MEDIA ROLES - FINAL PRESENTATION AND OVERALL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

Today, we had our actual real presentation of our findings for the Media Roles research task. We've spent time putting our slides together, making one cohesive presentation. We all worked on our individual slides, then established a uniform look and format.

(Our final presentation we showed)

We were alongside groups 1 to 4 for a morning session, where we all presented to each other, as well as Peter, Helen and Jon. I felt quite nervous, since I was worried that I'd mess something up during the presenting, or that I'd done something wrong in the slides that I hadn't caught up until then. But when we finally came to actually present, it went pretty well.

We established an order for who would say what:

• I would start by introducing the presentation and explaining what area we looked into
• Tanje would take over talking about the pre-production pipeline, and her slides on Monsters University's production design
• I would then go on to talk about Moana and character design
• Gareth would talk about Blur Studios and 3D character modelling
• Jacob would talk about Ori and the Blind Forest and it's art direction
• Tom would talk about Spyro and the 2D to 3D process
• We'd all read the conclusion on what the biggest thing we took away was

Now, I say the presentation went pretty well. Why not good or great? Because I feel like members of our group wasn't 100% there. The presentations of each others slides started to dip in quality, and in some cases, it was clear that more rehearsal time was needed. One person spoke for too long, speaking more about the studio than the actual area he was meant to be talking about. Gauging reactions afterwards from audience members, I found they also found he went on too long. Another person went too quick, and was incredibly quiet so barely anyone could hear him; I was up at the front with him and I couldn't hear him.

I feel like my slides went well, which was further affirmed by Peter and Helen bringing up me and my points directly when getting positive feedback on our presentations. Both Tanje and myself got positive feedback on how we seemed to be leading the team well. In my head, this did make me glad; for most of this project, it felt like the two of us had to carry the team a lot, so it was nice knowing our hard work getting everyone together paid off. 

Now that the presentation and research task is over, is there anything I'd change? Yes, a couple of things.

First off, the presentation itself. I'd want to make sure it was all prepared a LOT better in the start, and that everyone was on the same page. Looking at all the slides put together, some of the less vocal members definitely didn't get the format as much as others, which lead to a lot of reformatting and trimming down. Making sure everyone's got the same idea is essential.

Another more personal thing I'd want to change is adding a little bit more, for lack of a better term, showmanship to the presentation. With the other groups, they managed to get a few chuckles and laughs from making little jokes and adding funny things into their slides. I tried to get some kind of reaction from the audience twice through what I was saying, in an attempt to keep audience retention; they laughed once. If I had to do this again, I'd definitely want to make a more engaging, entertaining slideshow.

Finally, the biggest thing I'd change is getting the group presentation ready. It was clear that not everyone was ready for this, but for more than just nerves. Unpreparedness and a somewhat lack of interest was also at play. I'd make my group more prepared if we did it again, even if it means I have to keep getting everyone together to practice.

So, to reiterate my aforementioned feelings towards this presentation, it all went pretty well. And that's about it.