Link to our Instagram
Link to Google drive files
Link to Post 1
Link for Post 2
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Assignment 4- Post 2
Reflecting on this project as a whole I’m quite happy with how our work progressed and evolved to cater to our demographic. I think that as a group we did well to delegate all the work that needed to be done, and there was a sense of satisfaction knowing that what we are creating can help individuals who are experiencing cyberbullying. It was awesome to be able to engage with our followers and listen to what they had to say on cyberbullying and direct them to help services. This whole experience of creating a social media campaign is new to me and is something I have not delved into before. I was glad that our topic of cyberbullying was the focus of the page as with such an important topic it filled me with gratification that we were doing something that was creating a difference. One thing I learnt this semester when it comes to social media is just how many options there are in terms of creating content and engagement. Social media is a powerful tool and gives you a lot of options in regard to what you want to post, whether it’s a video or carousel post your options are quite open. This was great for us as we were able to create a lot of different types of posts through visuals (graphics and video) which altogether made an effective and informative social media campaign. I found the feedback that we received throughout this semester to be quite useful for improving on our project. I have not made content like this before for social media so any feedback that was given was important for me to further deepen my understandings of social media and how to better apply the knowledge to our demographic. At the start of this semester, I found this project a little bit daunting as I felt like I was out of my comfort zone as I had not created content like this, specifically for Instagram, where the message being conveyed is so important. I learnt a substantial amount about how to create graphics that includes crucial information about cyberbullying, whilst still being able to create something artistic and pleasing to my eye. This project has really informed me on how much goes on behind the scenes of big social media accounts when creating and posting content. Having regular meetings with my group throughout the semester helped us to decide what content we were going to create and when we would post it. These two considerations are discussed regularly for business and organisations using social media, but the audience is highly unlikely to know the amount of work and effort that goes into posting. This was great for me to gather an understanding of how social media works and how you can be more effective with your social media strategy.
Assignment 4- Post 1
In week 9 our group presented our social media campaign to the class as well as the sensis people. The information and feedback we received from fellow class members and sensis gave us some good ideas on how to further improve on our work. At this stage in the production process, we came to the understanding that we could polish our work in a few different ways. For me, I was in charge of creating the graphics for our carousel posts with the aim of providing quick and factual information to our audience whilst also keeping the visuals aesthetic through design choices. Although the feedback I received on our design was good and people liked the colour palette adopted, and the information being shown, we lost a sense of factuality due to the fact that I had not included sources for the information being used. This was something that I rectified by making sure that every graphic I had created had the appropriate reference for the information used. This was a bit of an oversight for me as I did not think that without a source the information is no longer plausible. Once adding the sources, I believe that it helped to validate both the information or statistics and further emphasized on the importance of mental health surrounding cyberbullying. At the start of this project our group decided that we wanted to stay anonymous with our social media page. This was due to some of us not wanting our faces to be shown for privacy reasons. We thought that at the time this would be a good idea as we could interact with our audience anonymously and not have to worry about confidentiality. However, the feedback we received from the class highlighted that it may be in fact more beneficial for our audience to meet the people behind the page. In hearing this we created a post called ‘Meet our members’ in which all of us provided a photo to post on our page to our audience. This move was quite constructive for our project as we felt we had created more of a trustful relationship between us and our audience, with the intention of getting more of our followers to answer questions on our polls. Another addition to our page was the inclusion of a link tree at the top of our bio. The sensis people highlighted to us that its all good to provide information on cyberbullying but the information becomes obsolete if you do not provide guidance on where to get help or who to turn to. The link tree adoption was a great addition for us, as we are able to provide links to websites such as R U OK? and Instagram’s anti-bullying protocols. This helps to add another layer of advice and guidance to our audience and ensuring that the materials we provide to our audience is being used to its maximum capacity.
Assignment 2- Submission
Assignment 2- Post 3
Devise a social media strategy that explains how you can engage your audience
- The objective of this campaign is to increase awareness and knowledge of online bullying and harassment, and how this can really impact mental health. From looking at the sensis data our target audience is young teens from 13-18 years old with our platform of choice being Instagram. Our strategy to seek engagement with our target audience is to try and cater to everyone via the use of different types of posting. An example of this is for our static posts we aim to inform the audience with either facts or statements, whilst making the post itself aesthetically pleasing. Being able to share information to our audience in a way that’s both informative and aesthetic is important to convey the message at hand. Another type of posting that we will try is carousel posting. This allows us to post multiple pieces of content at once that the user can swipe between. This would be great for short videos or multiple statements or facts that can reinforce the message of our campaign. The last type of posting that we are going to experiment with is stories. The aim for us when using this feature is to make an interactive story to engage with our audience. This may be in the form of a poll or vote as an example. We think that if we can engage with our audience in an interactive way then we will be able to further spread the message.
