26th March: Internship (class cancelled)

No class today :)

19th March: Youth Social Innovation meeting

I went along to the first ever Youth Social Innovation meeting tonight at the Media Design School. Unfortunately, I had to arrive late because I also had a YouthLaw MSG meeting that night. Anyway, I arrived in time for the important stuff: beer, pizza.

I caught up with Jade who is working for a small design company (4 people www.initiatedesign.co.nz) and we talked about the YouthLaw project. She said she'd be willing to help out during the editing stages of the project. Jade also introduced me to Lisa who is doing some cool community work in South Auckland, they are applying for funding with the city councils to run media workshops with kids. We exchanged numbers and she might be able to source some fun actors for the films.

I ended today completely zonked, Unitec Internship course, work at Saatchi & Saatchi, meeting at YouthLaw then the Youth Social Innovation meeting. I'm tired and going to bed now!!

19th March: Internship (4th lecture at Unitec)

Today we were visited by someone (I forget her name!) from the Careers and Employment Centre. To be honest, I was stressed out outside of Unitec, the last thing I wanted to do was attend class. But I did and I regretted it. It was really boring. The worst thing that can happen for me when I’m stressed out, needing to get things done, is to get stuck in a boring class or traffic jam. Not that it was the fault of Sara or the person taking the class from Careers, it just wasn’t what I needed to focus on at that particular time. I needed to get back to Saatchi & Saatchi to get through the work I’d been assigned for the day. I wrote in my notebook, “this feels like alcoholics anonymous”, not that I’d had anyt experience of those particular meetings.

Having said that, and getting it off my chest, I actually did learn a bit:

The key idea of a CV is to get an invite to an interview. You can structure a CV like so:

- Name, Address, Phone
- Key skills (match these up with the job description)
- Quals

I also found out about some sites that might help with my project and my life in general:

http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/ - online community for creatives
www.writerfind.com/nz - freelance writing site
http://www.freelance2008.co.nz/ - I found out about this conference through the freelance writing site above
http://www.talentonline.co.nz/ – in case I can’t find any actors (I don’t think this will be a problem)

18th March: TV production meeting at Saatchi & Saatchi

I was lucky enough to attend a TV production 101 meeting at Saatchi & Saatchi today, some of the material might be relevant. It was mostly advertising focused, but still interesting and possibly relevant to my project. I learnt that most talent is valid for 12 months, after that you need to renegotiate royalties (unless it’s already specified in the contract). Copyright for songs is normally two-fold, one from the artist and one from the producer or label. There will be no more 4:3 dispatch from April 1st 2008, meaning everything will be shot and dispatched in 16:9 – but we still need to keep everything 4:3 “safe”. By 2012, 4:3 will be obsolete. Digital Post and Oktober are the only grading suites in Auckland.

12th March: Internship (3rd lecture at Unitec)

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to class today.

10th March: Meeting with Richard Mayo Smith

I took the time to meet with Mayo, a TV producer at Saatchi & Saatchi today. He was really helpful, offering advice and helping to organise my ideas.

We talked the project through as follows:

YouthLaw will need to provide a brief that has the scenarios and outcomes of the films. From there, scripts will be written which specify what we need to shoot and where.

If filming in parks, we will need to organise permits from the council.

We probably don’t need a director, but we could approach some contacts for a director of photography who may be happy to do some pro bono work.

We might need to shoot over two weekends.

Camera will likely be mini-DV (e.g. Sony 3chip). Will need a tripod. Possibly sound recorders, lighting and make-up.

People: Script writer, Camera person (and assistant), Talent (up to 30 people), Editing, Lighting (but probably not necessary), Catering, Make-up person (maybe).

He suggested I contact Greenstone and Screentime (Communicado) to see if they have anything they could offer.

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

We talked about journals today and it’s okay for me to continue this blog as my journal. So this is good. One thing I need to be aware of, however, is that because the journal is public, I might not be as forthcoming in writing about specific people and events – in case it offends people or causes arguments. Because I’m aware of this problem, I might not write “just whatever comes to mind” and go through more a screening process before publishing posts. I’ll take a look through the blogging settings, because I think you can make some posts private, only available to certain people.

My philosophy in life is to remain as open and transparent as possible. I don’t like to have secrets. So I don’t actually think that blogging will be a problem, if there’s an issue that’s on my mind, I probably would have told the affected people anyway. Unless they are particularly worried about the event being written about publicly, I don’t see any problem publishing my thoughts on the Internet.

In class we talked about “Keeping a journal will help me to …” and these are the answers we came up with:

• Record ideas & information from meetings
• Provide a place to reflect on personal ideas, emotions and thoughts
• Record what people have said, times and dates of events
• Journals will be interesting to look back on at a later date
• Organise thoughts
• Store information that might not be relevant now, but could be in the future
• Show others the amount of effort that has been put into the project “behind the scenes”

Some of the others in the class have been doing well getting internships, Liz is working at Juice TV on the NZ music month campaign, Hayley is working at Draft FCB, Sheena is working for the Comedy Festival.

Coming up we have:

19th March – Careers and Employment Centre visit
16th April – Tim Marshal