Over the last few weeks, I have been involved in a project aimed at creating movies for the small screen using mobile devices which combined the efforts of 3 schools from across the globe. These were: Salford University,UK; Unitec, Auckland (NZ) and the university of Strasbourg, France. The brief was to create a short film using mobile devices ( iphones, ipads, Android handsets etc) that highlighted the issue of sustainability. Here is the final edit of the film our team came up with –
It was a very exciting project to be a part of and I hope that I can do more of this kind of thing in the future. I have gained some valuable skills whilst being a part of the project including elements of leadership, communication and technical skills. Things I can definitely use in any role I may undertake in future employment. As a team leader on this project I was required to be involved in regular meetings via Google Hangouts with lecturers from each university to make sure the project was on track for our deadline as each team was comprised of members from all 3 countries, each with different tasks to complete in order for the video to be a success. In our team, New Zealand did the first part of production, filming and editing the first half of the narrative, my colleagues and I in the UK organised the second half -filming and editing shots then writing the soundtrack and our colleagues in France created the title sequence and soundtrack. It was then uploaded to dropbox where we could access the clips, download them and complete the final edit. – This is what you can see in the video above.
Having been part of such an innovative project , I feel, has been a huge privilege and it is a credit to the tutors from each university and them being such forward thinkers that this was so successful.
I know I have already posted about the ELVSS12 project in terms of reflections but I felt that I wanted to conclude my work tying up loose ends so to speak.
As part of our Social Technologies module on the BSc Professional Sound and Video Technologies course I’m currently studying, We were asked to take part in an international collaboration between students from UK, New Zealand and France. The brief was to create a video using portable media (i.e Iphones, Ipads, Android devices) in order to highlight the issues of sustainability/recycling.
As a team, Team 1 (MOBILEXHIBITIONISTS) came up with the simple idea of a plastic bottle being thrown away by someone in NZ and it travelling all around the world ending up in Salford Quays, UK where it would be picked up by someone who cared about the environment and taken to the nearest recycling point.
This project was interesting to be part of as I feel I have gained quite a few new and important skills. As part of the team I took on the role of team leader which required me to take part in Google + Hangouts in order to communicate with lecturers and fellow students so that everyone was aware on both sides of the world as to what was happening and how the project was progressing.
In my role as team leader, I made sure the other team members knew what areas we needed to work on and when which gave me experience of time management and gave me the confidence to delegate tasks to make sure it was possible to succeed in the set task.
As you may have noticed, I am quite an active blogger which is helpful as it means I don’t mind looking after the teams blog site as well as organising other students.
During the project there were a few difficulties in terms of coordination across time zones and so, because I am the most active team member online, I made a conscious effort to liase with our lecturers and the NZ students in order to make sure things progressed. I replied to posts as quickly as I could and if I didn’t have the relevant information, I would contact the other team members to find out whatever information was needed.
On the final day of the project the team gathered at MCUK and we spent the day tying up loose ends. We shot the final scenes of the film on Salford Quays and then edited the footage, wrote the music and uploaded it. We also recorded our reflections video giving our thoughts on the project and how successful we thought it had been. Our team conversations that had been posted on Facebook were exported to a Google document using a piece of code written by our very own Stas and then compiled in a Storify document by me.
All of the footage and transcripts are available here:
UGFL - undergroundfreelancer.com 