18th April: My first script

Today I wrote my first ever script. I found a handy screenplay template for Word (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010186361033.aspx?CategoryID=CT101445101033) and a handy writers' resource at the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scriptsmart/)

Jeanie was asking for ideas to help illustrate the concept of Natural Justice. Natural Justice is the concept that decision makers should act fairly and resonably in all circumstances. I thought up a scene where an enthusiastic rugby coach is encouraging his team to pass the ball to his "rugby hero" son. Jeanie & Neha liked it. I've sent it to Max for his opinion.

The four scripts I need to write next week are:

1) Gross misconduct ending in suspension
2) Continual disobedience
3) Independent nominated person
4) Natural justice (there may be a few other clips to write up)

I'm really enjoying this, but also slightly scared!

17th April: Max Rocks!

I caught up with Harvena and we started to expand on the films she wants done. We're going to start with the gross misconduct where a student gets suspended. Jeanie's idea is to have a kid go out pig hunting with his dad over the weekend and forget that the knife is still in his bag - when he takes the bag to school, a teacher finds it and takes him to the Principal who suspends the kid.

I met Max at the Shortland Street offices - South Pacific Pictures - Henderson. It was cool to catch up with him. It was good that he asked me lots of questions about the purpose, the audience and the budget. He explained that shooting 10 films was too ambitious, should aim to go for 1 film per 1 day shoot. So that means a maximum of 4 films to produce. He wrote up the first page of Jeanie's idea into a script and that was invaluable and inspiring! He wrote it so fast and it really captured what Jeanie had been talking about - later when I showed it to Jeanie she was well impressed. He sent it to me in PDF - he uses Final Draft, but I'll just use Word templates and formatting for the scripts. He also advised that maybe the shoot in the bush while pig hunting might be hard to shoot because you would need generators etc.

He also suggested I check out http://www.script-o-rama.com/ for example scripts.

I came back to the YouthLaw office with lots of energy, finally I have some direction around where I'm going with the project!

16th April: Proposal complete - Too much Unitec not enough YouthLaw

After the Internship course, I went to the lab to finish off my proposal. I'd actually dreamt about proposing last night, it was a slightly scary dream about a ring I'd bought that I thought was gold but it started flaking away to leave a crusty iron core.

I guess the moral of that dream is that, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly.

Anyway.

I ironed out the little bits and pieces that needed doing in my proposal, making the tables sorted alphabetically, inserting references, attaching the BIC marking sheet etc. I went to the copy centre to get it bound and the TOC was printed incorrectly - luckily I could reinsert it without paying another $12.50 to print it again. Woah the copy centre is expensive!

I was quite stressed out today - I just wanted the proposal in, so I could start actually working on the project. Consequentially, I was slightly frantic running around Unitec, and I left my laptop power adapter in the lab. I'd been planning on getting into YouthLaw mid-afternoon, but by 3pm back at the flat and realising I'd left the adapter at the lab, I gave up and stayed at home - working on chasing some contacts like my nana's next door neighbour who does video editing for the fishing show and getting hold of Roshni who did the post grad in digital animation at Unitec.

It was a shame I didn't get into YouthLaw because I would have liked to talk with Harvena about expanding on the scenarios she has given me.

16th April: Tim Marshall

We had Internship class today and it was great to meet Tim Marshal and gain some real world perspective on the life of a person in PR. We looked at the qualities that employers are looking for when recruiting PR graduates. We also looked at PRiNZ trends research and the PRiNZ database. I learnt that most PR people are in-house (approx 2/3rds) and approx 1/3rd are consultants.

He mentioned "father of PR" Edward Bernaise and later I went online to read up a little more about him - found this interesting commentary on "controlling the masses - from religion to Bernaise" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14763.htm.

He also quoted Anne Gregory by saying that "PR operates where issues collide".

Some interesting stats from PRiNZ preso:
82% of PR consultancies have less than 5 fulltime staff.

I was quite interested in PR people in Investor Relations because they have such high requirements for ethical decision making - preventing insider trading.

Last of all, I asked about some of the companies in NZ that assist PR companies. For example:

Media Watch by Chong (who would charge $500 - $2,000 to monitor a PR as it gets covered by the media - www.chong.co.nz)
Media Monitors (www.mediamonitors.com.au)

Media Com (who specialise in distributing PRs in NZ http://mediacom.nzpa.co.nz/)

All in all - it was well worthwhile attending today's lecture

Tim Marshall is the Managing Director at Communications by Design

15th April: Meeting with Business Mechanix

Jeanie invited me down to the meeting at Business Mechanix discussing the progress of the PLEAS project. Business Mechanix are doing the backend work of the PLEAS website.

I asked Wayne and Alan (Business Mechanix) about my concern from last meeting - the external connector license from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server becoming a big expense for YouthLaw. It turns out that Microsoft have discontinued this licensing and so it's not a problem. The users don't need a windows license either - they are just SQL users.

