Initial Ideas, group and individual tasks

Ideas for portfolio

In this module there will be a degree show of which I will have to showcase all of my best work. For this, I have an idea to create an interactive newspaper through In design, and make it available on the I books author.

To do this, I will need to work on becoming more knowledgeable about the software, and learning how to use it in the most advanced ways I can.

Ideas I have are to have shorthand writing as the headline to introduce myself as a journalist, as there will be professionals from industry present. I would also like to incorporate video and motion pictures into the newspaper with myself, and my work showcasing thing I have done.

Another idea I have is to do a voiceover for the newspaper, so that when people turn the pages, my voice would introduce the page, and any of the content. I would try to link the voice triggering with the pages so that it flows and runs continually and this would mean that I would also not have to continuously explain certain aspects of the newspaper in person.

I am also going to have a room divider board next to my Mac, and showcase in print some of the best work that I have done, including my travel publication of which I am in the process of doing for the individual practice.

Group Tasks

Aside from the individual part of the module, there is also a large group project to set up and create the basis and set up for the actual degree show itself. To do this, we have split into our professional groups, and have been assigned particular tasks to tackle. The Interactive Media cohort has been assigned with promotion and advertising.

I have already had some ideas for this, such as contacting local radio stations, and aiming to have an interview promoting the degree show. To do this, I would need to have full details of the show, and all aspects associated with it so that I can contact the BBC Humberside station, and give them full details of my request. I would also look at getting the presenter to mention it on his show closer to the time as a reminder.

Other aspects I have thought of are looking at local businesses for food and drink, in return for advertising their business. This would be a good way to save money and gain audience for our show.

As all of this is a huge task, I have devised a schedule and a progress report on what will need to be done, and who by, and when for. This is fairly vague at the moment, but it outlines the basics of what we know so far, and what needs to be done to ensure that it progresses. I have done this for my own purposes, but I am going to suggest that the whole group does one in large print, to place in the room for reference.

Over the coming weeks, I will aim to work on my individual ideas, and help with anything that I am assigned to do for the group aspects. I will also contact the BBC about promoting the show, but only when I have full details of this.

Overall Evaluation

Overall Evaluation

The process of creating a piece of content for a client as a group has been one that has been difficult, but I have also learned a lot of useful skills in working as a team. I felt that I have been forefront in leadership within the project, and this has also helped me to develop some skills, and learn how to manage projects in the future.

One of the main concerns that seemed to be raised is that ‘we do not work well as a group.’ I do not agree that this was the case though, as I think if people had of communicated more efficiently, and used the tools at our disposal, and worked more as a team, rather than a group of individuals, the process would have been far more eloquent and progressive.

I feel that a lot of people used this notion of not working well, and made it difficult to work together, as they did not listen, communicate or get involved when needed.

I took a more forefront role within this project as I wanted to produce something positive, and strong to place in my portfolio, and I also felt that we could have kept this publication going and turned it into something more regular, rather than just a piece for the purposes of study.

This was extremely disappointing for me, as I had tried, and spoken, and done as much as I possibly could to ensure that this project moved forward, ran smoothly, and made progress, to try and produce it for a date, and for a purpose. I specifically wrote content for it to be produced in the beginning of December, of which by this time, I had finished all of my content ready for the publication, and I had also edited what I had available to me.

The problem was that I did not have a lot of the work available to edit, nor did it seem that a lot of people had done the work for this period.

It wasn’t that we needed to have it produced for this date, as the deadlines for submission were weeks later, but I did ask, and say, and people agreed, that we could have printed and distributed the publication for Christmas. If I had of known that this would have not been the case then I would have not made extra time and effort for getting the work done and helping people with their work, as well as my own, to work to the deadlines of the first week in December, as we would have had more time.

The team as a whole let themselves down, as there was no reason that we could have not produced something to a very high standard, just as high as it would have been for the official deadline, if people had of communicated better, worked harder, and made more effort.

Making an observation, I had done five main journalism news pieces, for the begging of December, as well as edited, and found images, designed pages, and organised timescales. From the pieces I had edited, I did not see why it was not possible for others to do the same, and therefore we could have produced something together as a group.

The main ideas for design were that we would all do the content, then come together 2 weeks prior to publishing, to look at designs, and discuss ideas. I had raised these points on basecamp and in college too. This did not happen, as I and one or two other members of the group did do this in the college building, when others were present, but chose not to give their input. This is a prime example were people did not communicate their ideas or input work to the group.

Content, editing, and putting the initial ideas together took a lot longer than it needed to. In simplicity of just researching stories, looking what was out there, writing it, editing it, and then making it available to put in the publication, could have been done in a matter of weeks. Although it was important to make sure that everything was to a high standard and done properly, I don’t feel that this was impossible to do for a distribution in December.

In my honest opinion, I feel that people did not pull their weight in making sure that as a group, we did the best we could. Even if the work was to a high standard, or if there was a lot of it, if the group can’t see it and it’s not available to look at, then that is not good communication.

