Weekly Progress + Plan

 This is my Weekly Progress + Plan for my Documentary Project.

Week 2:

- This week we finally began our project and theory lessons. We were placed on randomzied groups allegedly to expand our experiences with different individuals rather than just our friends and to familiarize ourselves with unfamiliar working and group environments. We got into making our briefs, and starting research in class by watching documentaries, conventions, and writing them down on a docs, we did some at class, others at home.

- This week's theory lesson was primarily an introduction into what we are to learn this year which is media regulation.

Week 3:

- This week we began writing our statement of intents for our documentary project, where we decided what genre and themes we want, we discussed what characters and plot-twists/accelerators that we shouls use. We also did a bit more research at class and I did 1 at home, though considering my group's documentary will be centred around stalking and kidnapping, I might have to research more documentaries relating to it.

- this week we had our first heavy theory lesson, the primary focus was the spread of misinformation and why they happens, it does so primarily through the use of bots and AI with agendas made to spam content aligning with it, which would be used by extremist telegram groups, then to larger social media sites, and finally amplified by influencers. We learned our first theory Livingstone + Lunt, which states that media regulation is very difficult due to its size, users, and the balancing of choice and control, freedom of speech and also regulating misinformation, there also exists arguments of who should be in charge of regulation but every side seems to have arguments against them, we had groups and debated different points.

Week 4:

- This week we wrapped up our statement of intent and research and submitted them. For our project we began new tasks and started with our Storyboard, Location Scout + Risk Assessment, and Script, we spread each of the tasks to each member of the group with me being in charge of the Location Scout + Risk, though afterwards we agreed to chime in and help with other tasks, considering mine was arguably the shortest and easiest, I will start helping Cassie with the script, the Storyboard being handled by Candra and Maisie means it'll probably be safe and sound. Speaking of which, we haven't really gotten far with our script, but we already have a solid picture for our storyboard and how the start of our documentary will look like.

- For our theory lesson we started a new theory called Power and The Media, on Wednesday we were briefly introduced to the topic and what it holds before being expanded on it on Thursday, our main focus case study was on Elon Musk and the platform X, we discussed in groups what the changes brings to democracy and free speech, and also who really holds the power in Media, we closed the lesson by doing an AI based essay practice, where we had to generate a refined and polished essay developed by ChatGPT, with us supplying the orders and research basis.

Week 5:

- This week we continued with some of our group and project work, we started our storyboard further while also trying to align it with more ideas we have and how it might flow, I finished the Loc Scout so I could start to help with other tasks for the group, aside from that we started a new filming schedule which'll act as a guideline for when, where we will shoot and who will be there and what we'll be filming at the location, we decided that the group + a few extra actors from other groups and outside of media will visit and film in Maisie's house on saturday.

- For our theory lesson we further expanded on our lesson on Wednesday regarding the Jessica Wongso case and documentary, on Thursday we did a deep dive into the case study where we read both international and local articles regarding it, we took notes on the connotations and narratives and compared the one we did to the one our pairs worked on, we then placed it into ChatGPT and asked it to expand on our notes and give an answer to the assessment questions Mr Nick gave us for next week's assessment, we were advised to still use critical thinking and double check every "facts" it gives us.

Week 6:

- This week we began our shooting finally, it went relatively well and I think nothing much really happened that blocked us or prevented us from filming and becoming a liability, though so far we still need a bunch more of clips to shoot like interview scenes and random clips to show in our documentary which we aim to wrap up this week. We also started with our CR planning (once CCR), the teacher introduced us to the new template or structure of it which is now a single essay rather than multiple mediums of presentation, we practiced and prepped for our CR in GDocs, I have mixed feelings about it as I feel it's more restrictive and more formal, combined with the word limit it really poses as a something daunting but it should go well, hopefully.

- For this week in our theory lesson, we were seperated into groups and had to do research and highlights regarding case studies all of which relating to media reguation, we were each as a group given prompts to answer, since the question was pretty tough and filled with big adult words we were told to dissect it into smaller questions first, answer them, and then hopefully be able to tackle it with what we had discussed, finally we were tasked with a rather odd graded assignment where we were told to write what the future of tech and society would be like relating to our case study of media regulation being used as a tool for geopolitical goals where we focused more on creativity and expression rather than media terminology, I think I did relatively horrible.

Week 7:
- This week we started the second batch of our shooting, we shot some much needed random visuals to be used as fillers in between scenes while also starting abit of the MC's interview, one of our members Candra was unable to come which made us unable to shoot more of his scenes, though it might be difficult considering the current situation with the demonstrations. In class, we started developing our documentary, Maisie started editing by compiling the scenes, deciding the flow and order of the doc, and also researching for music and sound effects to use around the doc most of us contributed something into this. Cassie started on the BTS blogs and compiling photos/videos to use in it and is planning to put it all into a Canva presentation so it'll be tidier. Finally, I contiued on our CR planning documentary which will act as some sort of guideline for the group even if everything will be done individually. Candra is absent again, though this time it is due to a football match/tourney meaning he couldn't really avoid it.

Week 8:

- This week was pretty much entirely made up or focused on throttling work on our documentary and blogs. Considering we had no clips or scenes needed to be shot anymore, we began pouring in work into some production (editing) but also began planning further and setting up the basis for our post-production blogs and tasks (BtS, Editing Blog). We also started doing our CR's though arguably it could've been done at a better time since we only have around 1-1.5 days to do it.