A2 Project Diary- Final major project
- 3523410
- Mar 11
- 37 min read
Updated: Jun 6
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)
This week was officially our first week of production, and I had some good news from Matt first thing, saying that someone who had worked for Hockley Hustle, which is one of the organisations that I had emailed, had started working for the college so I could talk to her for my project. I messaged one of my other teachers as she had started working in her department, and she said she would talk to her for me.
After that, I had a look at my schedule and updated it based on what I still had to complete from last week, and what I had planned to do this week. Considering some of them are quite big tasks, I don't expect to complete any of them by the end of today, but hopefully I can get the majority of them done by the end of this week. I am trying to dedicate each week of production to my 2 different projects, my podcast and article. Even though I have decided that I want my article to be my main element, I want to try and complete my podcast during this first week as I have more to do for it. I have to record the links for it that lead into the interviews, and the rest of what I have written in my script (e.g. the intro, outro and talking more about the subject myself within the podcast). I started to write that in the previous week, but aim to finish it off by Wednesday and hopefully record it on Friday if there is any slots left in the podcast studio, as there is limited space. If I can't I will just find a quiet space/room to record it in instead. Below is my proposed schedule for this week and what I hope to complete in that time.
I spent most of Monday writing my podcast script to record later in the week. I know there is still some editing to do for it, as I think with some of the wording I have used and the tone I want to convey contradict each other, so I will go back through it as soon as I can and edit it to fit the atmosphere I want to capture. I want to take a slightly more serious approach for my project, as it is an important topic that needs to be talked about more. If I make it light-hearted, it will take away the message of how severe this issue is and make it seem a bit more of a joke, which isn't something that will work for this. I also still have a section left to write for the script. But, for now, this is what I have written for it so far.
There is one more thing that I did before I left, which was message Andy so I could try and book out the podcast studio to record the main body of my podcast (everything apart from the interviews). I asked what slots were available and I have thankfully been able to book it for Friday afternoon between 3:30-4:30pm.
On Wednesday we started off with a quick exercise to get our brains working for the day, and now for the rest of the day it is just working on this project. This morning I added some more information to a couple of my other blog posts including catching up on this one, but I aim to do more this afternoon. I want to be able to finish my podcast script and reedit it, and also to start experimenting with some visuals for my podcast to give it a good aesthetic.
Considering too I haven't got any properly confirmed dates for interviews, I might also start writing my article draft but it will depend on how much time I have.
Insert images from experimentation
Insert emails sent
This afternoon I decided to start working the visuals for my podcast, and decided to created a mind map for it, and film myself doing it. I screen recorded it and because of its length, decided to edit it in Clip Champ. Below is the technical process I went through to speed up the video to a suitable length.
Below is the video showing how my mind map process:
https://nottinghamcollegeacuk my.sharepoint.com/:v:/r/personal/352341_student_nottinghamcollege_ac_uk/Documents/Videos/podcast%20visual%20experimentation.mp4?csf=1&web=1&e=DCPTkP
I also decided that it would be a good idea to try and start working a logo design for my podcast, and chose Canva for this process. I went through different logo templates to get some inspiration and found one that I liked:
I stuck with the main block font of this logo template as it was the part that appealed to me the most, and I thought it would match my aesthetic well as I said I wanted a modern edge to my podcast visuals. This is the edit that I made to start off with to put my podcast name into the template.
As well as wanting a modern edge to my podcast, I did also want to try and use darker colours and themes within its design, so I experimented with some darker complementary colours, by changing the background to black and the words to purple.
I decided that I didn't really like this design, and that I wanted to add another visual element to it, such as a proper logo. I feel like this first experimentation would work good as an opening image slide for a podcast, but not as the actual logo.
I then went looking through Canva for a graphic that I could use, and just searched 'music' as I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for. I found this graphic that I liked which was an example of a track that could be edited with some text/images put onto it.
I transferred all of my text onto the template, and changed it to match the template colours. It is still a mostly dark logo with a little pop of colour, which matched my aim of making it still modern and appealing but with a darker edge.
