Blog 1:  YR 12 FMP Analysis 

• Deconstructing my previous FMP revealed all the places where I went wrong making clear of how I need to approach my current FMP. It was easy to analysis my YR12 work because there were many obvious mistakes made, such as, the length, and what information I used for my script, it was too long winded and boring. Displaying that I should keep my documentary short and engaging. 
• It was challenging developing the proposal, because my idea is quite a wide topic and I have to pick a certain perspective that I have to go from. Picking the topic and finding smaller aspects that I can develop was demanding; however, it has opened up my FMP allowing me to develop my idea further. 
• The importance of critical and contextual perspectives was deciding whether my topic has been done before, and if It is something that is important and is factual, my topic is one where I believe it hasn’t been explored, especially by a female, and that’s why I’m exploring my topic from a women’s perspective in the working industry. 
• I have received feedback on my proposal and they suggested that I should focus on the perspective of where in the workplace women get treated like they’re feathers because males in the workplace have to be very careful now as women could take a hug out of perspective and turn it into a sexual assault charger. However I rejected this idea because I want to have the perspective of how women in the workplace  are using their bodies benefit their career and once they have achieved what they want to achieve, they turn around and say they were uncomfortable with the way situations were handled concerning the people who boosted their careers. 

• The challenges and concerns so far vary from how I should start my FMP and what the documentary should answer or tell you. 

Blog 2: Project Pitch 

I found it relatively challenging to  develop  a project pitch, the reason being explaining and developing the idea enabled me to open up my idea and include the many different aspects I will include in my work, however this was demanding as I had to make sure my ideas were relevant to the topic and were not too broad.  

The importance of critical and contextual perspective is that it makes certain that my work is factual and not deprecation to certain individuals for my project it’s important that  

I received feedback from a mentor stating, I should add more colour and images to make the presentation aspect appealing which I have now done. I chose this colour scheme as the colours used to represent the MeToo movement is baby blue. 

I will use these skills to build and develop the rest of my FMP, this has revealed to me that I must annotate my work, give the reason to why it do it , how I will use it, what impact it makes on to my work. To add on it will enable me to keep my paper work at distinction level, and I will help the examiner understand what I did and why I did it. 

The challenges and concerns so far has included myself not making my work detailed enough, and I have not annotated research and developed ideas, I will use these challenges and make sure that my work is detailed, short and meaning I will have a variety of different information, however i will not have a lot of facts about one of the many topics as I get bored and lose concentration easily. 

The next steps for this project are the research portfolio, for this I will find sources for each of the topics and extract the information required, and I will write down why I picked it and how it will influence my work. From then on, I will collate my script and with draw the research and then change it into my own words and speak about my view. Onward, I will make a mood board on Adobe Illustrator, this enables be to visualise my ideas. 

My Mood board: 

I am going to develop this project by adding many different topics for my FMP as I don’t want my documentary to be 10 minutes recycling the same information, I want multiple short aspects of the MeToo movement which informs listeners of the importance of how it affects the workplace, serious cases, and men’s work life. 

My concerns for the FMP is that my theory work is not up to standard, however I am going to ensure that this will not be an issue as I will constantly show my work to others and receive feedback and make the altercations required to make my work a distinction level piece. 

Blog 3: Research Portfolio 

I found initiating and developing my research portfolio challenging as all the information required had to be extracted from multiple sources, I learnt that you must reference and compare different information to make sure it is accurate and reliable. I had to use information that isn’t really spoken, so it required myself going through different website pages and finding the best information. An example of a good website I used is  

https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/

• I used this source as it holds a lot of information that is backed up with statistic evidence. Furthermore, it references information from other articles, interviews and cases from past sexual assault survivors. 
• I used this source for the major part of my topic on false accusation as I was the only source that mentioned what 4 motives could get someone to lie about rape or sexual misconduct. 

It is important to investigate certain perspectives of my research as it allows my script to have information that is not only eye opening, but sensitive and hard hitting. As I had to carefully pick certain information and language to use and a certain way of phrasing information could be inappropriate or offensive, an example is I be bias and say that someone inflict some cases of sexual harassment. 

