FINAL MAJOR PROJECT
PROPOSAL & PITCH
Thoughts and Ideas
Initially, when heading into my pitch, I acknowledged that I wanted to construct an individualistic and captivating idea – much like how I aim to engross people with my stylistic sense of writing, I also desired to leave a type of lasting impact with my presentation and the material that I had gathered. Setting a high standard for my quality of work was vastly important to me. Therefore, I opted to come up with something of substance to engage the audience; to be able to get involved to completely understand the thoughts and feelings behind my project and what I plan to eventually write.
I began to produce my PowerPoint with this in mind; I felt as though using bullet points to somewhat draft an idea of how I wanted to lay out my presentation would work best as opposed to writing the script beforehand. This way, I would be able to frame my script around the basis points I had created – thus, it would feel less overwhelming for me when it came to laying all of this out. Through this, I was able to finalise my idea and arrived at the conclusion to use clips from the specified movies that I will be discussing throughout my presentation. Alongside this, I printed out individual sheets for those watching. When shown the snippets, I asked them to quickly write down what they thought it was about and what the message was behind it; this also allowed me to simultaneously gather research, as I would then be able to collect the sheets afterwards. I wanted to create an interactive experience with this. To prevent the presentation from being too long, I selected clips that were approximately a minute long each, with there being five videos in total – that all linked to the concepts I had generated. I implored the watchers to think as creatively as they could to develop a further interpretation of the movies outside my own personal viewpoint.
Scripting and Research
Alongside my pitch, I also had to provide a completed proposal which included a bibliography with Harvard referencing. With this, I was able to gather a large amount of early research to begin fabricating my ideas from; hence, it proved to be quite beneficial in the long term. Moreover, I was given the opportunity to create a schedule and lay out my workload logically based around the amount of time I have leading up to the deadline. Altogether, I settled on using my time at college to write my reviews as this would leave me a couple of weeks to finalise my portfolio and to write my evaluation as long as I remained on track with the schedule. My time at home would allow me to consistently upload and maintain my work on my website.
Scripting and Research
Alongside my pitch, I also had to provide a completed proposal which included a bibliography with Harvard referencing. With this, I was able to gather a large amount of early research to begin fabricating my ideas from; hence, it proved to be quite beneficial in the long term. Moreover, I was given the opportunity to create a schedule and lay out my workload logically based around the amount of time I have leading up to the deadline. Altogether, I settled on using my time at college to write my reviews as this would leave me a couple of weeks to finalise my portfolio and to write my evaluation as long as I remained on track with the schedule. My time at home would allow me to consistently upload and maintain my work on my website.
Pitch and Feedback
I finished my script in due time – to which I aimed to only use as a base for what I wished to say rather than reading directly from the paper. The key to a successful presentation is also body language and actively communicating with your audience. I didn’t want to be standing with my eyes on the sheet as opposed to on them. This is rather difficult for me, due to my anxious nature – the delivery as well as the look of my presentation mattered greatly to me. If I had to comment, I would say that I was the most worried about how I would convey the dialogue.
However, the great amount of enthusiasm that I harbour for the subject matter ultimately came through; which served to be an informative and passionate presentation all in all.
Further Development
If I were to analyse my own presentation, I would say that I do have a fair share of criticism to give to myself regarding how I delivered my dialogue and my body language; watching through, you are able to take notice of the fact that further in, I slowly start to become more comfortable and I am subsequently much more fluid with my expressions and movements. At the start, I recall that I was shaking from nerves and upon observation this does notice. For future reference, I would like to build upon this by learning to improve my confidence in myself and my abilities. My enthusiasm for the subject matter does indeed shine through in spite of this - but I would still state that this is a personal goal for my regardless of that.
Additionally, I can be seen occasionally glancing back at my script I prepared laid out on the desk. Due to the layout of the room, this meant that I had to take my eyes off of the viewers and instead look down, behind me, to gather what I was going to say next. Hypothetically, if the structure of the room had been different, I would much prefer to have the table in front of me; in this case, I will only have to flicker my eyes down onto the page now and again and it makes it far easier to navigate through my presentation. Because of this, I felt myself getting slightly flustered and there are a couple of moments that can be seen where I briefly pause to gather myself. However, I did not want to hold the script as that was a mistake I happened to make when pitching my initial idea for this project - due to the comfort of having the script held in my hands, I somewhat took advantage of this and for the majority of the presentation my eyes were on the script as opposed to those watching. I was hoping that there would not be a repeat of this situation - for the most part, I believe there wasn't.
To remark on some positives, however, I do think that overall my feedback process went quite smoothly and as I had desired. I was able to provide a thorough answer for the questions asked of me and I had planned responses for these said questions beforehand - hence, I did not scramble for a reply and assuredly knew what I was going to say. I work at my best ability when I am given the opportunity to prepare and brace myself. Again, moreover the passion I harbour for the topic matter carried me through the presentation and the viewers were able to recognise that; this works in my favour taking into account that the key premise of my project is the love I have for animation as well as the love I have for picking it apart, and then going on to stress this principle to my readers.