This post is my attempt to summarise my detailed weekly seminar participation and contribution blog posts whilst specifically addressing each of the criteria.

Contribution & Collaboration

I was involved in every aspect of delivering this seminar including managing the group, brainstorming the title and concept, researching guests, organising staging, creating the promotional images and videos, distributing the posters, arranging group meetings, taking meeting minutes, updating absent group members, delegating tasks, running the social media campaign through various platforms, liaising with the steering committee, taking seminar photographs and editing the seminar videos. Some of the group members were fantastic to work with as they kept me up to date with their progress, informing me when they needed extra help or if they could take on more responsibility.

Our group meetings were structured with a list of agenda items that I would run through. Most of the group contributed to these meetings, particularly when we broke our group down into smaller teams that were dedicated to organising different elements of the seminar. I worked closely with the promotion and event management team. Melissa and I were able to develop a concept for the promotional videos and images and most of the team were able to help with creating the content. To help foster open communication and collaboration with the group, I typed up notes from every meeting that I shared on the Facebook group where I asked everyone to read over them and let me know if they had any questions. I also ensured I kept every absent group member up-to-date with their responsibilities.

As group manager, I liaised with each group member, asking for certain people’s thoughts and contributions when I didn’t feel as though they had provided many ideas. I enjoy working in teams when everyone focuses on doing the best job they possibly can. Most of the team I worked with lived up to this. On the occasions when we had issues such as changing the name of the seminar, I took a diplomatic approach and put it to a vote. If there were team members who weren’t pulling their weight, I stepped in and took over or asked another trustworthy group member to help pick up the slack.

Proactive Learning

This seminar series allowed me to develop my managerial skills that I wasn’t necessarily expected to utilise for this assessment. I felt that I stepped up to the challenge and learnt a huge amount about dealing with a variety of opinions, personalities and motivation toward work. I attempted to improve my delegation skills which I have previously struggled with and I feel that this was a success for the most part. I also improved my event management skills through being involved in every aspect of organising the seminar. As this seminar seemed like a daunting workload at the beginning of the semester, I surprised myself by accomplishing the amount of work that I did whilst managing the group. I was able to use my communication skills with some contacts within the University to organise some of the staging equipment that we were struggling to source. Although it took some convincing, I was pleased with my ability to utilise these networks to benefit the seminar. Like all media productions, I was able to employ and strengthen my problem solving skills to benefit the outcome.

Participation

I attended all classes (although I did miss part of one due to another meeting), all group meetings, the event and all post-production sessions. I engaged and participated in all discussion surrounding my team’s work, helped others with their individual tasks when required as well as completed my own individual tasks. I became involved as possible with this group assessment to feel as though I participated to the best of my ability.

Connections & Intersections

The seminar series has helped establish an understanding of the current media landscape, particularly the challenges, along with a lot of networking techniques and professional advice on the specific seminar topics from the experts themselves. It’s been an invaluable experience listening to an array of charismatic and successful media professionals each week. Entering the media industry doesn’t seem as impossible as I originally thought, now that I’ve heard the guest’s first hand experiences. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to approach the seminar guests and have a chat after the seminar. It’s also given me some inspiration regarding who to get in touch with when I’m looking for employment opportunities.

I’ve discovered that my ability to learn, work under pressure and to a high standard has improved throughout this semester. The blogging has forced me to reflect on what I have taken from each seminar and from my own group work. I’ve become inspired, more driven and focused on my career. My collaboration skills have improved, although I still feel as though I take on too many responsibilities. I still need to learn to step back, but I feel I have issues trusting others to fulfill tasks if they’ve shown their unreliable. I find that if I establish myself as the hardworking individual within the group, others can come to rely on that and then it becomes difficult to remove myself from that label because others expect you to pick up the slack. I still need to find the balance between collaborating and overworking. My networking abilities have improved with my confidence. I have become less apprehensive when approaching media professionals because I am more comfortable with my own skills and my ability to interact with the people I admire. In terms of fitting these newly developed skills into my future career, I think it’s safe to say that they will benefit me in whatever work I undertake in the media industry. From managerial roles, collaboration, networking and taking responsibility for my personal development, I can use the experiences from this seminar series to enhance my ability to work to a high standard.

