Freelancing Week 4- Intellectual Property

This week I learned about all things IP, particularly in relation to freelancing. Now intellectual property is particularly important for creatives such as myself because it’s Screen Shot 2020-03-10 at 12.37.41 difficult to know how and what to register officially. In freelancing it turns out, unless otherwise specified in a contract, the freelancer owns the intellectual property they create for a client. Regardless of commission or any money, intellectual property solely belongs to the freelancer. For me this is very encouraging to find out about because it is no secret that freelancing is insecure as a career path, but to find out that I still own the media I create is really good. This rule does not apply if you’re employed by someone or even if you are in education however. Employers and universities will have IP policy which may state that they own any intellectual property created by you.

I took the course on the Intellectual property office website and I am now armed with all the knowledge I could possibly need if I create anything really. I know that if I create anything original now I am protected by copyright, I do not need to register anything on the IPO website and I could be protected for up to 70 years after my death. Trademarks, designs and patents however will need to registered on the IPO website for you to be legally covered for the works you create. You are not obliged to register trademarks or designs but if you want to be safe and are looking to set up a business, you are encouraged to do so.

In conclusion, I am encouraged by the news about freelancing and intellectual property but there is still a lot of grey area in IP and I am glad I have educated myself in my knowledge of IP for the future.

Freelancing Week 3- Team Working and Client Briefs

This week we learnt about the importance of team working and what are the key characteristics that make up a good team player. We also used Belbin’s test to see what type of team worker I am. In the second session we looked more practically at client briefs and how they are repurposed into creative briefs that are used by us, the creatives,
during production. Firstly, we looked at an academic resource to understand the key attributes of a team player. Lencioni boils it down to three personality traits: ‘humility, hunger and people smarts’ (2016) . A humble team member is someone who can stand back and appreciate the work of others. A hungry team member is someone who is hard-working driven and pushes others to achieve their best. Finally a team member with people smarts is someone with high emotional intelligence, so someone who is empathetic and personable.

Next, we did the Belbin test and before I started I predicted I would be a specialist, as I believe I am someone who is quite happy to work individually. My results came out as 14 points for specialist, 13 points for completer finisher and 10 points for coordinator. The strengths of the specialist is that they are self-starting, dedicated and knows a lot about specific things. I also had to be careful to look at the drawbacks of the specialist which is that they only contribute on a narrow front and tends to dwell on technicalities and forget the ‘big picture’.

In the second session we talked about an element of freelancing we hadn’t touched on yet which is the actual client brief we might receive from out clients through Solent creatives. We talked about how the client brief might look in comparison to the creative brief. We were tasked with repurposing the client brief into a creative brief. How this might influence our personal project which is a promotional video for the Zumba class is that we have to ask questions to the client that benefit our own project but also how it can still appease the client.

Stereo Microphone Workshop

In today’s lesson we had a workshop on the use of stereo microphones which we may use to creatively enhance the scope of our locative sound app. This equipment differs from using two microphone that are the same model because there is no need to sync the audio in post from two microphones. Also the width of the soundscape is significantly bigger with using a matched pair of headphones. In our sound app we will use two different modes of sound: mono and stereo. Today I learned that we should use mono sound for dialogue because unless it makes sense to the story the listener will not be able to understand why the dialogue is coming from one single position. We will be using stereo to record the atmosphere and environmental sounds that will be included in our apps. So that is the main difference between mono and stereo sound; mono is sound from a single position (right in front of you) and stereo is sound from all around you, left to right. There is a demarkation on the circumference of the stereo microphone which indicates left and right so when you record you are able to design your soundscape more accurately, which is very useful. I think this equipment is going to be really useful and vastly improve how immersive our app’s are. Of course it comes down to the story we choose to tell in the location we pick however equipment like this will help us build upon the locations our app user is walking through or as Liao and Humphreys highlight ‘The ‘virtual’ enriches the physical environment’ (2015) which will come to great effect when we start recording for our locative sound app in the coming weeks.