It was very difficult to say this to the group, as I found it could come across bossy, or aggressive, but it is a piece of work that I personally would have liked to have given a real go at trying to produce for a real client. If we said that we were going to do a publication for Hull, the people of Hull should have been able to view our publication, otherwise there is no client.

This was the most frustrating part of the project, when I felt so passionately about producing something for other purposes than just the work. It was an opportunity wasted and for them reasons I am very disappointed.

I enjoyed the process of doing the work, researching, finding stories, coming up with ideas, and having input with other areas too. I wrote various articles, all of which were different, and this allowed me to really express and try new ideas with writing, and creating stories, from basic ideas, such as the main news story.

Overall, I feel that my experience would have been a lot more productive if the team had worked better, but this didn’t stop me from enjoying and making the most of putting something together as a group, and experimenting with new ideas and roles.

Editing, and putting a publication together is definitely something that I would look to do in the future, and the project had underlined the value of good honest teamwork, and just how important that is to being successful.

Editorial Contribution

Editorial contribution

As part of the process for putting the publication together, the content that was produced needed to be edited for grammar and other issues that may be relevant. We had at first discussed designating roles within the first weeks, of which I had volunteered to edit work.  After a period of time, we said that we should all upload the work via basecamp and give feedback and critique each other’s work before we would edit the content. No-one seemed to do this, so I instead looked at peoples work, and edited the minor details such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. I also restructured some sentences, and rephrased some parts to go with this.

Editing the work was something I enjoyed as it also helped me to find errors in my own work, and it also helped with creating more of a house style, which was something that we had never discussed. Some people in terms of submitting the work for it to be edited didn’t do the submissions, or I was asked to find it on their blogs. This was very frustrating, as it was not helpful to the group that people didn’t submit work to basecamp so that we could edit, and know exactly how much content we had, and how big it was. We had decided that uploading work as a document rather than typing it or copying into basecamp was also a better solution, although again, some of the group did not do this.

When editing the work, this was the aspect that became difficult, and I found myself taking more time and effort to try and get hold of work so that it could be edited. This was supposed to be done as a group, but I was the only one to take work and edit the content.

 

 

The work that was done was all interesting to read, as to edit. I could see where certain pieces would go in the publication and also, how they needed to be improved.

I also attached these files back on basecamp to give to the original writer, so that they could read through and see what they thought to the changes made. I gained some feedback from this from some members saying that it read much better and made more sense. These were pleasing for me, as I had taken a lot of time to go through and read everyone’s work, edit them, and give feedback, without trying to come across too critical. My own work needed editing too in parts, and this was why I had thought we could edit as a group, laying all sheets on a table and giving feedback.

I edited all of the content that I was asked to, and that was available for me to edit, although there were also many pieces that were not edited by me.

For the purposes of creating a publication that may have been distributed, I thought that it would have been good to have all looked at the work and contributed to creating a slick house styled publication that flowed and was to a high standard.

As part of choosing aspects of the publication, I also drew sketches, and found pictures that could be used in the publication as part of the front cover. I uploaded these to basecamp, of which the main designers then took and used to create the covers.

Overall, the editing process has seen me oversee a lot of the publication, from ideas, to pictures, designs, content, and liaising on pagination and features.

For the editing process I used a book for guidance called ‘Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers’ by Harold Evans. I found this very useful when trying to work out what words are better suited in situations, and also what phrases to avoid and use, as well as common grammar and punctuation errors. The editing that I did do I enjoyed doing, and this is also something that I would look at continuing to do to further my skills in the field.

Reflection on my work and content

Reflection on my work and content

As the work for the project was outlined, I designated roles to people, as well as giving them ideas to explore, as it became evident that there were no other decisions being made as a group. Going with the initial thought of working in the sections that interest us individually the most, I decided that I would like to work on the mainstream news, as well as a contribution to the sports section.

This meant that alongside another member of the group, we would come up with a main news story and other possible stories that would be worthy of the first few pages of a publication. As we discussed as a group, one of the main decisions we made as a group was that the publication would be something quirky, and have a more positive outlook on news and its features.

I decided on an initial idea of writing about the current economic status of Hull, and its effects on local people. The other member of the mainstream news came up with an idea that we could do a negative versus positive aspect, featuring the economic difficulties and possibilities facing the city.

As it became increasingly likely that this publication would be a ‘one off’, the content had to be something that had a long shelf life so that it could still be current when it would be published.

This was something that I tried to pursue in each piece that I did, and I also had helped make decisions on what to produce in the other sections too, so that it had the same look and feel to each section. The main idea I had behind this was to have written something that is current now, with a look to the New Year aspect to it, and also, a reflection on the previous month or something recent within the same sector as the story. For example, in the sports section, I advised that it would be good to have a timeline of the Hull City games, with a short review of each game, and where that left the team at the end of that month’s set of games, and also a written piece about the season so far or something along those lines.

As this was part of what the sports section could have, I wrote a piece reflecting on the season so far, and turn in events that have happened in the last few years, and a comparison of a previous season. I also looked to the New Year, as to give the piece a sense of longevity to the reader, as although some details may now be out of date, the context of the piece is still relevant to the way things are set at present.

