Individual Learning Journal - Year 3

The last year of Creative Media Practice 2012 has begun, and with it has come an added dimension of working for clients in group work. Based in Bristol at the Paintworks media complex, we have formed our own mini media production company called Artswork Media and have a number of group projects that we all will be working on this year. Here is a list of potential projects we will be working on this year:

• Wells Cathedral - Life of a Chorister
• Quartet Community Foundation - 25 year anniversary promotional video
• Templar Books - book trailers for upcoming series Arcadia Awakening and book Whisper
• Freq Out - Chicago based comedy show, collaboration with Columbia College
• Illuminate Bath Festival
• Bath Film Festival
• From Page to Screen Festival
• Bath Lit Festival
• Flying Blind - Behind the Scenes EPK
• Wherever the Need - marketing campaign for new project 'Sanitation First'

The projects I have decided I would most like to be involved in are Quartet Community Foundation, Wherever the Need, Templar Books and Illuminate Bath Festival. We first split into teams to research and meet clients for each project. I volunteered to be one of the main contacts, along with Chloe, for Quartet Community Foundation. We researched the company and then we met with Megan Witty, a PR woman working for Quartet that had first approached Artswork to make a short promotional video promoting the funding organisation's 25th anniversary of giving to charities in the West Country.

Our first client meeting went well, as we had found some points of connection in our research of the company - Chloe had recently done a similar project for a different charity and I had produced a behind-the-scenes documentary on a film festival combating human trafficking, Unchosen, the year before that I found out Quartet had sponsored. We found from the meeting that they wanted a short, two minute promo video explaining who they are and what they do, as well as still photos for their website and press releases.

After the meeting we met as a class and decided on roles for the project. I became the producer and main stills photographer for the project and we began to book in filming dates to go to the different charities they sponsor.

Our main client contact was someone who had just joined the organisation after recently graduating from Bristol University, and it soon became clear that this would not be a typical professional client relationship as we had expected. We began having problems when she asked if she could get a lift to where we were filming on our first filming day and then failed to show up or answer her phone on the day. We waited in the car for as long as we could, trying to phone her with no response, until we tried calling the offices to see if she was in. They got in contact with her and she finally called back about twenty minutes after we were meant to leave, saying that she had accidentally overslept and wouldn't be coming in with us after all. This was the first of several examples of the client acting in an unprofessional way.

This gave us a difficult situation, as we knew we needed to maintain a client relationship but were unsure how to deal with the unprofessional approach she was taking. Paul Clarkson, business consultant and guest speaker at university speaking on 'How to Deal with Clients', said one of the things needed when dealing with difficult clients is to first identify the problem and then be able to confront them without severing the client relationship. We were able to do this, being firm on the day about the fact that we would have been late for our first filming session if we had waited any longer for her without being able to get in contact, yet we were able to maintain the client relationship by doing this in as professional a way as possible. She came to the next filming date, where it was just myself and a cameraman as the crew, apologising and acting in a much more professional way with us, leaving happy with how we were going about the project and with the client relationship intact.

Another problem we encountered was on our first filming day, when we finally arrived at the destination only to be told that the session we were going to film of a gardening group of adults with special needs had been canceled at the last minute because of the weather. We were unsure of what to do, since we had driven for an hour with all the equipment to film just the one session. We decided with the charity to wait and see if the rain would stop long enough to allow us to film some cutaways of the garden that we could use along with footage of the gardening group rescheduled for a later date. During this time, we decided that in order to salvage the day and still do some filming, we could get interviews with the main woman in charge of the garden and a care worker who had come, also unaware that it had been canceled. It took some talking, but as the women got to know us they became more comfortable with the idea of being interviewed. The rain eventually stopped and the sun came out, so we were able to go into the garden and get two great interviews that we will be able to use in the final project, as well as cutaways of the gardening project. In this way we encountered a problem but were able to get around it by getting useful footage that we can use in the final project.

Bath Chronicle - The Last Day.

The last day of my placement, I went to take photographs of the interior of the Victoria Art Gallery, the Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths and Assembly Rooms. It was a great opportunity as I was able to take photos inside these places where photography was usually prohibited (Victoria Art Gallery) and get free, personal tours (Roman Baths). I spent the last day of my placement being shown the security guards’ favourite photo spots in the Roman Baths, and was shown many unusual places to take stunning photos of the baths that were only known by the guards.

Unfortunately, when they imported the photos onto the system, they must have deleted them off my camera so I can't show examples of the photos, but they were very happy with them and decided to use some in the next week's paper.

I then went in to give in the photos and officially finished my work placement! When I left, I gave them my contact information and they said that they would let me know if there is any freelance work that comes up in the future.

Summary:

Stage 1: Record

As can be seen from each of these blog posts, I experienced working as a photojournalist in a professional working environment for a publication that circulates to over 100,000 readers. I spent time in both the news desk department, researching, interviewing and writing articles, and the photography department, being sent out on assignment to get photographs. I observed the process of publishing a weekly city newspaper, from the first allocations of news stories to reporters to the final editing and the layout of the paper. I also observed how both reporters and photographer work professionally in this environment, learning much from the process.

Stage 2: Influencing Factors

The main factors I could see influencing me were in the areas of my style of writing and photography. I grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, where earth-shaking events would be happening every day that would make headlines around the world; this, in fact, is what made me want to do photojournalism. I also tend to gravitate towards reading world events and current affairs publications such as TIME magazine or NewsWeek. Both of these factors I think have influenced my style of writing, which I found was very different to the style of a local city newspaper such as the Bath Chronicle. This took time to readjust to fit their style of relating to their readers.

Stage 3: Reflect

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole of the placement and felt that it achieved its aims. In the Education (Work Experience) Act of 1973, the aims of work experience were outlined as fitting into ten different categories. One of these categories was titled ‘Sampling’, and defined the aim of it as being “To enable students to test their vocational preference before committing themselves to it” (Watts et al, 1989, cited in Wellington, 1992).

This work experience gave me that opportunity, enabling me to see which areas of photojournalism I would like to pursue as a career. It also gave me the chance to experience working in other areas that I found not as enjoyable, such as adapting to a much more 'small-town' style than what I was used to. I also found that writing stories about topics such as mouse racing and abandoned rabbits, the kind of pieces that make up much of a local newspaper, is not the area of journalism that I would like to pursue a career in.

Having experienced working for a local paper, I think now that I would ideally like to work for a publication that focuses more on world issues and events. I know that in order to do so, though, I would need to work my way up through local and national publications and am glad I had the opportunity to prepare myself for it through this work experience.

In hindsight, I can see now that I should have prepared much more for the placement by reading the Bath Chronicle regularly, to get used to the style of writing and to the style of the photographs they used. As I found that my style in both these areas is completely different to the style they use, it took time to adjust to their style and the brand identity of the newspaper which I could have saved by preparing for the placement beforehand.

Stage 4: Learn

Another category in The Education (Work Experience) Act, called ‘Preparatory’, defines its aim as being “to help students to acquire skills and knowledge related to a particular occupational area, which they will be able to apply if they wish to enter employment in that area” (Watts et al, 1989, cited in Wellington, 1992).

This has definitely been the case in my work experience, as although much of what I was doing was not what I would like to be doing ideally in the future, the experience taught me new skills and challenged me in many ways. It also stretched my abilities, giving me the skills needed to work in this area if required to do so in the future.

