Today I was Rapunzel for the day as after we were unable to secure an actress to play this part James and Glen asked if I would be able to step in. Although I wasn't completely convinced, I agreed.
I hope it all turns out ok and that my acting isn't too awful!
Friday, 12 March 2010
2nd Meeting with Matt Northam
Our 2nd Meeting with Matt was a little disappointing. Even though we were the first group to provide him with artefacts, he had not had the chance to put anything together for us. He also said that we had provided to many website pages and he would only be able to create a mock-up of about 4 and the website layout information needed to be more about what we wanted and where, rather than to do with the content.
So tonight I have been working on revising the website layout and creating an example page that indicates the sort of thing we would like. I will send these on after emailing the group and asking what they think and whether they have any suggestions on what else we could include.
I also sent across my design for the fairy godmother which will hopefully also be incorporated into the website:
So tonight I have been working on revising the website layout and creating an example page that indicates the sort of thing we would like. I will send these on after emailing the group and asking what they think and whether they have any suggestions on what else we could include.
I also sent across my design for the fairy godmother which will hopefully also be incorporated into the website:
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Little Red on the radio
Today I sat in for the radio recording for Little Red and also voiced the mother and grandmother part in the script. I really enjoyed the experience and was impressed with the radio producers talent. I can already tell it is going to be a brilliant piece and I can't wait to hear it once it is finished. I will however have to return to the studio next week as we were rushed to get the quality of performance we wanted from myself in the role of the grandmother.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
4th Tutorial with Trevor
During this presentation Chris went through a walk-through of the presentation so far. After listening and watching Trevor advised us that we should try and liven things up by adding more related visual, sound effects. We also decided that the introduction that at this point was just text on the powerpoint would be accompanied with a 'movie trailer-style' voice over to really engage the audience.
We also took time to decide who would be presenting for the presentation. We eventually decided that Chris, Glen and Sam would present as they all felt confident and enthusiastic about taking on this role. We decided to use 3 presenters as the variation in voices would keep the presentation more interesting and hopefully ensure that the audience would be more 'switched on'.
We were also informed that we should be aware that questions would be asked and therefore we were not expected to relay all the information and research we have gained over the process. I felt relieved to learn this as I do feel we have a lot to talk about and I was anxious that we would not be able to get across every single aspect of Varytales across to our audience. Hopefully now we can focus on what we see as our main points of research and the key examples of our artefacts and we will be given the chance to explain anything that is left unanswered through these questions.
Questions may include things like:
When will this product be ready?
How many impressions do we think the website will attract?
Have we thought of any spinoffs that relate to the company as a publisher i.e. books
Licensing?
Is it really Cross Platform?
Trevor also drew our attention to vooks as another possible reference and resource into which Varytales could easily utilise.
During this meeting we were also told that Roger Shufflebottom would be our editor and would help us edit our artefacts at the beginning of the next week after which we would have hopefully completed the video production part of the artefacts by Saturday. I am a bit nervous about this as the presentation is next Thursday which means that the deadline for the video artefacts will be very tight.
We also took time to decide who would be presenting for the presentation. We eventually decided that Chris, Glen and Sam would present as they all felt confident and enthusiastic about taking on this role. We decided to use 3 presenters as the variation in voices would keep the presentation more interesting and hopefully ensure that the audience would be more 'switched on'.
We were also informed that we should be aware that questions would be asked and therefore we were not expected to relay all the information and research we have gained over the process. I felt relieved to learn this as I do feel we have a lot to talk about and I was anxious that we would not be able to get across every single aspect of Varytales across to our audience. Hopefully now we can focus on what we see as our main points of research and the key examples of our artefacts and we will be given the chance to explain anything that is left unanswered through these questions.
Questions may include things like:
When will this product be ready?
How many impressions do we think the website will attract?
Have we thought of any spinoffs that relate to the company as a publisher i.e. books
Licensing?
Is it really Cross Platform?
Trevor also drew our attention to vooks as another possible reference and resource into which Varytales could easily utilise.
During this meeting we were also told that Roger Shufflebottom would be our editor and would help us edit our artefacts at the beginning of the next week after which we would have hopefully completed the video production part of the artefacts by Saturday. I am a bit nervous about this as the presentation is next Thursday which means that the deadline for the video artefacts will be very tight.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Thinking about the web layout
After our meeting with Matt Northam, who is helping us with interactivity and the design for our website on March the 3rd I have sent on as many artefacts that we have at this stage.
These include the logo, the background we hope to use, music files which Chris has composed especially for the project and the diagram which Chris made to explain our product. I have also written a 12 page website layout guide that I hope will explain what we would like to achieve in time for the presentation. I also sent along our presentation powerpoint to give Matt an overview of our product.
