Social Media & Career

Social Media & Your Career

    Social Media is a big communication channel that is taken all over the world. Social media is all about content sharing and also about collaborations and interaction between people. There is a lot of examples of social media websites or applications such as Facebook, which we can say every person in the world has one or Twitter, Google, Wikipedia, Instagram and lots more.

   For me as a filmmaker, social media is a really important aspect to promote my work through sharing it and letting people see what i am capable off. By sharing my work i can get feedback by interacting with other creative people or even get to know what fans would like and would not like to see. Promoting my work sounds easy but its not, i need to step up strategies in order to know what do i need to promote exactly and what should i focus on. In last weeks lecture, i mentioned three objectives that i would like to fulfill through social media, that i find really important. The first one is to network with others in my niche because this is how i would get better at what i do and understand more about it, get to know the people that are interested in the same subject that i am and learn more from them, the second one would be building a community/data, for me a having a community is a goal. It is not easy to achieve but i believe that if i put my personal side in my work people would follow me because i would be expressing my self through art, some people might not like it but at the same time other people my relate. Some people might just go for commercial stuff just to get the people's attention, other might do something that they really feel that it needs to be out for people to see. The Third objective and i believe is one of the most important one is to get feedback on my work, because for me i would find my work perfect, feedback will help me do a better job and at the same time i would be interacting with the people which helps a lot to improve and get better. Feedback motivates you always for the better.

Relating this lecture on my career, it opened my eye on how important social media is and how i can benefit from it if i use it in the right way.

Inclusive Design

Inclusive Design 

Every design us human make, we make it with a decision. This decision we make can sometimes include all the customers around us if we do it in a proper way, sometimes it might exclude others if we don't think about the people that might have disabilities or problems. In another way, how can i make my projects reach a bigger range of people.

Giving an example about people with disabilities, we have these people that are color blinded, so we can have a application that can show the same photograph in different versions where people with this problems can see the colors properly. 

Even people that have different problems such as hearing, Closed Captioning is really important and can attract a lot of people with hearing problems. One of them is that you let them feel that you really care about them and they can have the same enjoyment like others. Closed captions describes the important elements that is happening in a form of text. Its not just the normal dialogue of the characters like in all movies but instead it includes everything that is happening like the sound of a door opening because sometimes in movies this sound might mean that somebody is coming or there is danger around, if this is not writing then these people would not be able to know about it.

One think that really got my attention, is the usage of race in games. Nowadays in most games the bad guys or antagonist are black people, and the hero is a white guy. This might be normal to some people or not noticeable but a lot of people do notice it. Before using anybody or creating a game about a specific topic, the least we can do is go and sit with the people from the culture you want to use, understand what is it and what is okay and not okay to do because a lot of people might get offended. Gender and sexuality is also an important topic, giving a small example like we mentioned in class, all the movies out there or most of them is all about a man, this is also inequality for other people, but then some has a hero that is a girl like the hunger game, which is something really different and interesting.

Putting all these aspects on the side, how can inclusive design help me in the future? If i would at some day create a website i will make sure to have options that all of the people can use, for example have an option for people with disabilities, like for the color blinded people where they would be able to see properly, or even for people ho can't hear where they can read everything so that they can make use of this website, it also goes for creating a short film before using any culture or whatever topic it's about i would go and get to meet the people, speak about it and understand it before i create anything that might deliver a wrong message without me knowing, even using actors that have lived the actions that i want to speak about and let the world to see would give it more soul and dedication.

Inclusive design is a really interesting topic but confusing at the same time, but this is the basic idea that i got out of last week's session.

Secret Interview Techniques

Interviews 

      Interviews are one of the most important thing that a human being must know how to handle. I personally think that interviews are like confessions. The main thing about an interview is so people know what you are capable off and what kind of guy are you and what is your previous experience. In order to nail an interview you must go prepared and ready for any type of questions that you might get. There are a lot of types or kinds of interviews, it might be a face to face or over the telephone or even over the internet. I normally think that an interview face to face would be the best one since you can really contact with the guy ho is interviewing you.
       Interviewers might ask you tricky questions as examples mentioned in the lecture. These kind of questions might be really stupid but they can know what kind of personality you have and how would you deal with situations. Also they might ask you questions about previous experiences to see how would you handle work under pressure which normally all companies prefer, a guy that can work under pressure and be able to finish his work within a deadline.
 I have worked before, so i do know how interviews are made, and i think i did a good job at it but i had some moments where i was asked about specific topics that i never though they would ask. As mentioned in the discussion we had in class, people might ask you about the company which you are applying for, about their history and how they started. So here is one tip that i have learned, always search about the company you are looking forward to work with, know how they started and what they are known for, being able to answer that kind of question would tell them that you are really interested and passionate about working with them.
Since we are all getting into the creative media industry, we all are in need of a proper portfolio to demonstrate the work that we have accomplished. This is one of the things that i am really interested in. How to create a proper portfolio? what should be mentioned inside ? how should the lay-out be ?and all these different aspects.
 In this unit, i will be able to handle interviews in a professional way which will help me getting a proper job in the future, on top of that having a good portfolio adds my chance of being professional at what i do.

