Challenges throughout my placement

Description

The placement I undertook and was working was one involved in broadcasting live streams from Queen’s SARC building and music rooms. Concerts and conferences that would happen weekly would be recorded and directly broadcast on Youtube and other platforms. This involved a number of tasks from setting up both the hardware and the software, to then vision mixing or editing and then tearing down once the event had concluded. While these were all very rewarding and fun activities, it was very much out of my field of expertise. I had never worked on live streams before, and both the equipment as well as a lot of the way work was undertaken was very new to me, as it was a very different environment to working on a film set. While the work atmosphere was comfortable and friendly due to the team, there was a sense of urgency and pressure that comes from the live aspect of the job itself, as any possible mistakes are being streamed out live without a chance to fix them. The equipment itself was also very new to me, as very frequently we used Birdog PTZ cameras, which are remotely operated cameras which I had never worked with before as well as the live stream software which was new to me.

Reflection

Some aspects were very overwhelming to me, such as the fact that everything was live, the lack of knowledge of the equipment or the fact that I joined in later than the rest of the team due to circumstances. Luckily, the team and the general working atmosphere was very friendly and that made it very easy to learn quickly and ask as many questions as were needed to. That feeling of being overwhelmed faded rather quickly through experience in all of the different parts of the job, and familiarizing myself with the equipment through both work with it and through questions to the team, as well getting a chance to watch my more experienced colleagues work and ask them any questions I had, which allowed to me to progress a lot within a shorter period of time that I had expected.

Evaluation

While the gap in technical knowledge is still something I am working on and focusing on, it seems to be progressing well. So far I have had a lot of experience in setting up and tearing down the hardware, as well as having been in charge of the vision making during the live stream. I also remotely operated the PTZ cameras during the live stream, editing shot types, operating the zoom functions as well as looking for different angles throughout the streams. While this was very helpful and downright fun to do, as I still have a few more aspects to cover, such as understanding how to set up and shut the software down, how to operate the rest of the cameras that are used, and the more nuanced aspects of broadcasting live, especially when it comes to transitions and creating an effective synergy between the stream and the vent that makes for a more interesting and entertaining viewing experience for the audience watching along live.

The Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Once again the Gibbs reflective cycle feels like the most adequate to apply to my situation within the work experience to rate my performance and shortcomings so far. While at first it felt hard to break down the exact feelings I had into words and especially into a blog format, the Gibbs cycle allowed me to break it down and manage it a lot better. Throughout the work placement itself, especially after each day of work, I mentally applied the cycle in order to prepare and understand how I would break my thoughts down and try to focus on key areas of improvement. This constant reflection actually helped me as it pushed me to be better and be more involved with my improvement, as I was understanding what areas I was lacking in as I was doing so, and dealing with them on a day to day basis. This was something I learnt while researching a different model before I started using Gibbs, as David Kolb states: “Reflection is the process by which we gain knowledge and understanding through examining our own experiences.” This was very helpful and when combined with the Gibbs reflective cycle proved a vital part of my experience.

Conclusion

While a lot of the setbacks I faced throughout the placement were very much based in reality and factual experience (or lack thereof in this case), it is safe to say that a lot of the challenges approaching the work experience were mental rather than skill based, and they were overcome successfully thanks to full commitment to improvement from my side, a great working environment, and on a more understated level, the use of reflection throughout. This idea of applying reflection to practice was influenced not only by the Gibbs reflective cycle but also by a quote I came across by John Dewey, which reads: “Reflection is a tool for developing self-awareness, enhancing critical thinking skills, and improving our practice.”

Bibliography

Kolb, D. A. (1976). The Learning Style Inventory: Technical Manual. Boston, MA: McBer.

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Boston: D. C. Health