Embedded Files
// 05-09-22 //
This was the day that we returned back to college, we started the day by looking into what we will be doing for the start of the year. This B1 project was going to focus on our own personal development for our future, allowing forus to look into our futures and explore more ideas and routes to take in life. We started off by working on making our own google sites, exploring ways for us to present the work we have created and produced in a meaningful and presentable manner for future employers to see. I spent the week following exploring more ideas of the piece, looking into the embedding & creating an engaging and good representation of self in the “about” section of the website.
// 12-09-22 //
We spent today just exploring more features we could add to our websites with the main purpose being for us to explore more ideas to represent our work & just getting started for the people who may not have started yet. I used this time to show & ask my peers to describe how I could & should improve my website, getting this peer assessment verbally allowed for me to help improve my website by adding additional information where it may have been needed. One of these pieces of verbal feedback was the critique of “I do like your showcase of prior year projects, but as an outsider with no additional information, maybe a slight inside of why or what the project was about might help?” Using this feedback I added a new descriptive area to my website in the showcase section.
//16-09-22//
Today was spent doing workshops but in the late afternoon we had a small snippet of time in between finishing our workshops & finishing for the week. I decided this would be a good time to look into making some progress on the officially handed out B1 project. The first thing I wished to do now that I had got the brief was to firstly have a indepth read and identify each part of it individually and what it means and what I would need to do to achieve a distinction in each of the sections. I made a start to my brief analysis, starting with a brief description & overview of the first paragraph.
//23-09-22//
Today I spent the majority of the morning looking through the entirety of the brief, looking through what exactly it entails and wants me to do. I only briefly went over a rough overview and need to go through again with a more detailed analysis of each of the areas. You can find this on the drop down above but you can also click here.
//26-09-22//
I was planning on getting on with my career research today but I wished to do a finalised version of the brief analysis because I don't wish to leave any sub-par unfinished work, solely because I don't wish to accidentally forget to go back to in the future. Taking a little break from editing & analysing the brief, I decided to go to editing my website once again, adding newly taken photographs that we took whilst experimenting with exposure. With those uploaded, I wanted to start researching different positions within the industry which I could aim for when I get into working, I came across 3 different jobs which I will do further research into in the future. My next small plan of action that I really wanted (and needed) to do was get a tracker set up, this tracker would be a personal log of what I have got to do and yet to do.
//29-09-22//
Today allowed for a small amount of time to work on researching careers, with the baseline outlines, I decided to talk around with more experienced individuals in the business, namely Spence (My college tutor & experience individual in the Media industry) and Alex (An individual who I only just met but wass gracious enough to give me some more information of the topics I talked to him about.). With both of their help, I was able to really expand on what I wanted to work on in my future career, these being the following:
Travel photography/videographer, Stock photographer/videographer, Wildlife photographer, Location Scout, Art director / Creative lead
//30-09-22//
I spent the start of the morning just getting my personal tracker filled out, this was not a requirement for the unit but only really useful for myself, but gave me the exact things I need to do & get done within my piece. Showing what I have got left to do and work on in my piece, I may need to come back at a later date to truly give it that professional polish but this really isn't something that needs to be beautiful. For me, it just needs to have the functionality that I am looking for it to do, allowing for me to know what I still need to work upon and to do.
//01-10-22//
This day was a lovely Saturday, with the sun beaming through the autumn leaves and a slight chance of a drizzle, which is incredibly weather for an October photoshoot. So with this in mind, Diego and I went out to do a nature walk & photography with nature, we really didn't know where to go and settled on an abandoned railway track in Peterborough, my hometown and nearest to our residence. (We were planning to go further but unfortunately one of our bikes got a flat tire). For this we booked the DJI OSMO out but didn't really use it that much because we were so taken aback by the beauty of a lot of the shots we were able to get and did not want to miss the opportunity.
For equipment, I used my:
Canon D7 EOS Mk.II
72mm, 18 to 200 Lens.
On the right you can see a few of Raws directly from my camera roll, I will be spending a few days going through every photo on my Camera.