Contribution & Collaboration

The seminar was a success! The set up was all smooth sailing, although there was a lot of heavy lifting and shifting. Our early arrival and access to the lecture room meant that we didn’t have to madly rush until the very last minute. The event organisational running sheet and delegated tasks that I arranged gave everyone a responsibility and an awareness of what needed to be done. I spent my time sticking up posters, collecting trolleys and shifting stages and furniture. I was also able to run through the checklist with every group member to ensure we didn’t miss a thing.

We had half an hour to relax, get a coffee and take a breath before crowds starting arriving, which was ideal. I was able to take the requested shots of the programs, name tags, catering and gifts for the steering committee as well as upload a final promotional image onto the Instagram and Facebook event. I was also able to help Sarah make a phone call and deal with one of our guests that was running late.

During the seminar I took photographs and then uploaded them onto the drive for the steering committee that afternoon. I also helped pack up, return equipment and stages.

After the event I wrote the credits list, shared it with the group via the Facebook page to obtain their approval and then submitted it to Ronja from the steering committee. I also asked the group for some people to edit the seminar footage although no one showed interest. I then approached people from the steering committee and offered assistance, Georgi and Christine agreed to help. Georgi, Christine and Steph helped convert the footage. I spent an afternoon and night in the editing suites putting together the 5 minute highlight video and the full seminar video. I was under pressure to get the edit to Steve from the steering committee so did not do this job to the best of my ability and struggle cutting together some of the shots with the audio issues we had. Fortunately I was able to get this done in time, even if I didn’t intend for this to my responsibility.

The countdown begins… it’s SEMINAR WEEK!

Contribution & Collaboration

This week has been busy, busy! Returning from the break meant that is was time for me to organise our last group meeting to finalise the last minute details, keep in touch with the steering committee, promote like crazy on social media & re-stick our torn down posters!

With 13 in our group, it took a bit of organising to find a suitable meeting time. We ran through the running sheet, the slides, the AV equipment hire list, the last minute promotion to encourage men to attend and whether or not to mention limited seating. I suggested some changes to the content to ensure we were making it worthwhile for men to attend by emphasising the importance and benefits of equality for all within a workplace. I also suggested that we utilise the promo clips that we made within the presentation to introduce the guests. I questioned Shelley about how she would approach limiting the Q&A questions so they’re more general.

I wrote meeting minutes that I shared with the groups. From these minutes I formulated roles for all 13 group members for pre-seminar, seminar & post-seminar.

PRE-SEMINAR ROLES
*Stage transportation: Imogen, Jono, Georgi, Melissa, Tam, Christine, Ai Vee, Steph & Line.
*Furniture & prop transportation: Zoe, Michael & Sarah.
*Guard (Mind equipment, catering, bags & everything we will dump outside the seminar room door): Bella
*Catering table set up & decoration: Zoe & Sarah
*Lighting (apparently difficult): Imogen, Ai Vee, Steph, Melissa & Christine
*Camera setup: Ai Vee & Steph
*Staging & decorations: Michael, Tam, Zoe, Sarah & Jono.
*Arrows/direction signs from the entrance leading to the seminar room for Non-RMIT audience, stick up posters & attach card to gift: Georgi
*Sound Set up: Line
*Coffees for guest: Sarah/Zoe
*Release forms: Bella

SEMINAR ROLES
*Host: Michael
*Slide Switcher: Jono
*Sound: Line
*Filming: Ai Vee & Steph
*Stills: Imogen
*Guest supervisors: Zoe & Sarah
*Ushers: Melissa, Christine, Georgi & Tam
*Timekeeper & Stage Manager: Bella

POST-SEMINAR ROLES
*Clean up: Everyone
*Transport furniture & Stage: Everyone
*Dump footage & audio for editing: Steph
*Edit & upload photos: Imogen
*Release forms submitted: Bella
*Credits list: Imogen

I also developed a running sheet for the morning of the seminar to ensure we manage to get everything done and on time. I shared this with the group and also individually messaged group members their roles and items they are expected to bring on the day. This helped minimise the confusion that can sometimes occur on Facebook group posts.

I sent the steering committee last minute information such as stage set up and photography details.

Throughout the week I posted images of the poster and related promotional visuals. I planned to post a description of each guest whilst incorporating the seminar theme and relating it to an image on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the event. Jono and myself posted images to Instagram. I also promoted the event on my personal social media profiles. The scheduled and ‘slow burn’ of information on social media helped raise our numbers. I shared the page on the RMIT media page which also boosted our attendees. The steering committee notified me on the Tuesday prior to our seminar our “…. group is amazing! The other groups only had a couple hundred clicks but yeah you guys have just over 1000!! Great work!!”.

Proactive Learning

Before the week 6 seminar, my Women in Media group had a meeting where I delegated roles for people during the mid-semester break such as research into the three guests, who was editing videos, posting images to instagram and creating slides for the seminar. I organised the stage with technicians from building 94 and arranged transportation to building 5 on the morning of the event.

I discussed that we needed a deadline for the RSVP from Virginia Trioli because if she wasn’t available, we wouldn’t have much time to organise a back up guest. We decided that Tuesday night (2/09) would be the deadline and Melissa suggested Elizabeth McCarthy from RRR as a back up guest. I spoke with Bella about sending Virginia another invitation email on the Monday and Line about getting in touch with Elizabeth on the Wednesday morning.

Prior to the meeting on Friday, I reminded the group of the $20 contribution we agreed to make to the budget for Zoe to cover food costs. I followed this up with a Facebook page post about transferring the money to Zoe if people forgot to bring cash.

Contribution & Collaboration

I shared the images and footage with Ai Vee, Melissa, Jono & Christine as we will all be creating promotional material including posters, instagram posts and event promo videos in the lead up to the event. I assisted Christine by giving her feedback about the poster and offering solutions to fitting all of the information onto the A3 page.

I liaised with Tiff from the steering committee whilst creating the event. I added in the event description, images and made other group members hosts of the event. I discussed what information and images needed to be uploaded and how often including the first teaser promo video one day after the event is created, followed by images, small guest bios, the second promo video and then information about catering (free cupcakes) and event set up. This is all intended to help with the hype and ensure that everyone that clicked ‘attending’ on Facebook is reminded and does indeed attend.

I edited the teaser trailer and uploaded it to Vimeo with all of the event details. I shared the video on Facebook with a link to the event and invited around 100 of my own Facebook friends to the event. I posted the poster and other promotional images on my own social media profiles and promoted our hashtag #femmefataleRMIT through Instagram.

During the mid-semester break I went to Uni armed with blue tac and printed the promotional posters. Steph and I flooded building 9 with the posters and even building 5 (where the seminar will be held) to help the non-RMIT seminar audience find the venue.

After the promotion started, I contacted Bella and Line about the radio guest as we were yet to hear from Virginia Trioli. Line agreed to speak to Elizabeth in person and so I asked Sarah to pass on the guest invitation details to Line.

I shared an email listing all of the tasks required and requests from the steering committee and contacted appropriate group members to help with these requests. I also sent individual messages to group members who did not get back to me. I wrote equipment lists to ensure their jobs were being fulfilled.

As a way to lessen my duties of managing every member of the group, I asked Zoe to start organising the research and question group members and Michael to organise the slide and running sheet group members whilst I continued to speak with the technical and promotion group members.

After the email from the steering committee, I also started planning post-event responsibilities such as who will edit footage. I have agreed to edit and post the event photos as well as provide the committee with a list of credits one week after the event.

Contribution & Collaboration

After attending the Non-Fiction seminar it clarified what I want to present our audience with; an engaging, informative and fun event. I was able to share my thoughts with our group after the seminar.

As an audience member I was also able to pick up on a few aspects of the event that I will do differently. These include a maximum of three guests, visually appealing staging with lots of decorations to transform the room to suit our film noir concept, no lighting over the audience so the guests are the focus (like a cinema), personal engagement with the audience during the Q & A rather than using twitter, provide substantial food and drink during the break, dedicating one group member to usher late comers in between questions (so there are no distractions), play music before and after the seminar, show stock footage of film noir images on screen, better positioning of cameras to avoid obstructing the audience’s view, a stage for the guests so the audience can see them better from the seating, better seating for the guests so they are comfortable, more conversational questions with the guests, less time dedicated to introductions and provide water the audience.

