We encountered many challenges during the ideas process of our artifact. We had trouble in creating a concise angle to focus on, and changed our focal point almost each tutorial in which we discussed how we would portray our theme. Our main problem was that we strayed from our given theme of ‘technologies’ and focused too much on social media. I wasn’t there for the first brainstorming session so I am not sure how the topic formed. Our first idea had been how technology and social media affected news media. This developed and transformed into our final artifact; social media in young people, and is it good or bad?
Once we had scripted the show and decided on how to film, we chose a location, how many and what cameras to use and how to do the audio. On the day of filming, we encountered further problems; the location had the sound of an air conditioner in the background, and also, as it was not a private room, had people walking past throughout the filming. However, we were able to work around this by filming more than one take and editing techniques on the audio, which Tim took charge of. Sandy had a lot of lines and we discovered that she was unable to recite them all in one take, so we created a scrolling of the lines on a laptop behind the camera so she was able to read whilst filming. Despite encountering numerous problems we were able to accomplish the filming within one session.
Once Tim had edited the shots together and uploaded it onto our group’s Facebook page, Sandy and I were able to comment on it and give feedback. Apart from adding in a title and mentioning sources, we were happy with it as we had previously notated where to put graphics on the screen and which camera angle to use when.
There was a lot to learn during the making process, as many things we did were new to us. Although having made short films previously, I had never made one in the style of a news show. New skills I learnt from this was the use of several cameras, the importance of the anchor’s interaction with one another (e.g. for Tim and I to look at each other when we were the only two on screen) and the importance of conveying the theme/concept of the artifact through the actual project rather than through a synopsis style written piece.
The biggest thing I will find useful to me in the future, however, is how important it is to develop a concise theme and to stick to it. I think our group got confused within in the first stages and should’ve scrapped what we had formulated and started again with a clean slate. However, we did not do this and instead continued with a vague understanding of what we were trying to convey to our audience. Because this was my first collaboration, I appreciate this was bound to happen, and now that I am aware of the importance of the idea making process, in the future I will place greater value on making sure the whole collaborative team understands, agrees and is able to work with the topic. This major hiccup in our project will now be in the back of my mind each time I create a project, and so I believe, despite the small dent in our final artifact, the confusion around our theme will help each of us in future media broadcasting.
Our choice of creating a news panel to engage with audience worked in with what we personally found engaging. I believe that style of ‘discussion’ and ‘joining the conversation’ works well with informing the audience at the same time as being an entertaining and interesting piece of media to engage and respond to. Although not a ‘real’ show, the option to ‘join the conversation’ creates responsiveness in the audience and a process of considering and forming ones own opinion on the news/topic.
Technically, I believe our final project contained further skills new to us. Mainly, the techniques applied to give the artifact a ‘news show’ effect. We did this through the use of different camera angles (three cameras; of Sandy, of Tim and I and of all three of us) and by editing in graphics. We put quotes, images and references up on the screen to create a more diverse range of viewing material. Some of this was done while the speaker was still in the same frame, and sometimes as the only thing on the screen. This meant the audience would not get bored of what they were viewing as it was changing and creating a new environment to view.
The majority of our research was done in the idea process as we were having trouble developing our idea into a concise theme. With a broader threshold of information we were able to use this knowledge to develop what would be most relevant and engaging to our audience and to our theme. Once we had decided on a concise focus we were able to do further individual research for the writing of our scripts.
As a result of our restless theme I believe it has helped our group to realize the importance of research; in how it helps to concise, develop and create a theme through the process of learned knowledge.