Women In Media (Week 7: SEMINAR WEEK!!) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

Goodness me….it’s all done!!

What a crazy week it has been…but we made it and I couldn’t be more proud of our efforts!

On the Monday we had a meeting just to go over everything and go over job roles during the seminar set-up, production, pack-up and post-production. Not everyone could turn up to this meeting, so I went over everything with those who were able to attend and we decided to have a second ‘last’ meeting on Friday morning. Also it was good to schedule another ‘last’ meeting so that Shelley was able to attend and help us out with any last minute questions.

I wrote up again a little list of job roles (similar to the way we organising the seminar pre-production job roles) and everyone signed up to what they wanted to help with. I thought it would be a good idea to do this so that on the day, everyone in my team knew exactly what the had to do and we could maximise what little time we have to set up and pack down all our equipment!

Set up and Pack up teams!

Our production manual was completed by Sam many weeks prior, which also included everybody’s job roles during the seminar. Most team members were signed up to a job but I made sure everyone had something to do during the production of the seminar. Sam also devised up schedule for the day, which we did end up editing slightly but overall it was perfect and I was very grateful to have Sam on the ball and handling the production side of things in the week lead up of the seminar.

On the day before the seminar, I quickly sorted out the last minute details of the seminar which included printing out the brochures that I designed with Mia and Kim earlier in the week. I also made everyone a badge to wear, (I think the gold and white texta on pink badges really stood out in the end!) and also my group thought it would be nice to get our guests something extra, apart from the presents the steering committee provided us to give to our guests. We initially decided to get flowers as a group but I personally did not have the money to afford 3 bunches of flowers and I didn’t want to get them cheap sucky flowers. So I got creative and made up some homemade cactus pot plants for the guest! I know this was unnecessary to do but I just think it would nice to give that something extra to our guests, to show how grateful we are that they were part of our seminar!

Cactus pot plants are surprisingly easy to make!

Now for Seminar day….must say my memories of this day are a blur as I was in a constant state of panic (ha ha!). We had our last meeting the morning, ran over everything as a group and spoke to Shelley and away we went!
My idea of having the different set-up/pack down teams worked really well and we all met in the seminar room as soon as we could get there around 3.20pm. Then it was mad rush time! Sam, Matt and Alois were absolute whiz’s in the lighting setup as well as everyone else who helped set up the props onstage. My idea of using black material to cover the chairs actually worked! That was surprising but thank goodness it did!

For a moment before we started we thought we almost had a no-show from one of our guests as it was past 4pm and she had not arrived. I had this moment of panic that I might have to decide to begin the seminar without her…but then literally 20 seconds after that she appeared in the room! And finally we began the seminar!
I gave an intro speech to our audience before we began and it was a bit of a nightmare to say the least. No matter how much I practised the speech, it did not come across on the day as I managed to pronounce every word wrong and I was mortified! I apologised to the guests afterwards and they were very understanding, pretty certain they saw how my hand was about to fall off because it was shaking so much every time I raised my hand to read my notes 😛
But in saying that, It was literally the only thing that went wrong on the day, so many bad things could of happened but they didn’t, so hooray for that!

The actual seminar was so fantastic and everything ran smoothly as it possibly could have. Prani was an absolute star, we could have not had a better host. We were all so proud of her efforts! The guests had fantastic advice for our audience, I particularly loved Helen’s point about how everyone needs to be watching Australian content, even if you don’t like it. AS IT IS SO TRUE! You got to start somewhere, so support the industry that your from!!
I think we really blew our audience away in terms of our organisational skills and fantastic guests, that seemed to be the overall comment we got from our feedback. I am glad those two factors stood out to our audience because as a group, we worked out bums off for this project!! And everyone in the group deserved that recognition!

Overall I think we did such an amazing job. I am really really proud of how hard everyone worked, as like I said before, it really paid off! I think most of my group members felt the same as I did about the project and that is what motivated them to want to work as hard as they did. Personally this topic really matters to me, so when it came down to it, I didn’t feel like I was going out of my way to work hard for the seminar, I just so badly wanted it to be good as it is such import topic that matters to everyone who wants to be apart of the Media industry! I would say half of our Media 6 cohort is female, and we all plan to enter the media industry ,so we need to understand how it currently is for a women in this kind of workplace and hopefully work together to overcome this massive gender issue! And of course this applies to the males, we need to have awareness from all genders to promote a cultural change! I’m glad to see from our feedback that his point resonated with our audience, as we had a lot of feedback about our content being inspiring, which I am also so proud of!

