Libby Herbert- FMP Year 2
Evaluation:
Effectiveness Of Research. What Could Have Been Better?
​
I Feel That The Research That I Did For My Final Major Project Was Actually Quite Effective. When I Went Onto Creating My Podcast, I Felt That I Had A Lot Of Knowledge On The Subject I Was Talking About And In The End, I Felt That I Was Able To Inform My Audience On This Subject Too. During The Research Stage I Looked At Topics Like Different Directors, The Representational Issues That Surround Them And Some Action Research To Help Me Create My Podcast. Something Else That I Did Was Look Into A Specific Theory That Would Help My Podcast And I Did Some Primary Research So I Could See What My Potential Audience Thought About The Concept Of My Podcast, This Allowed Me To See What They Would Like To See And What They Would Not Like To See. I Have Found That Doing This Research Has Helped My Podcast As I Was Able To Have A New Knowledge And A Greater Understanding About This Subject Which Allowed Me To Be A Lot More Confident When Educating My Audience About This. Although I Feel That A Lot Of My Research Was Helpful, I Do Feel That There Were Some Aspects That Could Have Been Better. One Of The Things That I Thought Could Have Been Better Was In My Research Was Maybe Doing Some More Action Research Into The Microphone That I Was Using. I Had Never Used This Microphone Properly Before So It Was Brand New And I Felt That If I Had Some Time To Have A Better Understanding On How To Use It, This Would Have Helped Eliminate One Of The Issues That I Faced In The Production Stage. Another One Of The Things That I Thought Could Have Been Better In My Research Was My Harvard Referencing. I Haven’t Done Harvard Referencing That Much Maybe Only Once Or Twice So I Didn’t Properly Understand It. This Meant That I Thought That I Had To Reference Every Website That I Thoroughly Read Through And Thought Would Be A Helpful Piece Of Research Instead Of Just Linking What I Had Actually Used As A Reference In My Work. This Took A Lot Of Time Because For Each Subject I Had Set Number Of Websites And YouTube Videos That I Wanted To Find Which Overall Was A Lot Of Research That I Thought I Had To Harvard Reference.
Methods Used, Missed Opportunities?
​
I Found That I Used A Lot Of Different Methods During My Final Major Project, Like For Example How I Laid Out The Screenshots Of My Editing, How I Did My Research On Different Directors And Even On Adding The Effects To The Editing Itself. One Of The Main Methods That I Used Was Transferring My Effects From The Action Research Stage To The Production Stage As I Wanted To Do This In A Set Way. This Time The Majority Of My Effects Successfully Worked Which Was A Big Improvement For Me As I Have Never Been That Confident With Using Effects. I Think That This Helped That I Had Almost An Order Of How I Wanted To Use My Effects. I Started Off With Levelling Out The Volume, Then I Removed The Background Noise, After This I Faded The Audio In And Out, When I Had Done This, I Removed The Room Echo And Finally I Added The Effects For The Podcast As A Whole. I Do Feel That This Order Helped As I Got The Majority Of Effects Working Properly, There Was One Effect That Didn’t Work How I Wanted It To But With This Order I Had A Backup Plan That Ended Up Working Successfully. I Thought That This Method Worked Really Well As I Was More Prepared With What I Wanted To Do And Had A Backup Plan If This Didn’t Work Out. The Last Time I Created A Podcast, I Only Had Learned One Effect And Had No Backup Plan If This Went Wrong Which It Did So I Ended Up Not Being Able To Use The Effect. A Missed Opportunity That I Found With Creating My Podcast Was Actually Something That Someone Suggested In My Primary Research. There Suggestion Was Almost Like A Comparison Section In My Podcast Like How There Are Not Many Know Female Horror Directors Or How Neurodivergent Directors Bring Their Neurodiversity Into Their Directing. I Loved This Idea As I Felt That It Explored More About What The Industry Is Like And How There Are Different Types Of Directors Out There That Might Not Use The Typical Way That People Think What Directing Is And How It Works. Unfortunately, I Wasn’t Able To Fit This Into My Podcast As I Couldn’t Find Where To Add It In My Layout And I Was Already On A Time Limit That I Was Already Going Over. As Well As This I Feel It Would Have Just Not Logistically Worked Out For This Podcast As I Had Some Ideas For Some Episodes But Not For Others. However, I Did Really Like This Idea And Thought That It Would Be Something That Would Be Interesting To Explore.
Final Concept?
