In our production team I took on the role of producer and promotional. I chose these roles, as I wanted to push myself and felt I could manage a group successfully, whilst I had lots of ideas for promotions.

 

One of the first challenges we encountered was coming up with a production company name. We darted ideas about and I came up with Red Cherry Productions. When thinking of names I wanted to be able to brand the company effectively, so whilst coming up with Red Cherry Productions I thought about creating a logo in the style of a one armed bandit gambling machine that we could animate as well. This gave the production company not just a name but a branding and meaning behind it.

 

I also created the website, we started off with looking at Webydo.com to create our website but found it complicated and not of ease to use which we were wanting. I then tried wix.com and found a simple but effective template which to begin our website from. I didn’t want to make it too complicated so kept it relatively simple but effective allowing our information to be shown but still keeping it looking attractive. I put forward the idea to the group to keep our individual pages in the same style and color scheme to create a professional feel for the whole website.

 

I also created a Twitter, Facebook and YouTube account so we could promote our company and raise awareness. It was also a great way to add in interactivity between our documentary and our other multi-media aspects allowing people to media stack.

 

My role was producer therefore I had a lot to do in pre-production. Our original idea was to do competitive food eating, however we changed this in favor for the more unheard of Bronies as we wanted to ‘open the door’.

 

Getting into the Brony community was a challenge, however through the use of our multi-media applications we were able to contact them through Twitter and Facebook. Initially they were quite hesitant to let us film and document, however once we’d explained our idea and views they were more then happy to help. I also message them through their UK forum called UKofEquestria.com. This then allowed me to arrange a filming date at their season 4 premiere of My Little Pony up in London where we were able to film and record interviews. This was also a great way to find primaries for our U-doc.

 

By talking to the admins of the forums and Facebook pages I was able to get them to post on our behalf and had several email responses, even on from the Chairman of the biggest Brony convention in Europe. This was useful in engaging us within the community, however in hindsight I would have like to save this till we started our actual U-Doc as I had to email back several people postponing some potentially interesting primaries and interviews.

Before we went filming we planned out our questions, basing it on what we wanted them to say allowing us to form questions from this. Michaela and I took the interviews in turn to see what different responses we could get coming from a male and female interviewer, from this we were able to get an insight in the life of a Brony and why they do it. Splitting the interviews I felt was the right call as we were able to watch and learn from each other. I felt comfortable interviewing people and was able to ask questions as the interviews went ‘off script’. One issue I did have was how I phrased some questions giving a response that when in edit it was hard to determine what we had asked them. More planning on the interviews and practice would be beneficial before the next shoot.

 

I created and took our release forms and parental release forms incase any minors were present.  We knew we could take the consent on camera but as we were taking stills I decided it would be wise to have plenty on forms. I also made fliers to hand out and place on tables to explain to people what we were filming and why, so we didn’t surprise everyone on the day incase they had not been pre-warned. I created ID badges using the university lanyards hold them, creating a professional look. It allowed people to approach us if they wanted as it made us identifiable,

Before filming I also had discussion with the event organizers planning what were allowed to do on the day and how it was all going to plan out. This meant when we arrived they introduced us to the 150 Bronies that attended so they could come talk to us and could let us know if they didn’t want to be filmed or have stills taken of them.

The only issue we had before going filming was that we had no set primaries and were relying on the day for interviews, this was risky but due to the nature of the event and community it was hard to secure the primaries before the shoot. It was a great way to meet Bronies and have gained some willing primaries. In future shoots we would be looking at using some of these as primaries, therefore allowing us to organize our filming more effectively.

 

Whilst on shoot I approached people to interview, produced the team, worked with the event organisers and was there to answer any questions asked. We took stills during the day for our VJPJ and to give back to them for helping us out, we also took their group photos for the day, I felt it was best to offer them something in return for helping us out.

However due to the competence of our team there was often points where I wasn’t needed to produce the team as they were working effectively. In future I would try to get more involved within the shoot and try to oversee each member individually.

 

As a group we worked effectively together with weekly group meeting to discuss filming, ideas and to help each other out on the website. This allowed us to keep track of what everyone was up to and motivate each other to get the work complete. During these meetings I also set deadlines for specific tasks to be completed allowing a greater structure to our course, which allowed us to split our time effectively between each module.

 

One aspect I feel that I could improve on is my time management between individual work and group work. I tended to focus too much on group work and left my individual secondary to it. In future I would try split it more evenly even delegating more work between the group allowing me time to complete all the work to the best of my ability.

 

We created our e-presentation lasting just over 7mins long. In this we had a meeting to sit down and discuss where we came up with the style and the idea. We came up with the idea to have all 6 of us on the intro and I came up with the idea to have us moving around in the boxes whilst each of us introduced ourselves. This created an interesting and lighthearted effect to keep the viewer entertained. In future I would have like to have had more time to film it as it took a while for everyone to say their lines correctly as we didn’t want to be reading off a script. We were limited to the time we had for the room booking, with more pre planning I could have avoided this problem.

 

In conclusion our group worked effectively. Individually I feel that I fulfilled my role as producer, managing my team to the best of their abilities and taking onboard ideas and comments to utilize them as best for the team. Looking back at the project I can identify where it went wrong and where I can improve, hopefully allowing for better organisation. The final work that we produced I believe is to a high standard with the option to take it further for U-Doc next semester and is a good basis to begin with.