A2 Project Diary- Final major project
- 3523410
- Mar 11
- 13 min read
Updated: 22 hours ago
Week 1- Introduction to project and idea generation (W/C 09.03.26)
This week we started our final project, and these first few weeks of it will consist of our idea generation and pitching our idea to make sure it is viable as a project.
On Monday we got an introduction to the project and what the process would consist of, as well as the official brief.
We also began to generate some ideas for the project in the format of a mind map, and so far I have only been able to come up with one as I am a bit stuck on what to do it on at the moment. I know I want to take a musical approach to it, but focus on a topic that I know a little about, but still something I could take a deep dive into as well. I also have to make sure it is something that not everyone will know about, so I can basically give them a lesson on the subject. Below is the mind map that I created to generate my first initial idea.
I'm quite happy with this idea, but with it being my first and only idea so far I will of course expand and explore other ideas I could focus on within the same realm. With this idea, I was also struggling to come up with a unique question I could ask, but still with the probability of not sticking with this idea, that's not my priority at the moment.
On Wednesday we started off by reviewing either the video, podcast or article from our previous project made by the other group. We had to go through whatever we were given, and write a peer review for it, listing what elements were good and what could be improved. Below is the sheet that I filled out for this.
We then talked about the different advice we were given for each project, and decided too what advice would be best for us ourselves to use for our own projects.
Over the rest of this week, I have admittedly struggled to come up with other potential ideas for the project so I have decided to stick with the one above, but look more in depth into it. The reason why I was struggling on getting board with this idea as it was the only one I had, and found it tricky on how to expand with it and come up with a unique question I could ask.
On Friday I asked Matt for some help regarding it as coming towards the end of this first week of the project I felt a bit under pressure. We talked about what I could do and expanded my ideas my looking at my mind map, and trying to draw some more inspiration from it. By the end we eventually managed to come up with a question I was happy with and I know it is something that I can develop and do some deep diving into: Are Nottingham's music venues under threat?
With this question now firmly set, I spent the rest of the day conducting some research into independent music venues in Nottingham, and found some links to articles and organisations which will be useful to me with my further research. I also began a list of who I wanted to contact, and decided that the best people would either be a local venue, local artist or a Nottingham organisation that specialises in the creative sector (an expert). I've noted them all down on my contributor communication page, and hopefully over the next few weeks even before my pitch, will maybe try to start contacting people.
Week 2 (W/C 16.03.26)
We started off the week by completing a grade analysis of someone else's FMP, by looking at all of the elements and marking them with what we thought was right. There are 5 skills we needed to mark it on:
Informing ideas (skills for informing development of ideas and outcomes as they evolve and progress)
Problem solving (skills for problem solving throughout development by engaging with the brief and its requirements)
Technical skills (technical skills that exploit the potential of media, material, techniques and processes)
Professional practice (skills for applying professionalism to development through practice, project management and working safely)
Communication (skills for communicating the meaning, purpose and function of work, including research, development, outcomes and presentation)
We went through each section in small groups and then had an overall evaluation at the end to find out what actual grades were given, which would help us with working out the rough standard that our work needed to be.
On Wednesday we started off by completing a problem solving exercise. We had to find a potential problem that we could face in the project. A problem that I realised I could come across is getting in contact with certain people, such as local musicians. I want to be able to talk to people who might have played at these independent venues and get their opinion on them and their future. Even as local musicians, I might have a problem with contacting them due to their work.
They might not have time in their schedules which is convenient to me/my timeline, they might not be able to come into the TV studio for an interview or do one on Teams either. I could also run into the issue of having to take the long way round and contact them through their management, which could be a lengthy process. Music and band managers tend to be very busy so they might not respond to emails quickly, and especially those that would be considered outsider emails from people who don't specifically operate in a music organisation/industry. Below is the sheet I completed about the problem that I could face, as well as two solutions provided by my colleagues.
Some of the advice I was given was useful, as I wasn't really sure of how to go about with contacting artists as it's something that I haven't really had any experience with before. I have taken the second piece of advice more into consideration as I find it tricky at times to open myself up to more options, as when I have my mind set on something I always try and stick with it, and that is same when considering who to contact. It made me realise that if I can I should try and contact a wide range of people to keep my options open in case I don't get responses from many people.