I am happy with my job as team leader (apart from the intro speech), everyone seemed pretty happy with my efforts and kindly told me so at the conclusion of our seminar. I think I was able to delegate jobs out fairly and make sure everyone contributed in some way as well as steering everything in the right direction so it was as organised as possible. I think taking on this role was a really great challenge for me, it’s something I wouldn’t have done about a year ago but I thought it would be a great opportunity to gain more leadership experience and I am really glad I did it. I understand now what it is like to work in such a big team and I feel that I really benefited from it. I hope to be able to adapt these skills into my skill-set for future career opportunities. I also learnt that I really need to practise public speaking more, especially if I want to have a career as a film academic! I hope I made the process of our seminar as smooth and stress-free as I could for my team members!

Go team, we rocked!

Women In Media (MID-SEMESTER BREAK) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

So it’s mid-semester break now and things are going smoothly!

I meet up with Mia and Matt on Monday to complete the cut of the promo video and to cut the footage into bite size clips to upload on Instagram and the other social medias. The end result of the promo video is fantastic and I can’t wait for everyone to see it! The plan is to tease out the video this week in the mid-semester break and the Monday we get back in week 7, we will upload the full video!

We also were able to print out the posters and cover building 9 in them, so when everyone gets back to Uni next Monday, the posters will already be up for everyone to see.

The social media team has begun there promotion across the various social media accounts we are using and it looks great! Alois has been writing most of the posts and sourcing the fantastic articles about our guests for audience to get excited about. Mardy has been uploaded our bite size videos on the RMIT Adventure instagram page as well as the other pages and Karen has been tweeting away on our HeroinesOfMedia twitter page. I also created a facebook event for our seminar and got our group members to invite all their friends and family! And so far we have 120 people attending on the event, hooray! (Who knows if that many people will actually come but still it shows great support from friends and family and fellow students!).

I also did a bit of craft shopping this week as I have a plan to make all my group members badges to wear on the day! I think it looked so fantastic that the TV seminar group had the RMITV crew member tshirts on, it really unified them and showed they were a team! So my more quick and simple version of this will be to create pink badges that either say ‘Heroines of the Media Industry’ or ‘♀‘, I am asking my group members which they like better first.

I’m also in the process of organising a day before our seminar next week just to go over everything one last time and hopefully our tutor Shelley will be able to join us. Everyone has been assigned a role on the day but I also want to spilt the group up in different teams such as, Lighting & Equipment team, Stage setup team, Catering team and Guest Liason team. So this way everyone knows what they will be setting up/packing down when it comes to it. As much as I love that we will be properly lighting our set, I am also worried about time, so I want to try and make this as smoothly run as possible and if everyone knows exactly what to do then hopefully this will work out to plan! I also just want to make sure everyone understands their role for the day of the seminar production and what they will need to do. And lastly we will need to discuss the process of post-production and getting that all completed!

Finally this week we all have been brainstorming questions Prani will ask the guests, this is something I will have to go over with Prani before the seminar so we are all on the same page.

Not long to go now!

Women In Media (Week 6) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

What a week! Things are finally starting to fall into place and I am starting to feel really good about our seminar…

First of all, we finally have confirmed all 3 guests!! Woohooo!! I am so relieved, for a moment there I thought we weren’t going to get a third guest with our bad luck! We found out the great news that Mitu Bhowmick-Lange accepted our invitation to join our panel yesterday morning. I’ve looked into the work she has done and she sounds amazing! I really am excited to have her on board. I am really proud of the guests we were able to get for our panel, not only are they diverse in their industry experience but culturally as well, which I think is very important to our seminar discussion.