We talked about the design of the website, YouthLaw will get a graphics designer to create a "look and feel" for the website. Wayne gave some good advice about using text instead of graphics, where possible, to ensure pages load fast for people on dialup connections. If YouthLaw are going to get some flash animations done, a non-flash conduit to the content will also need to be created. He suggested setting limited with the graphics designer on logo file sizes and number of colours. The frontpage will need to have the Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund, YouthLaw and partners' logos on it.

We discussed my film project and how the videos will be served to the users. The videos might be streamed through Windows Media Player, Real Player, QuickTime or just linked to a YouTube clip. I asked them about dimensions - width and height requirements - but nothing was set in concrete except that standard YouTube sizing might be appropriate. I also asked for a required format, but they just asked for a test copy that they can play around with - unfortunately I can't provide this until I've confirmed who will be editing the films (right at the end of the project), so that will be a problem.

I contacted Thane Kirby from Alt TV and he has asked me to send a flyer through about the project and he might be able to get some people involved. I've been emailing Steve Marshal at Unitec and Mayo at Saatchi to get some advice on equipment and crew.

Unfortunately Max (Shortland Street writer) had to cancel the meeting we had planned tonight, but we've arranged to catchup at lunchtime on Thursday.

14th April: Yikes

Yikes! It's Monday and I need to get my proposal done. A little bit stressed at the moment, last week I planned my time and the next two weeks I've dedicated to scriptwriting. I've just decided now that I'm not going home until my proposal is finished.

Looking forward to seeing Tim Marshall from the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand on Wednesday.

11th April: Neha's birthday

Happy Birthday Neha! I arrived in the office and she was in a bad mood, stink for her birthday!

We went down to Aotea Square for lunch, Dosas are the traditional Friday YouthLaw lunch, and I bought Neha some mini-donuts for her birthday, but ended up eating half of them because I couldn't find her in the market - she'd already gone back to the office.

The day went well, I made a lot of progress on my proposal and have set up some expected timeframes. In the afternoon I called Max who is a scriptwriter for Shortland Street and talked to him about the project, he sounds enthusiastic about it and we are going to meet next week to discuss. Hopefully, he will be able to support me writing the scripts for the films. So I left YouthLaw on a high note, keen to get the proposal finished and the scriptwriting started.

10th April: First day

It was my first real day back at YouthLaw today.

I cleared a desk for myself and got setup on the network with printers etc.

I mostly kept quiet and worked on my proposal all day, but we did all go out to lunch at Mezze which was cool. Jeanie was funny, impatient to get out of the office and didn't wait for us outside so we could all walk down together- off she went down Queen Street ready to order lunch!!

Harv came back to the office (even though she wasn't working today) to give me the video briefs and that meant I had something to start working on.

9th April: Got into the office!

I went into the YouthLaw office today to say hello and see how everyone was post-trailwalk.

I dropped Nick's shoes back to him, and had a chat to Harvena, Jeanie, John, Neha and Nick.

Jeanie showed me some cool YouTube videos from the Oxfam trailwalk (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiE28rp8lhc) and from the Polyfest (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtprtsjGgII) that she had made.

We decided that it would be best for me to 'officially' start tomorrow, so that I didn't have to pay so much for parking in town.

9th April: Internship (no class)

No class today due to awards

Oxfam Trailwalk 5th-6th April - YouthLaw team

I went down to Lake Taupo on April the 4th with mum. Neha had organised a walking team for YouthLaw consisting of:

Herself
Nick
Effie
Me

We also had a support team of:

Jeanie (YouthLaw)
Harvena (YouthLaw)
Luke (YouthLaw MSG)
Robin (My mum)

It was quite an experience. We woke up on Saturday at 5:45am ready for the 7am start.

The walk during the day was good, we were all in high spirits and the support team at each checkpoint did a wonderful job of feeding us and giving us massages. After-dark was a different story, I must've injured my knee at some point and this kept getting worse the more I walked. I carried on for another 20km with a limp, but gave up at around 2am, having done 65km of the 100km walk; the st johns officer said I'd torn a ligament and it could be permanent damage with risk of more damage if I kept walking. So Neha, Nick and Effie kept going through the night, finishing the walk, with no sleep, just under 32 hours later at around 3pm on Sunday.

What an effort! Check out our team page here:

http://www.oxfam.org.nz/events/teams.asp?a=show_team_pages&eventid=15&teamid=3204

2nd April: Internship (5th lecture at Unitec)

Today was good, we discussed how to write proposals. It was good to be able to tell everyone about what I've been up to, how it's been unfortunate that I didn't get a job at Saatchi & Saatchi etc. I talked to Julian about the Oxfam Trailwalker, so I might see him in Taupo! I also talked to Sheena about the Comedy Festival, that will be cool working for her and earning a bit of money to keep me going. Not much else to report, I'm desperate to actually get into the YouthLaw offices now and start working on this project! But I've still got the rest of the week working for Saatchi & Saatchi before I can do that.