I learned the requirements and the expectations of working as a photojournalist in a professional office environment like the Bath Chronicle. I also learned that the most important thing in this industry is to meet the needs and fit the brand identity of the publication. I picked up many tips along the way for both writing articles and taking photos for a newspaper that I'm sure I will be able to apply to any job I have in photojournalism in the future.

I also learned through this that I need to improve my personal quality of learning to prepare beforehand. Instead of leaving it until I was actually on the placement to do more in-depth researching and more than just cursory reading of the paper, I should have intentionally prepared and gotten myself accustomed to the style and brand identity of the paper. I also learned that in order to get a staff job as a journalist on a news publication, it is essential to complete a journalism course after my degree and I will be looking more into this in the future.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed having my work experience at the Bath Chronicle. I learned many skills that I know I will use in the future and experienced what it would be like to work in a professional environment. I feel that it achieved its aims of preparing me for working in that occupation and gave me a taste of what it would be like to work as a professional photojournalist. I learned from this experience what Newton (2009) describes:

"Photojournalists distinguish their images from others in part by intention: the purpose of making and distributing the images is to show the truth, to the extent any human can discern and communicate, of stories significant to people's lives."



References:

Newton, Julianne H. (2009) 'PHOTOJOURNALISM', Journalism Practice, 3:2, 233 – 243

Wellington, Jerry (1992) 'Varying perspectives on work experience: 'there's nowt so queer as folk'',
Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 44: 2, 153 — 182

Bath Chronicle - Next to last day

On Thursday, it seemed much more relaxed back at the office as everyone could breathe again now that the paper was published for that week. I was asked to write some more articles, such as an article about an art exhibition being put on by the Bath Art Bizarre Group and a follow-up story on three Bath rugby fans who took on a challenge to canoe from one game to the next for charity.

After researching, phoning, interviewing and writing up the articles, I was then sent to another photo op, this time at the Royal Hospital for Rheumatic Disease. The Bath National Osteoporosis Society had raised money to buy the hospital four new state of the art mechanical beds which they were unveiling that day. I arrived about ten minutes before it started, spoke with the main organisers and took notes during the speeches. I then set up the shot of members of the society and members of hospital staff surrounding the bed with a commemorative cake in the forefront of the image, seen below.

At the end of the day, I was then asked if I could call the Head of Heritage Services on the Bath City Council to get permission to come in and take photographs of all the Bath Heritage sites the next day. The staff at the Chronicle needed to update their photo files to have current photos of all the heritage sites and asked if I could spend the day photographing them.

They had the number of one contact, Pat Dunlop, the Head of Heritage Services in the Bath Council. When I called and asked about coming to photograph the Roman Baths, Pump Rooms, Victoria Art Gallery, Royal Crescent No.1 and the Bath Abbey, she referred me to another woman named Maggie Bone. After speaking to her and explaining what we needed to do, she said she would let everyone know at the places under their jurisdiction (the Roman Baths, Pump Rooms and Victoria Art Gallery) that I would be coming the next day. For the other ones, however, she said that they have no authority to grant permission and I would need to speak to the other organisations.

This took some time and research, as I then had to search on the internet to find out which organisations had jurisdiction over the other sites. I found the main number for Bath Preservation Trust, the organisation that overlooks the museum at No. 1 Royal Crescent, and gave them a call. However, they seemed very hesitant and wanted to know why. They eventually came back with the answer no, we couldn't come in to photograph because of something vague they put down to copyright reasons. I told my mentor, Graham Holburn, about it and he said not to worry about it at all since they were the ones losing out on publicity.

I then found the office number for the Bath Abbey online and gave them a call. They were much more helpful and said to come in at any time to take photos the next day, which would be my last day working at the Bath Chronicle!

Bath Chronicle - Deadline Day, second week

The next day, I went to Walcot Chapel Gallery to take photos of the exhibition with the artists involved. I had set up the appointment the day before, calling the main organiser of the event and setting up a time to come when as many of the artists taking part could be there as possible. I set up the shot in one of the corners of the exhibition with artwork shown behind, seen below (published on page 6 of that week's paper):



I got any last details I needed for the story before being sent to another photo op, this time at the Royal Hospital for Rheumatic Disease. The Bath National Osteoporosis Society had raised money to buy the hospital four new state of the art mechanical beds which they were unveiling that day. I set up the shot of members of the society and members of hospital staff surrounding the bed with a commemorative cake in the forefront of the image.

After this, I was asked to go to Royal Victoria Park where the streets had been closed to parking for the day and get photos and quotes from anyone affected. The council had set up bicycle races to happen every Wednesday in May in the park and had closed it to all cars and parking on those days. There were a number of people that were annoyed at this, as there was no advance warning and the park is a popular place to park for many commuters. I walked around the whole of the park, taking photos of the entrances and signs of closure and scouting for people that looked like they could be unhappy with the decision. I was able to get quotes from a local police officer that said he hadn’t been notified of it, an elderly couple from Bristol who only come into Bath to bring their grandchild to the park on Wednesdays and a local taxi driver. They all asked to remain unnamed but expressed their irritation at the organisers of the event that proved to make a mundane story appear more interesting.

The quotes I got for the story and the photo were published on page 4 of that week's paper, seen below:


(The full article can be found here.)

I had to do all this in time to be back by the deadline on Wednesday afternoon. The paper is sent to the printers at the end of the day on Wednesday, to be printed overnight and hit the shelves by about 6:00 in the morning on a Thursday. This was good experience as it showed me what it is like to work to a deadline and make sure everything is done in time.

Bath Chronicle - Second Week

After the weekend, I started my second week at the Bath Chronicle back at the news desk. This week, I had a charity theme to the articles I was given: a charity country market day in Newton St Loe, a 600+mile cycle ride, again for charity, and a charity event to round off Colerne Rugby FC’s 25th year anniversary celebrations.

An example of one of these articles that was published in the paper and online is here, taken from Bath Chronicle's website:


Village's quarter of a century of country markets

There was family-friendly fun as two churches benefited from traditional spring fairs in and around Bath.

The Newton St Loe Country Market saw a sea of activity in the village and raised an estimated £6,000.

The event has been held annually for the past 25 years, with market stalls lining the streets of the village, selling items ranging from handicrafts and hand-made jewellery to photographs and greetings cards.

This year, the day featured a dog show, an art exhibition and competition, morris dancing and a live jazz band.

There was a miniature railway and stalls selling cakes, cream teas, meat and other food.

Joint organiser Celia Gay estimated around 450 people had attended the event, with the weather bringing out the crowds.

"It was the biggest, most successful day we've ever had," she said.

Several gardens were open to the public, creating what Mrs Gay called a "beautiful picturesque English scene".

Proceeds will go to Holy Trinity Church and the village hall.

Fellow organiser Wendy Simmons said: "I would like to pay tribute to all those who helped and to the generosity and forbearance of the people of the village. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the village."

Meanwhile, writer Bel Mooney opened the Friends of St Stephen's Church May Fair at Lansdown.

She donated signed books which sold well, alongside the cakes, raffle and tombola tickets, hot dogs and cream teas, nearly new books, clothes and bric-a-brac.

There was face-painting, races and games for children and the event raised about £1,000 for the group, which raises money to help maintain and improve the 19th-century church.