I realised though that for a logo I needed to fit into a square format more instead, so went looking for a different template that was more of a rectangle so it would work better, and this what I came up with, including a few extra elements that I decided to add in.
These elements took me quite a while to complete, but I managed to do one more thing during the day, which was send an email to another one of my potential interviewees, who now works at the college, who has worked a lot with Hockley Hustle.
Due to me completing a lot of logo and podcast experimentation this afternoon, I didn't really get time to focus on my podcast script either, but hopefully I will be able to finish that off before my podcast recording on Friday.
By the time it got to Friday, my main focus was working on my podcast script as I was recording it on the same day. Thankfully I was able to finish it in time, and it looked like this at the end of finishing it:
Before I went to go and record my podcast, I updated my schedule as well to see what I had left to do after this week.
I also sent another email to Cameron, the owner of my independent venue that I wanted to interview, as I hadn't had a response for a little while.
I then went into the podcast studio and recorded my script, but before had to decide what equipment, specifically microphone, I wanted to use in the studio. I had the choice between a standing microphone and a place to rest my laptop, and or sit down and use the official podcast microphones and headphones. Both pictures of that equipment is below:
I decided to use the equipment on the right and sit down to record, as I felt more comfortable doing that than standing up. It thankfully went well, but I think a room for improvement if I were to do another podcast is to improve my confidence. Having never used high-level podcast equipment such as this before, I didn't really know how some of it worked and didn't know I would hear myself back in the headphones as I was recording, which did throw me off a little, so it's definitely something to work on for the future.
Week 7- Production (W/C 04.05.26)
Due to the bank holiday, we were only in for 2 days this week, but I still put in a little bit of work as I had a response earlier from Cam, saying he was still up for the interview.
This was the email he had sent me above, and below my response. After I had recieved the email too, I messaged Matt to see if there was any space available left in the studios for me to record, and thankfully there was.
When it got to Wednesday morning, I updated my schedule for what I planned to do by the end of this week.
I also came up with another mini seperate plan for what I ideally wanted to do just today:
Work on podcast visuals
Start to write article draft
Catch up on diary + other blog posts
Come up with questions for my interviewees
Conduct interviews
Thankfully too, I finally got a response from my second interviewee, which means I do have some more questions and another interview to arrange.
I spent a lot of my morning on starting to come up with questions for my interviewees, and decided that a maximum of 10 questions would be good enough for my interviews and give me enough footage to work with when it got to post production. This morning I've only been able to work on a set of questions for Cameron, and they are below:
First thing this afternoon I caught up on this diary as I was a little behind, then tackled another problem I was facing. With the email I got back from Christine, I was a bit stuck on what to do about the interview as I hadn't prepared anything as of yet and felt a little bit short on notice. I asked Kevin for some assistance of what to do, and we came up with a few different options. I went straight with the first one as I wasn't sure if I could book out any of the studios yet, so just emailed Christine back saying I was happy to do the interview and would get back to her later with more details.
Kevin sent an email to one of our technicians too for me asking if there was any space left in the studio tomorrow:
There wasn't any space left, but I still managed to arrange to meet Christine at 12pm on Thursday, and find somewhere quiet to conduct the interview. I also managed to come up with a set of questions that I was going to ask her too:
I also decided to start work on my article draft, as I have been very preoccupied with my podcast, I hadn't had any time to start it. I think I need to learn to balance my time between my projects a little more, as the article is my main piece for this project. I only managed to come up with a short draft for now, which is what I hope will be the introduction to my article:
I still have both of my interviews to do and also working on my article draft. but apart from that, that is what I have left to do before we start post production next week. Thankfully both of my interviews are going to happen over the next couple of days, which will take a weight off my shoulders as they have been things that I've been struggling with sorting out over the past few weeks so it will be good to get them done.
On Thursday I came in to conduct my interview with Christine. I met up with her inside the college and we found a quiet space to do the interview, as I of course wanted the best audio quality that I could get without using the studio. We found a pod to record it in, and I used my phone to record the audio as I wasn't sure if I could get the proper equipment due to the spontaneity of the interview. I had written out all my questions from the Word document onto little question cards to have in front of me during the interview. The interview went well, and I will transfer the audio over to my project once we get to post production next week.