Assignment 2- Post 2
Identify a specific target audience informed by an analysis of the Sensis data and propose a platform or platforms that is/are relevant to your target audience
- Looking at the sensis data 56% of Australians use the internet more than 10 times per day. And out of all the internet enabled devices, 88% said their smart phone was their primary device for social media. 49% of Australians in the 18-29 age bracket say they spend too much time on social media. I think that this statistic in particular is quite interesting because if young people feel like they spend too much time on social media, then we need to ensure that the content we are creating for this assignment is content that isn’t just going to be scrolled past and ignored. In regards to bullying on social media 27% said they had witnessed some form of bullying or harassment online, with 16% saying they have experienced this first hand. The platform that we are going to use for this project is Instagram. Instagram was the 3rd most popular social networking site from the sensis report. There are a few reasons as to why we chose Instagram as our platform of choice. One reason why is the amount of variety of content Instagram gives you. We believe that if we can create videos, graphics, static posts, carousel posts, polls, then we will be able to engage with our audience more so than other platforms. Our target audience looking at the sensis report would be individuals aged from 13-18 years old, as this age bracket was highlighted as the age most likely to experience online bullying.
Assignment 2- Post 1
Pose a question that you will answer with your social media strategy and posts
- The aim of this assignment is to look to see the effects of online bullying and harassment, and what this does to affect one’s mental health. As the world turns more and more towards social media it become important for these platforms to understand and implement ways to prevent bullying online. This project aims to shed light on this via the platform Instagram. Instagram would allow us to engage with our target audience in many different ways such as carousel posting and interactive stories. This level of engagement we believe would benefit our target audience as we aim to publish facts/statements on online bullying. We do not want people to ignore the facts or data on this issue, so trying to create a page that is both informative and engaging will help to tackle this issue at hand much better. This is why Instagram is a great platform for us to use as we are able to have a lot of options in terms of content (photos, videos, polls) and really get a feel for what works best.
Assignment 1 Post 3
How will your own work in this studio be informed by your understandings of social media, the data from the Sensis surveys and your examples of social media mentioned above? What information do you hope to gather from the Sensis data?
I’m hoping that in this studio my understandings surrounding social media will help to shape my work that I will be creating in the coming weeks. I’m lucky in the sense that I’ve grown up using social media avidly, so I feel as if I have good understandings of the workings around things such as social media campaigns. I’m also wanting to take inspiration from other social media content that can help me develop my work and vision. Talking about Hopes and Dreams Club I find their work engaging as someone who likes to take photos, and this would be a great place for me to gather inspiration and create. I would love to create similar works if its compatible with future assignments down the road. I’m also hoping that once my project has been decided I can use the information from Sensis to really drive my project into the demographic that I am targeting. I think this information would be crucial to this course and really developing an understanding of what exactly you are creating and who you are trying to target.
AquaPura
Available here
Synopsis:
When Max Bradley decided to drop out of university, he had ambitions that exceeded what a conventional education could offer. Max decided to join Sea Shepherd, an organization whose main focus is sustaining ecological systems and preserving the ocean’s wildlife. Everyday, Max dedicates himself to saving beached whales and untangling animals from abandoned fishing nets. AQUAPURA is a 5 minute documentary that focuses on Max’s relationship with Sea Shepherd Organization and the oceans he has yet to cross
Production Roles:
Directed by Oliver Kuschel
Filmed by Karmen Ma
Edited by Norton Chen
ASSIGNMENT 3 PT 1-AquaPura
Two seperate edits of a sequence of your work.Embed two different edits of a key sequence in your media work and write a 350 word reflection on the aims, strengths and weaknesses of each. If you are working in another medium (ie: photo essay, photographs), you might like to explore two different layouts or formats for the work to be presented in.
Final edit:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cYabMno7nlgfGBB0snMO0TB2-gVlHxkd
Rough edit:
Sequence time:0:00-1:25
The aim for the opening sequence of AquaPura was to really get the audience hooked into what the film is about and to create some suspense. We originally thought that the best way to achieve this was to make it as fast paced as possible. The original sequence is quite in your face in terms of pace and the information being thrown at you. We originally thought that this aggressiveness was a good idea because the audience would be hooked right from the start. However, during our screening, the guest critics suggested we slow it down a bit because it was an information overload. I think the biggest strength of this edit is that the information being shown draws people in due to its fast-paced nature. How ever this also at the same time can be a negative. The information can feel as if it is coming too fast which might deter some people from paying attention because they cannot keep up with the information at hand. After hearing what our guests had to say about the opening sequence, we of course needed to slow it down a bit so that the audience have time to digest what’s being said. We did this by adding some more breathes in between phrases as well as cutting some unnecessary information that Max was talking about when we originally interviewed him. Obviously, the biggest strength of the final sequence is that it feels a lot less aggressive than the original edited sequence, which I think the audience will feel more comfortable with. Another strength of this edit is that I personally think the slower pace works well with the sound track better. The fast ticking in the background becomes more prominent in the final edit because of all the pauses that were added. I think this helps to aid our original aim of the opening sequence which was to hook our audience in.
