Aki's Placement Blog

 We had a final rehearsal run of the radio programme, and I provided feedback. My main technical notes were regarding the sound quality, and I recorded what I heard my end and sent it in. These technical notes aside though, we seemed set to go. I also suggested signposting to the website if the show ran over the 30 minute billed time. Once the first of the three days of radio programming started, I was part of a select group to feedback on the sessions, half an hour after they finished. This was a great way for me to apply my active listening skills, and my suggestions were taken on board. I think it is very easy for people within an organisation to struggle to make criticisms, even if it is constructive, and I was pleased I could tacitly improve the programme through my ideas. I suggested a further focus on allowing the audience to process music for themselves, particularly when presenters didn't have anything especially insightful to say (and were just being appreciative). This r...

 Alongside working on the trailer, I have been trying to develop ideas to improve traffic to the website through social media channels. I am pleased that, after consulting an experienced social media manager (with accounts of over 25 000 followers), some of my recommendations have started being put into practice. Most importantly (I think) is the usage of the story feature on Facebook and Instagram. This is the single clearest way to demonstrate an account is active, and therefore bumps traffic; couple this with strategic calls to action, and engagement driving trends, and we should be landing more traffic to the webpage. I have learnt a lot from working with Claire Cockroft as well. Together we are trying to build a contact database, and I am contributing some contacts I know in student websites like The Tab and The Courier, as well as contacts from my time running charities, like Fukushima Friends UK, and the Inter-Faith Network. These were apparently particularly useful, in Clai...

 The trailer has now been completed. It's on Twitter here:  https://twitter.com/i/status/1351867271132667904 I must admit though, there were many problems in the final stages of its creation. Sheryl had problems accessing all the files that I clipped, and didn't let me know until two in the morning on Sunday. This led to delays, and ultimately the final trailer is just my rough storyboarded trailer that I sent her, with animations on either side. It is a little bit disappointing as were I to know that my storyboard would be so integral, I would have used the final audio of the songs (not the zoom clip of Kema and Claire singing), and more of a call to action. These were among the list of pointers I sent to Sheryl alongside all of the files, so it is a shame that there has been an oversight at some point here. It has been tricky communicating across zoom like this, particularly with Sheryl's very busy schedule too. On the plus side, at least the rest of the team seemed very ...

 It has been absolutely sapping, having to edit down the videos to the important parts, and clipping them. I want to give Sheryl the absolute maximum to work with, so I have clipped every usable phrase or fragment that each speaker gave, and labelled them before uploading them to a shared folder. Particularly with my slow computer, low on memory, it has been very hard and long! Aside from the grunt work though, perhaps the skill I've developed most here is in editing. Not in the technical aspects of video editing (though I am certainly applying everything I know there!), but in the directorial editing decisions. Where to cut, what to clip, what to discard... It is very similar to streamlining an essay plan within my English Literature degree, picking what's really important, and what can be left out. However, from nearly 5 hours of content to narrow down from, it really is requiring all my patience and concentration! I have also storyboarded my own rough interpretation of how t...

 These last few days have been hectic! I did similar interview sessions with Annalisa, Magpie, Nii and Peter, which has generated literally hours of content I'll need to traipse through! I had to apply a range of different skills for each person. Annalisa was less confident speaking organically, but still keen to get involved, so I drafted her some sample lines, and gave her time to think of what she wanted to say in response to different questions. This contrasted with Magpie, who if anything I had to slow down to make sure I could clip all the different anecdotes he had! Nii, on the other hand, was more subdued but expanded at great length on his points, so it was about making sure that there was enough energy and enthusiasm in highlights of his very earnest points. With Peter too it was very easy to get distracted, so we had to take care to stay on track! My main thinking, particularly with the artists, has been to craft much more individual responses that can be clipped down fo...