As part of putting the publication together, I also made some editorial decisions, alongside other members of the group who chose to discuss this, on which sections should run in which order, what those sections were, and what content would go in them.

The names of the sections changed various times, to suit what content was being produced. As a result of this I wrote a piece that would be relevant to a few sections, on the diversity in Hull, and how the influx of foreign nationals is affecting the region. This was intended at first to be as part of a student section, but it also had a wider scope of perspective as so it could be placed in other sections too. The piece was an informative and journalistic piece that had statistics and figures, of which I would have liked to have visualised in some way. As the publication was print, there was no way of making this interesting in paper, with only the statistics that I had, without slightly changing the context of the piece. However if the publication was digital, this would have been something I would have looked at more.

As part of the sections, as it was a festive based publication due to the time of year, I suggested that it may be a good idea to have an entertainment and review section based upon what is good to do, or places to go in the Christmas period. As part of this, I wrote a review for a restaurant with a view to this being a ‘pick of the festive season’ as though it would have been the best out of various restaurants. I wrote this piece to give the review section some versatility, as it was strongly orientated with gaming and film reviews. I wanted to keep the piece to a maximum of 400 words, and review the restaurant in aspects of service, quality, ambience, and for meals and functions.

As the student section was looking quite thin, I also wrote another piece that was aimed at being placed in that section to give it a student feel. I wrote the piece based upon first-hand experience, but I tried to make the piece stand as something that could appeal to anyone who would read it. As we decided that the publication would be aimed at the 18-35 age brackets, all of the pieces were written to have a student feel, with an appeal to older and younger readers too. The students travel piece I did was enjoyable to write as it gave me an opportunity to write something based upon experience that I had, and turn it into a journalistic piece rather than an opinion piece. It did have elements of an advertisement within in it, as this was purposely done as it gave the piece more character, rather than just a reviewing, or informative piece.

The mainstream news section was difficult one to manage, as it was not clear how many pieces other people had done, and also, what type of pieces they had done. It was difficult to ascertain what type of piece would fit the publication, how long we could have the piece, how relevant it would be to what else was written. Throughout the content creation process, I had tried to give each section a strong journalistic piece that would be versatile and give the sections depth. It was very difficult to liaise on what pieces would be relevant and current for the main news section for these reasons. I had suggested about a few pieces, one being the Hull Studio School, as a termly report as it is a new feature to the city. This would have run as a second story. I also suggested doing a piece on student culture, or something that would be appealing to our age range. As the publication adapted into a less student orientated, and more of a festive publication aimed at the age range, for local people, I decided that it may be a good idea to do something on the economic status of Hull. We decided to do negative page, and a positive page, highlighting the issues and possibilities facing Hull. An idea we had was to do half of the page in black and white, and half in colour, to emphasise the negative and positive, with a single image as the background. Another idea that I had was to do a timeline of key significant economic dates that have occurred in Hull post World War Two, to highlight the highs and lows that have happened. This would also have made the piece more graphically and aesthetically pleasing.

The overall content creation was a difficult but enjoyable experience. I found some of the pieces were natural and flowed well with what I intended to create. Others were more difficult and had areas which I needed to work upon. All of the pieces took various amounts of research to gain the facts and figures, and gain a perspective and context to write each of the pieces. All of the pieces I wrote had elements of different journalism within them, as I wanted to test what I liked, and also improve what I would like to work on in the future such as sports writing, and travel pieces.

Writing the economic piece also allowed me to experiment with writing pieces of a more hard-line news edge. I liked this aspect, as it felt newsy, and is something that I would like to improve on a work on in the future.

Initial Ideas and Contribution

Initial ideas and contribution

At the beginning of the semester, the requirements for this module where outlined, and we were assigned to work as a group on a project for an external client. There were no specific details on how big the client had to be, or for what reason, only that there had to be a need or a market for our idea.

Within the first session, we had come up with the idea for a new publication for Hull, although nothing was set in stone, it looked as though this may be a good option to go with.

It was suggested that we may use Basecamp, of which I was glad of as it can help communicate ideas, and progress, on the project.

As the first few weeks past, there was not much contact or discussion happening on Basecamp within regards to any ideas or progress with any research, so I decided to move forwards with the initial idea of a new publication for Hull.

As we were required to present the idea and the progress, roles and responsibilities in the project, I'd decided to create Writeboard which is on Basecamp, as a way that we could manage and contribute as a group for the presentation. I did a template design for everyone to follow so that it was easy and was available to just edit and update with their own details and ideas.

The idea for the publication would have been that within the six of us in the group, we could all have a specific section that we would have been in charge of, and edit and create content. I outlined this idea within the first few weeks, so that we could work as a group on the aspects and sections that interest us the most individually, and then bring them together collectively as a group to edit and piece together.

The Writeboard was something that could and should have been used throughout the project to manage and update ideas, content, and a place where editing can be done too.

Throughout the project, only I and one other member of the group used the Writeboard, despite messages from myself indicating that this could be a good way to manage the work. There was also no other alternatives suggested or used, so this was the only option that had been created by myself to try and aid the group with their work in the initial stages.