//03-10-22//
The morning started off like many offers, with my going about my day as usual, after leaving the gym at 8AM, I met an acquaintance who I had talked to prior about my work as a media employer who studies media & works in the industry. He mentioned how a few weeks prior a close friend of his was looking for an individual to come work with him in his office. Though the deal had came about due to networking with himself prior, I did have to bring up that my schedule is currently very full up at the second, but I told him that later on I could maybe find time to help him with projects. Whilst I was talking to him about this, I decided to throw Diego Soto's name in the ring, now since Diego is a close friend of mine and someone I have a lot a respect for, I put his name forward and may have got him an opportunity if he wanted to pursue it. So with that conversation in the morning, it really made me think that networking is very similar to fishing and hoping something bites. The rest of the afternoon was spent editing through all the 600+ photos which were taken that day and colour grading them for display both on my website & portfolio.
//06-10-22//
Today I spent the morning working on the tracker page on my personal website (This one) and importing into a well formatted display to help with readability for users and ease of fluid movement around the site. After getting the personal tracker for my own use set up on the website, I went and finished up the rest of the much needed edits for the photography session which was done with Diego on the railway tracks. After finishing up all the edits of the photos (which can be found below this paragraph) I then proceeded to work on the websites design, as though I did like the look of what it was at the minute, I did think it could use some improvements. I knew this would take the majority of my time when starting to redesign but I knew once it's done, wont need to touch it from then on out and just needed to fiddle with the little bits here & there. So first thing I did was ask for feedback from my peers, one of the most consistent issues people felt were "White text on black in that font is very hard to read and understand the context", which I did note prior in my head but though that maybe it would suffice for now. But after having it bought up, I knew I had to go back to it ASAP to fix up the formatting of the black and white. (Bottom left image) and with the top left image, as it's the first thing people see on my website I love it but... I felt as though it ain't very, me. Which is weird to say but I wanted to make something more "aesthetic" and "visually professional & organised", which I believe describes me the best, personally. So I started working on that.
//07-10-22//
Today was the time to finish up the redesign of the website and making it more me, there was nothing much really to say apart from through the process I was asking my colleagues opinions on the looks & using it to help influence my decisions. One of the major feedback questions came for the main page, I had to push people to be completely honest because they kept saying "look nice" and had to be a bit pushy to get criticism. But after many hours & hours of work, I believe my main page & other pages really show a lot more personality rather than the bland looking black & white with monotone pictures that it was before. One of the bigger decisions was definitely getting ride of the About page & merging it with my homepage, though I believe I can better that page as in what content I talk about, for now it will have to do. I need to start working on my career research thoroughly, this will be the next thing I work on.
//10-10-22//
Starting this day, I began by filling out my prior production log "logs" a bit more with content which I was neglecting to write down because I believed it was not an entire priority with what I still had to do. With that done, I looked over what I had changed on website prior, just to get a better idea of how everything flowed, I believe the redesign was a hundred percent worth it. Though one part which I know can do with some work is definitively the portfolio page, so quickly outlining for future me. I will write down the ideas which I have currently which may work to help give a bit more meat to "my website".
Break up about page, to just be a quick overview of me.
Make a new page with the idea of "my journey" & talk about myself & share a little insight into my life and journey so far with where I want to go.
Portfolio page with less "order" and more showcasing my best work so far, instead of a list of each project I have done & did.
Now with that idea on paper, I decided to start bulking down with the main bulk of the B1 work & that being the research. Though I know I may be later to start than the rest of my colleagues, I believe organisation & prep for the project should always been done before anything else, this will help flow & less problems down the line.
I then starting researching more into career options first career research on the agenda was Travel Photography, this was self explanatory for what I was researching but I ended up going down multiple rabbit holes such as: Freelancer survey by Inc.com & Freelancer income reports as of 2018 but whilst researching more into how to get into the industry as a whole, I came across a chap by the name of Paul Harris & he will be my Case Study for Travel Photography. Taking large inspiration after seeing his website, I decided to make a logo for my photography business with canva. This Logo will be a main part of the website, though for now it may be temporary, later on I may invest in a nice one for my brand/image. After finding out that Google Sites supports animated .gifs as similar to images, I decided to make my logo animated just to test how it would function both on the footer & maybe if it works animated in the top left corner of my websites navigation bar. After test it out the .gif ideas, I love the animated footer logo but did not like the brand logo, so I decided to use as my final footer animation logo, which on the footer, loops every 30 seconds instead of 5 seconds.
