Meg’s Blog

Throughout the process of this assignment I came across a few problems, such as my issues with time management. My bad time management caused a few issues with some bits of the assignment, I didn’t get some of the bits done before they were due in causing my work to get backlogged. This made it hard to get back on task. Not being at college made it more difficult because the computer I have been using keeps shutting off and things don’t keep saving meaning I have to keep doing them. It also makes it harder to ask for help as we have to email our teachers and then they reply which takes longer than in a class, it also means they have to try and understand what we mean without the visuals we could show them in college.

The three sites I chose are:

http://www.flyingtigerproductions.co.uk/

https://www.deadbeatfilms.co.uk/

https://www.storyboxfilms.co.uk/

All three of the sites are interactive in their own way, for example Flying Tiger has connectable pages/links from one page to another. Deadbeats is similar but on the front page you can’t see the links until you hover over the name, it makes it more enticing, there is also a big collage on the front page which you can click on leading you to music videos. The Storybox website has links to, wedding stories and photos, it gives you a wide variety of weeding opportunities to look at depending on what you want to see.

My favourite of the three websites would have to be the Storyboxfilms, One of the main reasons this is my favourite is because of the artistic beauty, it is beautiful, there are different variants on photos, videos and links to stories, the different links make it more pleasing, the stories make you smile and the videos/photos are professional and you can tell how happy everyone is in the photos. The layout is very easy to understand and get around, the links are clear and its easy to find what you’re looking for without getting caught up in lengths of things you don’t want to see. There is also the ability to contact them if you are local, its also great because they keep everything up to date so all the information you need if you want to get in touch is relevent.

In conclusion this website is very successful for many reasons but they keep their photos up so clients can see what they are getting into, they also make sure their customers get a good service for their money.

I think my least favourite would be the flyingtiger website because it is rather bland, all the black and white makes it less interesting. The words at the side indicating the other pages are blurry therefore hard to read which makes me not want to read them, I shouldn’t have to work to read something on a website. The news page isn’t up to date like the storybox one, it hasn’t had any new news since, 2015, there also isn’t a lot to see, however they do have external links to clips on Youtube. The website has some good qualities such as the use of media- photos/videos, it shows a bit more about the company. Again on the negative side the contact page doesn’t have much creativity it just includes, three phone numbers and email. I think something they could do to make it better would be add links or the names of their accounts on social media other whys people don’t know what to look for.

This website isn’t exactly unsuccessful but there are many ways it could be improved to make it easier to understand, or enjoy.

Genre Conventions

There are many different types of genre conventions in many different portfolios. However some of the most common are the context in the portfolios, it has to be relevant to whatever you’re trying to show off as well as your viewers. Making sure the layout of your portfolio isn’t squished and includes everything important in small sections, leave your audience wanting more and then add pages including more about that topic so they can read more but again it isn’t to crowded. Another big one used is multimedia, such as photos, videos of even links to social media, including multimedia makes your website more impressive and enticing, it makes people want to look and the whole website gets more pleasing to look at.

In my website, some of the things I would like to include is more links to some of my other work to show of more of my abilities. I’d also like to add some more photos or maybe even videos I’ve made to show some of the things I can do. I think its important to make a key as well showing where they can find everything or what certain things match with.

A thing that all the portfolios have in common is the fact they all have their logo or brand name on their front page, making it easy to tell you’ve actually clicked on the right link. Another thing they all share is the multimedia elements, using these made their website more aesthetically pleasing. The main image used on the homepage of each website makes it easier to recognise the brand. Social media links are also very important because it gives people an easy way to look at your other work and a quick way of building a following. An easy navigation around a site is also very important, it means people will want to stay on your portfolio because they can understand it and find what they want easily.

One of the ways my page is already interactive, including photos means that my page is more creative, nice to look at as well as showing my skills and what kind of work we have been doing. I have also included links to other portfolios, including links means I can show of other things I am using as part of my work.

The first way I will make my page more interactive is, adding more photos, I can use this to add proof of things we have done or give another example of what I mean that people may find easier to understand.  The second way I would make it more interactive is by using an event countdown, I could use it to count down to the deadline for that page, so I have constant reminder of how long I have left. The third way I would make my page more interactive is using a Calendar so I could put all my deadlines on it so I would know when everything is Due in. The fourth way I will make my page more interactive is using is the grouping blocks tool, it means I can connect everything that goes together, together so I don’t get confused. The final way I will make my page more interactive is by using a timeline, I can put everything in order of when they are due in.  

What is freelancing? Freelancing is the term used when people are self-employed and don’t stay attached to one job.

What are the differences between freelancing and being employed? When you’re freelancing you get free rain of jobs and you decide your hours, where as when you’re employed you stick to one job and your hours are mainly decided by your employer.

Why is freelancing so common? The main reason freelancing is so common is because its freeing, there is less pressure to comply to someone else’s expected needs. You get full control over your career and how much effort you put in.