Copyright & contracts

Copyright & Contracts 

Copyright is a topic that a lot of people nowadays don’t give it much attention, but it is really important for us to know about it specially if we are going into the media field. It is basically a form of way to protect our creative ideas and keeping it safe from other people that might use it without permission. Copyright can be done in many different ways, one of the most common one is to do it by writing a contract. A contract allows all your team members know what they can or can’t do with your projects. On the other hand, Copyright protects a way an idea is expressed, but does not protect the idea itself nor does it protect concepts, styles, techniques and information. Copyright is really complicated, people might know what copyright is but they don’t really know it by details. As an example given in class, the first owner of copyright is the first guy that created the work, it stays their own right until the owner makes a contract with some other people in a form of legal document but some exceptions might occur. People who are employed on staff and are working on creating material for newspapers or magazines will own most of the copyright but not all as the employee will own copyright for some purposes. On the other hand, freelancers own copyright on what they create because normally people that invest money to create something are not eligible of owning copyright.

Some people depend to make a living out of their own creative work, if copyright does not apply then everybody can use their work for free whether it was music or an idea or anything else. Adding to this topic, there is something called licensing. Licenses are giving by an authority to allow the usage of the product , for example, i may decide to give my photograph for people to use for free or let them pay a price but i am able to include a license to limit usage and i maintain the copyright. what i am trying to say is that just because someone pays money for my product doesn't mean they own full control to what they are buying.

To sum things up, everybody should know about copyright and understand how it can work in many different ways in order to guarantee your right and protect your own creative work since you are the one that worked hard to accomplish.

Your Income & Your Art

Your Income & Your Art

        I believe that every person has a goal in life to achieve. In order to do that i personally think a person needs a stable income ( job ) for a start which oblige him to be an employee for a company. We might be working on projects that might not be interesting for us , but it is an opportunity to get into the media industry and understand how it works, after all experience is the main thing that would lead us to success. This is a common thing between us creative minds , whether i am in the film industry or audio, graphic design, animation or even games. It is all about storytelling and expressing ourselves through art.

         One of the main things that really interested me in last week lecture is how to create a successful business. For me, it was a really important and interesting topic because i myself, looks forward to have my own company whether it's a production house or any other company.

To begin with, starting a company might sounds easy but it is not ! It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to even begin and comes with a lot of responsibilities specially when you are investing with your own money. I personally believe that what can really boost your company is being unique and great at what you do and being active on Social Media. Nowadays, in our generation social media is taking over everything, it is a way of letting people recognize you, even advertising is a way of throwing your own projects outside for the world to see.

Creating a company is creating a team, so it takes a lot of planning since your going to be working with a group of creative people, assigning each one of them to do what he/she does best, planning the working hours, and specially paying them. So failure is just a wall to stop you from what you once dreamed of, loosing is possible but it also motivates you to keep going and learning from your own mistakes.

        A business gives you the opportunity to create your own passion, but also there is other forms of ways to make an income, like you could be a freelancer, it has it's positives but also it has it's negatives which is you would never have a stable income coming to your hands every month, or you might get a job that you would really like and then might get another one that you might hate but you have to do it for the money, as some people say '' Pocket money '' everybody has to pay the bills. Freelancing is like you are your own boss, you are not stuck with a schedule or timings but after all you have a deadline which the project have to be done. As a freelancer motivation is a must and seeking to get jobs is another. 

        I hope i get a better understanding of the industry after completing this class and be able to understand it and be a part of it where i can show my creative side and be recognized.

Reference: 

•     Tracy, B. (2015). 7 Key SMART Goals to Achieve Business Success. Briantracy.com. Retrieved 8 October 2015, from http://www.briantracy.com/blog/business-success/business-success-smart-goals-frugal-living/