Presentations

Sitting in the Stevenson lecture theatre at 9 o'clock in the morning isn't anyones plan of an ideal Thursday morning. Fortunately, it isn't for a lecture, it's for our presentations that every group has been working on for the past month or so. At the minute, it's a case of bricking it and waiting to see someone else's presentation to be able to gauge how good ours will be in comparison.

Group 1 started off and lasted for about 25 minutes. Without sounding rude, watching their presentation settled whatever nerves I initially had. The presentation slides were nice and simple and watching them present was obvious that they hadn't rehearsed their presentation nearly as much as our group has. As irritating as it was having to come in to rehearse SO many times, it will actually pay off. I did like their app mock up though, it was really impressive and i'm jealous and want to know how the hell they did it! It genuinely looked like they actually made the app. Their website demonstration was impressive also and it's obvious they put a lot of work in to it. All their work was well thought out and visually good looking, but their presentation skills kind of let them down.

Group 2 began with all the assessors being ushered out the room under the premise that their is some sort of emergency and they had to leave right away. Not sure what is going on or how long it will take for them to come back so I decided to start doing this but it turns out the presentation is still going without them in the room. We're told that all the lecturers have been taken to an immersive room, which sounds interesting and I presume that they'll be given the same visuals and audio we have. It's a good approach of how to do the pitch. It's integrated radio quite well, which is one of the aspects i've wanted to see how each group uses it as the radio students have been kept to themselves for most of the year and this is the first time we've worked with them. Group 1 didn't appear to have a radio student so they didn't use it at all but that's fair enough.

Group 3 has taken a similar start to our group by playing a teaser video as the start of the presentation. I know this group didn't rehearse until last night but so far it's an impressive slideshow and the presenters are very confident in what they're talking about. Aw crap, now we're watching a trailer for their idea and I know i'm in it somewhere. Not looking forward to seeing myself. Trailer looks very slick and i'm not even seen :D Radio is being used to offer background stories to the characters that wouldn't be able to fit in to the show, which is pretty smart. Crap, a photo of me comes up on the screen and I look like i'm shitting myself. Great! Other than that, sounds like a good show, i'd watch it. Considering they had one rehearsal, a good presentation, well thought out plan and strategy. Complete opposite pitch to ours, as theres is all media to show, ours is mainly theoretical with a couple of examples.

Group 4 finally started after a technical glitch with the projector and they are looking at the long distance relationship brief. They have decided to start their presentation giving their statistics about their solution before actually telling us the actual idea, more of a thought process style. Ok, makes a bit more sense now that we have seen part of the first episode. It seems to be about a group of chinese students who live in the UK and dealing with their relationship back home. Nice spin on long distance relationships seeing as most will probably look at boyfriends and girlfriends. Very entertaining clips we saw, no radio student again but to be honest, I could see this being like a cult web show or something, very good writing, editing and directing. The presentation slides are very flashy and eye grabbing, they did a very good job with it. Only issue with the presentation is just the order, would of been better with the first episode shown after a quick description of their plan.

One group left to watch before our group goes up and present and bizarrely, there is sense of nervousness which is strange seeing as all I do is plug my laptop in and pressing next in powerpoint.

Group 5 have began with a trailer for their project. They've decided to look at the Arts brief, the first one yet. The video is very impressive and very professional, but that is expected seeing as their editor is Nick Perry who is a bit of a god when it comes to editing and definitely someone I see as a bit of an inspiration. Slideshow is professional as well but again, done in Keynote which is Nick's signature really. Radio is used to broadcast a art critic who is a little bit eccentric. I suppose there's not really much you can do with sound for the art brief but should have really come in to consideration at the start of the module. Oh well, the radio student was obviously happy to just go for a simple radio addition. I'm a bit proud of our radio student as she was very forceful in getting radio involved more than just the standard radio box method. She is happy with the contribution radio plays in our project, as it's a stand alone product and doesn't get ignored as it's an integral part of our project.

One thing i've noticed about all the presentations so far, before we go up and present, is that no one is giving out freebies to the panel, so we will be the first, and maybe the only group to do so. Is it a bribe? I suppose so but to be honest, it's a damn good bribe! There's also no promotional material either. So far, we seem to be the only group to go all out on the promo materials. Anyway, time to GO GO GO!!!!