Some ideas I would like to borrow from this seminar include introductory slides for the guests, having a sound mixer, an audio-visual controller and personalised food (similar to the tags used on the trail mix packets).

Participation

During the group meeting we started brainstorming some potential questions. We want to ensure every question relates back to media and doesn’t end up solely being about feminism. Some ideas that I came up with include:

• What are the female dominated roles within your field and what roles significantly lack females? Why do you think this is? What needs to happen for this to change?
• Why are there a lack of female characters being represented in film?

Proactive Learning

After some group members had a disagreement over the title ‘Femme Fatale’ due to it’s seductive nature, ‘Wonder Women’ was suggested as a positive alternative. I got in touch with the steering committee who informed me we could in fact change the name because the poster needed to be reprinted. I told the group about the two names and I organised a  vote. ‘Femme Fatale’ won because most agreed that we had already started planning a lot of the promotional material.

Now that the title had been locked in, Jono and I brainstormed new taglines and a blurb to ensure we were accurately advertising the seminar about women destroying the stereotypes of women as Femme Fatales. What we came up with: Femme Fatale: women killing it in the media industry. A chat with media’s leading ladies in film, radio and online. We’ll talk reality, challenges and opportunities providing key insights into the futures we’re creating.

We also realised we are faced with the challenge of not having many males attend this seminar and we discussed ways of preventing this. I suggested that we draw attention to the fact that it’s a seminar for women and that we really want males to come too. Jono then suggested mentioning on the poster that Men get in for free and in fine print: *Women get in for free also. We still need to develop some further strategies to have an equal gender balance in the audience.

With only a few weeks until the seminar, we all agreed we needed to make progress with the guest invitations and get at least one locked in. We also agreed that we wanted to cover all areas of media by inviting a guest from film or TV, radio and online media. Jenni Tosi has shown interest, but is yet to confirm. Myf Warhust is unavailable as is Jane Turner. I suggested we contact Brodie Lancaster (not aware she was in the seminar only last year). Sarah and I discussed what it is that we want Brodie to discuss and I provided Sarah with her details. She responded quickly and we were able to lock her in as guest number one. I had a discussion with Sarah about sending a friendly reminder email to Jenni and provided her with an idea about what to say. Jenni confirmed a day later. Virginia Trioli is yet to confirm. If we did get Virginia, we will achieve our mix of media professionals. I don’t think that Brodie being in a previous seminar will effect our marks because it will mostly be a different audience and we will focus on different issues.

I took responsibility for organising the film and photo shoot. I cleared out a room in my house and filled it with vintage props and furniture. I source costumes and old cameras as well. I set up my camera and some lights to get the classic venetian blind lighting effect from Film Noir movies.  Melissa and I developed the idea of the women being filmed seductively whilst getting ready, all in extreme close ups. Zoe, Line & I acted. Melissa shot the film, Ai Vee photographed and Jono assisted Melissa with direction. I sourced a royalty free film noir sounding track of which we will use the first 30 seconds for the promo video. After packing up the shoot and equipment, I viewed the rushes and will aim to get started on either the poster or editing the video after my career portfolio is submitted.

I suggested female themed cupcakes (female logo or pink bow topper), that the event team group members bring a plate of savory food and a budget of $20.

During the week 4 meeting I asked the team to spend some time devising the list of ideal guests and ordering them from most to least wanted. We developed a lengthy list and delegated who from the group had connections to which guests and were therefore going to make the first contact. Sarah offered to write the introductory email.

Contribution & Collaboration

I made contact with a friend of mine whose Aunty is the CEO of Film Victoria. My friend kindly passed on the info I gave him and got back to me with a personal email address that I was able to give Sarah. I helped develop the email template by adding in a few personal details. I also helped source contact details for Myf Warhurt’s management.

I took notes during the meeting along with Georgi and helped with the delegating tasks to complete before the next meeting. The team developed a rough running sheet that I drafted in the meeting minutes.

