Annie’s Blog

I haven’t yet blogged about our groups Writing Seminar and the process/my involvement, so here goes.

Our group was quite large, so I wasn’t required to take a major role in the organization of the seminar, particularly as I joined the group a week after the others, and by then the leadership roles were clearly defined. This was fine by me, as I prefer to take a back seat and be delogated tasks, rather than take a role of leadership for myself.

It was decided that I would help to edit the final 4 minute video reel of the speakers, along with Alice, after the seminar was finished. This meant that instead of having to worry about cameras and equipment during the day, I could sit back and enjoy the speakers, and keep an eye out for snipets that would work well on the reel.

On the actual day of the seminar, I was assuming that we were organized, because I hadn’t really heard anything from our group, and when I asked people questions, I was assured everything was going well. It wasn’t until after the seminar that I realized there had been emails going around, that I had completely missed out on. Apparently Esther had a list of names and was emailing everyone from the group, but I didnt seem to get any. This worried me a little bit, because I wasn’t sure if people would be aware of my role, and contact me about any questions or suggestions for the clip reel.

Fortunately i wasn’t involved in the actual pre-organization or running of the seminar, or I would have been completely out of the loop.

After we had wrapped up, I was given the tapes and began the process of logging and capturing. This caused slight problems, as the edit suites seemed to be constantly booked, and then when I did get in there, Alice and I couldn’t find times that were good for both of us. As a result, Alice ended up logging the footage at home, and we then edited together. Alice did the titles and the visual stuff, as although I believe myself  to be quite confident and profiscient in editing, I do lack an artistic eye, and I end up managing to make things look gaudy or tacky when it comes to design aspect. Alice however managed to come up with a very smooth and polished piece, which I think looks fantastic.

We then emailed it to Emily, but unfortunately due to her illness we were unable to have it put up on the website on time, as we were unaware that content was supposed to be emailed to Kyle.

Overall I found the seminar an interesting and enjoyable day, and I must admit that Bobby Galinski was a definate highlight. I can also direct almost all the praise for our finished clip reel towards Alice, as I do not know my way aroun Final Cut nearly as well as she does, nor do I have her artistic flair.

I am giving myself a Credit at 68% for this part of the participation, as I did what was required of me, and put effort into organizing times to edit and work with Alice, however I was not really involved in the organization of speakers, nor the set up on the day 9with the exception of putting posters up with Charlotte and Quentin).

So here we are at the end. I’m not entirely sure how I feel to be honest. Stressed still. I still have a long way to go before I’m home clean, and even now at this late stage I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to come back at some point next year to do something over again. But then again that could just be my usual end of semester pessimism setting in.

I’m not entirely sure what to say about the course overall, because it’s very much been a love hate relationship. I decided a long time ago that Media, or a job as purely a Media practioner, of any kind, probably wasn’t for me. But I perceveered with the course anyway, because I was still finding it interesting, I believe it’s an area that is only going to get more and more important on a social and global scale as time goes on, and it will still tie in nicely with my  future aspirations of entering the Media Archiving field as a librarian.

Media Industries as a subject has really only served to further cement my descision to move away from Media and into further study, eventually leading to what, although related in some ways, is pretty much an entirely different field.

The seminars have been interesting and well organized, and although with many of the speakers I was fascinated and envious of their talent and achievements, I know that this is not the industry for me. I think it was the freelancing seminar in particular that finally nailed it home, when they talked about the need to constantly network, socialize and use your contacts/call in favours. This is where the problem lies. I am not an outgoing or particularly social person. I have a great deal of trouble talking to strangers, particularly when you are asking that stranger to do you a favour or help you out in some way. There is no way I could cold call professionals and companies until someone offered me something. And I don’t think that this is something I would overcome in time, or get used to. It’s part of my personality, and if I don’t find it easy at this stage in my life, in fact if I loathe it, then I probably always will. It’s kind of like when my mum wanted me to do maths in year 12, and I told her that I hated it, and I was crap at it, so there was never anyway I would take a degree or a job that involved maths, particularly advanced maths, so what was the point. She eventually saw reason. I think the same applies to some extent with the social networking side of Media. I don’t like it, and I’m not good at it, and I will probably always feel this way. Why go into a career path, where you’re fully aware that this is a MAJOR aspect that you will be dealing with on a daily basis, when it’s one of the main things you hate in life. Sounds like a road to disaster to me.

BUT! There are aspects of the course, and therefor the industry, that I LOVE. I could spend hours sitting with a director infront of a computer, editing a sound or film piece. The time seems to fly by, and I like to think that I’m reasonably good at it. I don’t enjoy recording or directing sound and footage so much, but taking that raw material and turning it into a piece is something that I’ve always enjoyed, and will continue to do so.

I suppose the best thing about Media Industries is that it has given me a window into what it’s going to be like out there, and that has helped me to make important descisions about my future. It has definately shown me that I could not ‘work my contacts’ as it were, with the extreme stress that I’m dealing with in regards to my PNR. I suppose even that has taught me a lesson, that just because someone says two weeks in advance they’ll give you an interview, doesn’t mean they’ll ever get round to it, even if you do ‘follow them up’, and that you should have all bases covered, with back up interviews if this is the case. Lesson learned I suppose. Maybe I shouldn’t have left all the interviewing in previous years up to other people, then I would have known about stuff like this long before Media Industries 2! Ah well, we live and we learn, and we hope that it doesn’t completely fall in a heap.

And in conclusion the best thing about the entire media course as a whole? Is probably that it gave me an opportunity to try everything, to see what I was good at, what I enjoyed, what worked and what didn’t. It allowed me to explore the different areas and aspects of Media, and although it hasn’t or isn’t going to lead me down a career path in straight Media, it certainly will play some part, and has helped to influence my descions as to where I will actually go. So I’m greatful for that.
Distinction – 76%

I haven’t as yet looked into whom I want to interview for my personal networking report, but I’m interested in the area of Media Archiving. After completing this course I hope to start a Postgraduate Degree in Business and IT Management with the aim of becoing a Librian/Archivist. I believe I would be quite happy working as simply a Librarian, hopefully somewhere rural, but I’m also keen on combining the two degrees and going into the Media Archiving field in some way, shape or form.

I’ve composed a sort of starting list of people I wish to interview in my head and this includes people at the National Sound and Film Archives, The AFI Library here on campus, and also Rachel Wilson the Media Industries lecturer, as I have just recently found out that she is studying Media Archiving as the topic for her Phd.

Some of the main questions I will be asking (and there will be more as time passes) will be as follows:

How did you get into the Media Archiving area? (Study, work experience, previous jobs)

What drew you to the area?

Do you think that preserving and recording Media is important? Why?

What are the main aspects/areas of Media Archiving?

Has the introduction of new technologies changed the way that Media Archiving works?

If so, how is it now different from before?

As the internet and online content becomes more and more important/prevolant in the Media industy, how has the Archiving side of things had to deal with this?

What are some of the ways that the Media Archiving industry is approaching the documentation and recording of online content?

What do you think of Youtube as a way of storing/archiving media? Do you think an online database like Youtube, that doesn’t breach copyright, is something desirable?

Things along those lines. I’m hoping to compile a larger list as time goes by. Also I’m quite nervous about conducting phone interviews, so I’m hoping that I can do at least some of it through email.