As part of being a leader, I have completed an insightful workshop to a group of participants informing them about something I feel I am skilled in.  This being photography, our workshop included  information about how to use the settings on a camera and how they affect the lens, light, etc, along with features such as composition, framing, informing them about common techniques such as the rule of thirds, etc. I have worked in a group of 3 within this workshop, consisting of one person explaining the technical settings of photography – (myself,) the aesthetical looks of taking a photo including lighting and composition (Darcey) and the post production of a photo when editing the photo in softwares such as Adobe Photoshop (Kate.) This therefore meant I was in a group and teamwork presentation, in which we had to work together to project our presentation.

I was working and communicating with them to ensure that we all presented our information in the most successful way with limited issues and the correct amount of information to introduce people to photography. This was important to make sure our leadership skills were practiced and fulfilled, us all taking on a different section of the presentation depending on which part we had more knowledge on.

I wanted to achieve and have the experience of presenting something about photography to a group, to practice with the knowledge I have about the topic along with introduce it to others who may not know anything about it. I had achieved this and got the message across to the group – this was demonstrated when we gave them the activity of taking a collection of 3-5 photographs after the presentation telling a story using any technique they had learnt from the presentation. The results from two groups were –

Group 1 – Took photos from various angles, experimenting with composition and shallow depth of field

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Group 2 – Took photos from the same angle but in black and white, considering the editing aspect that Kate produced.

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Both groups had therefore learnt something from the presentation and were able to demonstrate this, meaning I had achieved what I wanted to. (highlighted)

Fortunately, there were not many issues in the workshop in which we hadn’t previously thought about, though the workshop would have been better if we got to demonstrate with a camera, with the group also having cameras. In the second practice workshop for my section of technically explaining, I had a camera to show where certain functions may be located. Though not major, this was an issue as we could not get a camera for the final thing. To resolve this, we got our participants to use their phones. This did not massively affect the workshop as there were still photos in which we could project and in the end our audience were still able to learn, then demonstrate this learning.

 

 

 

Blue – involvement in other workshops                                                                                        Purple – my workshop practice 

As part of being a leader and practising the idea of leadership, I had taken part in my group members workshops including activities that got us all involved and included teamwork. The practice workshops I took part in last week, Day 13, including the acting and art workshop had been developed by the leaders, I therefore saw the progress the leaders made, and both had considered their feedback. The individuals of the workshop were more assertive, informative and organized ,meaning they had the correct traits of being good leaders. Being part of the workshops was overall  interesting and engaging. . I had a example of how to carry out my workshop. 

 

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I had also listened to a few of my group members and given feedback. This included workshops with music practice, editing softwares, etc. I had taken part in an editing workshop, where we filmed and edited a few videos together in Premiere Pro.

Link to video:

 

Practising for my workshop included presenting our photography themed presentation to a small group of people with the rest of my group. What went well included the explanation of examples we has given in regards to our personal photography. I had lead the first part of the presentation where the technical sides of photography including the aperture of cameras, ISO and shutter speed was explained along with the environment of photography, this including the 3 point setup and natural light. Personal photography is added here, however I could explain the settings I used when I took the photo. This would add a real example of myself in the moment taking the photo.  Darcey, a member of my group, explained her part of the presentation well with her examples of photography and contributed to informing everyone about photography. We also had the opportunity to use a Canon camera allowing us to demonstrate where the settings were typically found. Kate, another member of our group, had a slide to explain stories behind photos, however after finishing the presentation her part had been edited to present more information about how to edit therefore linking to the whole idea of photographs in post production. Examples of her edited work was therefore added to the powerpoint after the presentation.  We has given out papers and pens for the storyboards and got everyone to take photos of a story they wanted to tell. We then asked the people to voice what they had done and explain, etc. Personally reflecting back, I feel the end of our presentation when interacting with everyone needs to be more sharp, as a leader, I could ask more questions to our audience as to what they’ve learnt about photography. The feedback we received included finishing off and possibly involving the audience more.

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My arts challenging of becoming more knowledgeable in Premiere Pro and learning how to professionally edit through experimentation between layering and effect controls – overall visual effects has been successful yet challenging with aspects such as the timeframe given for editing. Though I did not get to complete the further challenge I had set which was experimentation with After Effects, I have set it for an overall editing goal when I practice filmmaking myself. My action plan challenged me due to the time of 3 days to edit, and I could have been more clear in the beginning as to how to edit on the 3 days,  e.g label the fact that I could have cut a rough cut on the first day, sound and effects on the second and finalising the whole film on the third. Help I needed came from our editing mentors.

The parts which went well included filming and taking editing notes on set which helped me in post production and learning about editing tricks / techniques from both the director and our editing mentors. Completing the film was more challenging as we had continounty issues, therefore trying to resolve these seemed difficult.

I have learnt how to handle difficult situations better through my arts challenge and I now feel more confident in Premiere Pro. Editing with layers and colour correcting scenes to make them look more dramatic or cinematic is a useful thing I have learnt and will take with me for future projects. Next time, I would plan out a time schedule and editing wise, not spend too long trying to perfect a single scene or issue. Getting as much footage to develop the storyline and make sure it made sense to the audience is important, etc.

Arts skills I would like to develop next include using more editing softwares along with setting goals in the camera department and working to achieve these. The filming experience was insightful and I would like to have the opportunity to experiment with being slick with cameras and knowing what to do & when.

Feedback of my arts challenge has been written: