B2: FMP - Reflective Log

You can talk about anything relevant to the project, as long as you're focused on problem solving, planning and management, and critical reflection.

Use these prompt questions to help you:

1.What problems have you encountered this week? (This could be anything from coming up with an idea to struggling with software). How are you going to solve them? Do you need to move over to a Plan B, and if so, what?

2.How much progress have you made? Are you on track? What are you behind or ahead on? What are your next steps?

3.How has your performance been this week? What could you have done better? How will you do it better in the future?

Week One (w/c 11th March)

This week we were given the brief and my main issue was creating an idea. I generally tend to struggle with idea generation but I decided to take inspiration from previous projects I've produced on this course. I have a running theme of feminism as it's something I'm very passionate about, I'm also a very prominent fan girl so I thought of question I ask in everyday life and decided to make it the topic of my project. Why do fan girls get treated differently to fan boys? I landed with the title 'Internalised Misogyny in Fan Culture.' I slowly started to try and define the idea through research and deciding what parts of that research I wanted my project to look like. I also started thinking about who I'd like to interview. The first person I contacted was a woman called Leora Hadas, she is a professor at the University of Nottingham and specialises in fan culture, which is perfect for this project. I then proceeded to contact numerous feminist and women's organisations.

Week Two (w/c 18th March)

This week I was focused on creating my pitch. I wanted it to be as best as it could possibly be so I've spent a lot of time creating and perfecting it. Creating the pitch has also helped me to define my idea. For example, I'm aware that football fans also face negative stereotypes but to talk about those would create too wide of an angle, it's also a different conversation to be had as I'm talking about fan girls in comparison to fan boys. I was also focused on the aesthetics of the pitch, making it nice to look at by including gifs and bright colours that correlate to my project. On the Thursday I managed to secure Leora Hadas for an interview as well as asking what date and time she preferred for the TV studio, on the Friday I made my questions and sent them over to her to check she felt comfortable answering and able to answer them. I made sure to book the TV studio with Leora's preferred date and time. I also needed to recruit people for my TV segment with fans. For this I managed to get: three boys from my class, one girl from my class, one girl from work. I've booked the studio for this segment.

Week Three (w/c 15th April)

During half term I contacted more feminist and women's organisations but unfortunately only one of them replied and the woman that runs the organisation is not able to conduct an interview in the studio or via zoom as she works full time and this organisation is something she does in the little free time she has, this has resulted in an interview via email. The guest I have secured is Kinga Sawras, the founder of GirlsGoneSober which focuses on being sober but also empowering woman. Kinga herself is a very passionate feminist as well as being in fan communities so has a lot of experience in this sector. I have written my questions for Kinga and sent them off. This week we presented our pitches, I feel that mine went very well. I was happy with how my pitch turned out after spending mass amounts of time on it. I always get very nervous to pitch but I persevered as I feel very passionately about this project. I feel that I could improve when pitching by talking slower, I get very caught up in the moment.

I also filmed my TV segment this week. This was a long process as I first had the set up the studio to my preferred setting. I landed on a black background with one camera. I then had the boys and one girl come in to the studio, I handed them each a sheet with the questions printed out so they felt more comfortable being on camera and answering the questions I was asking. I filmed each of them individually which took 20 minutes. I then had to wait for my two other guests. Once they had arrived that took another 15 minutes. I then had the files downloaded onto a hard drive so I can edit the segment. Editing took me a while:

1.I cut down everyone's individual segments, leaving the clip of me asking the questions only for the first person which happened to be Martyna.

2.I put them all together in a set random order.

3.I selected clips of all six individuals walking in and out of shot and compiled them together. I then selected to blur the clips. I'm going to put this at the start and end of the video with text on it to explain the premise of my segment.

4.I edited the text on the clips of me asking the questions, I had to make sure they were in the same place for every clip they were on. I then put the text on the intro and outro explaining the premise of my segment. This took a while as I experimented with a new feature to have the text slide in line by line so it looks like it's being typed.

5.I then made a separate intro, this one is to introduce the question rather than explain the premise. For this I had to make a logo on Canva which only took around 10 minutes. I then spent another 5 minutes selecting my intro template and once I had decided on one I imported the logo.

6.I then made a separate outro, rather than explain what we've learnt from the video like my other outro this was to put a solid end to the video. I chose a classic YouTube outro template that allows me to promote other projects on my YouTube account.

7.I proceeded to import copyright free intro and outro music that only lasted a few seconds and perfectly matched the theme of the video.

8.The last thing I edited on the video was sound effects. I managed to find a copyright free keyboard typing effect, I put this over the text to enhance the look of it being typed rather that scrolling onto the screen. I then imported a singular copyright free click from a keyboard for my intro. The logo for my intro is a retro pop up so I made the click happen as it pops up.

Once that was all completed I exported my video to YouTube. Once it had uploaded to YouTube I put it on the video page on my website. My TV segment with fans is now complete.