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I was much happier with the edit of this article, since there was a huge difference in how much they had changed to this one and how much they had changed the ones I had written the week before. The other ones were virtually unrecognisable; for this article, they only added in two sentences at the beginning and left the rest almost completely unchanged. Since I had learned from experience that the style of writing has to be according to their brand identity, I was able to change my style of writing to fit the newspaper's brand.

After researching, phoning contacts and writing up the articles, I was then asked to set up a photo op of an art exhibition called ‘Fusion’ happening the next day. I also wrote the article about the exhibition after speaking to the main organiser over the phone, seen below:

Website Art Group's Display

A group of artists who met through a creative networking website are staging an exhibition in Bath this week.

The event at the Walcot Chapel Gallery in Walcot Street is a direct spin-off of a site created by Fringe Arts Bath, an annual visual arts festival which runs hand in hand with the Bath Fringe.

Artist Jane Horton has organised the exhibition along with three other artists.

Although they all work using different media, Mrs Horton says that this is part of the appeal.

She said: "We wanted this exhibition to appeal to a wide range of people. That's why we decided to go through the networking site to join together."

The other artists taking part are Stanislav Mitura, Vikki Yeates and Mary Rouncefield.

The gallery is showing the exhibition, called Fusion, from 10am until 6pm tomorrow and until 7pm on Saturday.

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I was much happier with the edit of these article, since there was a huge difference in how much they had changed to these ones and how much they had changed the ones I had written the week before. The other ones were virtually unrecognisable; for the first article shown here, they only added in two sentences at the beginning and left the rest almost completely unchanged. Since I had learned from experience that the style of writing has to be according to their brand identity, I was able to change my style of writing to fit the newspaper's brand.

Work Experience - Day 4 (Royal Wedding Street Parties photography assignment)

On Friday, the day of the Royal Wedding, I was sent out on my own to photograph some of the street parties that were happening around the city. The first location I was assigned to photograph was Bridgemead Nursing Home, where they were holding a party from 12 – 4pm to celebrate the wedding. However, seeing as most of the residents were over 80 years old, by the time I got there in the early afternoon they had gotten so fatigued from the excitement that they had all gone to bed! Fortunately, five residents had just woken up when I arrived so I was able to set up a shot with them standing next to a wedding dress and photo display made for the occasion, seen below. This photo was published in the newspaper in the section titled 'How Bath Celebrated the Royal Wedding' on page 45.


The second street party I was sent to was one in Sydney Buildings, where they had closed off the street and decorated it with layer upon layer of bunting, balloons and wedding and union jack paraphernalia. I had to weave my way around the residents dressed in their finest wedding clothes to try to find the main organisers and explain who I was to get permission to take photos. I then scouted out the people dressed most conspicuously in wedding finery and asked a group of them to pose together, along with a dog that was also dressed for the occasion. I found out later that someone had come in to the office to ask if he could buy the photograph after seeing it in that week’s paper, seen below:

I enjoyed this day since it was the first one where I was sent out on assignment on my own. I found having to walk into a party or an establishment and explain who I was boosted my confidence, getting easier each time. I also had to walk up to complete strangers, explain who I was and ask them to pose for the camera, setting up the composition and formation of the group to best show the event. This was challenging at first, but again became easier the more I did it.

In retrospect, I think I probably should have invested in better camera equipment before going out as a representative of the Chronicle. I was using my own DSLR, lens and hotshoe flash which are all good quality, but had a homemade diffuser taped on made from packing material which did the job but didn't look the most professional or what you would expect a photographer from the city's largest newspaper to have. One person commented on this and made me realise that, although I did look before the placement to try to find a diffuser to fit and couldn't, perhaps I should have invested in a higher-quality flash that would have come with its own professional diffuser. I've learned from this that equipment and accessories such as a large camera bag are essential, as I had to improvise to find a way to carry all my equipment.

Bath Chronicle - Day Three (photography)

The third day I was sent out on assignment with one of the main photographers for the day. As this was the day before the Royal Wedding, the day was packed with appointments of various primary schools and nurseries having street parties and competitions. We had 13 different photo ops to get to and spent most of the day driving to the different locations and trying to organise children in their wedding costumes to try and get them all into one shot.

I learned a few tips along the way, such as the fact that local newspapers generally want “strong, tight compositions with bright smiles” according to photographer Lloyd Ellington. He also told me some tips about writing the captions for the photographs, saying the main elements you need to get across are ‘who, what, where and why’. The main thing needed, he explained, is to be able to capture a photograph that tells the entire story in one image to draw the readers in. In the words of photojournalist Mark Hancock (1996), “an image has no age, language or intelligence limits."

He also said that a photo has to be able to tell the story on its own as much as possible. This echoes research in photojournalism that indicates that "pictures that explain elements of the text improve both comprehension and recall, while pictures that simply adorn the text do not improve comprehension or recall, and may even diminish them" (Garry et al., 2007, p. 996)

Here are some examples of some of the photos I took out on assignment:

This last photo was unplanned; we happened to see a house completely done up with union jack flags, streamers, bunting and even a union jack welcome mat so we decided to improvise. We went up to the house and knocked on the door, and luckily the owner of the house was happy to come out, also decked out in his England gear (including a union jack inflatable hat), and pose for some photos. This was a great opportunity since it showed that as a photographer, you can't just stick by the schedule but have to be ready to catch any opportunity that presents itself to you.

I thoroughly enjoyed this day, since it consisted a lot more of getting out and about, meeting new people and seeing more of the city. I found that even though this day should have been more tiring than the ones I spent sitting at the news desk talking on the phone or typing on the computer, I felt much more energetic and less drained at the end of the day. In this respect I preferred working in the photography department to the writing department, though I found challenges in both.

One of the challenges I found in doing the photography was that they generally wanted set up, posed shots with tight compositions and big grins. As my interest in photography is more in capturing what photojournalist Mark Hancock calls “the verb” or action moments of a story, this stretched my abilities as a photographer to learn to set up these compositions in a way that would fit with the brand identity of the newspaper; again, fitting with their style rather than my own. This is an important quality to learn working commercially for a publication, as from what I've seen, the most important thing is to fit to the publication's style and brand identity.

References:

Garry, Maryanne , Strange, Deryn , Bernstein, Daniel M. and Kinzett, Toni (2007) Photographs Can Distort Memory for the News. Applied Cognitive Psychology 21, pp. 995-1004.

Hancock, Mark M. (1996) What Is a Photojournalist? — http://markhancock.blogspot.com/1996/01/what-is-photojournalist.html accessed 8 May 2011

Bath Chronicle - Deadline Day, week one

The second day of my placement at the Bath Chronicle was deadline day, as the newspaper comes out weekly on a Thursday. The same editors had another meeting in the morning that I attended with the final ‘newslist’ copy. They finalised which stories were going on which pages and sorted out the front page by changing the main lead to another story that had fortunately come up that day. This was interesting to see as it showed how the newspaper handled the ethics of reporting.

After the meeting, I went out with a reporter who was going to interview the main subjects of the front-page story. On the way, I was able to ask her some questions about how she had gotten her job at the Chronicle. Having had the job for three years now, she said she had to do a journalism course after her degree and take exams in law, governmental organisation and shorthand writing in order to pass. She did a work placement at the Chronicle near the end of her course and found out there was a job opening, so she applied for it and got the job soon after. This was encouraging to hear since it showed the importance of getting a work placement, as doing one and gaining contacts through it was the reason she eventually got the job.

