Reflecting upon the seminar once we had presented it, I feel that we worked exceptionally well as a team. However, I feel that while my participation was crucial to our team, I wasn’t as available for them as I could have been. I also did not supervise the camera crew properly to make sure they could film the seminar adequately, and led them to their own devices. We ended up with some average footage, poor quality sound, and out of focus material. However, we are at uni to learn, so I wasn’t too harsh in my feedback. I edited the seminar video with what we had recorded, and did my absolute best to make sure it was okay. We seemed to have more content in the video due to our seminar comprising of 4 individual guests. The video was 9 minutes long instead of 5. All in all, I believe our group was amazing at putting on the seminar, and I really enjoyed working on it, even during the insanely busy times. I believe my involvement and effort would deserve a distinction, as I failed to be there some weeks, and I do not believe that anyone who does that should be highly distinguished for whatever reason.

We were only a week away from the seminar in week 11, and we were running around like crazy. We had set up frequent meetings outside of class time to work on individual projects such as posters, concepts of the visuals for the seminar, guests and technical bookings. Trello had become obsolete, as Arthur and Vicson preferred to use Facebook as a means of communicating tasks, which seemed to work quite well with everyone. We went out into RMIT and put up posters for our seminar, not realising that we needed prior permission to do so. This was something which I felt I should have researched beforehand, and have learnt for next time. We also began organising the equipment to film the seminar down in the building 9 AV loans office. We were told that we had the same equipment allocated to us that every other group had and that we could not alter the booking for different equipment. This was annoying, because I did not want to use the cameras that were allocated to our group. In hindsight, using DSLRs such as a Canon 5d would have worked better for the type of filming we wanted to do, but we worked with what we had. We then organised pick up dates for the equipment, but I could not help with it due to the fact I did not have a car to drive the equipment around. Aki and Jia Jia volunteered instead.

We entered the pre-production phase of marketing our seminar. I took on the task of producing the promotional video for our group, outlining the script, treatment and schedule for how we would make it. I used Trello to allocate the members roles in making the video from editing, shooting, sound to directing. We went out and shot a small piece of footage, basically a tracking shot of four of our group members’ faces staring with anticipation out into the distance, and recorded some voice over for the video. We mainly used stock footage found from the web to create the adventure and epic vibe we were going for. Vicson and Lauren edited the two different videos which became core marketing tools for our seminar. I then resided to working on tasks such as assisting Arthur and Vicson in their role of producing the seminar itself, and completed tasks that they needed me to do. However, I did become a bit absent for a week due to assignments being quite frequent during week 7. This is when I returned to the group and apologised for my absence. Through their understanding and personal appreciation of the circumstances, they welcomed me back, and we began our work, underway for the seminar date.

In the beginning of my involvement with the international jobs seminar, I was two weeks late. I had not attended class due to unforeseen circumstances that had kept me away for some time. However, my group involved me with open arms, and made me their pre-production manager for quite some time. I was tasked with creating the framework for our preparation using a website called Trello.com, a work flow managing website that would assist us with tracking our progress.

Through my prior knowledge of filmmaking and production, I tasked myself with the role of producer and director for our promotional videos. I began to create tasks on Trello for people to do, and made sure that people were happy with their tasks, and didn’t feel a great weight on their shoulders from pressure, too much work, or lack of confidence with the task. I ensured the facilitation of all members when using Trello, by running a short 15 minute presentation on how to view, edit, and keep up to date with the programme, while also creating accounts for all crew members. However, I lacked maintaining frequent contact with group members outside of class time, and had reduced all contact to the online Facebook group. Links are in the description, along with photos.

Group page (closed): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1654474481452823/

Group PR page: https://www.facebook.com/RMITescapees

Trello: https://trello.com/b/9zoYhNxz/international-jobs