On Friday I came in early to complete my second interview as this time I was completing it in the TV studio. When it came to, the studio didn't end up being booked for me, but thankfully it was still free for me to use. I also made the mistake of forgetting to ask anyone to help me out in the studio and gallery, so I had to quickly message some of my friends to see if they were available to help.
I also went into my classroom as it is on the same floor as the studio to see if anyone in there was available to help me, so I got some extra assistance from in there too.
We set out all the cameras for filming, but then I realised because I was just doing a podcast I didn't need the whole 3 camera set-up, so stuck with just a wide shot camera so I still had footage of the interview if needed. I then went down to the reception with Matt and waited for my guest. I didn't know that my guest Cameron had emailed me just before saying he was going to be late, so I had a little worry that he wasn't going to turn up, but thankfully he did.
We headed up to the studio and put the microphones on which is something that I had never done before myself, so even as the interviewee I did have to be shown! Due to it only being me and Cameron in the studio, I decided to stick with a simple 2 person set-up too, just with two chairs in the middle facing each other. The interview went well, even though we had to rerecord the first two questions due to the some exterior sound as they forgot to turn one of the mics in the gallery off.
I got plenty of footage to work with for my podcast when it got to post production, and when I got back to class I messaged Paul (one of the engineers), to ask him to send me the video and audio files from the interview.
Due to the panic of setting everything up and getting everything done inside the time slot I had, I forgot to take any photos inside the gallery or studio.
I was very happy with what I had managed to complete this week, as last week I was panicking on whether I would end up getting any interviews done in time for the end of the 2 production weeks, so it feels good to officially complete the production of my podcast this week.
Week 8- Post production (W/C 11.05.26)
Due to me finishing the production of my podcast and not having any of the files sent to me for it yet, I decided that my main priority for this week would be working on my article as I had only just managed to start it last week, and was a little stuck on what to include and how to structure it. At the end of last week, I wrote down a few bullet points for what I wanted to talk about in my article:
On Monday morning thankfully, we were given a little presentation of how to basically structure an article to make it really effective, but of course we could play around with it to our own tastes. Due to me already struggling with how to write it efficiently in the first place, I decided it would be a good idea for me to stick to this structure quite closely, but of course change it a little to include my own flair to my writing.
I only managed to write a bit more for my article as it took me a bit of time to get back in to the flow of writing, and I decided that I needed to do some more research to gain some inspiration for my article too. I found a good few and listed them down in my secondary research post. I began writing the section for my first source as well and made a list of some headline ideas that I could use for my article. I wanted to try and do a play on words with a musical theme for my title, so came up with a small list to start off.
Below is what I had begun to write for my first source section of my article:
On Wednesday I have agreed to help one of my friends with her interview outside of class, and that will take up my whole morning so I won't really be able to continue anything until the afternoon, where I still plan to continue working on getting another good portion of my article written up.
On Wednesday morning I went out to help one of my friends with one of her interviews, as she needed help with setting up some of the professional cameras, which is of course something she couldn't complete all by herself. It was also useful for me too as I learnt during that process of how to correctly set up cameras and tripods, which will probably be useful for me in the future in other elements and projects during the course. There were a few technical issues, which is something to learn from too, but thankfully everything went smoothly for the majority of the interview.
When I got back to class in the afternoon, I began to make some more progress on my article, even more so as I got a message from one of the second year editors who said I was favoured to be in the college magazine, and to sent a draft of my article over to her.
I must admit that getting those messages was unexpected to me, and I did add a little bit of pressure to me for my article to be of a high quality. However, I decided that the best thing to do for the rest of the day would be to just completely zone out and do as much of my article as I could without me being able to put any quotes in, as I still hadn't got any of the audio files or transcripts back as of yet.
To jog my memory of what was talked about in both of the interviews I conducted, I got out my question cards that I used in those interviews that I still had with me to help with my writing. I wouldn't need to use quotes from all the questions as I asked between 9-10 questions in each interview. I thought it would be reasonable to use around 4 or 5 for each section I was going to write, and not necessarily insert them into my article in the same order I asked them to keep some difference between my article and podcast.