After seeing the reporting in action, I then spent the rest of the day sitting with the deputy editors and seeing first-hand what they do to get the newspaper ready for publication. The editing process was exhaustive, even brutal, changing the style and writing of each piece to fit in with the brand identity of the newspaper.

For example, this is the finished version of the first article I wrote about mouse racing (compare it to the original in my last post!), taken from Bath Chronicle's website:

Mouse racing returns - and you should see the jockeys! (this was the actual headline.)

When you're placing a bet, it can be wise to start small.

And that's what you can do at a mouse-racing night in Bath this weekend.

The event at Larkhall Athletic's Plain Ham ground this Sunday at 6pm is part of the Larkhall Festival, and represents the revival of a 20-year tradition.

The club, for which the event is a fundraiser, is abiding by RSPCA animal racing guidelines.

The mice will be separated into six different tracks with a starting point and a finishing line.

The doors of each track will be opened simultaneously, with mouse bedding infused with the scent of food at the end of the race as a lure.

The majority of the mice used in the race will be rescue animals or borrowed from city pet shops.

Races can be sponsored for £25 on a first come, first served basis, while mice can be sponsored or entered into the race for £5.

Esther Moore

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As can be seen, my piece was changed almost unrecognisably from the original version to fit in with the style and brand identity of the newspaper. I realised from watching this process of editing that my style of writing is completely different from the style of a small-town local newspaper and perhaps I should have done more preparing. In retrospect I can see that I should have bought the newspaper every week in the ones leading up to the placement to get an idea of the style and brand identity of that specific paper and perhaps even practice writing in their style rather than my own.

Reflecting on the differences, I can see that my style of writing was influenced by a number of factors. Since I grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, where world-shaking events would happen every day that would make front-page headlines around the world, this instilled in me a desire to write in a way to reflect this. I also tend to read publications that focus more on world events and current affairs and I'm sure that this has influenced my writing style as well.

The Bath Chronicle, on the other hand, is a very targeted local city (what some would call a ‘small-town’) paper and has a specific way of relating to its readers. For example, as can be seen from the example above, they use humour and puns in ways that don’t fit the writing style that I am used to and this took some time to readjust to. However, it was good in the way that it provided a challenge of writing to fit to the publication's style rather than my own, an important skill to acquire in this industry.

Some of the tips I got for writing for this type of publication from shadowing the editor were:

• Need to keep it simple, one line paragraphs
• Don't use formal language or slang, but 'everyday speak' to better relate to the readers
• Short, to-the-point sentences, no frills
• Drop details and information into the article subtly; ie 'the 31-year old...' rather than taking up a whole sentence to explain 'he is 31 years old'
• Don't start an article with a name unless it is well-known, or a location that will only make it interesting to certain people connected to it. Need to hook people in, make sure it will be relevant and interesting no matter what the reader's background
• Quotes: can change the tense, clean it up, etc, as long as you don't twist their words to change the meaning
• Try to get full quotes (need to learn shorthand for this!)
  
• Numbers: spell out number one to ten; anything above use numbers
• Need to double-check every fact
• Cross-referencing: add tagline at end of story referencing related article(s).

On another note, all three articles I wrote got published! Clippings of the articles are shown below.

Work Experience - The Bath Chronicle, Day One. Mouse Racing, Abandoned Bunnies and a 12-year-old Picasso

Over Easter, I spent two weeks doing a work placement with The Bath Chronicle, the city's biggest newspaper. As my long-term goal is to go into a career of photojournalism, this was a perfect place to experience how it would be to work as a photojournalist in a professional environment. Splitting my time there between the news desk and the photography department, I was able to gain experience in the expectations of working for a publication that circulates to over 100,000 readers. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, even though it was completely different to anything I've ever done before and presented many challenges I learned a lot from.

On the first day, I was assigned to the news desk and given three stories to research. A large section of this involved having to formulate questions based on the email sent in by the contact and research, followed by interviewing them about the piece over the telephone.

I then wrote the articles to be published in that week’s paper. Although the articles weren’t about the most glamorous of subjects (mouse racing, abandoned rabbits and a 12-year-old artist to be exact), they were a good place to start and I enjoyed the process of writing the articles.

The first article I was given was about the revival of a local tradition...mouse racing. I was given a printout of an email sent notifying the Chronicle of it happening to read the background information, from which I had to come up with a list of questions to ask the contact over the phone. I wrote down the basic information in bullet points, such as the fact that mouse racing used to be an annual event hosted by Larkhall Sports Club and is now being brought back by popular demand, apparently. I also wrote down that they had an animal behaviour expert to come in to design the track, they were raising money for the Community Sports Club and were looking for sponsors to come in and fund the races, most of which would be run by rescue mice. I then came up with this list of questions:

• How many years did this tradition take place in the past?
• What year did it begin?
• Why did the event stop happening?
• How did it begin, who had the first idea to introduce mouse racing?
• Why mice and not a different animal?
• Name and credentials of animal behaviour expert?
• What exactly are rescue mice?
• What will the funds specifically go to in the development of the Community Sports Club?
• How many sponsors are you expecting to enter?
• Can you outline the process of the mouse race, how they are identified and what is used to lure them to the finish line?

I then phoned the contact, the Commercial Manager or Larkhall Athletic, and asked her the questions on my list, typing as she was talking to try and get all the information down.

I then wrote the article, original of which is shown below:

Mouse Racing Event Back by Popular Demand

Festival-goers who plan on attending the Larkhall Festival this coming weekend may get a chance to see the return of a popular local pastime - mouse racing.

This Sunday evening at 6:00 PM, the race which used to be a popular annual event at the Larkhall Sports Club will occur at the Larkhall Athletic Plain Ham Ground on Charlcombe Lane as part of the Larkhall Festival.

The annual Mouse Race at Larkhall Sports Club had been happening for about 20 to 30 years in the recent past, ending a few years ago with the retirement of the event’s main organisers. Many residents remember the annual races however as a time for the community to gather and view an event that both children and adults could enjoy.

Although mouse racing has faced criticism in the past from animal rights groups such as the RSPCA, the organisers of the race at Larkhall Athletic have made sure the race is within the regulations and fits the process outlined in RSPCA animal racing guidelines. The organisers of the event have commissioned the building of a new track, pictured, by animal behaviour expert Ruth Osborne, holder of a Master’s Degree in the subject from Southampton University.

The mice will be separated into 6 different tracks with a starting line and finishing line. The doors of each track will be opened simultaneously, with mouse bedding infused with the scent of food at the end of the race as a lure to get the mice to the finishing line.

The majority of the mice used in the race will be unwanted rescue mice taken from rescue centres in the local area or mice borrowed from local pet shops, and there is an opportunity for residents to enter their own pet mice to the competition.

Mice can be sponsored or entered into the race for £5 and have a chance to win a £10 cheese voucher from Goodies Delicatessen as the 1st prize.

For those in the crowds who cannot wait to win the cheese as a prize, there will be ploughman’s platters available and a full bar service to toast the winners.