//11-10-22//
After seeing how well the logo animation worked, I decided to give animating a few other things a try, nothing to complicated but just stuff which wont detract to much from the website or a user enjoyment of visiting. So I started by testing out how well having the title on my homepage be slightly animated to test the flare for my opening page. Unfortunately for me, Canva does not allow for the export of transparent gif.s but here was the original idea which was attempted.
//17-10-22//
After recovering from a very very rough cold/illness which took me nearly completely out of commission, it was time for me to buckle down because according to my tracker, I had only got roughly 5 weeks remaining of this project. So I had to buckle down completely now and focus on my career research as this was one of the biggest pieces of work which still needed to be completed. I started research more in depth into stock photographer & looking at different points of interest within the business itself, other little things that I would also find interesting enough to need to research. These being the differences between Microstock & Premium stock agencies. Whilst researching, a lot of the agencies were based within the America's, so a lot of the time I would manually have to use the conversion of USD to Great British Sterlings, to work out pay rates & payouts.
//18-10-22//
After talking to my employer who I work for, I was able to negotiate for the need to do a Digital Marketing course for work but also for myself to gain the ability to put that on my CV & Website for relevant experience in the industry. This will help both with my current media work for my employer but also myself in the long term to help with SEO and more ease for employers to find me. The course was approved by my employer and I shall be starting the short course soon, date is yet to be decided.
//19-10-22//
The morning was spent organising a networking opportunity with our college's main technician for the Media Center, allowing for me to work with himself on a TedTalk as a camera operator on 27th Thurdays of October. Along with this, I had the idea that I could use the opportunity to actually sell myself to employers there for future opportunities, thus I decided to quickly sketch up a business card which I could use with a new business email which I could use. I ended up making the email: JackLewisProductions@gmail.com
Business card idea:
//20-10-22//
I spent the day working on my new career research into wildlife photographer, but whilst researching and expanding my knowledge on the subject, I cam across the following website from the help of my good friend Diego: https://www.worldnomads.com/create/contributors/assignments
Though they recently held an opportunity for young travel photographers and writers to get a free scholarship, it is definitely something to keep in mind for the future.
//21-10-22//
The day was spent working on my career page once again, this was definitely a quite difficult one to research and was my big stick in the mud when it came to getting this done was quite difficult. Specifically looking into Stock photographer was quite frustrating as there exists lots of people talking about stock photography websites but none on how to go about working for one, the different types and the comission rates between each.
//22-10-22//
Today I had a small amount of time to really get something done, so I believed for now, just to get my portfolio filled up a bit, even though it did end up looking quite hectic and messy, I knew prioritising my portfolio wasn't the best right now. So I am putting a personal note here for future me, needing to go back and make my portfolio more streamlined and professionally organised.
//24-10-22//
Once again working on my careers research, I am very much not a paperwork p;erson, so I know this is taking a while. For my other segments, I could do interviews & less paperwork, but I need to prioritise this specifically to know the details of what I am doing for my future and the different ways I can explore them if I went down that route.
//25-10-22//
Once again the careers research was being worked on, but after a few conversions from USD and research towards a few more wildlife photographer options, it was looking near finished and now it was on to plan my case studies for which I would be looking into in each of these positions.
//26-10-22//
Today I wanted to take a short break from typing and come up with a more professional and concrete colour scheme as well as a business card ready for the upcoming TedTalk. Though I do like the colours I chose in the end, I do believe the red gives of a feeling I don't want. It is hard to explain but it doesn't feel fun, like me, it feels like "I am better than everyone", so I want to go back and do another colour scheme soon but for now this will do.
NEW CARD:
//27-10-22//
Today was the day of TedTalk x Peterborough, with many people to network with and many business cards handed out, it was definitely a great time to be the main cameraman.
//30-10-22//
Researched a bit more into colour theory, choosing to go with more of a yellow/gold colour because it is said to be associated with "happiness and sunshine", so I spent the day resigning my different existing branded items with this scheme in mind.