Week Four (w/c 22nd April)

This week I interviewed Leora Hadas a University of Nottingham Professor that specialises in fan culture, this made her the perfect expert for my project. Before Leora had even arrived in the building I found myself having issues with the TV studio; this was because Paul, the man that is in charge of the TV studio, was off sick. This resulted in me running around the college to see if I could find anyone that knew how the studio worked. I was prepared to set up a table and two chairs with my phone recording our voices if need be, but in the end I successfully found someone that could help. This meant that the studio would be set up in the normal fashion for an interview, this allows me to upload the video to my blog as primary research. The interview process with Leora, from letting her into the building, adjusting the cameras, conducting the interview, and letting her back out of the building ran incredibly smooth. She gave me some great quotes, I remember thinking in the moment, 'these are brilliant'. Then I focused on transcribing the interview so I could easily pull quotes but also as proof of everything that had been said. This took me an entire day as transcribing is a very long winded affair, I had to keep rewinding the clip multiple times in order to properly understand what she had said in certain parts. Before moving onto writing my article i thought I'd use the last day of my week to catch up on my coursework. I decided to conduct more of my primary and secondary research, this took up quite a lot of time as I wanted it to be as useful as possible and content I could actually use in my article. For primary research I conducted a Google Forms Quiz that I shared to my social media; for secondary research I collected different definitions of the word 'fan girl' as well as a few TED talks of people talking about fan girls.

Week Five (w/c 29th April)

This week I continued my secondary and primary research as well as my pre-production. My secondary research is purely qualitative data and consists of an interview with Taylor Swift, a TED talk with Yve Blake and researching the different definitions of the terms 'fan girl' and 'fan boy'. My primary research is purely qualitative with a bit f quantitative data that consists of a Google forms quiz and an interview ,accompanied with a transcript, with Dr Leora Hadas. This research helped me define my idea and my article by allowing me to see different aspects from other people experiencing misogyny in fan culture and professional opinions, and not just my opinion. I also started to plan my article which quickly turned in to an op-ed. An op-ed felt more fitting for my piece as it's very opinion based and is a bit of a passion project for me. Once I had decided it would be an op-ed I started to roughly plan the outline of everything I would mention and how I would slot my opinion in without it taking over from Dr Hadas.

Week Six (w/c 6th May)

This week I started to write my op-ed and initially I struggled to get started as I always put too much pressure on the opening line as I feel that it sets the tone for the piece, even though I can edit it I still feel the pressure. Eventually I got the ball rolling and couldn't stop writing, the next difficult bit was selecting quoted from the transcript of Dr Hadas as I wanted to use the best quotes she provided me with. I was also checking the tags on my Wix posts as that is how my tutor and the exam board check my work so they need to be correct. I had to correct a lot of them but now they are all tagged.

Week Seven (w/c 13th May)

This week I continued to write my article, I found the conclusion difficult to write as I never know where to stop. I just want to keep talking as it's an issue that's so close to my heart. I eventually reached a conclusion and made sure to promote my tv segment at the end by embedding it into the op-ed. I decided to move my op-ed from Wix over to Microsoft Word as I wanted to experiment with it by changing the fonts, colours, pictures etc. I soon reached a dead end when I realised that there were no pictures that really went with the theme of my op-ed. It's partly to do with the fact that I had such a specific vision in my head of what I wanted. I was then told by my tutor that my op-ed would be going on the front cover of the college magazine, this meant that they needed to have a photoshoot as the magazine only puts images on the front cover that they've shot. This was a perfect opportunity to not only shoot pictures for the front cover but for my op-ed as well. My tutor had me draw up specifically what I wanted it to look like and he liked the idea so we went ahead and got everything booked in.

Week Eight (w/c 20th May)

This week we shot the front cover of the magazine as well as some pictures for my op-ed. This was incredibly exciting as I saw my exact vision come to life. I had my friend Martyna from my college course be the main star of the shoot, I dressed her like a typical teenage girl excited to go to a concert with a big smile on her face. I then had Zain and Archie from my college class dress in football kits with them glaring at her, like they despise her existence. the pictures turned out perfectly and are exactly what I needed. The next day I had the photographers send them to me and I was able to create a magazine layout in Adobe InDesign as I had finished my op-ed. Creating my magazine layout was rather stressful as it's software I haven't used in a year but I managed to figure it out and in the end created something I was happy with. I had to follow the style guide that my college provides us with as the magazine layout will end up in the college magazine.

Week Nine (w/c 3rd June)

This week I had next to nothing to do as I had finished all my work. The only thing I had left was writing this and finishing off my evaluation. I've also checked over all of my work for any errors or anything that I can do better. I've also helped my classmates with their work when they were struggling. I now eagerly await the release of the Nottingham College NEON magazine of which my op-ed is the front cover, and my A-level results day!