While there will be opportunities to give to local animal shelters or charities at the event, the main proceeds will go towards the development of the Community Sports Club for local Larkhall residents. A non-profit organisation run entirely by volunteers, Larkhall Athletic Community Sports Club currently has 15 youth teams, 4 adult male teams and a ladies team that meet regularly and need a place to be able to gather in the local community.

Races can be sponsored for £25 on a first come, first serve basis. Race sponsors will be able to name one of the six races, feature in publicity of the event and present the prize to the winning mouse sponsor.

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After doing a similar process for the other two articles I was given and sending them to the editor, I then sat in on the Tuesday afternoon meeting between the editor-in-chief, the chief sub-editor and the deputy editor to discuss that week’s stories, leads and front page. In this meeting, I was able to see the inner workings of how a weekly newspaper is produced. They discussed the layout of the paper, the importance of each story in relation to placement and some of the legal issues of confidentiality vs. public interest that their current front-page story was creating.

This was interesting as it allowed me to see the process of creating a weekly, local paper and the issues that the editors face in publishing stories. They gave me a copy of the first draft of the newslist, a paper that had all the stories being written for that week's edition. They also gave me an additional paper that had the 'LIVE' stories written on it, the most newsworthy ones that they decided would be going in the first eight pages.

I enjoyed the first day, as even though I was thrown in the deep end so to speak, the experience of having to write articles on the first day to a deadline gave me the confidence to do more of the same to a higher standard for the rest of my time there.

Media Event - SUCCESS

We did it!

The media event happened today and was, in my opinion, a success. I walked around with one of the groups and, while it took some time and effort to get them to warm up and be friendly, it seemed like overall they enjoyed the activities, found it a fun atmosphere and positively responded throughout the day. I took photos throughout the day of the different activities, speakers and graduation ceremony, helped Lee print out all the graduation certificates and gave the main reception the schedule of the event in the morning along with all the rooms and mine and Chloe's phone numbers in case people from the media did show up - which they did, as we got a reporter/photographer from the Bath Chronicle!

All photos that I took on the day can be seen here, apart from the ones I took of the Big Draw and film sequence activity since those were taken using other people's cameras.



Summary:

Stage 1: Record

As can be seen from these blog posts, through this event I experienced what it would be like to lead a team to work in tight schedules to meet deadlines and produce many different aspects of a successful media event. As one of the three main deputies and head of the marketing team, my role was to support Chloe as the CEO, take an active role in coming up with ideas and the progression of those ideas and lead a designing team and a contacting media team; giving them briefs, assigning them tasks and making sure they met the deadlines. As well as delegating responsibilities and making sure everyone stuck to the schedule to meet the deadlines, I also took an active role in designing and contacting the media myself and was there to oversee every area of the marketing department. I was able to observe and learn from more experienced people such as tutors and the marketing department at the university things such as the best way of creating press releases, how to gain media coverage and how to design logos, posters and media event invitations to a high standard to make it appealing.

Stage 2: Influencing Factors

During the course of this event, I researched things such as examples of successful media events in the past and what made them a success, as well as examples of media event invitations and press releases that successful media companies such as Apple have created. The main influence that came out of this research I would say were the ones that the company Apple produced and released, as we liked the minimalistic style and simplicity of their designs. Apple is one of the most successful media and technology companies in the world, and pioneered this type of design for their products that arguably is one of the main factors of their success. For the design team, we decided to take on these aesthetic qualities influenced by Apple into our own work and I thought the designs worked effectively to get our message across.

Stage 3: Reflect

I believe that we accomplished what we set out to do for this event, as we received feedback from the students and the teacher that this was the best event they had been to as of yet. I do think we could have done some things differently though and prepared more thoroughly for other things to have made the event run smoother. One thing that could have gone much better that our team was in charge of on the day was the handing out of the graduation certificates. We had a list of names of all the students in the class, but we had also discussed briefly the idea about having everyone write their name down when they came in, so that we would know who was there on the day. However, that was as far as we got; a strategy to get this done wasn't implemented and we never got a list of the people who had come that day, so we had to design and print off many more certificates than we needed. This was a waste of money, but it also meant that Chloe had to read out all the names of people who weren't there and wait during awkward silence as no one would come up.

As I was busy on the morning of the day with printing out schedules and hand outs to go in the information packs, as well as putting on the labels of the packs and didn't get this finished until just before it was meant to start, I didn't think to have a list ready for everyone to write down their names when they come in as should have been my responsibility. In this respect, I should have handled this differently in two ways:

1. Prepared everything beforehand and gotten everything printed, labeled and ready a few days earlier so that there wouldn't be as much stress on the morning and so that I would have had time to remember to make a list;
2. Taken more initiative to implement a strategy or to delegate the task of getting all the names to someone else to get done.

Stage 4: Learn

I've learned from this process that I tend to leave things until the last minute to get done and I need to change to learn to prepare everything beforehand to cause less stress on the day. I now see this quality as one I need to improve in many areas of my life, and I will be working on this intentionally in the future to change this about myself. I need to change the approach I have to work, getting everything done as soon as possible in advance and leaving time at the end, rather than thinking I have all the time in the world until I frantically try to get everything done right before the deadline. This is valuable to learn about myself, as this experience showed me the consequences of doing this in a professional environment and the effect it would have on things under my direct responsibility.

I also learned from this event that I enjoy leading people, finding what they are passionate about and giving them tasks that would fit their specific abilities and passions and that would stretch and challenge them. I enjoyed leading my team, delegating and giving tasks, even if it meant a lot of checking up and running after people to get things in for deadline! I learned more about my specific leadership style as well and things I would do differently in the future, such as being more assertive and decisive even if everyone on the team aren't 100% happy with the decision.

Overall, I'm very happy with how the day went. I think we achieved the aims we had for this event and the students went away happy with what they did and hopefully thinking more about applying to university once they finish their course. I feel like we all pulled our weight and were committed to putting on an event that hopefully the students will remember, as I'm sure we all will.

Last week mayhem!

This has been the last week leading up to the media event, and it's definitely been busy!

Our team was in charge of contacting all media, which we have done, trying to get media coverage, getting the information packs and goody bags together, plus designing all signs, badges, invitations and posters.

For the information packs, I found and bought a pack of 25 basic folders made of recycled brown card. While at first we were thinking it would be good to have colourful ones, we thought that the appearance would go well with the university's environmentally friendly theme. I also bought a pack of 25 A4 labels to put on the front of the packs to maintain brand identity and make them look better. I asked Lee to design the front cover of the information packs, which is below:



I also asked Lee to design graduation certificates for each of the students, Leonie to design the schedule of the day and signs, Claire to design badges and the profile sheet of everyone in our class, with profile pictures and a line saying their ambition and one funny fact about them to hand out to the students in the information packs. Here are their designs:








I think we're ready!

Media coverage and last week to do list

I got a reply from my contact at the Bath Chronicle, Graham Holburn, who said he would forward the email and press release on to news editor Paul Wiltshire. As the rest of the contacting people on the marketing team were calling the different sources of media, I asked Ed to call his contact at the Bath Chronicle from the behind the scenes documentary they did on it and confirm if they were coming or not. He did call, but they were busy with publishing that week's issue and asked him to call back on the day they decide on what news stories will be in the next week's issue - which is Thursday, the day before the event! Let's hope.

I made what's hopefully the marketing team's last to-do list ever (!!) for the last week leading up to the event, seen below:



Exciting....one week left!