What are the core skills you need? You need to be highly motivated to keep your work levels up without an employer. Another big skill you need is communication, you’ll need to get paid somehow so if you link up with a company you need to communicate the skills you have, the way you work among other things.

What types of freelancing are there? The main 8 types of freelancing jobs are; Developer/Programmer, Designer, Writer/Copywriter, Marketing Professional, Translator, Videographer, Accountant, HR manager.

How do freelances get paid? Depending on what they do they get paid on retainers. This means that they’re guaranteed a set amount from a client every month, in return for completing pre-arranged deliveries.

How do they pay bills? With the money they get from their guaranteed clients.

How do they find work and market themselves? One of the main ways is by building a following on social media, getting themselves known by more people means they can get more jobs.

How do freelance workers self-manage? If they have the right levels of motivation it can be easy, making sure you get all the work you need done as well as extras and hobbies can be the hard bit but as long as they’re motivated and prepared for the load its easy.

Choose 3 projects and write a blog post or page about your professional approach

Radio Advert– One of the ways I took a professional approach was how prepared I was, I knew what I needed and exactly how I wanted it. I got all the pieces prepared and made sure they would sound like they wanted to before putting them together. Another way I took a more professional approach was the software I used, using the more professional software gave it a more appealing look due to the fact the pixels were better, the quality itself was better. It also gave me a bigger variety to decide what to add to the piece to make it even better, I could clip the words, change the volume in particular bits and change everything I wanted the way I needed

Podcast– With the podcast one of the main things we had to do was decide the topic and a small script. I made sure the topic would apply to people and that more than a few people would enjoy it. Thinking about my audience for a small project means that I can start to apply that to bigger projects which is an attribute that professional people use to get the best outcome for their project. And with the script It meant I wasn’t free raining it and had a sort of idea what I wanted to say, it also meant I could get the best people to interview for my podcast that again would sit best with my audience, It meant I could vary the topic so my audience could answer the questions and feel involved even if they didn’t know some of the shows we were talking about.

TV Ident– As our TV ident was a group project it made it harder for us due to the fact we weren’t in college. One of the ways we made this work was with our presentation we set our own slides so we all had our own sets to do, this meant we all had our own work to do so we couldn’t all rely on one person. It also meant we could build our team working skills by putting all our ideas together to get the best product we could with the four of us. It also meant we could all see the bits we worked on. Working on our own slides independently meant we had to trust other people to do their bits as well as doing our own, we could help each other as well as they were all on the same presentation.

Choose 1 of the projects below and write a blog post or page about the professional approach of your project team members. For example, the other students you worked with on the Podcast or TV Ident

Podcast– With our podcast we had to involve interviews which meant working in team. My podcast was originally going to be about just The Vampire Diaries, but after some advice in focus groups I turned it into a Podcast about streaming service so I could cover more ground, focusing on what other people would have liked as well meaning I could gather more audience. It also meant I could involve more people in the actual interviews, I have one friend who is into The Vampire Diaries, so I had to widen the variety to include more people. I changed it to streaming services in general so my other interviewee could talk about shows they liked or just streaming services in general, things she used and positives and negatives of the ones we both use. I also included questions so that the supposed audience who would have listened to it, if it was real could have felt included and joined in if they watched the shows involved, I also included music so it wasn’t all just talking because, when you’re just listening to people talk even if you like the topic it can get boring and you stop really paying attention. I think the choices I made, meant that my final piece was more professional because I took into consideration, my audience and the way they would perceive things, I also took into account my interviewees making sure they knew was I was talking about so it was less awkward and it flowed smoothly so it felt like an actual conversation.

here are some photos from our editing process

We did two forms of getting audience feedback, focus groups and a questionnaire, the different types got us different answers. The focus groups were vocal and we knew who said what whereas the questionnaires were anonymous so people are more likely to say how they truly felt. The focus groups were limited to our college class where as the questionnaire reached more people in the college giving us a wider variety of answers and opinions. Having the ability to reach out to more people made our research easier as we had more feedback to make our ident the best it could be as well as making sure it would appeal to our target audience.

With the focus groups we asked a total of 13 questions, all based either around strode college itself or streaming services. We got some very positive answers for example, when asked what the first thing they thought of when they thought of strode, the answers were; Supportive, Education and Diverse they then went on to say they didn’t have a bad thing to say about strode. We also asked them about Strode College TV, they told us they knew what it was but don’t watch it at the moment because there is nothing on there that meets their interests and needs from a video. They then said that ways the college could improve the channel/make it more appealing to more people were; make it funny, entertaining, talk more about courses etc. for new students, creative. Another big thing we found out was that the people we had involved in our focus group watch streaming services, i.e. Netflix and Youtube more than “ordinary” channels.