In our meeting with Matt, he informed us that based on last year's group projects, we are not expected to construct a working website and that he would only really be able to provide us with example pages that we could incorporate into our powerpoint presentation. Although this was slightly disappointing, I understand that due to time restrictions it is unreasonable to think that we could construct a fully operational website.
After I sent the email, we arranged a further meeting with him at 1pm on Weds 10th March, by which time he said that he would hopefully have something to show us.
These include the logo, the background we hope to use, music files which Chris has composed especially for the project and the diagram which Chris made to explain our product. I have also written a 12 page website layout guide that I hope will explain what we would like to achieve in time for the presentation. I also sent along our presentation powerpoint to give Matt an overview of our product.
In our meeting with Matt, he informed us that based on last year's group projects, we are not expected to construct a working website and that he would only really be able to provide us with example pages that we could incorporate into our powerpoint presentation. Although this was slightly disappointing, I understand that due to time restrictions it is unreasonable to think that we could construct a fully operational website.
After I sent the email, we arranged a further meeting with him at 1pm on Weds 10th March, by which time he said that he would hopefully have something to show us.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
3rd Tutorial with Trevor
We are still a little bit worried about the situation with our editor as we still haven't been designated one for our project. Trevor assured us that we would be given an editor to help us out, however they would not be part of the MA course, either someone who works at the university or a another student. While we are relieved that we know that we definitely will be allocated an editor, it is disappointing that it is not someone who understands the project fully and has been with the group from the beginning. I do feel we might be disadvantaged in this way and the fact that we have had one less member in our group has meant that we've all had to work even harder.
During this meeting we also discussed the possibility of who we would like to pitch our idea to. Originally we had envisioned that we should pitch it to the BBC because of its mixture of entertainment and 'soft learning' However with the recent controversy around BBC cutbacks, particularly in reference to BBC blast (an internet based resource for kids) we were encouraged to consider other possible companies to approach. This pressure on the BBC to cut back on the online environment makes them probably not the best company to pitch our idea to. After discussions during the tutorial we considered the approaching a children's publisher as we identified the desire for these companies based in print publication to migrate to the internet as a way of branching out and reaching a wider audience.
After this meeting, with this in mind, Glen researched into educational publishing and found a company called Pearson Education who actually have links with the BBC and other educational publishers such as Heinemann. We decided that as they are a leading educational publisher they would be a very suitable company to approach with this idea.
Trevor also encouraged us to think about the presentation and how we get across our excitement about the idea. We decided that we would try and interact with the audience and link the idea of fairytales to the presentation by thinking about it as telling a story and by being as creative as possible. We talked about incorporating visuals and music to keep ensure that we keep the audiences interest in our product.
During this meeting we also discussed the possibility of who we would like to pitch our idea to. Originally we had envisioned that we should pitch it to the BBC because of its mixture of entertainment and 'soft learning' However with the recent controversy around BBC cutbacks, particularly in reference to BBC blast (an internet based resource for kids) we were encouraged to consider other possible companies to approach. This pressure on the BBC to cut back on the online environment makes them probably not the best company to pitch our idea to. After discussions during the tutorial we considered the approaching a children's publisher as we identified the desire for these companies based in print publication to migrate to the internet as a way of branching out and reaching a wider audience.
After this meeting, with this in mind, Glen researched into educational publishing and found a company called Pearson Education who actually have links with the BBC and other educational publishers such as Heinemann. We decided that as they are a leading educational publisher they would be a very suitable company to approach with this idea.
Trevor also encouraged us to think about the presentation and how we get across our excitement about the idea. We decided that we would try and interact with the audience and link the idea of fairytales to the presentation by thinking about it as telling a story and by being as creative as possible. We talked about incorporating visuals and music to keep ensure that we keep the audiences interest in our product.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Little Red Radio Script and Interactivity meeting with Matt Northam
Last night i finished the radio script for the radio segment of the little red riding hood strand. Chris also sent through some music that he had already composed which we thought would really suit the website and could play in a continuous loop in the background.
Me, daniel, sam and james also went to see matt northam about setting up the website. He advised us that we should create a template of the pages we wanted to include with links so we could pretend that we were using the program as it should be used without having a fully functional website as this he thought was too ambitious. He also encouraged us to email him with any artefacts we had such as music, images and examples of styles of websites that we would like to emulate. I will therefore send him the script, logo and other artefacts i feel will be useful before monday as requested.
Me, daniel, sam and james also went to see matt northam about setting up the website. He advised us that we should create a template of the pages we wanted to include with links so we could pretend that we were using the program as it should be used without having a fully functional website as this he thought was too ambitious. He also encouraged us to email him with any artefacts we had such as music, images and examples of styles of websites that we would like to emulate. I will therefore send him the script, logo and other artefacts i feel will be useful before monday as requested.
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