Brief Four: Reflection
This project, although enjoyable and engaging, the process was incredible tiresome. Brief four was both challenging and rewarding, it offered me the chance to engage with new people and broaden my connections. The process allowed me to understand the time it requires to create work with groups. From the minor mistakes and problems that we had during the process, these were only things that I could learn from and improve in the future.
Our group worked really well together, from the start we were fully engaged and focussed to complete this project at a high standard. By setting our goals to a high standard at the start of the project, we had something to work towards throughout, this kept us motivated throughout the group project. From the beginning, these goals allowed us to maintain a good pace towards the the end product. By maintaining our group meet ups, this allowed us to keep on track and maintain contact with each other, ensuring that we were all on the same page with what we had to achieve by the next major dead line. Working with Rob and Emma was very rewarding, both in a social way and in a formal/work way. Our personalities gelled at the start of the process, allowing us to be open about problems we may have been having during the group process. It also allowed us to give each other constructive criticism into the work we were producing. Throughout the process, we often double checked our work with each other, constantly getting feed back so that we could ensure that improvements are made and that the product we produce is of a high standard. Meeting both these members was very rewarding. I can see myself working with both of them again on similar assignments or larger group projects in the future.
One of the things I found most beneficial was seeing the other groups drafts as we tracked towards the finished product. This allowed me and our group to identify what we thought worked and what things that we wanted to avoid. For example, when creating our own documentary it was constructive to view other groups short films in relation to our own film as a means of comparison in order to see how our own project was stacking up with the rest of the media task.
There were very little issues that we had along the project. If there was one thing, as a whole group we struggled with narrowing down our ideas so that they were as clear and concise as possible. We had so many ideas that we wanted to achieve, however, given the time constraints, it was proving to be difficult to limit our selves to only a few different aspects of texts. Eventually we were able to narrow the project down to four main things that we decided to concentrate on. One important thing that I learned from this was that more, is not always better. I went into this project expecting that I would have to create a major analytical piece about as many examples as I could find, fortunately I realised that not only would this be cumbersome, but it is also more beneficial to limit your self to only a few resources and create a detailed explanation on those ones.
One individual problem that I had was focus. I found it hard to maintain motivation throughout the project. Although I got the project done in the end, I feel like I could have managed my time more effectively so I didn’t feel as stressed towards the end of the project. Overall however, I think the process went well!
Completing this project very early on in my media career has allowed me to realise the importance of collaboration in successfully succeeding in any group project. To effectively produce any work within a group, there must be a healthy atmosphere that allows for collaboration to flourish within the group. When working with groups in the future, I can see myself being much better in managing time during the process of a group project. Furthermore, I see myself having greater awareness into how the dynamics of a group operates so that I can go into future group projects knowing what it takes to create a great piece of work.