BRANTNER, C., 2018. New Visualities of Space and Place: Mapping Theories, Concepts and Methodology of Visual Communication Research on Locative Media and Geomedia. , 16

Freelancing Week 2- Enterprise and Emotional Intelligence

This week I learned about the enterprise mindset and emotional intelligence. Again like last week it was a good opportunity for self-reflection. I took a few tests to test my entrepreneurship, enterprising and emotional intelligence in order for me assess where I am at with all of these core skills. In the first session we got a briefing on what skills make up the enterprise mindset and emotional intelligence. There is some cross-pollination between the skills with things like confidence and empathy. I learned that your emotional intelligence growth can start from when you’re very young and is effected by your home life and the way you’re raised by your parents and how you’re treated by your relatives. Your enterprise mindset is formed later when you grow into yourself and develop your professional skills.

So the first test was to test my enterprise skills. The results came out that I was occasionally enterprising which is understandable at this early stage of my career that I Screen Shot 2020-02-04 at 12.17.58 am occasionally taking risks and looking to better myself but I still want to stay relatively safe because I am still at university and risk taking is limited. the second test I took was to test my emotional intelligence and again the results were quite middle of the road with just slightly above average emotional intelligence. So for both core skills I have room to improve which is something I am going to take on board.

In terms of reading for this week, there was an article written by Paul Beesley that goes into more detail about something discussed in class about being a radiator vs a drain in terms of how you come across when working with others. Simply put, radiators are people who are outgoing and positive and are generally great people to work with whereas drains are people who are constantly negative and have a poor work ethic and are very difficult to work with. Beesley writes ‘It helps if we surround ourselves with like-minded, enthusiastic people that radiate their warmth, generosity of spirit and support.'(Beesley, 2018) this is something I can take moving forward in this unit as working with clients means I will have to radiate positive energy for them to get the best out of me, and for me to get the best out of them.

BEESLEY, P., 2014. Be a radiator, not a drain [viewed Feb 6, 2019]. Available from: https://www.business-times.co.uk/articles/news/be-a-radiator-not-a-drain

Starting a YouTube channel

The movie video essay community on YouTube is a rather crowded area, each channel offering something slightly different. At the moment I watch about 10 channels regularly, two of which I want to talk about further.

Firstly, the channel ‘FilmJoy‘, which is probably the largest production channel I am going to talk about. They run a multitude of shows the most popular of which is ‘Movies with Mikey‘ which is a movie breakdown show presented by Mikey Neumann, and was the show that first got me introduced to the channel. Mikey’s knowledge of film and extensive research is what really sets him apart from other similar channels, not to mention his unique, whimsical editing style and comedic flair. The strategies FilmJoy employ are the use of the community tab where they will normally post an update a few weeks in advance of a new video that they will be releasing just to get people excited for the content. The community tab, as the name suggests, allows them to interact and get feedback from their audience. What FilmJoy gets right is their interaction with the audience, attention to detail in the videos they make and also they have really good thumbnails which doesn’t hurt.

The second channel I would like to talk about is ‘Karsten Runquist‘, which is more of a personal movie based channel, which is run by film student Karsten Runquist. Karsten makes videos that are more in line with the content I would like to make. Quick and easily accessible content which again is well researched by someone who’s his stuff. I always get the sense when I watch Karsten that he is making videos that he enjoys making and not conforming to what the audience wants to see. A recent series that he has started is called ‘what I watched this month‘ and is quite self explanatory in that he says what he watched that month, rates the films from 0-5 and gives a little punchy review of the film. I think the intrigue with a channel like this is mostly about the personality behind the screen rather than the content they put out. You watch the channel for Karsten, because he’s funny and he loves films. Karsten also runs a podcast which is a great use of cross-media marketing that a lot of YouTubers are doing nowadays in which he promote his channel on the podcast or promote the podcast on his channel, which he does again by using the community tab.

If I had free reign the YouTube channel I would set up would be kind of a mash up of the two channels I have discussed. The videos would be personal and well thought out. However, I need to be careful that the videos I make are not derivative of any existing content. It would be easy to poach Karsten’s style because of how simple and elegant it is, but I don’t want to do that. Obviously the USP of the channel I’m going to set up is the head to head comparisons I am going to make, which are going to have to be well-written and performed by me in order to capture an audience.