//31-10-22//
Using my prior research into the colour scheme, I made a huge overhaul to my website, taking it from "this is my college project" feel into "let's talk business", creating a more streamlined and minimalist look from the homepage onwards. With the afternoon open, I decided to go to the studio and take some headshots of myself with the help from Riley Edmett, but also asking if anyone else wanted some headshots done whilst we had the studio setup and free.
//02-11-22//
Updated the portfolio pages of my website to include a more minimalist feel, with less text and more intractability, keeping the visitor in mind. With feedback, I added a "person" and "professional" section to my portfolio's for each, though for a while whilst I work with my boss to try and perfect the professional section, it will stay empty for now.
//03-11-22//
I spent the morning taking part in the Digital Marketing course that I was able to organise with my boss at work, I made lots of notations on the different techniques that she mentioned and also different tips for me to work on for my social media. I also wanted to get feedback on my website from a professional, so I asked if she was able to quickly have a look and give me feedback, which I also made notes upon. This feedback then was implemented, or atleast the ones which could be at the time.
//04-11-22//
Today was spent working on my first case study, Will Nicholls, who is quite young and definitely not done with his career but I wanted someone within my "5 year" range to research what can be achieved for a young person in this current working climate rather than doing case study on all veterans who worked in different generational climates.
//07-11-22//
The morning was spent updating my business card with a QR code that links to the website so the URL being as large as it is, doesn't need to be spelt out exactly each time, then I published my website. The rest of the morning was spent creating social media and then adding the buttons to footer (Linkedin, twittter, vimeo, instagram). In the afternoon I made appealing thumbnails to videos in videography, uploaded both "change" & "BF&C - hellhound" to vimeo but unfortunately theirs a limit to 2 uploads per month on vimeo, other two will have to stay on drive for now, meaning that access needs to be granted to watch them on my drive.
//08-11-22//
Went to the Gateway Film Festival Student awards, after being nominated for both my cultural piece and my surreal experimental video, which I ended up winning in the Short Films category. Through my piece being shown, I had many people come up to me asking how it was made, thus I networked and got contacts with Jay from Red7Productions & Lee Ashton from Beatthis.
//09-11-22//
posted my award win on twitter whilst utilising all the tips I got from my Digital Marketing course. In the morning I sent an email to Jay @ Red7Productions and Lee Ashton @ Beatthis for possible interviews
Now I had confirmed an interview with Lee, I spent the rest of the morning went quite fast as I was spending the time researching the best techniques to optimise my SEO's on all the different websites i was using to showcase my work, this included me making my first 3 posts on instagram just to get something out there, going on twitter and exploring ways to retweet and get a bit more involvement & linkedin and how to expand my experience and volunteering segment.
I got a reply from Jay for an interview the next day, which surprised me but I now had two interviewees to make a verbal "case study" with. I then worked on a demoreel to add to the main page of my website & "bought" vimeo premium to upload all my work to. The rest of the afternoon was spent making a resume suited perfectly for media, making sure to keep it as concise and minimalist as possible to keep in theme with my branding.
//10-11-22//
The morning was spent finishing my Digital Marketing Course, rounding up everything which I was taught the week before, before finishing and saying goodbye. I sped back to college as I had an interview with Jay Gearing from Red 7 Productions, also known as the person who had handed me my award at the Film Festival. When I arrived at college, I printed my release forms & spent the rest of the afternoon editing the interview & giving out a little teaser on my twitter.
//11-11-22//
Researched and bought my new website domain, researched more into how to set up a professional email associated with new domain.
//14-11-22//
Edited both of the interviews that I had recorded the previous week & researched on how to effectively import them as audio files in my website. Then researching a bit into Lee's previous Uni Course in Nottingham, I came across a course by the name of "MSc Esports Production", which sounded very interesting and they had an open day on the 23rd of November. Me & Deigo decided to book a ticket to visit on the 23rd for the open day, Interested in both the Esports Production & Content Creation courses. https://confetti.ac.uk/courses/msc-esports-production/
//17-11-22//
The first thing what I did in the morning was to buy the train ticket for the following wednesday, with the open day. We decided to go early in the morning, to really indulge ourselves within the city itself, giving time to explore before going to the open day & then having a dinner dicussion before the ride home on the train.