There were technical and production issues with research as some statistics were not identical to different sources 

When it came to the stats of men and women and comparing them to the percentage of sexual assault and verbal assault was never 100% accurate but, in some cases, fairly similar, in that case I used those numbers. How I overcame these problems include me reading several articles, and extracting the reliable information. 

I received peer feedback and they suggested that I should involve audio interviews of multiple celebrities opinion on the MeToo movement, both good and bad, to add, I will include what it is like to work in an industry where recently sexual assault and harassment has had a lot of publicity. I decided to add snippets of interviews from male celebs and  female celebs views of the MeToo movement. 

Links and screenshots to interviews; 

• I chose these celebs and their interviews carefully, as I wanted to include a celebrity that has been in the industry for more than 50 years.  
• I also wanted a celebrity to talk about how there are different cases that should be handled differently.  
• I used a variety to interest the audience and show them that not everyone has the same opinion on the MeToo movement.  

Furthermore I received feedback saying I should include the story where Cardi B said shed take men into their hotel room and have intercourse drugged men and robbed them and compare it to Bill Cosby’s case where he’d drug women and either sexually assault or rape them and mention how Cardi received no punishment for committing the act but Bill Cosby has gone to court and is being sentenced. This story will bring light to the inequality that men and women have when it comes to sexual assault. 

I will develop this project by having a focus group listen to my podcast and give me feedback on what they like, what to add, what to remove, what bed is appropriate, is this information offensive, is it interesting, and make or the adjustments to make my piece appeal more to my audience. 

Any staff feedback you have received on your project so far- and what action you’re taking from this? How will you use this to build and develop your project for the rest of the project? 

Blog 4: Research Development 

All my research was useful but the most useful piece for celeb interviews was one I found on YouTube, for the following reasons: 

• The interviews have been cut down that. 
• It holds multiple opinions from the celebrities, both positive and negative views about the MeToo movement. 
• It has both male and female celebs 

• It’s recent  
• The audio quality is at a professional quality 

Another very useful piece of research was an article of sexual assault by Sandy Newman for Quartz, because I held information that mentioned cases of men and women who have lied about sexual assault and how to distinguish the flaws to determine whether someone has lied about sexual assault. 

https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/

• The platforms that I want to use is SoundCloud, as it is a free platform that is easily accessible. I chose SoundCloud over Spotify because Spotify has only 75 million active users compared to SoundCloud’s more than 175 million monthly listeners. 

• I will also publish my work on anchor.com, because it was suggested by a fellow colleague. 

My audience is 16-21 as this age group is preparing to go into the workplace, my podcast purpose is to inform those on how to shut down an attempt of a form or sexual assault, but my podcast also informs those on how to distinguish a false accuser. 

Blog 5: Development & Adjustments 

The ideas that have been rejected was my first draft of my script 

 the reason being I received feedback from a teacher which said the following: 

‘’Hi 

I’ve had a quick scan – some things to think about: 

·         Variety of voices – you should make it clear in your pre-production what are the different voices – e.g. The Vox clips, clips from YouTube. etc 

·         Think about how music is used to keep the momentum and the different scenes – have a listen to something like BBC Radio Newsbeat to see how they produce their audio and use music to help engage audiences. 

·         I personally think it might be too wordy – so think about that? 

·         This could actually be a series of a few podcasts? 

Hope this helps!’’ 

Originally, I wanted to have one piece of audio that held all the topics required for my topic, 

• Why women lie 
• What they get out of lying 
• How it tarnishes men’s life and careers 

• How it affects the work place 
• How women use it as a weapon 
• Instead of using internet, why don’t they pursue something legally 
• Should a time limit be used for assault victims? 
• What they do in order to get where they want 

• How it is an option, and how they chose to do it 
• HARVEY WEINTIEN  
• Why the hashtag 
• Exaggeration / fabrication embellishment 
• Women and men equal? Men aren’t taken seriously when it is just as much an issue 

After receiving the feedback, it helped me develop my script by strategically removing and adding information which helped me produce a second draft including the topics: 

• What is MeToo 
• Cases where women have lied 
• Why do women lie 
• The casting couch 

• Celebrities View on MeToo 
• How MeToo Has affected the workplace 

• I chose these topics the reason being that these topics are the most controversial, and the most important topics I wanted to explore as they are the topics that open the untold truth of MeToo. 

• The feedback helped the development of my script and product. 