​
Overall, I Felt That The Final Concept For My Podcast Went Actually Quite Well And I Have Definitely Come A Long Way. For This Podcast I Have Included A Lot More Information But In More Of A Different Way, This Time It Is Almost Like A Deep Dive Into A Specific Topic. I Do Think That Having This Type Of Information Allows The Audience To Learn A Good Chunk Of Information So They Are Knowledgeable About The Subject. There Is Always Going To Be More Information To Learn So If This Interested Them, They Could Look Up More. However, The Last Podcast That I Created Was More Of A Taster In Everything To Do With The History Of Horror It Didn’t Include A Lot Of Information On A Certain Topic As If The Audience Liked The Podcast, It Would Inspire Them To Do More Research. Something Else That I Included In The Podcast Was More Effects Which I Felt Made The Podcast Sound Much Better. It Is Definitely A Lot Easier To Listen To As There Are Not Unwanted Sounds Throughout And The Audio Levels Don’t Keep Peaking Which Means The Audience Has To Keep Turning Up And Down The Volume. Something Else That I Liked About The Final Concept Of My Podcast Was Having An Interview In One Of My Episodes. I Would Have Liked To Have Had Two Interviews In My Podcast But It Just Didn’t Work Out With One Of The Interviews As Our Schedules Never Lined Up. However, I Thought That It Worked Out Alright As The Interview I Have Is In The Middle Episode So I Personally I Feel That It Isn’t Overly Out Of Place. I Felt That The Interview Allowed The Audience To Hear A Different Opinion On The Subject That I Was Talking About Instead Of Me Just Giving Information And My Opinion. They Are Also Able To Hear About New Topics That I Might Not Have Included During The Interview And Our Opinions On This.
Planning, What Went Well...What Did Not?
​
I Felt That There Were Things That Both Worked And Didn’t Work For The Planning For My FMP. I Started Off Being Very Organized And Had A Plan That Included What I Wanted To Get Done Each Lesson. This Worked At First But When I Started Running Into Problems The Plan Soon Went Off Track And I Got Behind In The Schedule That I Had Set Myself. I Did Like Having A Detailed Plan As I Was Able To See What I Needed To Do Visually And I Could Tick Things Off When I Had Completed Them, Which Gave Me A Lot More Motivation As I Felt Like I Had Accomplished Something. However As Soon As The Problems Started, My Plan Went Off Track Which Was Really Stressful As I Was Able To See Everything That I Was Behind On And How It Messed Up The Whole Plan. This Was When I Moved Onto More Of A General Plan. I Felt That This Worked A Lot Better As I Decided On How Many Weeks I Would Have For Each Section. I Found That When I Moved To A General Plan, Which Only Had A Time Frame Of What Section I Wanted To Do, It Was Simpler As I Didn’t Have A Set Plan So If Issues Did Occur, I Wouldn’t Have To Worry About Getting Behind In My Schedule. However, Having Just A Large Chunk Of Time For Completing A Section Was Quite Overwhelming As I Didn’t Know What I Wanted To Start With And It Just Seemed Like So Much Work That I Had To Do. I Decided That As This Was So Overwhelming I Was Going To Create A To Do List For Each Section. This Allowed Me To Still Have The Ability To Tick Things Off When I Completed Them But I Was Able To Do This At My Own Pace.
Production, What Went Well...What Did Not?
​
I Felt That There Were Things That Went Well And Things That Didn’t Go So Well During The Production Stage. I Definitely Feel That The Outcome Of The Recording Turned Out A Lot Better And I Have Come A Long Way Since The Last Time I Created A Podcast. I Also Felt That I Have Been Better At Dealing With The Problems That Came Up And I Found Solutions For This Relatively Quickly. Although There Were Some Good Parts To The Production Stage A Lot Went Wrong During This Process. The First Thing That Went Wrong Was About Half Way Through The Recording Of Episode Two Where I Realised That Adobe Audition, Which I Was Using To Record Straight Onto My Laptop, Was Automatically Connecting To The Microphone On My Headphones And Not The Actual Microphone. This Meant That I Then Had To Figure Out How To Stop Adobe Audition Automatically Connecting To My Headphones And Made Sure That It Was Actually Connected Up To The Microphone. I Managed To Figure This Out And Now Throughout The Recording Process Checked To See The Microphone Was Connected Up To Adobe Audition. I Had To Re-Record Episode One And Half Of Episode Two Which Did Take Out A Big Chunk Of The Production Stage Putting Me Behind Schedule. When I Had Finished Re-Recording Episode One, I Started To Re-Record Half Of Episode Two. I Decided To Call It A Day With The Recording And Went To Save The Half Of The Episode That I Had Recorded, This Was When Adobe Audition Crashed And Froze So I Couldn’t Do Anything With It. I Tried Everything To Get The Recording Back But, In The End, I Had To Shut Down My Laptop, When I Turned My Laptop Back On, I Thought I Had Gotten All The Audio Back However When I Listened Back To The Audio It Cut Out Half Way Through. This Was So Annoying Because This Meant That I Would Have To Record This All Again For The Third Time Which Would Take Up Even More Time. I Decided That I Was Going To Do This In Smaller Chunks Instead Of Saving When I Had Finished Recording For The Day. Even With Doing A Section At A Time It Was Still A Lot To Re-Record Each Time Because It Was Crashing Every Other Save. I Decided To Go To Even Smaller Chunks, Only Doing Two Or Three Parts At A Time, This Was A Lot Less To Re-Record But It Took Up Even More Time. By The Time I Had Finally Recorded Half Of Episode Two I Had Managed To Fix Whatever Was Wrong With Adobe Audition But I Made Sure To Only Record A Few Parts At A Time In Case This Happened Again. As I Was Doing So Much Re-Recording That I Hadn’t Planned On Doing, I Started To Lose My Voice. This Was Really Annoying As This Delayed The Recording Process Even More As Even Though Most Days, I Was Able To Record There Were Some Days Where I Couldn’t Record And Had To Do Something Else As My Voice Would Sound Too Different. I Don’t Know If There Was A Big Sound Difference Or If It Is Noticeable To Anyone Else Or Just Me But I Tried To Keep My Voice The Same Throughout The Recording.
