When I started my research, I had 3 initial ideas in mind. The first idea I had really early on and was my only idea for a period of time. It was an idea centered around a massive, over-the-top water fight in my back garden. I got inspired by various YouTube videos and just wanted to create something fun and chaotic. The second idea came from a script I wrote called Upstairs and it references to the idea of purgatory and religion. I was really proud of the script and thought that a visual adaptation might be really cool to explore and produce. The third and final idea came half way through the process when I heard from my tutor that I could create a YouTube channel. I've always wanted to start a channel on analyzing and breaking down films, TV shows and video games but have never found time to do it until now. I saw this as a great opportunity to explore and find out which idea I wanted to do and which I feel would fulfill me and help me on getting the best grade and experience I can achieve.
I kick started my research straight into interview techniques.I wanted to know how and what questions to ask. I looked a lot into Neuro-Linguistic Programming and clean questions that I figured would greatly help my interactivity and connection with the professional I would interview. I knew about the Pivot Questioning method that offered a more personified and comfortable response from the interviewee which was a method I used in my interviews but I was surprised to come across Proust Questions, a set of 30 questions that the 10 Pivot Questions were inspired by. I thought this was quite interesting to see the differences between the two sets but also the similarities. They were also a lot of fun to ask myself and my friends these questions and the results were really interesting. I then put everything I learned about interviews to the test and got accepted to conduct an interview with Lucas Raycevick, a YouTuber who uploads videos on Gaming Analysis and the history of Video Games. Whilst performing this interview, I felt an awkward ease of stress with him. I felt the way he communicated and came across was very involved and knowledgeable. I liked the way he spoke about his craft and the references he used to get his point across a lot more clearer. However, because he is very centered around Video Games, the audience will have to be very specific to that community or else they could have a hard time trying to understand everything he is trying to say and the points he trying to make. Nevertheless, for me, I would consider this interview a massive success. I learned a lot from him and even though I was going into this interview optimistically, I was still surprised to find myself comfortable with him and to have that connection with him that made us feel like we had known each other for a long time. After the interview and in waiting for other professionals and practitioners I had requested an interview with to get back to me, I decided to research into one of my ideas and their core aspect and area that they explore, Purgatory. Even though my film idea, Upstairs, was heavily and secretly gravitated towards Purgatory, I wanted to research deeply into the two key areas around it which are Heaven and Hell. I felt like it would be a greater approach to it and to understand the idea and concept of Purgatory in a whole more clearer and precise manor. I started looking into the history of them and how the perception of them came to reality and to be honest, going into the research, I thought it was going to be very difficult to understand and maybe even a little boring but I was totally wrong about this. I found myself getting lost in this topic but in a good way. I wanted to find out more and more and get deeper and deeper because it was really fascinating to me all of a sudden. Everything from the Divine Comedy to the visualization of religion in modern mediums. I was shocked and glad at the fact that this area of research was amazing to me. Since the turn of the new year, I've been practicing heavily in personal branding and social media. I haven't been doing so much on Facebook and Twitter but in terms of Instagram and Snapchat, I have been exploring apps that revolve around it and the uses the social media platforms represent. For research, I decided to really push my personal brand out there. After audience research into which social media platform would fit my demographic and target audience, I decided to heavily explore and play around with Snapchat since it has the heaviest dosage of young adults/teenagers and a much more vibrant and positively communicative community. Whilst in these practices and getting my name out there with apps like Ghostcode and Snappd, I garnered a bunch of followers including New York Times Bestseller, Kevin Kruse and I got the chance to be apart of his launch on his book which is about personal branding and intimate attention with your fans. This was the perfect book for me and reading it really gave me a great insight into the field I was exploring. I found with my research and practices into social media, I became much more confident with my idea of a YouTube channel and as a person in general. Whilst my research was going really well, I professional I had contacted for an interview got back to me to announce he was more than happy to contribute to my work and be interviewed by me. That man was Darious Britt, a professional filmmaker on YouTube. Whilst conducting the interview, I have to admit, I wasn't as comfortable with Darious as I was with Lucas and he didn't seem to be as comfortable as well. It didn't hinder the interview at all and I did still feel at ease but not at the level Lucas was at but I still loved the turn out of the interview. I applied Pivot Questions to interview like in my previous one and I could tell from the first question that he was a very educated person. I definitely got the vibe of a "professional" from him and I loved his answers even if they weren't as detailed as Lucas's. I was again very pleased with the result of the interview and they both contributed so much to my knowledge and outlook of potentially going into YouTube and filmmaking. The Action genre is a pretty sketchy topic when it comes to overused and wasted opportunities in the film industry which is why it was the perfect topic of discussion. I wanted to fully understand the genre before I possibly explore it in my final major project which is why I wanted to look at the cons more than the pros. It is a fact that the genre isn't as appreciated as it once was and what I wanted to master as well as explore is why it is that way. This topic was probably the least involving out of the rest because it's a topic I know much about. I still wanted to research and I found some really fascinating stuff but not as much as the other areas of interest I looked at and conducted experiments in. However, it was a pretty cool process that I definitely did like looking into. As it came close to the end of the research period, I decided that creating a YouTube channel revolving around analysis of Film, TV and Video Games was the best option I had. It would definitely be the best option for based on the areas of interest I have researched and what I felt knowledgeable and enjoyment in the most. With that, I decided to create my logo which involved me exploring and experimenting with Photoshop for the very first time. It is a software that I am not that comfortable with but to create a badass logo for my channel, I knew I had to venture into the unknown. Originally, I envisioned my logo being glass from a TV that exploded but I realize that was far beyond my skills and abilities at that point in time so I decided to just go in the grey area between basic and complicated. After a full day of what seemed like the end of my life due to the fact I had to learn Photoshop, I created a logo that I was so comfortable and proud of, that after that, I created the channel and uploaded the images onto it and across social media. I created an intro on Final Cut Pro after I did the logo and it ended up really well. After all my research, I believe that it has helped me formulate a strong yet achievable idea that I hope to stretch far beyond my Final Major Project and one that I cannot wait to start. The research has taken me on a journey across so many Skype calls, recording, learning and achieving which means it's a period of my year that I won't forget. I got into contact with professionals that I never thought I would even greet, branched myself into areas that I thought wouldn't be interesting but turned out to be entirely the opposite and I have experimented with social media platforms that I thought I would never get or even think about. Because of this research, I am more than excited and ready to slam head first into this YouTube channel and hopefully come out with a lot more than a grade that I am proud of.
