Weekly Blog

#1 - Week Ending 06/10/19

This week, I excitedly began designing my website. I have pre-existing experience with Wix, so I chose that site to work with. I would like to make a logo and consistent lour palette to keep a personality across all work-related areas and materials, but for now am experimenting with the functionalities of the site and how to make it visually enticing for visitors.

 

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#2 - Week Ending 13/10/19

I used the information I filled out on the training sheets given to us (regarding achievements and skills) to assemble a CV. Luckily, I also have information on my pre-existing CV concerning employment and education to work with also, yet focused it towards roles that were media relevant, even just in skillset. I also reflected on my site, feeling it to be too cluttered, so I simplified some of the banner animations and cluttersome buttons placed about. I also, after some advice from lessons, removed my photo from the site. As Editing is the main area of focus I would like to work in, I have been spending much of my free time editing together footage I have for projects that I have been working on finishing, so that I can add them to my professional portfolio which at the moment is quite bare, as most work I have done in the past has either been design-oriented, personally unfitting or not up to a professionally comparable standard.

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#3 - Week Ending 20/10/19

I sought to replace some of the social media links I had on my site – while my Facebook and Instagram are employer-safe, they weren’t directed towards work in terms of portfolio, communication and network growth. I set up a Twitter to follow media groups and other web editors, which will be especially useful as this is an area of much interest to me and would like to do some freelance web editing myself. I also returned to an old general LinkedIn profile I had and cleaned it up to reflect a media-specific presentation, then linked these to my site along with my existing professional Youtube channel for future portfolio additions. I have also been researching companies in the Manchester and MediaCity areas to do some work experience for – I am hoping to do short periods or perhaps one-to-two-day roles at various places so that I can both get different examples of varying environments based off their work type, team size, etc. as well as find the intermittent time to continue working on portfolio pieces. It will also be more manageable to do work experience like this around my pre-existing job.

Other than that, I have continued to use my remaining free time to continue with editing together example work, some projects of which I have added personal deadlines to finish.

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#4 - Week Ending 27/10/19

My tutorial for review was moved ahead a week, so as I had questions pertaining to chasing up professional contacts in general media, I have decided to use added time to get mroe information and chase up leads on pursuing an area of career interest I have; online editing. I contacted multiple individuals who work as editors with online clients - mostly assembling footage for Youtubers, but also promoting that they work in short film, corporate video, etc - for advice and guidance. I managed to obtain some very good leads on getting experience, which I shall be following up on promptly. I also finished a large portfolio piece which stands as a good example of my ability to edit longform, which gives my portfolio and my appeal more versatility.

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#5 - Week Ending 03/11/19

This week, Stephen presented multiple possible creative briefs for us to contact and work on. There were several that took my interest, and this was preferable to me as work experience as I have trouble with communication and being the first to approach people, be it professionally or informally. Some briefs required a team and some other students showed interest in them, so I opened a group chat on Facebook and people I was comfortable with formed a production team to improve our chances of communications with the brief clients.

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#6 - Week Ending 10/11/19

This week was the university's reading week, where there were no classes or guest lecturers. Due to the physical workload of other assignments (namely Film Making), I used the week to mostly focus on those.

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#7 - Week Ending 17/11/19

This week's guest speaker was Chris Cronin, who showed us one of his short films, Oscar's Bell. I enjoyed Chris's film as in terms of scale and environment, it reminds me of the kind of films I would like to make. Chris talked about his buildup into directing, his use of budget and his induction into the horror genre.

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#8 - Week Ending 24/11/19

The speaker this week was cancelled. Due to issues that arose with other assignments that required immediate attention to fix, I have not made any headway on personal portfolio building this week, however my creative brief team has received responses regarding two of the creative briefs we are interested in.

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#9 - Week Ending 01/12/19

This week's speaker was Ian Wilson, a professional editor who I was glad to catch as that is my area of interest. Ian talked about the process of entering the editing field through television, conventional media and production houses in a number of different ways, with roles branching off from an initial Runner position. My Creative Brief team also had two meetings on Wednesday morning to discuss two different creative briefs with the producers of each project and will be undertaking a project with both Alchemy Arts producing a promotional video, and also creating three shorts for Salford pride. At the weekend, I was also asked to help edit with another team doing a different project for Alchemy Arts, and the production head has shown interest in working together again in the future.

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#10 - Week Ending 08/12/19

This week we heard from Jason Wingard, who showed us his filmography and talked about the development of his work. Jason's talk was incredibly captivating and helpful, and I had a lot of questions as did most other students. I was mostly interested in learning more on the process for acquiring funds to make his earlier work with through sponsorship and third party investors. Jason's process for making low-budget short films and building up in scale and support is a method that I would be interested in pursuing.

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