At the start of the week, the stage production team (Matt and Sam) and I organised with the TV studio people to borrow props for our seminar setup. Unfortunately all the furniture we hoped to book is already taken for another class, so we have to use the same chairs as the Social Media seminar group (bright blue chairs, worked well for them as the colour reminded me of the facebook blue colour, very relevant)…but I’m hoping to work my magic on the set and try to create a different look perhaps with a bit of material and pins…see how that goes :S

really great pic of stage props! 😛

We also filmed the video promotion on Friday morning!! The idea behind the promo (Sarah’s great idea) was to have our host, Prani, battling her way up the RMIT building, showing her epic journey to the Women In Media seminar. I am stoked with my group’s effort. We managed to film and cut together pretty much the entire promo in a couple of hours (minus one shot we had to film later that night). I am lucky to have such a strong team of creative individuals as when it came to the filming of the promo, everyone was switched and full of great ideas. Sarah and I earlier in the week did a quick location scout to organise where to film and the night before Sarah devised a shot list, so we were more than prepared when it came to the shoot. Mardy shot the footage and it looks stunning for something that we didn’t even light or really put that much effort into cinematography-wise, she’s a natural talent! We had other helping hands there as well on the shoot, Mia helped with sound, Maree was there for creative input and also stood in as an extra and of course Prani did a fantastic job as the star of the promo! And when it came to the post production, thanks to super whiz Matt who cut all of our random shots together to create a fun silly promo video that hopefully our cohort will enjoy!

On set!

Also more great news, since we finally got our third guest onboard, we were able to FINALLY complete our seminar poster!! And it looks absolutely fantastic. Maddie was in charge of this one and she did a fantastic effort. In the tute on Friday night, we added the finishing touches and finally completed it. I have the file now and plan on printing out posters and covering the school next week on mid-semester break! We are very fortunate to have the mid-semester break up our sleeve as it means we have a whole extra week of promotion.

We had a group meeting in the middle of the week just to go over everything to make sure everyone is up to date in the group. The social media team haven’t had to do anything yet as we plan to begin our social media advertising on the Monday of the mid-semester break as well as the catering team who will begin that preparation closer to the date.

As of this moment in time, we have really gotten our act together as a group and things are starting to fall into place. I think I have taken a lot of stress of my group members as now that things are actually starting to be accomplished, it feels like we are getting somewhere as a group whereas before we were stuck in a lull. I can’t wait to print out the posters and begin the social media advertising, I think it will be great!!

Women In Media (Week 5) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

So here we are in week 5 and now I mean serious business….

I had the realisation on Thursday night that we really haven’t gotten very far with our seminar preparation and its about 2 weeks until everything has to be submitted to the steering committee arghh!!!!!
I think these last two weeks I have been trying way too hard to be diplomatic and discuss everything as a group but to be honest it isn’t achievable, especially when we only have about an hour for our meetings on Fridays…

So yesterday I got more practical to my approach to team leader of the group and divided up different teams that my team members could sign up too and posted the roles on our facebook group the night before our meeting, so everyone could read over what jobs are up for grabs and have a think about what they want to do!

The teams consist of:
– Guest Team: Will reach out to our guests and keep in contact with them/make them feel welcome on the day of seminar
– Social Media Team: Will take care of all social media aspects of seminar including facebook, instagram and twitter.
– Design Team: Will design poster to advertise seminar as well as brochure for the actual day as a handout. Also will be responsible for printing posters and advertisements.
– Video Promo Team: will be in charge of planning, shooting and editing together.
– Stage Production Team: Will be in charge of stage setup, lighting, audio and filming the seminar.
– Catering: In charge of snacks and refreshments!

The Job roles I devised! This was posted on our facebook page, then discussed in person.

Everyone responded so well to this and everyone eagerly signed up to a team, some people are even signed up to multiple different teams. I think this approach is way more productive as now each team will go off in their own time and begin organize and make decisions for their part of the seminar. I am part of every team and I will make sure I can help out everyone if they need! I’ve already organised a meeting with the stage production team for next Monday to source props and equipment for the seminar.

I am feeling ALOT more confident now about our seminar, too much time was being wasted talking out everything as a group and in our restricted time limit, I think this is the smartest and most effective approach also that way all my team members have more individual responsibility which makes it a way more fun experience!

Team meeting!

I also put it to the group that we need to meet at another time apart from Fridays and everyone responded very quickly back to me with their availbilities. So its decided that Thursdays at 5pm we will have another weekly meeting just to keep up on top of things.