I managed to complete the section about my first source, and made notes of where I wanted to put the quotes, including what question number they were linked to. I numbered all my question cards so I wouldn't get confused on what order I asked them during the interview, with the current lack of my audio files. Below is an example of one of the numbered cards that I am going to use a quote from.
For my article I also managed to write my conclusion/call to action, which was something that I wanted to be powerful and a fitting ending to my article. It is meant to show a message of hope, and to encourage people to take action on the issues I have talked about in my article. Images 1 and 2 is the entirety my first source that I managed to finish writing, and image 3 is my conclusion/call to action:
I still have my second source to write and quotes to add in, which I of course will try to do by the end of next week. I still have all my podcast to do, so when I put all that together and get my transcripts I should be able to add my quotes in.
On Friday I aim to catch up on my blog posts, and hopefully continue my article.
On Friday, I wasn't able to write any more of my article, as I had more to do with catching up on my blog posts than I thought I did. It makes me feel better to be able to catch up on them as I know it means I am staying on track. That was all I really did on Friday, but I managed to get a lot done.
Next week is the last week of post-production. This means by then I aim to finish my article, as even though I have been informed that mine is a reserve article, it still needs to be finished as soon as possible in case someone drops out. I also aim to start and hopefully finish the editing of my podcast. Even though I haven't got anything from it as of yet, I want to at least try and investigate where it is on Monday and get it all together by then ready for editing on Wednesday.
Week 9- Post production (W/C 18.05.26)
This week marks the final week of post production, which means I need to ideally get everything done and finished by the end of this week. I admittedly have quite a bit to do, as I still have to finish my article and do everything post production wise for my podcast. I have also forgotten about the revised schedule that I used throughout the rest of the project so didn't use one for last week, but have made one for this week:
Monday-
Wednesday-
On Friday, I was able to make some progress. I was able to get hold of the main body of my podcast that I had recorded, as well as one of the interview files from my phone, so I put them into my editing software (Adobe Premier Pro), and began to start editing. Even though the software of choice for a podcast is Adobe Audition, I decided to use Premier as I was more comfortable with it and it would be more ideal for when it gets to uploading as I would be putting it on YouTube.
Week 10- Polish, present, evaluate (W/C 01.06.26)
Today is the start of our final week of our project, and I'm further behind than I would ideally like to be, due to me not having some of the resources and elements that I need to finish, including one of my interviews, which means I still have to finish my podcast and my article. To help me keep in check with what I still had to do during this final week, like last week I made a schedule, which I will check off as I go.
Re editing podcast
Not being able to find Cameron interview
Emailing him about providing me with some more answers
Problems with Premier glitching/having some trouble
Creating transcript from Christine's audio file
Continuing article using transcript
Getting response from Cam- him sending me audio file of his answers
The first thing that I did was to begin re-editing my podcast.
After re-editing this section, I ended up running into quite a major problem. After asking Matt for help locating my other interview that I recorded in the TV studio, we realised at the moment we couldn't find it. We went to go and ask Paul (one of the engineers), for some help, and after searching on the actual computer in the studio gallery, we couldn't find it. When I got back to class, I realised I had made a stupid error, and got the date that I had done the interview wrong. It gave me a little bit of hope of finding it, but that was short-lived, as we concluded that it had gone.
I emailed Cam (my interviewee) again, and explained to him what had happened. I sent him the email with the questions that I had asked him, answering him to reply with some written responses. I wasn't overly keen on this idea because of how I had structured my podcast, and I ideally needed audio, but it seemed to be the only option right now.
Thankfully he replied, and provided another option that I hadn't thought of, which would help me out and essentially 'save' my podcast: sending me an audio file of his responses.
I responded, accepting his offer and asking him to send me an audio file.
After that, I went back to Premier with the full intention of continuing editing. But, Premier decided to crash and due to me having not exported what I had edited, I thought I had lost my work. With the help of Matt, we managed to get it back, and it had thankfully all saved. However, it had all saved it one block again when I hadn't finished editing what I wanted to of the music I'd selected.