On our questionnaire we asked 27 questions, the more questions meant we could narrow the questions down and get more specific answers, the more people also meant we got more feedback. We talk more about streaming services as well as idents and brand identity. We asked our contributors, which of the following they watched regularly, BBC1, Channel 4, Youtube, Twitch, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon prime, Disney+, Apple Tv or other. If we had BBC1 and Channel 4 replies together as they are the “proper” tv channels, we only get 21 out of 166. (We had 43 people complete the survey but this was a multi-choice question so they could pick more than one option). Whereas Youtube alone has 41 votes, this shows the power behind the internet. Despite 30 people voting saying they think that the content on BBC is “Educational, Informative, Entertaining” only 11 people watch it which makes me wonder if they just watch it with their parents. The questionnaire shows that 34/43 people watch Youtube daily so the channel being on Youtube is where the college could get the most views, our focus group also backs this mentioning the fact they watch streaming services more than actual tv.

Both sets of answers are useful in different ways, the focus group tells us what the college could add to the channel to make it more appealing to the college students, so that more of us will want to watch it. However the questionnaire tells us that a lot of people use Youtube and online things which makes it easier for the college to promote the channel. Both the focus group and the questionnaire tell us that most people know what strode college tv is but don’t watch it due to the lack of content that meets there enjoyment. On the other hand both sets of answers are rather similar but the questionnaire is just on a wider variety with more feedback, both tell us that our audience is young and still attends college, it tells us that people don’t watch normal channels anymore and they watch more streaming services.

I believe our audience is mostly made up of strode college students between 16-18, (both the questionnaire and the focus group back this theory) the answers from both means of research show us that they’re more Youtube and streaming services than “normal” tv. We are aiming our idents at college students or students coming up to strode, we are showing the students that are living through lockdown, using zoom to do online lessons that we are all in the same boat but that we can get through it and make it fun, we are also showing the new students about the course, the kind of things we do, and that we can make it fun.

Knowing the answers that we do, it makes it easier for us to shape our ident to fit the necessary needs of our target audience and still making sure it fits the brief. With the answers from both the questionnaire and the focus groups we know what we need to include to involve and engage our current class mates, we also know what kind of things new starters may want to see coming into a new college which gives an edge on what kind of things to include for them as well meaning they will want to come to our college instead of another one.

Focus groups can sometimes be easier than questionnaires because if you ask the questions directly you get a quicker response and its normally more wordy so you have more to work with. On the other hand questionnaires can be better than focus groups due to the anonymous aspect it makes it easier for people to be truthful about their answers without worrying about judgement from other people meaning the feedback is more accurate to the person and the cause overall.

As part of the assignment we needed to gather research to help us build on our ideas as well as giving us a better idea of our target audience is and giving us the ability to make out ident the best it could be.

First we discussed the ways we could get our audience research, we will hold a focus groups and send out a survey, the focus group will give us an understanding on a small groups perspective on our idea, and it tells us what kind of thing they are into but the survey will give us a wider variety of answers. Both can answer similar questions but on the survey it is anonymous so we will end up with more truthful answers because people won’t be worried about being judged.

For our Market research both our focus group and survey will also give us the answers to what we need, for example, it can tell us their ages, their interests and why they currently don’t watch strode tv. It can also tell us what they use more whether its BBC1/Channel 4 or more of the Netflix/Youtube side of things so we can make sure our ident works with the things they like.

For the production research we can take things that went wrong from past productions for example our time management and lack of preparation. This means that we can make sure we are on time and have everything we need by the deadline so we are prepared on the day.

In comparison to our college channel, Yeovil’s doesn’t have as many videos and they are all recent talking about lockdown and things that either the lecturers kids or the college students are doing during the current pandemic. Our college has videos from before lockdown so its showing how our college used to be, and it gives the students a sense of knowing the place when we finally go back to normal again.

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Task 1

Target Audience: The people you are making your product for

Market Research: Finding out the wants and needs of your TA

Production Research: looking into ways to advertise your product

Task 2

Comparing Primary Research techniques

If you compare taking Surveys (which is primary research) and Books (which is secondary research), one clear advantage of doing surveys is you know all the information is the best you could have got, the most truthful option because you got it yourself where as if you got it from a book it could be like Chinese whispers because you don’t know how many people that information has gone through. Where as reading through books can also be better because it means you can get a lot of information at once rather than having to wait to ask everyone the same questions which can be tedious.

However if you compare Questionnaires and Focus groups (which are both primary research) both are straight on information you get yourself, Questionnaires however have faster results because they are easier to fill out, and lots of people can do them at once whereas with Focus groups it can take longer because everyone has to wait their turn and then you have to scribble down everyones idea which means it can get messy. Questionnaires are also very unpressurised because you can fill them out in your own time, and answer questions without getting worried about being judged because they are normally anonymous. On the other hand focus groups can be a bit full on because they are in groups of people and you have to give your opinions which can be a tad intimidating if nobody else agrees.

Online research (which are both primary research) and Analysing already existing radio show, Online Research is finding out information which already exists but turning it into your own words and manipulating it into the way

The difference between Qualitative and Quantitative