A 350 word post oncollaboration – Did you have any issues in the making of your work? How did you overcome them? What makes a good collaborator?
The collaborative process this semester was quite a fun but stressful time. Norton and Karmen we’re great and reliable group members but when things that are out of your hands play dividends it can mean that this process can be tiresome. We had our fair few issues throughout this whole semester which created a number of issues for us. I think the biggest problem we had was due to the weather being quite terrible. We kept pushing back filming because every time we planned to film it was raining. It finally got to a point where we couldn’t afford to push it back anymore, so we filmed the interview in a recording studio at RMIT. The footage was terrible but we had already planned to cover it in b-roll anyway, so we were more invested in the audio than actual footage. Another issue that occurred over the collaborative process was the hiring of equipment. We had booked the only video camera available from RMIT thinking it would be the one that we had learned to use in class, but it turned out to be a completely different camera which neither Norton nor Karmen knew how to use. It meant that we we’re quite messy and unorganised in regards to setting the gear up. But luckily, we got the grasp of things after 20 minutes of tinkering with the camera. Another issue we had was sorting out who was going to edit a large chunk of this work, and thankfully Norton offered to ease our work load a bit because he didn’t have as many assignments as Karmen and I. I think a good collaborator is a team player and can get along with everyone in the group. Not having to worry about people arguing about how things should be or what they think is right creates a nice atmosphere which is enjoyable for all.
A 350 word post appraising your final work – What was your intention with this work? Did you achieve it? What aspects of the work are you proud of? What media production skills do you need to improve?.
Our intention for AquaPura was to highlight some interesting and key issues happening in todays world in the oceans. We wanted to try and spread awareness among a younger demographic as it will be us in the future who are going to have to deal with these problems if changes aren’t made. We thought the best way to do this would to be with Max as he fits into the target demographic which I personally believe helps to make it feel more relevant to those who watch. I would say for the most part we achieved what we set out to do, but I think if I were to do it again, I would change a few things. Due to time constraints its hard to develop a character and their personalities or traits. I think the film would’ve been even more dominant if we heard about Max’s story a bit more because the film only really tells us what he does on the surface. I think it would’ve also been good if we focused more on what people who are watching can do, as we include what Max suggests everyday people can do. But because it is only a 5 minute film I think it loses a bit of its attention as we didn’t have enough time to put more emphasis on it. I would say I’m proud over all with what we have achieved this semester. We had many constraints which set us back, but we were able to over come them to deliver our final product. I would say that I’m most proud of how our group worked together. It made for a less stressful time for everyone and just the general working environment has been enjoyable for me. Some media production skills that I would like to work on would certainly be editing. I feel like I can do very basic editing but after seeing other groups work compared to ours it makes me want to try and learn how to edit things in a more professional way. I also think I would like to learn how to use video cameras a bit more because at times I didn’t feel too comfortable with them just due to the fact that my knowledge with video cameras isn’t strong.
A 350 word post reflecting on your semester – Review the Week 1 blog post where you outlined your goals for this unit. Did you meet them? What challenges did you experience? How did you overcome them? What did you learn along the way?
One of my goals for this semester which I mentioned in my goals was that I wanted to get better with my basic camera skills. I think I can say that I worked on them, but I still feel as if I have more to learn. I enjoyed learning how to use those Sony video cameras in class because prior to using them I thought that it would be pretty straight forward for me because I use a Sony mirrorless camera. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had no clue how to use these cameras which was fun and exciting. I think some of my most important information that I will use in other classes would have come out of those shooting exercises we did in class because I really enjoy being behind a camera. I also wanted to go out of my comfort zone this semester because I usually stick more to the photography side of media making. This semester was a great way for me to explore more videography and appreciate the work and effort that goes into film making. I think that this semester I really started to appreciate both the knowledge and fun that I was getting out of the hands-on side of class because it made the whole process a lot more enjoyable. I think one challenge I experienced is my confidence when it came to making decisions. When things start to be beyond your control, I found it sometimes hard to make decisions on what to do. An example of this was when we were behind in filming due to weather and I wasn’t sure if we should just wait or film in another location. This is something that I would like to work on moving forward in my studies.