Overall, the PB4 collaborative project was very successful as everyone contributed in some way, and we were able to communicate well, be clear of all our roles and as a result the quality is in the final product. The most successful aspect of the project was the collaboration of each person, we outlined our specific roles and helped others out when needed, so the teamwork was at a very high standard. To our fortune there weren’t too many problematic aspects, some of the resources in the bibliography we’re difficult to find in some instances. There was a small error with some of the unsaved audio footage going missing but to the group members credit the audio files were re recorded and submitted on time.

The Media 1 lectures we’re a good base for the theories we established in both our videos and audio essays. Our essay topic was ‘Audiences’ and in the readings that were supplied to us in the lectures, were how audiences are grouped into age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status. These ideas in the reading were referenced in our video essay. We specifically detailed the demographic side of audience reception and showed how a different range of people reacted to the space phenomena ‘Star Wars’, depending on the reception context being where and when they first viewed the masterpiece. In the audio essay we distinguished the difference between active and passive audiences and described some of the media theories which contribute towards the way a media text is consumed by the target audiences. The impressive part about our essays is it gave a wide range of opinions and viewpoints; from academics to actual audience members, this range gave our essays great.

Firstly, creating the video was an accepted challenge. Firstly, it allowed all of the members in my group to pick the best content and information contained within the bibliography. Then from this point onwards the content was sectioned into spoken lines (narrated by members in the team) and coupled with visual clips. The designated role allowed me to research and successfully find a range of historic archival audio and visual clips. To expand on what I was able to contribute to the groups overall essay, I was able to explore a raft of different media theories. I focused explicitly on the hypodermic needle theory, which relates to how the audience is directly influenced by mass media. As a result of using the hypodermic needle theory we had good examples to discuss such as the War of the World’s broadcast, used explicitly in the audio essay.

There was a lot to be learnt about the different affordances of audio and visual based media, but I suppose one of the main things I found challenging was with the audio as you are honing into one human sense. Therefore there needs to be more effort and thought injected into the engagement factor of the audio. By adding background noise, sound effects, soundtracks, small snippets of external speeches the audio essay was more fluent and easier to listen to instead of piling on huge slabs of information. There are many ways to make an engaging video display which is what as a group we found, as opposed to the layering of the audio essay. The challenge of working with the variety of techniques that are unique to audio and video respectively, allowed all of us to be creative, flexible, gain invaluable experience and to be open of change in the process of producing the two different entities.

Overall, I reiterate the satisfaction of working with a great group of individuals. By outlining our numerous roles early in the piece allowed us all to work systematically with our designated roles and collaborate efficiently to come up with the essay that we present you with today. In a collaborative project, the key to success and eliminating grey areas is definitely communication. We made sure that through email and particularly a group chat on Facebook, that we would stay in touch and notify each member of any changes and progress in the project. Social media in this case was an extremely vital resource and kept everyone on the same page and up to date with the project. The constant use of social media day by day has been increased throughout this course so far and particularly in this Project Brief 4. This has been to my advantage as I have learnt more new skills and became more consistent with those skills as a media practitioner. As a collaborative you need to understand each other’s roles and make sure you complete that outlined role at a similar pace to ensure no one is left behind and as a result the project moves forward as one. I believe we have done these essentials well and as a result the evidence is in the project.

Michael Serpell