Emails, emails, emails

When Chloe and the others went to see the students and give them the invitations and posters on the 29th (unfortunately I couldn't go because I had work commitments, so sent another member of my team instead), they got all the names and emails of everyone in the class. I made a facebook event and invited all the students using their emails that Chloe sent to me, seen below.



Chloe asked me if it would also be possible to send each student a personal email with the invitation attached, along with asking them to bring their own USB stick in case we can't get any free ones and to bring an idea for a simple drawing for an animation activity we will be doing on the day. Here is an example of what I sent them:

Hi Melissa,

Attached is the official invitation to our media event we're producing for you and everyone on your course. We hope you'll be able to make it since we have a lot of great things planned. Since some of these will involve producing a final project that you can keep, we're asking everyone to please bring your own USB stick and an idea of something simple to draw for an animation focused activity on the day. Please email if you have any questions, look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers,

Esther (on behalf of all Year 2 Creative Media Practice students at Bath Spa University)



We also needed to send out the finished press release to the press straight away, so I delegated all the other media sources to the contacting people on my team and emailed my contact at the Bath Chronicle, Graham Holburn. As I'm doing my work placement there in April, I thought this would be a good way to contact them since they asked me to email them with ideas of stories that I would like to work on during my placement. Here is a copy of the email I sent to him:




Hi Graham,

Hope you're doing well! I thought that I would get in contact again as it's coming close to the time that I start my placement with you. I'm really looking forward to starting and I had some questions about the placement. I also wanted to let you know an idea I had regarding a possible story for the Chronicle.

Since you mentioned about thinking of ideas for stories for my placement, I was wondering if you would be interested in something that has come up now. I know it's before my actual placement, but on April 8th, students at Bath Spa University are putting on a media event for students at Bath City College to encourage them to come to university despite rising fees. We've been in contact with Don Foster, who gives his endorsement and whilst he unfortunately cannot come since he was already fully booked on the day, he is going to prerecord a statement showing his support for students in Bath for us. We are also getting guest speakers in such as Gemma Hunt, a presenter for the CBBC who has also done presenting work for BBC One and BBC Two, and Andy Roberts, a former freelance cameraman who now works for the BBC. In the welcome pack you sent, it said to e-mail you with any ideas about stories I would like to pursue during my placement, and I think this could be an interesting story about how different students are reacting to the current and controversial issue of the rising university fees.

I can send you the press release we've written up for it if you would be interested in featuring this in the Bath Chronicle at any point. I would also be happy to pursue a follow-up story during my placement about what students in Bath think of this controversial issue or anything along those lines.

About my placement - I believe you said that my placement would be different to the one outlined in the welcome pack you sent me, in that I would have one week in the photography department and one week on the news desk with reporters. I was wondering if I will need to bring my own camera for the week in the photography department and if this would be the first week or the second week of the placement?

Thank you, looking forward to working with you!

Best,

Esther

Press Release

The next thing we had to do was design a press release and contact the media to ask them to come and cover the event. I delegated the writing of the press release to Simon, since he has had experience in writing them in the past and volunteered to do it. This is the text he came up with:

"I'm writing to you on behalf of a group of students at Bath Spa University to officially invite you to attend an event at the University.

This is a very unique event in the sense that it is being organised entirely by the Creative Media Practice Students in order to encourage others to take up the course and pursue their ambitions through University.

In a time of rising fees and increased difficulties in attending University we hope that hearing from the students viewpoint will encourage others that Higher Education is a worthwile and rewarding path to take.

The event being held is for a group of media students at Bath College and will be being held on the Newton Park Campus between 10-3.

The event will be split up into small workshops were the students will get to participate in activities such as working with the green screen, shooting a scene in sequence and 'the big draw'."

I then finished writing the content, changed much of it, edited it and then designed the first draft along with Leonie, and sent to Lesley to run it past her. She said she thought the content was good, but it needed to be more eye-catching and appealing (see this post about researching media event invitations - much of it applies to press releases as well). Leonie and I worked on it on Wednesday and came up with a design for it (seen below).



Lesley also said we should run it past the marketing department at the university just in case to get their permission, so I did and when she wrote back she highlighted that we had forgotten to put the date of the event on it!! I have no idea how all of us had missed it, but it's a good thing we sent it to them first so they could catch it for us!

She also suggested changing some of the text and moving it around, which we took on board for the final product. I finished it off with the new changes using Adobe Illustrator. This is the design of the final press release we will soon be sending to the press:

Free goodies!

On Friday, Claire, Leonie and I went on a massive trek around the university to find everything we could to put in the information packs and the goody bags we're giving to the students at the end of the day. We went to the marketing department, the careers department and the Student Union offices and hit the jackpot! We were able to get everything we needed and more:

• Free Bath Spa Uni and Grad South West pens
• Free Grad South West pads
• Brown paper bags that have Bath Spa Uni's logo on them with the words 'Let's change your future', perfect to go with the theme of the event
• Black plastic bags that say 'in the bag'
• New 2012 university prospectuses
• Open Day bookmarks
• Information about the university
• Course outline booklets

...and more! The best part was we then went to the SU offices and asked if they had anything they could give us. He came back with his arms full of Bath Spa Uni t-shirts, enough for our entire class, that we said we could have for free! So now we don't have to worry about getting t-shirts made, since we have ones that we can all wear on the day and keep afterwards as a souvenir.

The only disappointing thing about the day was that we weren't able to track down the free Bath Spa Uni USB sticks that they were handing out during the Fresher's Fair - none of the departments had any idea where that could have originated from. We have one more lead, the environmental department's email, but we thought if we can't get them we can always ask the students to bring their own USB sticks on the day. It would be a bit frustrating, since they would be perfect to be able to give them something tangible to take home with them of everything they do on the day that would remind them of the university...but I guess you can't win them all.

Media Event Invitation Research

Our next task that we have to complete before we go to meet the students on the 29th is creating invitations to take to them and a poster for them to put up in their classroom. I did some research on media event invitations, seen below:

From this we can see that most media event invitations have a catchy slogan used to draw you in, with the information found below in smaller text. We wanted to make it look colourful and appealing to a young demographic. First we had to nail down the logo, which we did! Here is the finished logo design, incorporating the 3-D look with a media theme:

The second thing we had to do was nail down the text on the invitation. We worked together on this, coming up with this wording for the final one:

Undecided on university?
Uni fees going up?
Don't let it get you down!

Join us for a media event, tailored especially for you. Featuring special guest speakers, hands-on activities and the opportunity to see all the facilities available at Bath Spa University, this event will give you the chance to see the benefits that studying at university can bring you.

Where: Bath Spa University, Newton Park Campus
When: Friday, April 8th, 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM

Refreshments provided, bring your own lunch - free giveaways available at the end of the day!

Produced by Creative Media Practice students at Bath Spa University.



The next thing we had to do was create the design. Here were some of the ideas Lee and Leonie made for invitations and the posters:












I met with Chloe and Brad and we decided that liked elements of both final designs, the typography of Leonie's design and the clapperboard logo with the squares motif of Lee's design, so I combined the two in Adobe Illustrater, seen below:



I also incorporated the two to make the final design for the poster:



All ready to take to them on Tuesday!

No Don Foster + logo ideas.