Post-Production, What Went Well...What Did Not?
​
I Felt That The Majority Of The Post-Production Went Really Well Even Though There Were A Few Problems That I Had Faced. For This Project I Had Spent A Lot More Time In The Action Research Stage Learning New Effects. This Really Helped Me Out When I Went Onto The Editing Stage As I Had A Clear Understanding Of What I Needed To Do Which Meant The Effects Successfully Worked. This Meant That The Podcast Was Much Easier To Listen To As It Sounded A Lot Better Because There Wasn’t Unwanted Sounds In The Background Or Audio That Kept Peaking. Another Thing That I Thought Went Well Was How I Had Gotten A Lot Better At Editing. Although There Were Some New Effects That I Was A Little Unsure About If They Would Work, I Felt That The Basis Of The Editing Has Definitely Improved. I Found That I Have Become More Confident With Editing As I Knew Exactly What I Needed To Do And How I Needed To Do This Which In The End Made The Editing A Lot More Simple And Successful. An Example Of Where I Felt That I Improved Was With Cutting The Unwanted Sounds Out Of The Audio, I Thought That It Was A Lot More Detailed This Time. This Meant That As I Was So Precise With Cutting The Audio There Wasn’t As Much Sound Left Over So The Audio Pieced Nicely Back Together. However, Although A Lot Went Well During The Editing Stage There Were A Few Problems That I Faced. The Main Problem That I Faced Was With An Editing Effect That Didn’t Work Out How I Wanted It Too. Even Though Most Of The Effects Went Well, This Effect Would Have Allowed Me To See The Audio Levels That Were Needed For A Specific Podcast Listening Platforms And Then See What The Audio Levels Were For My Audio So That I Could Change It. No Matter What I Did It Just Would Not Go Down To The Audio Level That I Wanted It To, In The End I Wasn’t Able To Get The Effect To Work. This Meant That I Had To Use The Backup Effect That I Had Learned In The Same Tutorial Which Worked A Lot Better And Was Much Simpler To Use. In The End I Had The Same Outcome As I Would Have Had If I Had Used The Previous Effect But I Just Had To Do It In A Different Way. Overall, Most Of The Post-Production Went Really Well And I Am Proud Of How Far I Have Come Since The Last Time I Created A Podcast.
How You Dealt With Technical Problems?
​
I Felt That During The Final Major Project I Dealt With Technical Problems Actually Really Well And I Definitely Felt That I Have Gotten Better At Finding Solutions To These Problems. I Found That A Lot Went Wrong During The Project This Mainly Happened During The Production Stage But I Did Also Have Problems During The Action Research And The Post-Production. These Were Only Small Things Compared To The Production Stage Like For Example Not Knowing How To Use The Effects Rack And An Effect Not Working How I Wanted It To. However, I Did Manage To Find A Solution To These Problems Quite Quickly As During Some Parts Of The Project I Was Already Behind On My Schedule, Due To These Problems, So When More Things Went Wrong, I Had To Get Back On Track As Soon As Possible. I Also Felt That I Have Dealt With These Problems A Lot Better Than I Used To As I Didn’t Panic As Much When Things Went Wrong And Tried To Get Back On Schedule As Quickly As Possible. I Don’t Know If This Was Because At One Point So Much Had Gone Wrong So I Was Getting Used To Quickly Coming Up With Solutions But I Felt I Was Definitely A Lot Better At This. I Felt That I Was Also More Efficient Fixing These Problems As Although This Was Annoying, I Was Able To Carry On Until I Found A Solution And Planned What I Needed To Do Next. If I Couldn’t Find A Solution To The Problem, I Moved On Making Sure That I Reflected On What I Thought Went Wrong And What I Could Do To Improve This Skill Next Time As Sometimes Things Don’t Work Out. I Was Actually Quite Lucky With A Lot Of The Problems That I Faced As I Was Able To Find A Solution To Them And They Ended Up Working Out. An Example Of This Is It Took Me A Long Time To Figure Out How The Effects Rack Worked As I Had Never Used This Before And Would Usually Just Drag The Effect Straight Onto The Audio.
