Michael

Michael, made a good start to your presentation introducing yourself to your audience.  You explained your audience very well but felt I didn’t fully engage with you during the presentation as you were over reliant on a script, which you were reading almost verbatim.  In future presentations you could try just having some basic notes as bullet points on cards that you move through as the presentation progresses.  This could help you remember what to say without causing you to become over reliant on reading a script. Your idea was well developed and appropriate to your target audience but felt that your idea’s reliance on the hand coming out of a computer screen could be a potential sticking point.  Your suggestion of coming up with an alternative idea that is more simple to execute is a good one!

On April 29th 2016, I performed my Pitch for My Final Major Project at Oaklands College. Having spent most of the past 2 days working on my Pitch Presentation and my Proposal as well as uploading all the work I have done so far to my website, this was where I had to make it all count. My Pitch was scheduled for 10.40am with James Acraman although the group preceding us ran over time. James did his Pitch first and then it was my turn. I tried to speak as clearly as possible but I found myself looking at my cue cards all too often. I also became so absorbed in reading my cue cards that I forgot to progress from one slide to the next on Ollie's computer. I even occasionally fell into the trap of looking behind me when I on camera and therefore, looking forwards towards Ollie. I actually thought I had messed up my Pitch but Ollie seemed to like our idea for our film Cyber-Stalker. He merely asked me what my role in the project was as I had not explained mine and James’ respective roles clearly enough at first. I explained that I am the Director of Photography and we have since decided that James will be the Sound Recordist and he and I are sharing the roles of Writer, Director, Producer and Editor and I am also playing the part of the Cyber-Stalker while James is playing the part of Frankie as we have tried to find volunteers from the Performing Arts Department but we have been unsuccessful in that endeavour. We did receive interest from one Performing Arts student but we have not heard back from him. I was originally only going to provide the Voice of the Cyber-Stalker and only do so in James' version as he intended to use dialogue and I had intended to just have background noise and no dialogue like in the night-time scenes in Paranormal Activity. We intended to film our intended ending using a green-screen, Ollie recommended that we experiment with after-effects before we start filming and to come up with an alternative ending that will not require a green-screen if the experiment does not go to plan as he also cited the difficulty of mastering after-effects in a short space of time. Owing to such difficulties and an ill-fated attempt at an experiment with after-effects we performed on May 6th with Ollie, we have since decided to scrap our original intended ending and have decided that our Main Character should merely go mad and hang himself. This idea came from a brainwave I had during the weekend of May 7th and 8th in which I thought the Cyber-Stalker should give Cyber-bullies their comeuppance by subjecting them to the very torments that they have inflicted upon other people and that Frankie should be one of those Cyber-Bullies. This was a result of me looking for a solution to the problems Ollie forewarned us about in our pitches.