Freelancing Week 1- Networking, Creativity and Self-reflection

This week I learnt about networking, creativity and self-reflection. Firstly, the importance of networking cannot be understated. We looked into the Porter Gale’s book YNIYNW ‘My network is my net worth‘ which explains that meeting people in your personal and professional life has a dramatic effect on your own happiness. Networking can open so many doors for you and will allow you to take opportunities you otherwise may have not got. We also talked about creativity and how to optimise your own creativity and Julia Cameron speaks about the 3-step creative optimisation tool. Firstly, in the morning you should clear your creative memories by writing or scribbling all your thoughts onto a piece of paper. Secondly, you should feed your creativity by doing something you love. Lastly, you should incubate and do this by shutting yourself off by taking a 20 minute walk every day. Lastly, in this session we took part in an exercise where we talked about our aspirations, which for me is radio, and then talked about them in terms of past present and future which were prompted by cards we choose at random which for me were Love (past), Forgiveness (present), Now (future). For me this exercise was very personal and at some points quite cryptic in that I had to find meaning from a word and picture and relate them to radio which was difficult. It did allow me to reflect on some events that have happened to me during my time in radio which maybe will inform my plans for the future.

Snow Witch Art Exhibition- work experience

On Saturday 19th of October I had the great pleasure of being an assistant producer of the Solent productions team that travelled to Portsmouth to film, photograph and record the Snow witch art exhibition which coincided with the opening of DarkFest in Portsmouth. My main responsibility on this production was to produce the launch livestream for DarkFest for this I worked with Katya Gait who was our camera/gimble operator for the live stream and our two wonderful presenters Dr. Karl Bell and Eilís Phillips. In this role I had to work out the running order for the livestream and make sure we were pushing DarkFest throughout the stream whilst acknowledging that we were at the Snow Witch art exhibition luckily Karl and Eilís are a couple of the main organisers/creators of DarkFest so all they needed was guidance on the live-streaming aspect of the production but when it came to improvising interviewees, questions and talking points we couldn’t have asked for anyone better. I was also able to assist on production with James on the video, which was a great continuation from my last work experience. I also used this event as a chance to springboard my way into more work experience; for example I will be a camera operator for the DarkFest/Cursed City finale gig in Portsmouth on November 9th as a direct result of this event. The Snow Witch art exhibition massively exceeded my expectations, it was a really fun and friendly experience and I can’t wait for more of the same.

Project hours: 7

Total hours: 15

Ethics and Contributors

Since our documentary is about a topic that has been quite controversial for a couple years now we have to make sure we are presenting it in an unbiased matter and we do not misconstrue our contributors words. Also we have to be sensitive about the news stories that have been born out of the 5G controversy like the several tragic news stories in the US that blame 5G radio towers for giving school kids cancer. For obvious reasons therefore we will not be focusing on the tragedies exclusively but rather the human side of 5G. Similarly, we must acknowledge that these controversies do exist in order to properly tell the stories of anti-5G campaigners. When we interviewed the 5G protesters in Brighton we made sure to inform that we were filming a documentary about 5G before we asked them questions, but we wanted to be as hands-off as possible to get the most real and genuine responses, because as Winston (2000) says ‘Documentarists actively work to remove themselves from a controlling position’ (pg.146) this is in order to stay true to what contributors say and avoid backlash after the documentary is released.

A lot of these ethical steps we need to take are also down to the edit because this is where words can be misconstrued, twisted and taken out of context which something we really want to avoid, so we want to make sure on shoot days we get what we want out of our interviewees so that we don’t need to change what they say in the edit to better our narrative. Therefore during shooting if we need to ask questions twice to help tell the best story possible we will. We need to remember that these are real people and not trained actors or as Bill Nichols (2017) calls them ‘Social actors and as such these ‘social actors conduct their lives more or less as they would have done without the presence of a camera’ (pg. 31). Therefore representing them fairly is as easy as rolling the camera and letting them speak their truth, but also we have a narrative to serve and if their answer is not good enough, we’ll have to ask again.