How You Dealt With Management Problems?
​
I Felt That I Dealt With Management Problems Neither Good Or Bad, There Were Some Things That Went Well And There Were Some Things That I Would Like To Have Done Better At. I Thought That The Change In Plan That I Made Was Actually Really Helpful. Having A More General Time Frame Of Each Section Paired With A To-Do List Of What I Needed To Do For That Section Was A Lot Better Than Planning Out Every Lesson, Which Felt A Lot More Overwhelming. For This Plan I Did Leave Time For Things To Go Wrong But During The Production Stage So Much Went Wrong. I Started To Get Behind On This Schedule Which Was Really Stressful As Things Kept Going Wrong So I Really Felt The Time Pressure. This Even Ended Messing Up The Plan That I Had Made For The Rest Of The Project. This Meant That I Had To Take Some Time To Reflect And Plan Another Schedule So I Knew What I Was Going To Do Next. Overall, I Did Feel That This Plan Was A Lot More Relaxed As It Wasn’t So Rigid And I Was Able To Move Things Around If I Had To. However, This Was Both A Good And A Bad Thing As I Was Able To Move Something Back If I Was Behind Schedule But This Also Meant That I Could Loose Track Of Time Which Made Me Think I Had More Time Than I Actually Had. If I Was To Create A Plan Again, I Would Change The Way That I Did This So I Could Make Sure Everything Was On Track. I Thought That The Idea Of Having A Set Number Of Weeks On A Certain Section And Then A To-Do List To Go With This Was Actually Really Helpful. However, I Would Probably Change Something About This Plan And Add More Of A Weekly Guide So I Could See Everything That I Wanted To Achieve By The End Of That Set Week. This Will Give Me Something To Work Towards But It Is Not So Rigidly Planned Which Can Make It Easy To Get Behind On The Set Schedule And Then Get Stressed By This.
How You Dealt With Emotional Problems?
​
​I Felt That I Dealt With Emotional Problems During The Final Major Project Quite Well. I Tend To Find That It Is Always Harder With These Problems When Doing Such A Big Project As There Is So Much To Do. During The Final Major Project There Were Times Where I Was Really Stressed And Overwhelmed But I Managed To Overcome This. A Lot Went Wrong In This Project, Mainly In The Production Stage, Which Ended Up Messing Up The Plan That I Had Created Which Was Quite Stressful As I Was Now Behind On This. Also, For This Year’s Project There Were A Few New Parts That I Had Never Before Which Was Quite Overwhelming As This Was The Final Thing And I Had To Get It Right. Although There Were Parts Where This Did Get Too Much, I Felt That I Got Through The Majority Quite Well. One Of The Things That Helped Was Having A To Do List As This Allowed Me To Tick The Work Off Once I Had Done It, This Helped Relieve Some Of The Stress And The Overwhelm As I Could See That I Had Completed Something And Was On Track To Finishing The Project. Overall, I Felt That I Dealt With The Emotional Problems I Had Faced Well And Managed To Find Ways To Help Me To Complete My Final Major Project.
Do You Think You Met The Brief?
​
I Felt That I Have Met The Brief For The Final Major Project And I Felt That I Have Included Everything That I Needed To So That I Can Meet This. The Brief That We Were Given For The Project Was To Create A Showcase Of All The Skills That We Have Learned Over The Past Year, This Was In The Media Product Of Our Choice. I Decided To Create A Podcasts On Different Directors And The Representational Issues That Surround Them. I Had Three Episodes And Each Episode Focused On A Theme These Were Female Directors, Horror Directors And Neurodivergent Directors. I Chose To Do A Podcast Again As I Really Enjoying Creating These And Wanted To Improve My Skills As I Still Had A Lot To Learn. I Felt That I Have Definitely Learnt A Lot More Skills This Time And Feel That I Have Come A Long Way In Being More Confident With Both The Skills That I Had Learnt And The Skills That I Already Had. I Thought The Work That I Have Done For This Project Shows Off My Skills Looking At Both My Writing Skills And My Production Skills Which Have Seen A Big Improvement. The Only Thing That I Didn’t Completely Meet The Brief On Was With Not Making The Project Too Big Or Too Small As I Felt That Went A Little Too Big On The Project As There Was So Much To Do And I Do Think That I Could Have Scaled It Back A Bit. Overall, I Felt That I Have Met The Brief And I Felt That I Have Improved On My Podcast Creation Skills. I Have Come A Long Way And Have Learnt A Lot Of New Knowledge As Well As Being Able To Showcase The Skills That I Was Good At.