I got a reply back from Don Foster saying that sadly, he'd have loved to be a part of it but his schedule was already packed for that day. He did offer to pre-record a talk though that we can show at the event, so at least we can still tell the media that we have an endorsement from Don Foster and hopefully hook them in that way. I'm going to call his PA and set up a time to do as soon as I find out when people would be available to come and film.

I also got a reply back from Chris Hill, who unfortunately is also away on that date. We decided that we are going to try to get Gemma Hunt, a presenter for CBBC and who the people in the group who did the behind the scenes documentary Aladdin have had contact with before, and Andy Roberts, a friend of James' who used to be a freelance cameraman and now works for the BBC.

On Friday, Leonie and Lee both came to class with several ideas for logos:









While we liked Leonie's 3-D inspired colourful BSU logo, we also like Lee's more media-related ideas, so I've asked them to work together to see if they can combine the two.

Getting Don Foster!

We've decided that the most important thing to get done now is to nail down the guest speakers and any thing that would make it appealing for media coverage, such as getting local MP Don Foster to come and give his endorsement. I've now written an email to send him which I will copy onto here:


Hello,

My name is Esther Moore and I am a student at Bath Spa University doing a Creative Media Practice course. As part of the course, we are producing and hosting a media event on the Newton St. Loe campus to encourage students at Bath City College to come to university. As many students are now hesitant about coming to university with the rising tuition fees, this event will be produced with the aim of showing the students that it is still worth obtaining a university degree despite the rising fees.

As we are producing this event with the aim of positively responding to a current political issue, we would like to invite you as our local MP to make an appearance if you are available and perhaps give an endorsement of the importance of going to university despite the controversy surrounding it at the moment. We feel this could show your party's support for future university students and as we are currently speaking to the Bath Chronicle to come and cover the event, this could be a platform to show support for all university students in the city.

The event is on April 8th, and we will do our best to accommodate any time that would be best for you if you are available. The event begins at 9:00 AM and if you were available at that time, we would be delighted for you to open the event with a short 5 - 10 minute talk showing your support of gaining a university degree. If you are not available, we would greatly appreciate if there is someone else in your office that you think would be suitable and that you could recommend to come and give a talk in your place. Please let us know if you would be interested and available to be involved in this event.

Thank you, we hope to hear from you soon!

Regards,

Esther Moore

Media Event Research

For our class today, we had to make a presentation of research that we did of a specific media event. After some deliberation I decided to do mine on the Live G8 Concerts in 2005, which massive media publicity was generated for and was focused on doing it for a good cause. Here is the link attached:




I also gave everyone in the marketing team briefs to have done by next week, seen here:

Design team:

Claire, thanks for looking into the tshirts/hoodies - if you can bring some ideas and designs on Friday that would be ace.

Leonie - If possible, it'd be great if you can bring in initial sketches/design ideas for the logo that we can all look at and decide which one would work best. It'd be good to bring in a few so we can have some different options to look at and decide on. Also, might be a good idea to discuss colour scheme with Claire to make sure it would go well on the shirts.

Lee - Can you liaise with Leonie about ideas for the logo and see if it would be possible to use and tranfer logo onto the graphics for information packs, tshirts, goody bags, etc. If you'd like to start some initial design ideas for the information packs that'd be great too!

Contacting/organising:

Patrick - It'd be so good if on Friday we could have a rough version of a schedule of what needs to get done when - we can meet or chat on here about each deadline. Otherwise if you could write up one of those spreadsheets you mentioned last time that we could have ready to put in all the deadlines, we can all discuss and come up with it, hopefully have it set in stone and ready to move on by the end of the day.

Ed - Could you research how it would be best to contact a local MP (ideally Don Foster) and get them on board if possible, we won't do it yet but then we'll have an idea of the steps we need to take. Also if you can think of any accessible guest speakers we could have come in on the day it'd be brill!

Simon - Can you get quotes of prices from your contact in the printing company and bring some to compare for the tshirts, information packs, etc. Also, can you look into who we would need to talk to in the SU to see if we can get some free giveaway bath spa things for the goody bags/information packs? Don't know if there's a manager or someone in charge of it, but if we can find out who it is we can get on it straight away.

We also came up with a schedule for the day:

8-9: Rigging
9.15: Ice breaker for the students
9.30: First Activity
10.15: Second Activity
11.00: Third Activity
11.45: Walk/tour to Moreton
12.00: Lunch/technical de-rig
12.30: Finish lunch
12.45: Guest speakers (lunch for tech team)
13.45: Evaluation
13.50: Goodbyes, goody bags, take students to bus stop.

We talked about which guest speakers we are going to try to have for the event, as we need people who actually work in the media industry who have gone to university and can say how important it is in the media world to have a degree. We want to get someone who is accessible, interesting and who the students would get a lot out of.

One of the people I thought is someone I know named Chris Hill who is one of the script writers for the popular TV show Skins. Everyone would know what it is and would hopefully be interested and get a lot out of what he has to say. He's young, in his twenties and recently finished university so I think he would be perfect for the event. I'm going to contact him and ask him to come, hopefully we'll get him!

Event planning - activities and the angle!

This week, Chloe, James and I had another meeting to talk about planning the event - unfortunately, Brad couldn't participate since he was in London doing his work placement, but we had a productive chat and made a lot of good decisions in my opinion that enabled us to start moving forward. The first thing we realised we had to do was come up with 3 solid activities so that we could start planning what we would need for each one. We were going to wait until we were able to get the questionnaires back from the students to find out what areas they were most interested in, but we haven't had an answer back yet so we decided to go ahead and use our class as a basis of what most people would be interested doing a media course. Using our course as a starting point, most are interested in doing film and television, with a small number interested in photography, graphics or animation so we decided to plan the activities correspondingly.

The first activity we decided on was one called 'The Big Draw'. This is an animation/stop motion focused activity that Brad suggested and had done before, where you get several people to all draw on a large sheet of paper either with charcoal, pencils or markers, and take photographs continuously to create the illusion of movement. The way this is executed is that each person draws about an inch at a time, then steps out of the shot and a photograph is taken of the piece of paper. This is repeated every ten seconds, then all the photos are put together in a stop motion sequence to look like the drawing is growing on the paper. An example of this is show below:

We thought this would be a good activity since it would be fun, it would get everyone involved and it would give everyone something to take home with them at the end of the day. We thought we could have two cameras, one taking photos for the stop motion and the other continuously taking photos of everyone drawing to show the process and the progression of the animation.

To do this we would split them into three groups, then each group would do the activity for 45 minutes, continuing on from what the group before drew to create a final piece. Photos of process and final product would be given to them at the end of the day either on DVD or a bath spa USB stick if we are able to acquire some to give them in the goody bags.

The second activity we decided to do was a short film sequence, using either people in our class as the actors or the students themselves and basing it on the final duel scene in the western shoot-out film 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (seen below).

We thought that a scene like this would be interesting for them to plan out and film, and would give them something else they could take home with them at the end of the day. With the variety of shots that are found in this one clip, such as establishing wide angle shots, medium close ups and extreme close ups of their eyes and expressions, we thought this would give them a good basis of making their own western shoot-out film sequence.

To do this this we thought we could have two sections: acting, directing and producing, and the technical side - cameras, lighting and sound. We would go through the basics with them but they would have to come up with their own ideas of style, action, etc, then do it all themselves. The final product of each group would be given at the end on same DVD/USB stick.



