Artefact and evidence of the placement course:
Promotional photos:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MO938qPWTsJcIpT1-X2IJpKtr9MPtKsu
Documents:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jV62Hol2YtYbZMuLMzNy3bT-TDFu9-NF
Professional Profile – Website:
https://ryanlee495.weebly.com/
For the contribution of my placement work, we had successfully finished and handed-in the promotional photos of the members in Coventry university Hong Kong society.As financial burden was not the first thing that we had to concern in the current stage, the freelance jobs usually provided more works to handle, the reason that we had chosen this unpaid freelance job was hoping to gain more experience and learn more to equip ourselves, rather than earning much more money but learnt less skills. It is stated that the length of time it takes to establish a media career in this way may also depend on the particular techniques and skills that their experience from freelance offer or other part-time jobs. (Lesile, S, M., 2005). The more experience you gain, the chance of getting the work opportunity relatively raise. Moreover, over the course of production, we needed to have a good conversation with them, communication and suggestion are needed to cooperate with each other. In addition, there are several elements that we needed to considerate about it, for making sure our production can be run in a smooth way.
First of all, is about the discussion of the photo design and set up. As the limited time gave a huge challenge to our team for finishing all works in the same time, the method of division of labour was applied in this situation. My partner – Skye, and I were responsible on different production stage. In the book of Critical Political Economy of the Media, it mentioned about the idea of division of labour can effectively lower the time cost and enhanced the work quality due to assign the right person to do the job they are best at. (Jonathan, H., 2014). For me, I was assigned to focus more on the pre-production, was able to spend few days with each member and listening about their suggestion and opinion about the shooting. It was an incredible gaining to meet their demand by discussion as the preparation. In view of this, we had referenced others’ Hong Kong society promotional posters and videos from different university, hoping to produce to the most suitable style and design to the society. On the other hand, Skye would relatively spend more time on the post-production works.
Furthermore, the shooting environment is also a major factor that we need to concern. Despite the weather condition may affect the process of the photography, the shooting days were fixed in some particular times, and also had to find the best place to satisfy their request, which was shooting in outdoor places. Therefore, we had to find an open area which needed to be covered. It had a level of difficulties to choose the best location within a limited of time as some of the members are not available in this period. Finally, few spots were picked to fulfil their expectation. We finally went to the open area where nearby the site on that day. As this was the first try for us to do the photography about promotional posters, referencing was found from Matt Barnes’ video, which he said that 80% of the production was planning, the rest of them was for action, that was why we spent few days to make sure everything well-prepared. Moreover, he also noticed about the lighting surface and the camera perspective, making sure every single face is on sight. (CBC Music, 2015). In my opinion, I thought the colour-matching and structure of a photo can directly attract a person to draw an attention on it, adding up the above elements which the sufficient lighting and the accurately camera angle, which gave us a great inspiration on making the product.
To shortly conclude the placement experience, it was a great experience for helping them to shoot a series of promotional photos and looking forward to work for them again. We spent load of time on the preparation work which can lead the shooting processing in a smooth way. The freelance job gave us more experience to learn more by handling a series of complex production works. Division of labour was needed to complete the work under a good condition. The weather and environment created a huge challenge for the team, which the well-prepared planning can solve the above problem. The tips given by Matt Barnes also be helpful for us to notice about the lighting and perspective of the angle.
Due to the satisfaction of the works, we had successfully received an invitation for helping them to produce a promotional video in next semester, which lead me to even more certain that I would like to work in media industry. It also taught me a lot and gave me have a more understanding on the role of being a photographer, using the Adobe software to edit the photos or video and how to plan an event with a group or society. Apart from this placement experience, I had also worked for an advertisement company in the summer holiday. I was responsible for editing some kindergarten graduation photos to the team, event management skills and photography techniques had learnt to apply in this placement course. All of the above gaining also paved me a path for working to this direction in the future.
Bibliography:
Leslie, S, M., 2005. Freelancing for Television and Radio. New York: Psychology Press.
Jonathan, H., 2014. Critical Political Economy of the Media: An Introduction. New York: Routledg
CBC Music, 2015. How-to Take a Great Band Photo w/ Matt Barnes. [Video online] Available at:< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXwFXHrXwGs> [Accessed 26 October 2015]
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