Plan for this afternoon:
Start making pitch presentation
In the afternoon, I decided I wanted to try and start my pitch and get some ideas together of how to make it look aesthetically pleasing. I decided that for the first slide I wanted to try and make a collage of images of all of Nottingham's gig venues and some photos from gigs hosted there. This was the opening image slide that I created.
I then struggled with what other headings I should put on the slides, as I don't really have any experiences with structuring pitches in this nature, as I have only done one before for a business pitch. After some consideration, I came up with and produced some template slides for the rest of my pitch.
On Friday, I had a bit of brain fog and struggled to get going again on my project, so I went back to my pitch and continued working on that, so I wouldn't have much to do during the holidays when we were meant to making it.
Week 3 (W/C 23.03.26)
This week was a short week, as we were only in college for 1 day. In this day we started with how to structure a good pitch for proposing our idea. We went through a presentation of how to structure one and what to include in it. I decided to add another slide into it, of who I planned to interview/contact. We were also given a checklist of what we needed to include in the pitch, which is something I will try and stick to.
I also realised that I need to have a hook to my presentation to make it more enticing, and decided that I wanted to try and include a song in the opening slide that matched my question. I'm struggling to find one that fits at the moment, but I'm struggling to think of another hook that I could use instead. I didn't really end up progressing on the making of my pitch due to my struggles, but I have time to complete it during the Easter holidays, as I wasn't really fully confident of what notes to make for it as of yet.
Thankfully for me I have some experience with how to make presentations and present an idea from previous projects I have completed, so I'm not completely in the dark with how to structure and note take for one efficiently. I will try my best to use these skills when progressing on the making of the pitch, even though I have never done one of this nature before.
Week 4- Pitch week (W/C 13.04.26)
Monday- preparing pitch
Wednesday- presenting pitches
Friday- contacting people
Week 4 was officially pitch week, where we would be presenting our project ideas in front of our classmates and seeing if they were viable enough to carry out. Over the 2 weeks and as we got to Monday, I had admittedly struggled with making my pitch, not knowing what or how much to put in there apart from what I had already done, so hadn't really made any progress. With a slide I had made before just to get all my notes down, I knew that I had put in too much writing, so I needed to edit it or get rid of it altogether. Below was that slide:
I asked Matt for some help as I was struggling with what to do, and he agreed that it was too much writing. He said it would be better if I had actual physical notes in front of me to read from instead of there being a lot of writing on the presentation for people to try and take in. I also went back through the PowerPoint we were given of what our slides needed to include, and used that to my advantage too as I had forgotten about it. Below is one of the updated slides that I created for my presentation, and a page of notes that I wrote up to have in front of me during my pitch.
Wednesday was officially pitch day, and I had thankfully been able to complete my whole pitch on Monday, and double checked it all on Wednesday morning to make sure it was good enough. The original intention was for us to do our presentations in front of our own classmates and the year twos in the afternoon, but it switched to the year twos doing their presentations to us instead so we got a little insight of how execute them well and we weren't thrown into the deep end with our first pitch, so to speak.
We sat through a few of their pitches and asked questions about them afterwards, and the wide variety of topics covered in them opened my mind a bit more to how diverse the project was, and that I didn't just have to stick to one subject for both my FMPs when it got the second year. I've always liked to stay in my comfort zone, but I think that might change and I can do a bit more exploration this time next year.
It got to the afternoon when we were doing our pitches, and there were a few technical issues with mine to begin with, which delayed my presentation. The main problem I had was my pitch loading and being able to actually be presented as the first collage slide I had made of local venues and performances ended up overloading the system in a way due to the file size, so I couldn't in the end show it in front of everyone. I'm counting this as a learning curve and point for improvement for next time to perhaps not use as many images in my pitch!
My pitch ended up going well and my idea approved, which gave me the reassurance and official approval that I could start my project. Even though I said at the start of my project that I might have already started contacting people to interview before my pitch, I didn't end up doing that, but this meant now that I could. I'm still a bit stuck on who exactly to contact, but I am leaning more towards contacting a local artist and venue, as I think they might be easier to get a hold of instead of a citywide music organisation but it's still in consideration and they are a second option if I can't end up getting in contact with either of my two ideal interviewees.
On Friday, I began to weigh up my options more of who to contact, and landed on one definite person that I wanted to contact, that I thankfully already had previous connections with from the last project, and who had said I could contact him again if needed for another project. He is the owner of an independent music venue called The Grove, which opened 18 months ago. On that morning too, fortunately for my topic but also unfortunately, he had made a post, detailing that even just in the next week he had the risk of potentially having to cancel 4 gigs. He of course said it is something that neither him or the artist wanted to do, and in these circumstances they would prefer to play for a loss instead of cancelling which is something that no artist wants to or should have to do.