After the group was split into three teams (event management, research & promotion) I started conversations with both the event management team about the catering, event concept, gifts for the guests and budget. We have decided on cupcakes, sandwiches/quiches (that Zoe and I will make) and a $20 contribution from each group member.

I also started a discussion about the photo shoot for the poster. With Femme Fatale in mind I have came up with some film noir inspired ideas. I have offered to be behind the scenes and help with props, staging, lighting and photography.

Christine, Jono and myself have read the  steering committee guidelines about the poster and will aim to get this ready as soon as the photo shoot is complete.

My roles as a member of the event management team include:

• Catering/Budget
• Running Sheet/timing
• Microphones/furniture
• Aesthetics and theme
• Gifts
• Music

My roles as a member of the promotion team include:

• Poster design (photo shoot and Photoshop)
• Poster distribution
• Photographing/filming event

There’s lots to be done!

During the week 3 meeting the Women in Media group established a few more seminar concept ideas as well as options for the seminar title. After being informed of the seminar series theme ‘wanted’ we attempted to adjust our ideas accordingly which proved to be slightly difficult. We wanted to incorporate the words ‘women’ or ‘woman’, something to do with media or film whilst having a criminal edge. After much deliberation, we decided to go with simply ‘Femme Fatale’, thanks to Zoe’s suggestion. Our tagline will be ‘Why Gender Equality in Media is the New Black’, thanks to Stephanie.

Contribution & Collaboration

Some of the suggestions I came up with included:

• Chicks in Flicks
• Girls on Film
• Femme in Film
• Lights, camera, ladies?
• Media, she-media (Shmedia)
• Flim Fairness over Femme Fatales
• Femme Fatale Facts
• Scones with Jam and Screen

Proactive Learning

I asked everyone to fill in the skills and preferred roles table I created the previous week within the Google Doc meeting minutes. I took responsibility for delegating roles according to the task sheet provided by Shelley. I went into specific detail listing the roles from early development including research to the late stages including editing the recorded event content. I listed names next to the roles according to what people had listed as their preferences in the skills and preferred responsibilities table (below). I contacted a few people the following day to chase up their preferences. I then added their details to the table so I could get started on this task. Below is a screen shot of part of the skills and preferred responsibilities table…

I posted the final table (below) on the Facebook page along with this note to group members.

This is a draft of the group roles, so please add/remove your name to any section. We’ve got a lot of people wanting to help with certain roles and not enough in others so we’ll have to adjust this. We should aim to be responsible for an even amount of tasks, obviously some will take up more time than others, so let’s try to keep it balanced. Oh and please let me know if I’ve missed out on any important jobs that need doing!
Once the roles are consolidated we can start delegating the tasks and get this thing going.

 

Within the class meeting I read the long list of names of the varied media professionals that our group had collated and thought would suit our seminar. Shelley questioned why we had so many comedians and actresses, as they’re not the roles we’re wanting to do ourselves. We agreed that we may only have one guest from on screen (purely for entertainment and also to comment on the lack of female roles within scripts) and the rest would be behind the scenes. We agreed that we needed to think about the structure and what guests would compliment it. There was discussion of a male guest as well. We reminded ourselves that our audience was in fact our peers and we needed to refer to the list of information they wanted to learn and skills they wanted to acquire before graduation and align that with our presentation.

Participation

I suggested the concept of a theatrical court room set up in which the guests would be questioned on the stand. There would be a judge, jury and lawyers who would be asking the questions. This idea might require rehearsal from the guests so it was added to the ‘maybe’ pile. We all decided we were most keen on the high-tea and conversation style concept whilst incorporating a questionnaire at the start.

After discussing presents for the guests in the first part of the class, I suggested we decorate the wine bottle with girly bows, sparkles and diamond stickers to ‘bling it up’. We agreed we would need to discuss an extra gift and few more ideas were suggested such as mix CD of empowering female songs, thanks to Line.

I suggested the poster incorporate a femme fatale mugshot. I sourced a few inspirational images including these…

The issue of catering was also raised and most agreed that scones with jam, cream and doilies would suit. The set up would include white table cloths, a couch for the discussion and potentially matching waitress/waiter uniforms for our group members.

