The purpose of this blog is to highlight and reflect the process I went through on my production of ‘The Emerald Isle’; a short trailer showcasing the beauty of Northern Ireland. Alongside this, I produced a 3000 word research project looking at how the advent of social media affected the tourist gaze. Every other week, I attended a small pier review group held by our studies advisor Giuliana Monteverde, where feedback is offered by Giuliana and 5 or 6 other students in the course.
Week 1 – Wednesday 6th February 2019
This was the first week of the pier review group. We looked at our project proposals and pitched our ideas to the rest of the group. For my study, I have chosen to look at how social media affects our travel choices; a subject that I am passionate about researching further. Furthermore, this time was spent looking into the genre and medium of documentary and seeing if there were any similar production pieces out there. It was helpful to map out exactly when deadlines were expected and how we can spend the year continually working on our productions. This self-organisation is a skill I feel is important in the media industry.
Week 2 – 20th February 2019
This week we received examples of project folders and gained more pier feedback and self review about our own projects. In pairs we took ten minutes to discuss practical and theoretical issues we may have and how these could be fixed moving forward. Having an example of high-scoring student work is incredibly helpful as ideas can be taken from off the page and brought forward as inspiration for our own projects.W
Week 3 – 20th March 2019
We came to class having produced notes on 5 pieces of theory that link directly to our projects. I initially was left confused as most of my theory linked to phycology studies and/or tourism studies. However, I found this session incredibly useful as Giuliana pointed me towards Psychoanalytical media theory, Affect studies media theory and Semiotic theory. This provided me with a much clearer grasp of how media theory linked to both social media and tourism and I now could incorporate that in both my production and research paper. We discussed our use of theory to 3 others in the class and responded with questions and advice for each project.
Media Studies UUC Reflective Notes 