The third activity we decided to do was a Green Screen activity. We had three ideas for this and we need to decide on one of them:

First idea: Get costumes and have backgrounds to go with the costumes, then have them do the technical side of how to use a green screen and take turns being in the shot and doing the work behind it.

Second idea: Shoot an interview with someone, maybe Gemma Hunt (who the group who did the Aladdin pantomime have as a contact), then have them do the technical stuff ie camera, sound, lighting, etc.

Third idea: Do a weatherman/news report and see how it's done in the real world. They would take turns in front of the green screen and operating the equipment.

We decided we would send these ideas to everyone in the class and have everyone give in their input on what they think would work best.


The other thing we came up during our meeting was the angle for the event - one for the students, and one for the media coverage we're hoping to get to come to the event.

The angle for the students would be doing the event 'Apprentice' style - having them work against the clock to do each activity in the form a task they need to work together to complete, as it is on the popular BBC show 'The Apprentice' with Lord Alan Sugar (shown right). As part of this we would give them roles and maybe even have a board room-type thing for them at the end, although we wouldn't have any of them fired - we don't want them to leave the event with a complex!

The angle we would have for the event, which our marketing team came up with originally and which was defined and finalised in our team leaders meeting, is to have the event be put on in a way that would show that we are taking a different, positive approach to the university fees rising and are encouraging students to come to university despite rising fees. We want to show that it's still worth gaining a university degree, despite the current controversial issue of cutting university funding that many students are revolting about. We are hoping we can use this angle to perhaps get a local MP, hopefully Don Foster, to come and give an endorsement which we are sure would reel in the media coverage. We're going to confirm all of this on Friday with the rest of the class, but we feel confident about the planning of the event so far!

Media Event

Bath Spa University Media Event!
April 8th, 2011

This year, we've now started our final project in the core module Commissioning and Employment in the Media. We've been commissioned to produce a media event to encourage media students at Bath City College that it's worth going to university through giving them a glimpse of what we do in our course.

The first thing we did to start planning was brainstorm ideas for activities for the students to do, such as the Big Draw (a stop motion/animation activity), a photo marathon, a green screen activity or a multi-camera shoot. We then decided who was going to be the executive producer of the entire event through 3 rounds of ballot voting, which culminated with Chloe being our fearless leader!

Chloe chose 3 deputies to help her organise, plan and lead the event. I was one of the deputies chosen, along with Brad and James. We had our first meeting at my flat on the morning of Wednesday, February 16th. The first thing we did was decide that we needed to write up a questionnaire for the student to fill out to get some guidance on how they would like the media event to be. We all came up with different questions, but here is a list of the questions I came up with:

1. What area of media interests you the most?

A. Film
B. TV
C. Radio
D. Broadcast/journalism
E. Print media/publishing (magazines, newspapers, books, etc)
F. Graphics/animation/web design
G. Photography

2. What aspect of media would you most enjoy learning about and be able to see in action?

3. If you could be anything, what would be your dream media-related job?

4. Out of these options of media-related activities, which one would you most like to participate in? (Optional question)

A. The Big Draw (animation/stop motion focus)
B. Photo marathon/scavenger hunt
C. Multi-camera shoot

D. Green Screen activity
(list of possible activities...this way we could have an estimate of how many students would be in each group, etc)

We then decided that the class needed to be divided up into 3 sections, each one led by one of the deputies with Chloe's oversight - a marketing team, an organising team and a technical team. We decided James would be head of the technical team since that is his specialised area, Brad would be head of the ideas organising with an overlap of using his graphic design skills in the marketing area, and I would be head of the marketing team. We established that the marketing team would be in charge of pre-production items such as designing and creating T-shirts with our names and what area of media we specialise in for the students to come up and talk to us they want to; information packs to be given to each of the students when they arrive; and goody bags for them to take home with them full of Bath Spa Uni paraphernalia. We decided the items that would go in each would be as follows:

Information Pack:

- Itinerary/schedule of the day

- Course booklets, outlining each module

- Map of Bath Spa Uni, directions on how to get to the different rooms

- Invitation – ‘Welcome to Bath Spa University’

- Profiles of everyone’s names, pictures on the course + the areas they specialise in

- How to enrol at Bath Spa, the registration process

- Profiles of speakers we get to come in

Giveaway Bag: (need to contact SU to see how much we can get for free!)

- DVD or Bath Spa Uni flash drive of each group doing the big draw

- Pens/pencils

- I heart Bath Spa bags

- Free issue of Milk Magazine

- Free issue of Spa Life Magazine

- Milk stickers

I contacted Rosanna, the chief editor of Bath Spa Uni Milk Magazine, to see if we would be able to get free magazines to give to each of the students which she then said would be fine. She also said she would be happy to come and give a talk to the students if any of them are interested in magazine publication and everything that goes into it. We'll find out if we need her to after we get the questionnaires back from the students. I also asked Lee, who works for Spa Life magazine if we can get any free issues of those and he said it wouldn't be a problem - two things sorted!

After this meeting, Chloe created a facebook group for everyone to post the areas they would like to be involved in. From this, I was able to divide up the class into 3 groups of 6, depending on what they said they would like to do balanced with the talents and skills we've seen in the past. This is how I divided up the sections:

Marketing (Esther)	Organising (Brad)	Technical (James)
Patrick (photography)	Annie (paperwork)	Ant (filming/editing)
Claire (design)	Keiran (ideas)	Mike (filming/editing)
Lee (graphics)	Ross (technical)	Mandy (filming/setting up)
Leonie (illustration)	Rachel (ideas)	Harry (editing)
Ed (Contacting)	Kirsty (admin)	Tom (setting up)
Simon (meet&greet)	Carlina (ideas)	Edem (sound)

At the next lesson (25.2.11), we asked if everyone was happy with where they were put and everyone said they were. After this we split up into our teams and established the areas we would be in charge of, key roles for everyone in the team and ideas for our area of the event. We decided that within the marketing team, there would be two sub-teams: Design and Contacting/Organising. I allocated three people to each group according to what they would like to contribute, along with their key roles within that group:

Design Team:	Roles:	Contacting/ Organising Team	Roles:
Claire Hurst	- T-shirts - Goody bags - Photography	Patrick Bethell	- Contacting people, chasing up - Main organiser - Photographer on the day
Lee Evans	- Graphics - Information packs	Ed Whicher	- People person - Contacting - Meet & greet
Leonie Hunt	- Illustration - Logo - Putting together packs	Simon Partington	- Meet & greet - Talking to contacts - Comp airing on the day if needed

We also were given the task to begin thinking about media angles for the event to attract media attention from local newspapers and magazines. We came up with the angle of the rising university fees; that while most students are protesting violently against them, we're trying to provide a positive outcome by throwing a media event to encourage prospective students that it's still worth applying to university despite the rising tuition fees. We also thought if there was any way we could get a local MP such as Don Foster to come and give his endorsement, this would be a guaranteed way to attract media attention.

After this, all the groups came together and we all decided on a structure of the outline of the day. After much debate and changing things around, this is what we came up with:

We were happy with our progress and everyone has something that they are currently working on in their area and key role. I'm excited about this event, everyone seems to be involved and happy in their respective roles. There is a LOT of work to get done, but if we all stay involved I think this could be a great event.