 The most important clips I was to get would be from Claire and Kema. We organised a quick meeting to get the key points down, and I directed them by asking leading questions that let them say the points I wanted in their own words. I split the rough explanations 50/50, with Kema describing the project and Claire describing the company. I felt this gave a good account of the process and where it came from, particularly with Kema's 'on-the-ground' experience collaborating with members of the public, like a little boy in hospital who he was writing a rap with. It was these kinds of personal epithets that I thought would clip best, so I encouraged both people to elaborate more on personal connections, like Claire's personal story with a Bosnian refugee, who she had kept in touch with since the Balkans conflict. Claire and Kema also went on to sing parts of the song they had written together too! While this wasn't anything that I had scripted I was more than happy to go...

Today's Reaching Out meeting was really helpful in providing updates as to where everybody across the whole team is at. As a member of the management team helping Claire, it was great to hear where the different artists were at with their projects, and giving them a little kick up the bum to go faster! Kema and Sheryl, both so important to my work too, came in for the first half of the meeting. They are both managing other commitments, with teaching, and it just goes to show how multi-tasking this kind of business is. Sheryl is being tasked with animating the entire songbook too, but naturally she has to wait for the pieces to be finished first!  This was a good platform for me to update about the trailer too. Most people had already received appointment emails from me, but I made clear that I would confirm every single one to follow them up. Everybody was on board with my concepts which was encouraging. We couldn't talk about the trailer all the time though, as I had to take o...

 I have spent the whole weekend going into great depth researching good trailers, and putting together a very wide-ranging palette of opportunities to script. I am very anxious that I don't want to box myself in to any one particular kind of trailer, so am looking for a great deal of content from a great deal of people! My further thoughts as part of the marketing team is that, anything that isn't used in the trailer can be used in smaller clips to promote the programme nearer to the event. I have seen this work very well in bigger organisations, and am excited about translating that here. Working with film is going to be a lot harder with everything having to be done over zoom. The previous trailer for the Imagine Your Seat project bore this in mind though, with the screen-recorded zoom clips floating in animated clouds. I presume Sheryl will do something similar here, but I want much faster cuts to add an element of theatricality and professionalism. One thing that I absolute...

 January 7. Zoom. Trailer meeting. Today was my chance to pitch my basic ideas for the trailer. I worked from the brief I had been set, and sought to try and get across the energy and diversity that Skimstone has to offer. Diversity was a key buzzword for Claire, and thankfully the range of cooperation that Skimstone plays host to made it very easy to comply. I told everyone that I would be arranging short 10-15 minute slots to get clips off of them over the first few days of next week. As this time was paid time for the people taking part, it was important to extract maximum value from them, and avoid wasting time. It was a little bit reminiscent of the enterprise challenge that we had as stage 2 SELL students last year. I built more feedback as today's session went on, and incorporated it into my scripting. Claire wanted herself and Kema (the hosts of the show) to anchor the trailer, but have lots of other voices in it too. I'm planning something with fast cuts. Speaking to C...

January 6. Zoom. Had another very productive meeting today. It seems it wasn't just me who's output slowed towards the end of last year, but Claire laid out a workable plan to get us to delivery with clear goals. On a company-wide level, we were introduced to Claire Cockroft, the new Marketing and Comms manager - I am to liaise with her closely regarding messaging, and making sure it is aligned across all platforms. It feels strange no longer being the new kid any more! We developed a much clearer strategy to get the animated songbook together, and afterwards Claire had a 1-to-1 meeting with me. There she asked me to develop and direct a trailer for the project, to go out on social media channels. I was happy to be taking personal responsibility for a project, and quickly accepted the challenge. Claire felt that we shared an understanding of the core messaging she wanted to portray, allowing me to follow my own artistic decisions in the direction. After the 1-to-1, we came back...

 This year I am somewhat better than how I ended the last, and am nonetheless determined to push through and make a lasting impact here at Skimstone. Having left things in the last week before Christmas off work, I'm a bit unclear as to exactly what my immediate aims and priorities are, so have shot off an in-depth email to Claire and Peter. I have dedicated the month to Skimstone as well so I can get this done and see out the project to completion at the end of the month. I have arranged a meeting with a social media 'expert', who runs social media accounts with over 25 000 followers to discuss how to increase analytics on the Skimstone channels. This will form part of my recommendations for the social media team in general.