially we were throwing ideas around but I was concerned that the task didn’t have a clear direction. So I suggested creating a personality we could advertise, create content for and then circulate onto specific social media sites then record and research the process. We knew going viral was a long shot so this project for us was more of a look at what makes content, especially on YouTube, popular. It was then we got specific about celebrity culture and reality TV personalities, how they attract and maintain audiences and how they market themselves. So it became, a social experiment to see how audiences would respond to Cate Klancey.

We had challenges right off the bat. We recorded footage using a camera from RMIT to record a mock interview with Cate Klancey with the hope of making it look like a real interview. The files weren’t transferred to the computer properly and when we returned to rescue the files from the tech desk, they had already been erased. By that time someone had suggested she do home style interviews like a diary entry. This was easier for me to organise and do from home on my own then I didn’t have to rely on the group for regular content we needed to post online. The diary entries were suitable but the time and effort from the whole group to record better quality footage, I believe, could have been more useful. The diary entry style recordings however, do suit the type of videos these reality TV stars use on and off TV shows. I edited them together to present the most engaging bits and trying to keep them as brief as possible. Without doing anything too humiliating online, I feel that the content of the videos was not bad.

Keeping up with the research and developing a blog was a good idea. I realised early on that if we didn’t have a significant response from an audience, then we would need research and blogging to back up our findings and observations. The blog was a good way of sharing material we looked at individually and we managed to successfully allocate different areas of audience research to look at each week. I feel strongly, after this project, that an initial idea is not enough. You can’t rely on everyone in the project to stay consistently involved on the level you need for the idea to expand and grow. Next time I will have a much more detailed plan of what the outcome will look like as well as the idea. The social experiment angle is probably something I will think twice about next group project.

Collaboration may not mean collaboration of ideas and creative input. For the idea we chose, everyone needed to be thinking of little experiments and extra ideas to try out as we went along, week by week. It relied on everyone to be creatively involved. What we discussed initially was who would be interested in specific areas of production but we didn’t end up producing much video material as a group so our roles changed fairly regularly. Ellie focused primarily on the Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts helping out with the blog and I created the content and circulated and expanded the YouTube channel with help from Sam. We all pitched in with research and findings each looking at case studies of Media personalities to emulate and incorporate into our project.

There were many successful components of our brief. When we got together as a group, we enjoyed working together. We were probably the most productive when we were face to face with a clear task at hand. Jasmines suggestion to incorporate a video that summed up our experience and findings was probably the most enjoyable part of the entire brief. We sat down as a group and looked at what we had set out to do, how we did it and what our findings were. Together we wrote and recorded a script that we took in turns to speak. Sam put his hand up to the task of editing the material together that gave Ellie and I time to finalise our CK blog and corroborate our links and blog posts.Specificity to roles, understanding peoples priorities, being straightforward with your expectations and intentions as a group member (so as not to let your group down in anyway) and being involved with the creative process as much as possible, are essential starting points for a productive University group project. This project was too big for just one person to take the reigns. It was truly a collaborative task.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to learn these collaborative group skills now as in the film industry especially it’s all collaboration. I love being as much a part of the creative process as possible. But being involved and on top of all areas of production is also necessary for group projects.

Fabiana Weiner

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