• What I considered to be the most successful aspects of the submitted work was having Molly and Gigi as group members, as we were all very diligent in making sure we found time to constantly be meeting up. Initially we met up outside of class for the group collaboration documents, as we wanted to make sure we got the group collaboration documents completed before anything else. We met up numerous times after the initial meet up, to record our sounds and edit the sounds for the audio piece. Therefore the most successful aspect of the submitted work is the communication between Molly, Gigi and I, which made it possible for us to be prepared to submit the audio piece on time.
• There were also many problematic aspects of the submitted work, which I would put down to preparation issues. It was evident that our problem was not communicating with one another, but rather having our ideas flow, as it took us a long time to even figure out what our main idea for the audio piece would be. This then delayed the research for the project, however we did eventually decide the main idea for this project would be fandom and the generational shift that comes along with fandom. Once we knew exactly what our focus for the audio piece was, we then were able to research and do our annotated bibliographies. However, even aiming to have the annotated bibliographies done was hard work, as I struggled finding articles or readings that were completely relevant to our topic.
• Attempting to record and edit the audio together was also quite problematic, as I would borrow the zoom sound recorder and record sounds that I thought we were using for the audio piece, yet we ended up not using it, and in general we ended up with a lot of random sounds that we did not use. I bring this all down to not planning our audio piece properly or in the way we should have.
• Yet after we showed our rough cut to Katherine, we realised we would base our audio around the ‘Lord of the Rings’ fandom. This therefore shaped our audio into the audio piece it is today.
• Our audio definitely ‘plugs in’ to the concept of fandom and hyper and deep attention that we have previously read about in readings and discussed in lectures and workshops. We specifically looked at the reading ‘A Night of a Thousand Wizards’, as this reading or blog focuses on a fandom, the Harry Potter fandom and what different types of fans of different age brackets pay attention to. This reading then influenced our decision to focus our audio piece around a specific fandom (Lord of the Rings) and especially the older and younger generations that come with fandoms such as these, and the generational shift that occurs. More specifically, we looked into how older and younger fans, act as fans, and if it is rather the younger fans, who through social media that have created this idea of fans being in a ‘fandom’.
• I have learnt that audio based media can afford a lot, of course it cannot afford footage of videos or photos, yet the amount of sound and the different types of sound audio based media can afford, is almost infinite. Through attending lectures and listening to experts, I have learnt there are story sounds and sonic sounds. Audio media affords story sounds such as narration, a climactic point, exposition, cause and effect and mood, and sonic sounds such as ambient sounds, spot sounds, silence, tone and pitch.
  What I have learnt in the making process about collaboration, is that people need to have their own specific job that contributes to the overall outcome of the project. I have also learnt that it is vital to plan and prepare for each meeting so it is always a productive meeting and runs efficiently and smoothly. Relating specifically to sound based group collaboration, I would next time somehow get the audio we as a group are working on, on all the group members laptops, therefore at group meetings, it isn’t the one same person always editing the audio themselves. I also have learnt that communication is key within group collaboration, and it is important for the group to feel comfortable around each other. That is why it is a good idea, before the hard work starts, to get to know the group members socially and become friends, as this should make the rest of the group assignment more enjoyable.
• These are the main aspects of being apart of a group collaboration that I have learnt during this project and will help me with my broader development as a media practitioner.

For this weeks initiative post I decided to practice recording more sounds with the zoom recorder, yet still in relation to Project Brief 4. Therefore the first sound piece is an example of a fan watching a Star Wars film in a cinematic environment, and paying deep attention only the to movie, perhaps representing the older types of fans of Star Wars. The second sound recording is an example of a fan of Star Wars watching Star Wars on a laptop in a bedroom or causal setting, yet with many other distraction around them such as other tabs on their laptop and their phone, which is evidently heard by the sound of typing and phone notifications when the Star Wars theme song is playing. These two sound recordings depict the fans who use deep attention and those who use hyper attention.

For this weeks initiative post I decided that it would be good for me to learn more about Adobe Audition and how to use it successfully. Therefore I logged onto Lynda.com and watched a tutorial video. Maxim Jago, the Media Technology Specialist that features in the video, goes into depth about certain aspects of audition such as comparing audio file and multitrack session workflows, setting up audio hard wear input and output, additional panels and setting up audio channel mapping.

For this weeks initiative post I delved deeper into the research for this project, specifically looking at the idea of how older fans from older generations would use their attention to devote time to whatever they are a fan of, verse how this current generation (generation y) use their attention to devote time to what they are a fan of. I decided to scroll through Youtube as I know youtube is the centre for many types of fans to post videos about their fandom, and I thought this video, from the Youtube channel DanIsNotOnFire sums up the younger generations view on fandom and what it means to them. This ties in nicely to my groups Project Brief 4 audio piece, specifically about the young modern fandom culture, and what types of fans they are.

