Our group’s Audio and Video essay is finally coming to an end, and I’m so relieved that all of our hard work paid off. My group members were Ryan Rosenberg, Lydia Watt and Isobel Smart. They are all a great teammate, discipline, smart and consistent at doing their job.
I think the most successful part of the essay would be the topic itself. I think the topic that we have chosen is informative and part of an ongoing debate. The topic for our Video essay is how can be misinterpreted by different cultures, for example the movie The Interview. Our audio essay talks about trigger warnings, the ongoing motion created as a means of self-prevention from traumatic memories, and how it has spiraled from books into classrooms. I liked my group’s topic, and they did a good job structuring the arguments. Given the fact that the topics are quite new, we could not find a person that considers themselves as an ‘expert’ or an ‘academic’ of that topic, so finding different opinion was a very interesting and anticipated work. Our video essay has done a good job at giving different opinions, both from a Korean student, to the creator’s words itself. We also showed news coverage about the video release. Overall I think our essays have given a strong argument.
The first most problematic aspect of the work would be our time management. We all had a drastically different schedule, and we can mostly meet up twice in one week, including the tutorials, so we mostly rely on individual contributions to the work, then after we met we would assemble all the materials together. Fortunately we had a good communication, we primarily used facebook, because we could share links, videos, pictures more easily and it’s easier to connect with a platform that everybody was using. The second most problematic aspect of the work would be time itself. Honestly, I think my group had a late start. On the first week we hadn’t figured out yet how we were going to pursue with both essays. We wasted a lot of time figuring when we could meet and what our topic (Text & Narratives) was actually about. Then we were left with 4 weeks of cramped up work, and trying to get interviews. I learned that you had to email your interviewee as early as you can. It’s always better. Because there was no guarantee my interviewee would even read the email, let alone replied to it.
My role for both of the essays were to gather interview materials. For the video esaay, I had to find a korean student to aksk about their opinion regarding to the movie. It was a challenge, albeit there were so many korean students here in Melbourne. It’s hard to find any student who wasn’t shy to have their face on camera. But I managed to interview one of my friend’s friends, who gave an interesting viewpoint on the topic. For the audio essay, I gave out articles that might relate to the topic in facebook, and primarily I had to find an academic who would willingly give their opinion on trigger warnings. I tried emailing teachers who were experts on information technology or law, but the first one was on a another country working, and the latter does not seem to be interested on the topic. So I asked Brian for his advice, and he recommended me Rachel, also our lecturer. And I have to say she had a strong opinion on the topic. She gave an rational and logical reason, and her opinions had helped our essay so much. Finally I also made the formal documents for the group, that including the Audio script, the minutes, and the bibliography. Annoying jobs, but important anyways. Overally I think I contributed quite well into the group with gathering materials and interview, and making the compulsory documents.
Before doing the PB4 assignment I hadn’t interacted with audio-based media very much. I didn’t find it appealing whatsoever, mainly because it couldn’t give me the stimulation that i can get from videos. But after doing the project brief, I could see the appeal in it. Creating an audio media is challenging and fun, it forces you to be creative, you only have one senses to appeal to, so you have to somehow channel that one sense to trigger the others. I also learned that from Louise’s tutorial lesson, where she played us a podcast about dreams. Using sound effects to create a sense of space, time, atmosphere is a pain in the stub, but rewarding regardless.
I think the most lesson I learned about collaboration is teamwork. Brian, Rachel, Louise, Paul all told us how imporant it is to have teamwork skills in the media industry. Everyone will be working seamlessly together, so you need to keep a good attitude to build your career in the industry. I’ve learned that with this project brief. Communicatin is the keys, behaviour is the door. withouth the two object you can’t really do any useful action. I’ve learned to always be positive, to always encourage my teammates to do the best, even though we were really struggling with our projects. And lastly, do your job! Do not ever think that anyone will help you even if there were anyone. Try to do the best yourself first, then if you couldn’t, then you ask for your teammates