Next thing on my agenda was to setup my domain & new email professional email address on the domain, then using the new website & email address and updating that on my final version of my business card. The domain, www.JackLewis.Media now takes to you to my homepage on this website, both from within the UK & Test outside of the UK with both Denmark & Germany. Using 123-reg to register the domain & google workshop for the email address.
After getting my Domain & everything updated with the new Email Address, it was time for me to finish my case study page on my website. With my cast studies pretty much done and for pretty much the last bit to be worked on at college because I can't seem to access the Audition File on my home Adobe. I moved onto my research pertaining to Further Education.
//18-11-22//
Tom Dexter, a former worker within the media industry came into college, thankfully from the help of Helen. He talked about how he worked as a ghost writer within the industry and what he has previously worked on, like music videos & TV shows. He talked about a lot things but one of the most important things I took from our discussion was definitely how there's going to be grants for upcoming Indie filmmakers within the industry, from upwards of £12k. Though definitely interesting to know, I believe my focus within the industry is not that position and just wanting to be a photographer. I truely appreciated him coming in and talking about his experience.
//21-11-22//
Today I spent the day working on my research into further education, this included getting more infomation on Confetti Institute and what they do.
//22-11-22//
The entire day I spent it finishing up my research into Uni, which included analysing the positives and negatives of going to University in the most unbiased way I could possibly. This also included researchng statistics by University researchers & data (which was referenced)
//23-11-22//
Today was the much anticipated day of the open day at Confetti Institue, located in Nottingham. Whilst there we (Me & Diego Soto) took lots of photos for our portfolio as well networked with lots of the students, one of the most prominent of these was Charlie Sharp, who was a Uni student currently shooting a piece with a Black Magic camera which revolved around timelapse. He mentioned how Confetti Institue is more about the niche & specialiSation of the media industry, IE - Lighting, Sound design, eSports production ETC. whilst Nottingham Trent University is more for if you wish to go into a more mainstream production, such as Director or Screen writer.
//24-11-22//
I spent the morning and early into the afternoon working on my colour grading of all the picture I had taken whilst in Nottingham. Next I spent the time picking the best to showcase on my Personal Photography Profile and what to name each shot.
//25-11-22//
This morning I spent it finally buckling down and finish editing my podcast interview with Lee Ashton and finally got it in my case study research, with this done, I have finally fully done with my research on case studies. Next it was time to move my 1 year, 5 year and 10 year piece, starting with my 1 year which I am interrogating for 1-5 year plan but will write as 1 year plan.
//28-11-22//
With the deadline fast approaching, I spent the morning doing a lot of tidying up all over the place, just so that I know the only things I need to focus on are my last pieces of paperwork. This included acting upon feedback such as "Adding additional infomation under photography & videography". I then got my bibliography up to date with current links and cited the sites used, which was quite easy as I had been doing that in the research already. Next I finished and created both my general table of contents and research table of contents, to show both my work and help with ease of navigation. I also added just simple tweaks to other pages which ain't meant to be clicked on to explore, which mainly link to ones that should.
//29-11-22//
Worked on and finished my 1 year, 5 year, 10 year piece, ending on quite a happy note which left me smiling. I then worked on my about page which I considered as my "personal statement" within this piece, which showcases my skills, aspirations and all that I believe I'm capable of, though I will have to ask if it classifies as that. Expanding and working upon it to show me as a person, if I were to describe myself to someone I was getting to know or an employer.
//30-11-22//
Industry day with the BBC, Nick Reinis-Keightley, Cringe magazine and Posh PR representative, networking and communicating with everyone there. We spent the entire day learning and talking aboyt the idustry. One of the biggest take-aways for the day was when the BBC were talking about how they view people with and without degrees and how it is more about a portfolio & experience rather than years of education.
//01-12-22//
After working on and finishing my skills audit, both professional and personal, I moved onto the final part of my piece which was getting the finalised look clean and up to date & started work on my personal statement.
//02-12-22//
[DEADLINE DAY]
With everything up to date on my work, I went back to make a finalised personal statement to add a big of solidarity to the piece.
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