My experience throughout this unit has been interesting, frustrating at times, and has most importantly taught me valuable skills, both from a technical aspect and from a client aspect.

It started with a trip to the Old Fire Station, and a brief that was pretty unfamiliar in most aspects. Given the often fairly rigid structure of the briefs that we have been tasked with across the course, it was odd to have something that was so open to interpretation. So, as a part of a group, I started to research. This research led from pop art to 3D projection mapping, and with the help of the rest of the group really bolstered initial idea making and planning. We all had similar ideas, and managed to convey them to each other, with everyone having an opinion, and most importantly everyone listening to each other.

This sort of atmosphere was fantastic for idea generation, and by the end of the first week we had decided as a group what our main theme would be; comic book pop art. This duo of ideas came from a variety of sources, and a variety of people within the group, myself being one. Again, something that I was really struggling with at this point was getting my head around just how experimental the brief could be, and how it was really only limited by what we thought was appropriate for Lollipop. We tested our ideas, and got a huge number of students to redesign and recolour logos for us.

This sort of quick turnaround production was something that I hadn’t really experienced before. It was barely a fortnight before we had a 10 second gif of a content that the Lollipop regulars had created themselves. As we began so settle into our roles and hammer out exactly what we wanted, I tried to practice and hone my personal skills; in this case Photoshop. That was something that I have really enjoyed this entire project. I have been able to create things on software that I’m not comfortable with, and practice new techniques that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to practice.

However, as with any brief like this, the client had their opinion on what they wanted, and sadly it wasn’t what we had made them. They liked the gif a lot, and said that they may want to use it, but for then it was back to the drawing board. Another major idea in the form of having TV’s on the stage was questioned by them, with solutions being drawn up on both sides. This was frustrating for me. We had invested a lot of time into these ideas, and they were essentially being rejected. This was something that I would eventually appreciate as a learning experience of how clients really work, but at the time all we could do was knuckle down and keep going.

As a group we came up with more ideas that were more relevant to the client. We realised that they were the most important thing, and that if we could have a clear vision in our heads that suited their needs, we would be on track. This sort of back and forth way of working was somewhat unusual, as often throughout this course the unit brief has been the equivalent of the client, and we often would have free reign to make what we wanted (though of course with feedback from tutors). Thinking on our feet and being able to brainstorm new ideas in short spaces of time was again something that we all got accustomed to, as well as pinpointing and narrowing our ideas until they were as good as they could be, both regarding the group and the client. Again, these sort of experiences were extremely useful to me, as they are building up my experience with working for someone who has their own ideas of what they want, and who will tell you they don’t like something even if you have taken all the time to create it for them.

After becoming less precious over our ideas, I got on with the staging. Once again it was a really different experience being able to manipulate the medium itself and well as the content. Because we had so much freedom in how the content could be projected, we decided as a group that we would go all out and make a spectacle of the event. We did this by creating a comic strip out of sheets of correx and applying it to the back wall. We even incorporated the DJ into our set as much as we could. This emphasis on the medium itself was a really exciting way of working, and meant that we could push our creativity out through the content itself and into the space we were working within.

After this, we filmed once, filmed again, and learnt that even though you can book a room at university, even then you might not be able to use it. I had never experienced being turned away from a shoot location before, and although I wasn’t actually there for it, by speaking to me group I learnt about how to deal with it and how to adapt on the fly when something like that happens. Logistical issues also arose when cutting the correx for our designs, again something that we hadn’t planned for. A common theme throughout this process was change, and this included changes regarding our ideas, our timing schedules, even the inclusion of a DJ to work around in the third week. However, this change has meant that I have had to be adaptable across everything I have done, a skill that is vital in the media industry.

Once we had filmed, it was a matter of learning a variety of new software and applying myself as best I could. I have mentioned in many posts that throughout the latter weeks that the edit process was hard. I struggled with new software, and had to rely on others and tutorial to help me navigate through the software. It became very easy to get lost in the edit and spend hours on one project, only to find that there were ten more that needed to be done. A lot of the footage that we used, and even edited, was discarded and we got closer to realising that we needed to anchor everything we had made with context. Again, this came as a bit of an annoyance, as we had a theme running through everything, but when it was seen together on the stage, it felt ‘off’. As a result, we came up with small packages of content that we tied together with appropriate motifs to make sure that everything was as relevant as it could be. An increase in productivity was seen throughout this final stage, and the group were confident in our content, and our staging. I had learnt new skills, as well as how to manage time throughout the edit phase, and will carry that knowledge into future projects and hopefully into the industry.

After all this was done, it was time for the presentation, and what a presentation it was. A nightmare; 10 minutes before we start we can’t find the Resolume setup. Luke had to recreate it from scratch, and the presenters, including me, had to cut our speech down to accommodate. Luckily, we were all confident in what we were saying, and with the help of Luke managed to pull of what we all thought was a pretty successful presentation. This sort of panel discussion, along with the classic technical hiccups that plague most presentations, gave a solid insight into what pitching to client entails, and what future pitches will feel like.

Overall, I feel that I have learnt a lot from this unit. As a group, we were solid in our idea generation, reliable, communicative and most importantly happy to work together. That kind of atmosphere made the unit so rewarding. I really enjoyed the vaguer role that I had, as it meant I could really stretch myself in regard to the edit, without worrying about ‘what if’ something doesn’t work, or I don’t know how to do something. The brief itself also helped with that, and the practice of working in and manipulating a real space was thoroughly enjoyable.

There have been many obstacles, client based and group based, but I feel that I have overcome them, or at the least learnt from them all. Working in the new media is difficult at its core, as it has often not been done, so there isn’t a ‘right’ way of doing it. However, with this brief it has only made it more enjoyable to be able to push boundaries. It has been thoroughly educational and, above all else, fun.

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Below are the minutes for each meeting:

Meeting Minutes