The next step was to have a visual overview to how I wanted my podcast / audio documentary to be structured: 

This diagram is useful due to the reason that having a layout / template to follow makes it easier to form my final audio piece in a way where I can compare it to a source to see if I reached my goal. 

• The research that I have done to improve the quality of my final major project is that I have looked at a various variety of BBC newsbeat documentaries, the reason why I chose to look at newsbeats was because their content includes alternating topics, of both light hearted and serious nature. I intend to use this as inspiration to how I will edit my audio. 

Blog 6: Planning Process 

The practical work that has been done this week includes recording my final draft of my script, I recorded multiple takes. 

The multiple reasons why I recorded different times; 

• Try different styles of speaking, make it conversational, serious, etc. 
• To avoid making mistakes 
• It improves the quality 

• Be able to listen to it from and audience perspective. 

The earlier planning was useful as it allowed me to read off a script that was produced during the pre-production phase. By researching all the topics required for my project it gave me the freedom to speak about the controversial topics but have evidence to back up the disputable statements. 

I have encountered diverse issues during the process of this project, some being, not receiving constructive feedback on the second draft of my script, and waiting 2 weeks before finally going through with recording my audio,  how I overcame this problem is that I sent my raw audio to multiple people as you get a better feel for what the piece will sound like over reading the script and not knowing how the dialogue will come across. 

Blog 7: Production  

The production process has been a difficult and challenging period, the ways in which my work has been demanding include these factors; 

•  My editing software adobe audition kept crashing and losing all my edited work 
• My Vox pops (answers given by the public that answer my queries) some of my clips, the quality was not at a professional standard as in some of the clips you can hear background noise such as conversations and air conditioning and footsteps 

• My script being too long and containing information that wasn’t relevant to the topic. 
• I have faced a lot of criticism on my work due to it being a controversial topic, however I have overcome this by approaching the topic carefully and appropriately. 

There were many positive elements to my production here are a few of the positives; 

• All the interviews found for my audio documentary support all the statements in my script 
• The way my finished product sounds, the bed chosen, is perfect and sets the tone throughout my podcast, making it clear that it is a dark and a serious topic that needs to be heard by the public. 

• My idea  
• I learnt how to deal with topics sensitively and be objective. 
• I learnt how to consider viewpoints different to my own 
• I leant how to research both sides of an argument 

I believe that I will release my audio documentary on SoundCloud as it is a free platform that is easily accessible. First, while both SoundCloud and Spotify have large user bases, Spotify has only 75 million active users compared to SoundCloud’s more than 175 million monthly listeners. Soundcloud is predominantly used by 16-18year olds and that is my demographic so I feel that it is is appropriate. Furthermore, I have also put my podcast on the platform Anchorfm, because , it’s free and you can place your Podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify. It also allows you to distribute on socials.

I developed my production from my original idea, initially I wanted to have one long podcast that would have the beginning, middle and end for the untold truth of MeToo, but was suggested to me by a mentor that I should instead do a  documentary series (a several part documentary of short audio clips) of the untold truth of MeToo, but dedicate each part to the certain topic of my series. I have adapted my podcast by forming a new script with the most important elements of unveiling the truth of false allegations and sexual assault. The audio that I have produced is the final episode of the  series, revealing the end product of what I wanted my demographic to hear, and as a result of what they have listened to it will hopeful open their eyes and make them question their opinion. 

The skills that I have developed include the following 

• Receiving critique and taking it into consideration and making changes to my work where it is required. 

• Editing skills on the software adobe audition, being able to fade interviews and audio, control the levels to ensure that the audio doesn’t peak and sounds sharp and unprofessional. 

Technical issue and Problem solving: 

• Lost edited footage – Started fresh and saved my work every 5 minutes to ensure that I wouldn’t lose a significant amount of work in future. 
• Couldn’t find sources that provided information that was useful to my podcast – used several different sources such as news articles, YouTube clips. 
• Equipment found it difficult to record on a Tascam, (is a device used to record audio), always end up clicking record and it turns out the audio did not record. Furthermore, the quality of audio was never crisp or clear.-  How I solved this problem was I used the mic foam, this stops the sound form peaking when people use words that include the letters ‘p’ and ‘t’, to add on this addition to the Tascam allows cancels out background sounds. 

