Final Reflection

Nerves. A whole lot of them. When I think back to my first week, that is what I remember the first. Having had a year off from school, practically doing nothing apart from watching television and movies and working, the thought of getting back into a routine and applying myself to new sort of schooling was daunting to me. Having created a nice and comfortable nest around myself for sixteen months, when the first tutorial began on Monday the 2nd of March I was relieved to be surrounded by people who shared my interests. The conversation flowed easily, the nerves most people were feeling began to fade away as we discussed everything we loved about media and found a lot of common ground. I have learned more than I ever thought I would during this past semester about media. Coming into this program, my main driving force was that all I am passionate about are television shows and movies and while this semester has cemented this further in place, the knowledge I have gathered about the construction and creation of media is amazing, and we have only scratched the surface. Having begun my journey of breaking out of my “comfort nest” I am extremely excited about what lies ahead and very thankful for all I have learned so far this year.

Below is the learning graph I completed in my tutorial during week twelve. I approached filling this out by basing it on what I learned week to week. The first half of the semester brought an avalanche of new information on everything from media production to collaboration and that is why the yellow line has a sharp incline from week one. The black line dips during the first two weeks as my time away from any schooling environment had made me lazy and Project Brief 1 was the wake up call I needed to get my motivation. It begins to decline towards the end of the semester, not because I was forgetting how to work independently, but because I was working in a group and learning how to contribute to a collaborative project.

Learning Graph

I am not someone who likes reflecting on who I am as a person. I somewhat struggled to define myself during Project Briefs 1 and 2 because of this. Yet I feel these following posts best demonstrate how I engaged with the Media 1 course.

My Reflection on Project Brief 1 – This post reveals my thought process on presenting my collection of media artefacts to the class. This demonstrates how I approached creating my first project for Media 1 and my apprehension of presenting it to the class. As the semester continued, these feeling dissipated as I discovered how deeply helpful my peers’ feedback was to me. If you would like to see the the media artefacts I created, here is a supplementary link to Project Brief 1.

Crossroads – Project Brief 2 built upon my initial collection of media as we were asked to turn it into a one minute film. This post showcases how I have begun to critically evaluate my work and apply the feedback I received from the first project to this self portrait.

Week 3 Lectorial Reflection – This is the first instance of me understanding the nature of the lectorials and approaching them in conjunction with the week’s readings and applying the new information to my own life. While creating Project Brief 3 and 4, I returned to my notes on this lectorial consistently to ensure I was respecting the participants and working well within a team.

Evolution of Social Media Institutions – This post was in response to the week ten lectorial on institutions. I went into that session with a lukewarm attitude, as I prefer creating and consuming media to studying and informing myself on the institutions that run the business side of media. Yet this post was spurned by the lecture as I wanted to share my views on how some institutions have managed to stay relevant in an age of constant evolution and change.

Keegan Mew: Behind the Fringe – This post contains Project Brief 3 and my reflection on its creation and the feedback I received during my tutorial. I am very proud of this project as I believe I captured Keegan’s personality extremely well and produced a quality artefact. This post and the reflection showcases how I applied what I had learned throughout the semester to my work while also revealing how I have evolved in evaluating my own work and considering the feedback I receive from outside sources.

A Final Reflection

What Have I Learned? First and foremost I learned to have more confidence in the media I create and to not be afraid of evaluation and feedback from my peers. They are a unique and irreplaceable resource which I will need to take full advantage of if I am to succeed in the media industry. Project Brief 4 taught me a lot about collaboration in media. Working with Aidan and Cheyenne to create something I had never attempted before, a series of short podcasts, opened my eyes to the strengths and weaknesses of working within a group. Throughout the semester I repeatedly learned that university and working in the media industry requires a strict form of time management and organisational skills.

How Did I Learn? I have always relied on the people around me for inspiration and advice and this semester was no different. Meeting new people and forging new friendships allowed me to turn to my peers and ask them to help explain a concept I did not understand or provide feedback on a draft of a project I was working on. Because this course is centred on the thing I am most passionate about, I was more motivated to attend lectures and take notes to help reinforce what was being discussed. By applying these to the creation of media artefacts, they were given context instead of just being theories that had been talked about and forgotten. This hands on experience helped me to understand more facets of the ideas I had learned about in class than any further literature research would have.