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It is only recently that I have got into the habit of reading. It was only a few months ago that I started reading about the Samurai culture and which lead to me reading non-fiction about Space, Futuristic Warfare and Post-Apocalyptic visions. When this project started, I started to broaden my range and scout out to new topics and categories including personal branding, YouTube, critiquing and religion.
The books I looked at as part of my literary research were Text Me! Snap Me! Ask Me Anything! by Kevin Kruse and Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games by Christy Marx. I wanted to investigate areas that relate to writing and marketing. I wanted to learn more of the theoretical side to writing because it'll greatly improve my analysis abilities. Marketing and Personal Branding are a big part of YouTube and how to obtain that notability that a lot of YouTubers strive for. I wanted to try and beat them in knowledge of it and thought it would be great to read about. I came across Kevin Kruse on Snapchat who is an author I have recently loved. His writing is clean and clear and I like the way he presents himself. I saw a snap story featuring Kevin telling his fans about an opportunity to be a part of his launch team for Text Me! Snap Me! Ask Me Anything!. I applied and got accepted to join and I received a free copy of the book and access to a private webinar and a course of time management. I not only wanted to read it but I thought it would be great for research because it was the perfect book for my YouTube channel. It explores communicating with your audience and how to build your personal brand, it's perfect! It had me right off the bat with the first sentence. "Wouldn’t it feel great to wake up to emails from people saying you changed their life?" Kruse, K. (2017). Imagine If You Were ‘Famous’ In Your Niche. In: Text Me! Snap Me! Ask Me Everything!. New York: Kevin Kruse. Page 7. If you can grab the reader from the first sentence, that is good writing. I read the book and was very surprised as to how much I took from it. Especially with the book focusing heavily on a topic known as Intimate Attention, a word combination that represents having a communication with your fanbase that is private and meaningful. I love that this book features it's own form of vocabulary and brings a naturalistic vibe to it. Kevin also uses "Major Key" as a sub-chapter to notify the concluding thoughts at the end of a chapter which I thought was a creative touch. The other book I have read relates to writing dominantly about Video Games. I know how to analyse and break down Films and TV because I have been doing it for a long time but I've never really ventured into the realms of analysing Video Games which is odd knowing my love for it. I decided to research the area of scriptwriting for Video Games because that was something I absolutely knew nothing about and I wanted to learn. I gave the Animation and Comic sections a little read because I feel like they would be interesting too but I was specifically focused on the Video Game section based on the fact it was more valuable and what I initially planned to research. I was particularly entranced by the story structure of Video Games and how it compares to other mediums. What I also loved is the references and examples to Games in the medium and genres. It gave a relatable feel to it and some authors don't understand how beneficial it can be for the reader so they can understand what you're trying to say in a more relatable and understanding way. What Marx was talking about went into very vivid detail that only gamers could really understand but I appreciate that Marx puts in introductions to the topics and talks about the genres and terms that make it a more understandable read for non-gamers. "Although all games have at least a beginning, a middle, and an end, a game that contains story structure should fall under the basic three-act structure of drama—Act 1: setup (exposition), Act 2: conflict (complications), and Act 3: resolution. The three-act structure is about the development of emotional response in a story, the building of dramatic tension, and the final release of that tension in the resolution. Games that contain these elements have story structure. Games that lack any of these elements consist entirely of gameplay structure." Marx, C. (2006). Writing vs. Design. In: Writing for Animation, Comics and Games. Waltham, Massachusetts: Focal Press. Page 162. This was a section of the book that actually sums up the structure of how to create an effective story for the gameplay and flow of a Video Game. A lot of the book also explores how to differentiate between cinematic and gameplay storytelling so it really filters to a whole range of different stuff within the medium. From these two books, I've learned separate things in case that I have learned business and personal branding skills, ways of growing my brand and organisation from Text Me! Snap Me! Text Me Anything!. From Writing for Animation, Comics and Gaming, I have learned about structures of the kind of story the genres formulate, how to break down these genres and much about the history that Gaming offers. However, both of these books have collectively taught me one thing, Communication with your audience and fan base. Nowadays, it can be hard to portray a message or a point from words whether it's in a script or an email and these books help you with that. From Kevin Kruse, I learned about Intimate Attention and using simple tactics like using a fans name in a message (e.g. Hi Carl) can make your audience feel cared for and appreciated thus making them better and more loyal fans to have. And from Christy Marx, I've learned that through a medium that is all about gameplay and interaction, communicating with your audience through writing is much more complex and is a completely seperate animal to Film and TV. Gaming can bring you closer to characters and more involved in the story but people tend to put all of that credit on the gameplay and even though it is a substantial element of it, the character arks, conversations and dramatic one-liners are what makes us remember them. |
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