The next steps for this piece is to collate feedback from the audience, and how I am going to do that is that I am going to have a focus group where I will have a small group of induvial ranging from 4-6 and I will play my podcast, then get them to write feedback on the piece, mentioning what they liked, what they didn’t like and why, and bits I should have included and shouldn’t have included. 

This is how I am going to develop my project as it will allow myself to make the final altercation which best fit my piece to allow full engagement with my target audience. Moreover, this will allow me to include how I would improve my work in future in my final evaluation. 

My concerns are that my final piece is quite long, (18minutes) which I feel will ensure the audience to stop listening and not be engaged, however, I believe that with the topics explored in my piece that they will be interested and will listen to my full short documentary. In future, I will be more strategic and realistic with my timings for my documentary, as for this project I wanted to squeeze a lot of information into a short time frame. 

The main issue I encountered was the small elements in my piece such as transitions, (how a piece of music and dialogue smoothly form together) and accidently cutting off the ends of words, and my dramatic pauses. But, how I overcame these problems was I got a second pair of ears to listen to my work and help me make the changes by cutting out small breaths, or turning down or turning up the volume, as those small adjustments can change the quality of your audio from good to great. 

(myself editing) 

(second pair of ears) 

Blog 8: Audience Feedback 

My audience feedback has gone well; here is the feedback I received: 

Person 1 (male): 

• Engaging, however quite long, but all the information was interesting because it held facts and figures that didn’t know. 
• Had interviews with both men and women, wasn’t bias, stated the section where it was your opinion giving it variety. 
• Very Raw, almost know filter, quite controversial, but mentioned all the factors that people are weary to say since sexual assault is a very sensitive and serious subject. 

• Liked the bed, made it very serious and captivating 

Person 2 (male): 

• Thoroughly moved by the documentary, covered topics that I personally am passionate about, gave men an equal playing field and voiced the truth about ho men feel in the workplace. 
• Especially liked the introduction where you speak about where you are, it sets the scene and its more of a journey rather than it being a documentary about yourself and ‘I’ this and ‘I’ that. 
• For future improvement, it is very long, I was interested throughout, however, 7-10 minutes max, 15+ mins is fairly excessive, however it is understandable due to the interview clips and Vox Pops 

Person 3 (male):   

• Transitions where smooth and it wasn’t jumpy. 
• Enjoyed the Vox pops, very honest. 
• Like the number of interviews of celebrities with their opinion on MeToo, I especially liked Candace Owens as it was up-front, and it got her point across. 
• Liked the element of its backing men where it mentions that some women have taken it too far, however, I would have included more interviews where men say MeToo is empowering for women. 

Person 4 (female): 

• Found this piece very closed minded, however your piece had evidence to support what was said which is good. 
• I liked the introduction as the bed was put in to replicate what was being said, to make the demographic feel as if they were there. 
• The documentary was very long, should have been shorter. 

• Controversial topic 

Person 5 (male):  

• Serious and sensitive topic, but It was approached in an appropriate and respectful way. 
• Dramatic pauses really emphasised the seriousness of false allegations. 
• How you ended the podcast, was deep and meaningful and it makes myself as the audience really think about sexual assault and how both men and women should come forward as soon as it happens as it can stop someone else from going through what you went through. 

• To improve I say, have a few more Vox pops for more variety, but overall the piece is fantastic. 

Person 6 (female): 

• An amazing piece of audio truly explores the dark truth of the MeToo movement. 
• Lots of different voices, such as little mini interviews and audio interviews brings diversity to the piece and you don’t get sick of hearing one persons’ voice constantly. 

• An original idea that has not been done before, it has been approached in a professional and non-bias way. 
• A long piece of audio, but I was interested during every minute because of the change in topic so frequently. 

My focus group:   

I chose this method because it is easy as you just need a room with a speaker to play an piece of audio, by doing that it allows them to be free and open minded with the feedback that they give back, compared to a questionnaire which is limited because you are asked specific questions. 

I could have used multiple methods to gather my audience feedback: 

• Survey- Easy to make, however it is hard to receive a satisfying number of answered surveys back. 
• Questionnaire Easy to make, but hard to receive any critical feedback as questionnaires ask specific questions restricting freedom in what the audience can say about your piece. 