For my initiative post week 9, I used the sound that Molly, Gigi and I recorded in the workshop in week 9 and used Audition to edit the audio. I wanted to get a head start on using Audition before we actually had to, for Project Brief 4. Because nobody was teaching me how to use Audition, I learnt by doing. I found it easy enough to upload the audio, and create tracks, to drag the audio onto. I did manage to find the tools such as the move, razor select and slip tool.

Here is the audio clip:

In this weeks workshop Molly, Gigi and I played our 1 minute rough cut of our audio to Katherine, and experienced sound recorder and producer, to get feedback from her. After Katherine heard our audio she suggested that we focus the majority of our audio on Lord of the Rings, as that is what the people we interview are talking about and are both fans of, and we need to make that more obvious. She also suggested that we should have more layers and limit the amount of words in the narration, therefore more of the interview with the fans of Lord of the Rings, and less narration. We should also re-do the interview by asking Molly’s dad and sister more questions such as what parts of Lord of the Rings they do not like and perhaps also what type of character from Lord of the Rings they identify themselves with. Therefore, from now until the submission date, we will focus our audio more on the interview between Molly’s Dad and Sister, and relate the majority of the audio to their point difference and contrasting points of view of being fans of the Lord of the Rings. This advice from Katherine, we will take on board with us as we begin on the completion of Project Brief 4.

During this weeks worksop, Drizzle and I used the zoom recorder to create sounds, from the theme ‘keep paying attention’, we used the idea of people constantly being on their phone and on social media and not paying attention to what is really going on around them. This exercise was really helpful as I got to be able to use Adobe Audition again to practice editing audio, for Project Brief 4.

In this weeks workshop, after listening to one of Kyla Brettle’s podcasts, which gave us an idea of how the tutors want our end product of Project Brief 4 to be, I met up with my group, Molly and Gigi, to discuss where we were up to in terms of our audio research. To be honest, I was feeling a bit stressed, but still ok knowing our group still has plenty of time for the assignment to be due, but in this workshop we realised that none of us had actually completed the analysis research yet, and we still had some more to do on our group collaboration documents. Yet everything was ok, because my group is really good at communicating, so sorted all of this out during this workshop, as we furthermore developed our research question, and question for the Project itself, which will make the research a lot easier to complete. Therefore our group specifically divided up certain aspects of our topic we are researching to individually research. Therefore I am now researching modern fandoms, Gigi is researching older fans before Fandoms were really a thing, and Molly is researching the generational shift when it comes to fandoms and using social media online.

I very much enjoyed this weeks workshop, as it gave me both a time to reflect on past (the completion of Project Brief 3) and begin thinking about the future (developing Project Brief 4). The first half of the workshop gave me time to reflect as we watched all of our project Brief 3 interview videos. It was interesting looking at the range of the different types of interviews that were made, and the different types of subjects. Quite a few interview videos were similar to mine, in the sense young children around the age of 7 were being interviewed, which made these types of interviews very light hearted and funny. Yet there were also many serious interviews I saw, ones where the subject of the interview talked about serious topics or issues in their lives, which gave a lot of depth to those kinds of interviews. Overall it was enjoyable sitting, watching and reflecting on the past project and interesting to see what others peers in my class achieved.

The other half of the workshop was left for us to pick a number at random, and find our group for project brief 4. I am very happy with my group, with Molly and Gigi, and I have a good feeling that this group task will be an enjoyable experience. Of course we haven’t really started yet, but we did get a change to work together and do an exercise in this workshop, by collecting/ recording sound. I noticed that our communication was good in doing the exercise which will be important in the near future.

This weeks lecture was more of a reflection on media 1 as a whole, rather than anything else. Of course we still have Project Brief 4 to submit before we are completely finished for the semester, yet this was the time to reflect on how far we have come as media practioners. The learning graph we were asked to complete symbolizes our improvement in the areas of; technical skills, conceptual, professionalism and practice skills. I believe I have definitely improved in all areas, which is noticeable in the graph. Especially technical skills, as I now know how to use Adobe Audition and Adobe Premier Pro which were skills I did not know at all in the beginning of the semester.

When I think about what I learnt and how I learnt that I think is really valuable, I do think about the Adobe software that I have now learnt how to use. I learnt how to successfully use Premier Pro and Adobe Audition by trial and error, I improved my skills by always making new videos and sounds and making mistakes and then correcting those mistakes to therefore be happy and content with my end product, for example the interview video for Project Brief 3. What I found the most challenging about the course was sometimes trying to keep up with everyone else. As I do believe that many apart from me have a more thorough technical understanding of the Adobe software, and easily keeping on track with assignments, and because I was just learning about the Adobe programs, I did sometimes feel like I was falling behind. What I have discovered about my own practice as a media practitioner is I am capable of being a media practitioner, although this sounds pretty straight forward, before this course began I was scared that I wasn’t cut out for this course or I was not technically clever enough to make and produce good media content. However this course is really great at giving beginners like me time, time to learn, grow and do, and because of this I have been able to make media content, and this content has definitely improved in terms of its quality from the beginning of the course, till now.