The conversation about how to entice men to show up so there was an even spread of gender was brought up again. We need to be careful about using the word ‘feminism’ so we don’t turn away people that associate negative connotations.

After brainstorming further ideas our meeting was drawing to a close. We agreed that our next stage will be to consolidate the concept for the seminar and refine the guest list.

Georgia and I kept the meeting minutes through out the whole meeting.

I suggested a meeting after class next Friday and agenda items that I added into the Google Doc meeting minutes. Some of these included:

• Title and Tagline Sorted: Femme Fatale: Gender equality in media is the new black
• Seminar concept established (refer to ideas from last week) -A brief history of women in the media, highlight issues (questionnaire at the start – draw attention to how much of an issue it is), bring hope, educate our audience- let’s change their mind about feminism & women working in media.
• Read document about what peers want to learn from this course (available through blackboard)
• Create priority list of guests (order from most wanted to least wanted)- who has the connection with this person?
• Find regular meeting time outside of class
• Discuss promotion campaign- how are we going to get people to show up?
• Potential Promo Song Femme Fatale
• Roles finalised and tasks delegated: Line will establish email template, start emailing/contacting guests, researchers start researching, seminar plan developed (write rundown etc), poster design – concept needed.

My group’s seminar will focus on ‘Women in Media’, or the lack thereof. I am in a group of 13 media students who feel strongly about the need for equality in all aspects of media production. After reading astounding statistics about the lack of representation of females in film, I see this as an obvious choice being a woman hoping to break it into the film industry.

Contribution & Collaboration

Media students were frantically running around the lecture theatre last Friday trying to find a seminar topic that tickled their fancy. I walked to the ‘urn’ to find a group of 7 like-minded individuals, I knew this wasn’t enough. I searched the room for familiar faces and pled with them to join the cause. I made a spiel about how these issues were going to be facing them in the future and the importance of equality. It worked; I managed to find another 4 people to join and then another 2 followed. We won!

Participation

After the introductions and brief discussion of the reasons we were interested in the topic, I established a Facebook group and befriended everyone. As Jonno took control of the white board and Georgi jotted down some hand written notes, I established a Google Drive folder for all of our documents. I added my opinion that promoting the event with the word ‘feminism’ would most definitely detract a crowd of people who would gain from the experience, and who do indeed need their opinions about feminism changed. We brainstormed ways of presenting the seminar, positive role models such as Lena Dunham, potential guests as well as recent issues raised in the media including the Triple M promotion that provoked a discussion about their complete lack of female representation throughout their station.

Proactive Learning

After the class I collated the information from Georgi’s notes and my own ideas into the meeting notes document in the Google Drive folder. I added a few extra points mentioned within the meeting, a list of 11 potential seminar guests (Judi McCrossin (Screenwriter/Producer), Sam Strauss (Screenwriter), Joanna Werner (Producer), Jenny Tosi (CEO of Film Victoria), Natalie Miller (Film Distribution), Justine Sless (Stand-Up Comedian), Clare Wright (author/broadcaster), Brodie Lancaster (Writer – Filmme Fatales), Denise Scott (Comedian/Actress), Claire Hooper (Comedian/TV Presenter) and Celia Pacquola (Comedian/TV presenter), a series of links about relevant statistics (see below) and a table of strengths and potential responsibilities (for group members to add to themselves).

In relation to this assignment, my skills lie in organisation, creativity, filming and social media. I would be most interested in being the group manager, guest liaison, event organiser and promoter.

I also developed some agenda items for the next meeting including finalising the group name, consolidating the roles, refining the list of guests and starting to contact them as well as further brainstorming the event structure.

I developed some name suggestions for the event such as Chicks in Flicks, Girls on Film and Femme in Film. I posted a series of links to female related songs that can be used for the video promotions such as Respect and Girls on Film.

Relevant links:

Bechdel Test

Female? These are your chances of getting on film

For females in film progress is frozen

Gender inequality in film – interesting statistics in relation to whole film industry.

Triple M – a male dominated station

9 depressing facts from the latest women in media report

Destroy The Joint Facebook Page – ‘This page is for people who are sick of the sexism dished out to women in Australia, whether they be our first female Prime Minister or any other woman’. They post a lot of interesting facts about women in the workplace.