• Focus Group – quite a long process, however you receive a detailed summary of your work which allows multiple improvements to make your project appeal to the demographic. 
• Vox Pops Easy to find people not doing anything who are able to answer your questions, however it requires more time to edit the audio, the quality of audio may not be up to standard. 

My project has developed from my original idea as initially I wanted my work to be a podcast, however my final major project has shifted into a short documentary, as my topic is a more serious and delicate topic and I believe that A radio documentary, or feature, covers a topic in depth from one or more perspectives, often featuring interviews, commentary, and sound pictures. I have adapted my work as I created two separate scripts where both contain different information however, continues to follow the same topics, and I have cut my script into multiple episodes for a series (multiple episodes that surround the same topic)  that can be listened to on platforms such as SoundCloud or anchor.com. 

I have followed my original goals, as I have still created a piece of audio that highlights the dark elements of the MeToo movement and sexual assault. But in the end, I have come out with a product that is better than I could have hoped for as the product is professional, serious and heartfelt surrounding the topic of the untold truth of the MeToo. 

The issues I faced with my feedback; 

• The multiple comments where it states that my audio is quite long, how I overcame this is that I state in my evaluation why it is long and why I cannot shorten it even though it is suggested that I should. In my evaluation I mention what I will do in future of how I will avoid making my piece too long. 
• Initially I had 5 males and 1 female in my focus group, but I felt that it was bias due to the fact that my final major project is about how some who use the MeToo movement as a weapon, so in order to make the feedback fair and reliable I decided to have 3 females and 3 males to review my piece of audio. 

The final steps for my FMP are to sum up the journey and the experience of this whole project, from the pitch to the production then post. My evaluation will include what went well, what didn’t, how I will prevent the negatives from happening again. These elements are critical as it will help improve the quality or future projects. 

Blog 9 Final Piece:

Goals set at the star of this FMP: 

I met 3 of the 4 aims, the only aim that I did not hit was my podcast being 5-7 minutes however my idea developed due to the inspiration of BBC Newsbeat documentaries. As by my documentary being this long, it allows more freedom to speak in detail about the serious topics surrounding the dark truths of false sexual assault allegations and the MeToo movement. 

• I wanted to create a short 5- 7-minute podcast 
• a piece of audio that was niche and controversial 
• aims for my project is to create a documentary from a certain perspective for a topic that has never been done 
•  I want to be a women who sees it from a men’s perspective and look at all the facts where women who use #MeToo as a weapon as some women say they are a victim when they did what they wanted to do in order to get a promotion or get where they wanted to be (sexual act, casting couch etc.).’’ 

Self–Evaluation 

I do not see myself as a Practioner, however, from developing my skills on the audio editing software adobe audition it has expanded my skills and it has helped improve the standard and quality of my podcast. 

Strengths: List

• Editing Vox pops  
• Adding a bed and editing it so it complements the audio. (certain sound effects draw attention to what is being said) 

• Research and development of my idea and my script. 
• Receiving criticism and taking it into consideration and making changes to my work. 

Areas where improvement are required: 

• Getting Vox pops recorded without the audio being faulty, nevertheless the equipment. 
• Stop myself from producing audio that is too long, instead of that, crop the contents and make sure that I do not exceed a certain time frame. 

The resources, materials and techniques I have used: 

• Radio studio- record podcast 
• Tascam- record Vox pops 

• Computer – edit audio and find information 
• Editing Software Adobe Audition- edit audio 
• Google – find articles and sources for research portfolio 
• Office.com – write script, project pitch, blogs and evaluation 
• YouTube – Find interviews and reports that I reference in my podcast 

• YouTube Converter https://www.flvto.biz/ to convert the mp4 to mp3 
• FMA free music archive – copyright free bed for podcast 

Staff Feedback: (where to improve.) Paragraph

Personal Development: 

•  Work out of class in a quiet environment as it stops myself form getting distracted and it stops me from getting work done. 
• I need to edit a bit more on adobe audition as it will help me perfect my audio editing skills. 

• I worked outside my comfort zone as I explored a controversial and difficult topic for my final major project. 
• I need to spend more time on written elements specifically my blogs as my blogs are a summary of certain activities I have done, and it gives me time to reelect and develop what I have learnt and my skills and where I can improve.