Action

I made our first branding presentation.

This was a concept presentation.

I also presented.

The reason I try to present is that I get very stressed in front of big groups, and I tend to forget everything I have to say. So, instead of letting other people give the presentations because I don't like doing it, I do it anyway, and by doing so, I hope to find it less taxing in the future.

Research into the theme

I conducted research into the history of the Roman Colosseum because the rappers from our project chose it as the concept for their video. The research method I used was the library-literature study method from CMD methods/the Dot framework.

The research question I had was “What were the social, political, and cultural roles of the Roman Colosseum and its spectacles in ancient Roman society?”.

I thought doing this research would help me understand the concept a bit more and could therefore help me to create something better.

In this link, you can find the research. The research is not very deep, but a bit surface-level. Even though it's not that deep, I still feel like I learned some new things. For example, the origins of gladiatorial combat are unknown, and the Roman Colosseum was actually called the Flavian Amphitheater. Something I learned from this research that is actually applicable is that the imperial box, where the emperor sits, is located in the middle of the wide side of the Colosseum. This is applicable because we will be making the Unreal environment of the Imperial Box. So, now we know where it is located.

A summary of the research:

The Roman Colosseum served not only as an arena for entertainment but also as a significant tool for political control, cultural expression, and the creation of a shared Roman identity. The spectacles held there were more than just thrilling displays of violence; they were complex social events that reflected the values and power structures of the Roman Empire.

I put all the links I used for this research in APA format.

In conclusion, the research was not extensive but provided some useful insights.

Meetings/ taking notes

When we had meetings with the clients, I was always present.

And in those meetings, I would take notes. Ensuring that we did not forget what the meeting was about, and even though the meetings were recorded, having key points is a lot easier than having to rewatch the whole meeting.

The notes I take during the feedback session are quickly written down and often not spelled correctly, so after the feedback session is completed, I will rewrite the notes or put them through ChatGPT to structure them.

Planning/scrum

I tried to keep our planning up to date in the Notion environment. This way, the things we needed to do before spring break were clear.

For the Scrum part of our project, I wrote everything down clearly:

This scrum sprint outline helped to clearly see what was waiting for us and when everything was supposed to happen/be finished.

How might we

For the HMW (how might we), we made storyboards. This was to examine how we might go about the flow of the video.

In the image above, you can see the storyboard I made. The feedback I got on this was that the consistency in the background images was liked.

The group also made some storyboards, and we ended up combining them into one after we received feedback from some fellow students. We chose to test these storyboards with fellow students because these are the people who have to eventually enjoy the rap video. Even though our target audience is the rappers, these students are the rappers' target audience. Therefore, their input helped.

Showing the different storyboards to the students falls under the CMD/Dot framework research methods: lab-a/b testing because we showed different versions of the same thing to get the best one, and workshop-co-creation because we involved the users in making the storyboard by letting them choose the things they liked most from all of the boards and then merging them into one.

In the image above, you can see the first combined version of our storyboards for how we might go about making the video.

The feedback we received on this storyboard, from teachers, was that we should work it out, adding the timing of all shots and showing all the steps more descriptively. This will make our storyboard clearer and will help us in making the final video better.

We also received feedback from the rappers, they found the vision we had for now interesting and cool. We also noticed that they got motivated and energetic after seeing this, which is a good sign.

In the image above, you can see the final storyboard we made. For this version, I added all the descriptive text and the time the shots would take.

Summary of the Process

Looking back on the process so far, I believe we are on the right track. During the first sprint, we created strong and consistent branding for our studio. In the second sprint, we clarified and developed our concept effectively, even though the initial information we received was quite limited. In the third sprint, we had the Unreal Environment ready and conducted a successful test recording. The fourth sprint went relatively smoothly as we were quite well prepared after the test shooting. The fifth and final sprint also went quite well, even though there were some hiccups in the final shooting.

As a group, we have done well, apart from the absence of one team member who was removed for this reason. Besides that, our team did great.

The feedback we have received as a group so far has also been positive.

In conclusion, the group project has been going well.

Advisory Report

For this part of the learning outcome, there isn't much to present. The primary recommendation we provided to the client was related to the filming of the video. Specifically, we advised that filming more than three or four people at the same time would be challenging due to screen height and width limitations. We also suggested implementing a balcony prop to obscure the bottom of the screen, which would improve the visual quality and composition.

The part of filming only 3 to 4 people at a time later proved to be unnecessary.

Ethical considerations

While researching the Roman Colosseum, I learned about the ethical issues related to the gladiatorial games held there. These games, often organized by emperors to show their power, involved extreme violence and a complete disregard for human life. Gladiators were usually slaves or criminals who were forced to fight to the death for the entertainment of the crowd.

As we work on our project inspired by the Colosseum's history, we need to think about how we show violence in our entertainment. Although we won't recreate the bloodshed of the Colosseum, our video will still contain themes of power, and it will imply some violence. This raises the question of whether it is ethical to use violent images for artistic or entertainment purposes.

We must find a balance between honoring the history of the Colosseum and being mindful of how our portrayal might affect our audience. By acknowledging the unethical nature of these historical events, we aim to present them thoughtfully without glorifying them.