Admittedly with the problems that I had faced before in the day too, it had pushed me to the edge a bit as I felt very overwhelmed with technical issues at this stage in the project. I took a breather and for that day exported the project so it was definitely safe.
As I still felt far behind, I decided to work on something else that wasn't that technical, and that would help me with continuing my article. From the audio file I already had of my other interview with Christine, I went to find a transcript website so I could pull quotes from it to put in my article.
I then copied the transcript over into a Word document so it was easier for me to access.
I then used the transcript to write the final main body of my article, which is below. After this, all I need to do for my article is put the quotes in from Cam's audio file, edit the article, and format it into InDesign.
From today I've only really managed to fully complete finding the music for my podcast. On Wednesday which is a slightly shorter day than usual, I aim to finish editing my podcast and at least inserting my final quotes into the article when I get Cam's audio file through. I also need to find some images to put onto my podcast.
Wednesday:
Recieved audio files back from Cam
Downloaded and transcripted them all
Put them into a Word document
Chose opening image for article
Completed my article
Adding pull quotes
Edited my article down to the limit
As soon as I started on Wednesday, I had thankfully received my audio files through from Cam, which meant I could finally get around to completing my article and podcast.
I downloaded all the files onto my PC and went onto Google to find a transcribing website, which was easy enough to find. I transcribed all the questions, and as I went along, I copied them all into a Word document so it was easier for me to access when it got to editing.
I also decided to transfer all of these question audio files into their own folder on my OneDrive so I knew exactly where they were.
Next I realised that I still hadn't chosen the opening image for my article, so to make life easier I decided to use the opening slide from my pitch as I believe it still captured the vibe for my article, so I screenshotted it from my presentation and put it into the Word document.
After finally getting audio files through from my second interview and turning them into a transcript, I went to go and finish my article, adding in the correct quotes where I had noted them. After I had finished, this is what the first interview section of my article looked like, which now meant my article was complete.
I also added the pull quotes into my article, and edited it down as it was above the word limit, to just below 1800 words. This is now my fully completed article that I still need to format.
Thursday:
Finishing editing my podcast (put in tech walkthrough)
Finding images for podcast
Nearly accidentally 'deleting' my whole podcast
I still felt short on time for finishing my project, so I decided to come in for a few hours on Thursday to finish my podcast, so when it got to Friday all I had to do was format my article, catch up on my diary entries and submit the project.
In the middle of my podcast editing yesterday, I had another technical error which is something that I have become quite familiar with. I thought that I had nearly ended up deleting my whole project, but thankfully it automatically saves so I was able to reload it without anything being lost.
By the end of the day, this is what I had left to do for my project, which I will complete tomorrow.
Friday:
Catching up/finishing diary entries
Uploading podcast onto YT/putting link on blog post
Formatting article in InDesign (tech walkthrough)
Putting article link into project blog post
Submitting project
Final evaluation
Friday was the official final day of my project, and to get it out of the way, I decided to upload my podcast onto YouTube.
I then also put the link above into my final piece blog post.
My next focus moved onto formatting my article on InDesign.
During the process of trying to copy my article, I ran into a few technical issues, including InDesign not letting me select some of the text to edit, which after some research was apparently a common issue with the app.
I also had some struggles with the fonts, which I had forgot to download and put into the template first too. I decided to open a whole new project and start from there, and thankfully it all worked that time around. To save myself any more stress, I just simply copied and pasted all my text into the template, as well as my selected images, which I found relatively easy. This is what my article looked like after all of that:
To export it, I clicked file in the top left hand corner, and then export, sending it into my FMP Media Files folder.
I went back onto my Wix site and pressed add, selecting the file option shown below:
I dragged my article into the upload section, and it placed my article correctly into my post.
I wasn't unfortunately able to complete my diary entries on Friday due to time, but I have now been able to complete what I can for all of them, including writing up my evaluation of how I thought the whole project went. It has been a fun project to complete about something I love, but there are definitely some things to improve on for next time.
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