It just highlights my subject matter even more, and why it is a relevant and important topic to spread awareness of.
I then constructed an email to him with some further approval from a couple of classmates to make sure it was formal enough and sent it to him. This is the email I sent:
That was pretty much all that I had done on Friday, and next week is the first week of pre-production which means everything is officially starting then.
Week 5- Pre-production (W/C 20.04.26)
Today marked the beginning of our pre-production week. This morning, we were tasked with coming up with a schedule for our project. I'd come up with a rough idea a couple of weeks ago, but I'm having to rearrange it as I didn't realise how long our pitch presentation was going to take. Below was the idea that I had beforehand:
I now have a re-edited version of a rough schedule with what I hope to do in each week:
But, I have also had a dilemma of whether to do a TV film or a podcast. I would ideally like to complete a TV film, as I want to have actual footage of the interviews I collect, and include b-roll of music venues in the local area. However, I fear this may be tricky as none of the venues are exactly close to the college, so getting there would be a bit of a timewasting process. I also think structuring a TV film will be a bit more complicated within the college as I have the risk of not being able to book out the TV studio for long enough, as I may need it for both interviews and recording green screen footage, which could mean that I would need to book it out for around 3 hours. At this time already into the project, slots are limited.
I think a podcast is easier to structure as I won't need to organise as much footage because I won't need any b-roll, and I don't want to stress myself out with the whole organisation of a making a short film independently. I also won't need to use the green screen or the autocue, which would save me some more time which I could use on writing my article or a basic script for my podcast.
Due to this dilemma, I talked to Matt about what I was thinking and we came up with a SWOT analysis for both the podcast and film to work out which one would be better for me to do.
After this analysis, I have decided I would rather do a podcast than a TV film, mostly to save myself more stress as I don't want to burn myself out with this project, and I feel like a podcast would be a calmer thing to do. I think I still might be able to recreate a visual feel even with the podcast, as I have a vivid imagination, so I would hopefully be able to come up with a good enough script to somewhat transport listeners into the world I am talking about. I also feel like I am quite expressive with my voice sometimes so I can use different tones to create different moods, which I could easily use to my advantage.
I have re-edited my schedule again so it now works for the podcast:
I now thankfully also have a response from the email that I sent on Friday, which has confirmed my first guest for my podcast.
I class him as my expert as the owner of a music venue, so I ideally wanted my other interviewee to be someone who has experience playing these venues and knew a lot about venues in the local area. Matt is part of a live music blog Facebook group, and sent them a message on my behalf to see if I could get any links or contacts with local artists.
On this Wednesday morning we started off with a recap quiz for the project so far so we knew whereabouts we were with it and tips for what we still have to do. I just spent the morning catching up on this diary and some of my other posts so I don't fall behind, but I'm a little confused on what to put in some of them so will leave that until this afternoon when I can get some more help.
In the afternoon, I went over my schedule again and decided it would be ideal to start making a draft script/structure for my podcast, and what I wanted to include in it. I started by writing up a structure idea, to give me some guidance of how I am going to write my script. I'm leaving the script just for now as I haven't got a clear idea in my mind of what I want the whole overall podcast aesthetic to be, but I am going to try and figure that out over the next couple of days so I can start writing my script imminently.
In terms of the other elements of my schedule, I still have not received a response from my first confirmed interviewee of when the interview will be taking place, so I haven't started to come up with any questions for him as of yet, but as soon as I get a response that will be my main priority. Due to my struggles with the full project aesthetic, I haven't begun the podcast visual mood board as of yet but I hope as well to start that by the end of the week. By the end of today, this is what the first half of my schedule looks like, but I hope to make a lot of progress on it by Friday when I hopefully have a clearer idea of what aesthetic I would like to try and capture.
On Friday, I decided that it would be ideal to see who else I could contact for an interview as we went into our 2 weeks of production, and start writing my podcast script.
Week 6- Production (W/C 27.04.26)
Week 7- Production (W/C 04.05.26)
Week 8- Post production (W/C 11.05.26)
Week 9- Post production (W/C 18.05.26)
Week 10- Polish, present, evaluate (W/C 01.06.26)
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