NICHOLS, B., 2017. Introduction to documentary. 3rd ed. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press

WINSTON, B., 2000. Lies, damn lies and documentaries. London: BFI

Documentary film- Ideation

Coming up with a new and original documentary idea can often be very difficult, especially for young and aspiring filmmakers, because they’re is already so much out there, that to be original you need to put in some work. My main objective initially was that I wanted to find a crazy person and what better place to look than the internet. Now there is limitations to finding stories on the internet because as Rabiger says ‘You’ll need some inventiveness to find situations that are local and accessible’ (2004) so we decided to look local. Steven and I started out by gathering around a table frantically searching local news websites trying to find a story or character that would be the main feature of our film, however after a while we recognised that all the stories were the same and we were just retracing our steps over stories that had no relevance to the ‘climate of hope and fear’.

Eventually we shelved the local news search and decided to just start asking our friends, initially as a joke just because we were desperate, but then we struck gold when speaking to our friend Ronan, who suggested 5G and vaping, two things that have been widely debated over the past 12 months or so. However, I think we realised that vaping has been done before, especially in a short documentary style before on YouTube. So 5G it was.

Now this is actually where the idea should come to life, where we develop the story and ask ourselves “can we sell this idea in a new and interesting way?”. At the moment all we had was ‘5G is bad for your health’ but we needed a stronger story. Rosenthal and Eckhardt explain that ‘The strong story is a vital element of the successful documentary’ (2016) so without the characters and arc to support our documentary it would fall very flat. Obviously as well to do this we needed to not limit ourselves. Again as Rosenthal and Eckhardt say we need to ‘avoid dogmas and strait-jackets and stop yourself from thinking there is only one way to make documentaries’. We needed a perspective that our film would be taken from. Luckily for us there is a whole group of people online that are genuinely scared of 5G radiation and we hit the jackpot when we came across David from Radiation Health Risks, who makes videos about all sorts of radiation damage including 5G. I reached out to him via a YouTube comment and he responded with a list of names of other tin foil hat wearing radiation ‘experts’ that I could interview. So by just doing some research on 5G I found the perfect people for us to interview.

In conclusion I think our methods differed from experts an practitioners in that we didn’t really look through traditional sources such as history books, journals, newspapers and magazines instead we started off with the internet and eventually through word of mouth we stumbled across a viable concept.

RABIGER, M., 2004. Directing the documentary. 4th ed. Burlington, MA: Focal Press

ROSENTHAL, A. and N. ECKHARDT, 2016. Writing, directing, and producing documentary films and videos. 5th ed. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press

Fresher’s Fair 2019- Radio Sonar

I have started off the 2019/20 academic year by attending this year’s Fresher’s Fair, not to get free stuff this time, but instead to help out Radio Sonar at their stall, but more specifically the studio. We were fortunate enough this year to have Radio Sonar be playing out in The Spark, right at the centre of Freshers Fair. For the most part we were the backing track to freshers fair from 10am-4pm but we were also lucky enough to be joined in the studio by the presidents of various societies including Sonar TV, Sonar Cinema, The islamic society, maritime society and the Doctor Who society. This gave me a fantastic insight into all the great people and communities we have buzzing around the university. We interviewed each guest with a few short questions to give them an opportunity to promote their society and have it be broadcasted live in The Spark as freshers fair was taking place.

We had a massive team of us working with Radio Sonar this year, befitting of the biggest society at the university, so for the most part we have about 3 or 4 of us in the studio at all times and about an additional 8 or 10 at the actual stall at the fair. I spent around 4 hours in the studio all told but it was absolute pleasure for me and gave me a chance to dust off my presenting boots ready for the busy radio year ahead. As well as presenting this year I will be taking up the new committee role of Head of Entertainment at Radio Sonar, which means any show on Radio Sonar that concerns entertainment or is entertainment based I will be in charge of and any concerns presenters or producers might have will go through me, which I’m really looking forward to.

So that’s a little update of what’s going on with me for this year, and I’ve added below some screenshots of some of my appearances on Instagram throughout Freshers Fair 2019:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.