What Did I Find The Most Challenging In This Course? One of the more challenging aspects of the course was its independent nature. Even with a gap year, transitioning from a high school learning environment to university presented me with a lot more freedom than I was used to. For the first time, my education depended on me and the guidelines for assessment tasks were much broader. Project Brief 4 was especially challenging in this regard as I was so used to following strict guidelines for major projects that trying to create a media artefact that responded to the concept of ‘mediums’ without any additional instructions was an obstacle that I had to work hard to overcome.

What Did I Discover About My Own Creative Practice? Presenting Project Brief 1 to my peers revealed to me that I can create something worthwhile and I should create content that appeals to myself and not what I think people will like. I have created false expectations from my peers and burdened myself with them and during this semester I discovered that what appeals to audiences the most is personality. While creating my own self-portrait and my portrait on my friend Keegan, it occurred to me that I tend to create a narrative through my work. This is an exciting revelation as I can begin a new project and no matter how difficult it seems from the outset, I can create a narrative around it and build the artefact around its personal story.

 

 

 

 

June 4, 2015 Inspirations and Ideas No Comments on Final Reflection

Project Brief 4 Personal Reflection

Project Brief 4 was the first group project I completed for Media and Communication. The aim of this project was to produce a media artefact that explored the area of mediums. We decided to approach the topic by focusing in on how the media was used throughout history to represent, report and inform audiences about conflict. From their inception, mediums such as video and print have evolved dramatically, and we attempted to draw lines between specific evolutionary jumps and conflict, specifically during World War II. Overall, I believe the final draft of our project turned out to be an improvement upon our initial idea of a simple website with small videos and text explaining mediums. Yet this change in idea halfway through the allotted time did bring some more challenges. I see our final product as a success yet there were some obstacles that proved more difficult to overcome then I initially thought.

The broadness of the project brief was a big challenge for our group. As we are all first year university students, Aidan and Cheyenne being straight out of high school and myself having taken a gap year after graduating, and the lack of assessment guidelines created a lot of confusion as to how we would present our findings. We decided to present how media has been used during times of conflict which was a turning point for our group as we finally had a shared conceptual idea of what our project would centre on. This revelation highlighted a strength of collaboration as the division of the workload allowed for more clarity for each member and relived the stresses of the large project, as we had a specific personal goal which would contribute to the overall design. We decided to create a website as a platform for delivering information, which was another strength for our project. A website allowed any member to update it at any time from their own homes, instead of having to meet up with the other members to contribute.

Working as a group with members all over Melbourne was a difficult obstacle to work around. As we saw other groups present their drafts during our tutorials, we decided we needed a bigger and more cohesive media component for our website and we decided on a series of audio podcasts. Aidan had a recording suite set up at his home, yet due to assessments from other classes and our out of school commitments, it was difficult for our group to organise a meeting outside of class. Our solution for this was to set up a skype call and record separate audio tracks and send them to Aidan to edit into a podcast. This was a much more accessible way for us as a group to record a podcast as it cut out hours of traveling time. Yet there was a drawback with this way of recording, which was the difficulty of having a regular conversation. The natural flow of a face to face conversation was interrupted by bad internet connection and a lack of facial cues informing us on who wanted to speak next. As a group, we created a plan for key discussion points of the podcast to provide a framework, yet we did not want to script the conversation because we wanted it to have a natural feel. Yet, the final edition of the three person podcast was too long, full of tangents and stilted conversation and so as a group we found a solution to the problem. A two person podcast over skype allowed for a much more fluid conversation and ensured all discussion points would be met inside of the ten minute time frame we had set for each episode.

The collaborative nature of this project was a good introduction into the workings of the media industry, yet it provided a few challenges for myself. Coming from the competitive environment of VCE with little group work, delegating work and contributing to a joint project is something I am not used to. This experience highlighted aspects of collaboration that is relevant to my broader development as a media practitioner, specifically the need for better time management. Although we had a long period in which to complete the assignment, there areas of the project that I left too late which could have been easily dealt with early on to avoid a last minute rush. The first half of the allotted completion period lacked rigid organisation but as we realised we needed to come together as a group we began to implement online meeting times and deadlines which improved our collaborative relationship.

Through the completion of Project Brief 4, I learnt a lot about mediums use throughout history, especially in the area of World War II propaganda. The collaborative nature of the project also helped me to develop as a media practitioner as it revealed what I need to improve upon to be an effective contributor to a group venture. I am impressed with our final product and this is due to our effective team work and this highlights how integral collaboration is to producing a quality media artefact.

June 4, 2015 Project Brief 4 No Comments on Project Brief 4 Personal Reflection