Yay go team!!

Women In Media (Week 4) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

Here we are in Week 4 and things are slowly moving along…
Today’s meeting in class was productive but a little harder than usual as almost half the group was away sick but I’ve kept them informed on what they missed out on.

Our first news is that unfortunately we have had our first rejection from a potential guest. Sue Maslin will be fly to the toronto film festival the day of our seminar! Which is such a shame but she did say that our theme was very important and she wished she could have been there….oh well back to the drawing board.
I put it out to the group who they wanted as a backup for Sue and everyone insisted on contacting Natalie Tran. For those who do not know Natalie, she is a very well known Australian Vlogger. The reason we spoke out to her is because she represents a newer media landscape (online video production) and also she is a freelancer in her work! So that is an interesting field that would be cool to have a representative from! She is also hilarious and a fantastic speaker. If Natalie cannot make it, our next backup will be Corrie Chen! She’s great because she’s a former student in the RMIT Media course, who went onto VCA and now is a filmmaker!

We are still yet to hear from Clementine Ford but fingers crossed we get a reply from Clementine soon, if she cannot do the seminar, we have decided for Clementine’s backup be Celeste Liddle! She is a journalist and a blogger and her work seems very interesting. A great representative for the journalists/professional writer kind of field in the Media Industry.

I am unsure how to approach the social media aspect for the seminar so I put it to the group who was there today, that may be interested in taking on the role of a different social media page for Heroines in Media and didn’t get a great response so I’ll go over that next meeting.

We are still also waiting on mock designs for our poster and again we didn’t get to really discuss other important elements to the seminar such as stage setup and food so I think thats something we really need to get onto next week as we soon will start running out of time….

Lets see how we go next week….

Women In Media (Week 3) MEDIA 6: Industries Workshop

So now that we have formed our groups, today we were able to have our first meeting as the Women In Media team for the RMIT seminar series.
I must say I am very excited that this topic was chosen as one of the seminar themes, I think it is really important and I’m so excited to create a seminar about Women in Media!

Prior to our meeting this week, I put up my hand to be team leader of our seminar group. This is something I wouldn’t usually straight away want to put my hand up for as I know that it comes with alot pressure but like I said before, this topic matters to me a lot and I think I have a lot of knowledge to contribute and of course that it will be so fun to do. So I was quick to put up my hand when we discussed the job role as a team and my group were happy for me to take on the team leader position.

Also prior to this week, we set up our seminar group facebook page and over the weekend everyone posted anyone they thought would be a great to have on our panel. We ended up accumulating a list of over 20 people!

Now back to today’s meeting summary. It was great to see pretty much everyone was able to attend, only a few absent.
I wrote up a quick list of all the things that needed to be covered in the preparation process for our seminar and we tried to work through as many as we could this meeting.
First of all, as a group our first three picks that we wanted on our panel…

Sue Maslin – I put up my hand to contact
Clementine Ford – Prani put her hand up to contact
Helen Gaynor – Karen put her hand up to contact

Guests are to be contacted by Wednesday 12th and I told Prani and Karen to keep us updated as soon as we hear back from them!

Secondly I put it forward to the group who wanted to take charge of intial poster designs. Maree and Maddie put up their hands to create a mock design and mood board for the overall look and aesthetic of logo/social media pages/poster design/promo video. They will present their ideas at next Friday meeting.
Sam took on his own initiative to create a poster design before our meeting and it was a great design but not all of the group agreed they liked the colours but I did really appreciate Sam’s initiative.

This two main points is all we really had time to discuss in our meeting, most people had to leave as soon as it was 5.30pm which is understandable.
I’ve decided after every meeting to write up a big summary of what we have covered in our meeting and post it on the facebook group, so anyone can go over what we discussed and also a good update for those who couldn’t make it!

I’ve also set up a list of things we didn’t cover this week that will be priority next week being our video promo, ideas for social media and how we want to approach that and also Stage setup and production.

Hopefully we do well with our guests and are able to get the ball rolling with all the other tasks to be done.
I was really happy with the contribution from my group today and I feel pretty confident about our seminar, I think I have a lot of hard workers in my team and this will definitely pay off in the end!

Yay team! Go the Ladies!!!

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