A James Dean Production
Well what a day at the House of Thornes. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end.
"Research a colour for it's cultural and psycological significance, prepare and deliver a 2-3 minute presentation about your findings using speech, slides and a A4 flyer handout. Have it ready by 2.00pm". The looks on everyones face were priceless. Feelings of dread and of excitement were flying around the room at a rate of knots.
The colour I was given was PURPLE. James also had the same colour so we got together and worked as a team to try and come up with something worthy. This is the first time I had worked with James and I enjoyed his input tremendously, he not only has good ideas but he can also take on board other peoples opinions with ease.
We had a good method, if a tad unplanned initially. We would both come up with as many ideas as possible, write them in our sketchbook then split the tasks so that I would find pictures for the slideshow and sort the order of the presentation in cue card form and James would design the flyer and the slides. We then had the difficulty of trying to find somewhere to practice and rehearse. The library being the usual option was far too quiet to be using expressionistic dialogue so at the other end of the scale we settled in the refectory.
After major adjustments to the order of the presentation we each went through it. I was surprised to find out that James was a natural in this kind of thing and his so called 'blagging through it' was actually 'expert improvisation' and would have put some professionals to shame. I felt that we both had a very good little show and was confident that it would go down well.
James went up first, which turned out to be a good thing as I could use his feedback to input into my talk. Over running was James' only problem which I bared in mind.
I went to give my presentation and was surprised by how nervous I was as I do worse than this every week. I tried to talk clearly and use my hands for expression. Nerves do make you forget a couple of things and in this case it was a bit of shuffling and not moving on my second slide. During my talk, I looked up at the slides and I realised how professional they looked on the screen which nearly distracted me from the job in hand.
I feel that in the timescale given we did extremely well and were pleased with our 'performances'. I think nerves played a small part in my delivery but this is only a natural at this stage in the course.Also well done to James as his input gave it an edge that I could not have done in such a short time.
An interesting talk with Steve about the blogs made me realise the importance of 'the email' he sent out and also that the comments we leave should be more constructive using criticism with equal amounts of praise. Comments I leave in the future will be constructive and concise, in theory.
I feel the afternoon was a bit wasted as we had to wait in the refectory that has a distinct lack of research material unless you are on a Domestic Cleaning Services Course learning about 'large women in large smocks with large mops and wrinkly socks' (Dr Seuss, 1982).
posted by Dean @ 9:01 am
9 comments
9 Comments:
Impressive slides..they have a huge impact on you when you look at them..The little cards you created looked like a good idea, I imagine they wa extreamely usefull and practical. I think next time I will aopt that kind of method, hopefully that's not any time soon.
Hey thanks dean, I should hope it was good it took a bit longer than usual.
I agree with Jamie, the slides are great.
I can't believe you were nervous when you have to sing in front of crowds.
Ah, "the email". Henceforth known as a "digital b*ll*cking" [Kalabic 2006].
Interesting point you make about you becoming quite nervous at the prospect of doing such a presentation, I was very similar.
You've just got to look at it as a learning curve. If your first one was good with little planning, what will the ones be like with weeks of planning?
They are good slides, I think thats what mine lacked. I didn't have any images I just focused on the textual content, as well as the nerves.
I liked the look of the hand out flyer that you did too.
Well you already have alot of positive comments about your slides there isn't much point me mentioning it then!
Although the idea of using the pictures is good, for me personally I would have found them more of a distraction especially with no words in your slides, could you really remember everything you took notes on just by looking at the pictures?
I would definatly forget something by using that method Dean.
The main idea though for NOT having 'words in our slides' was that it would be more distracting to the audience having to read text.
When they are reading the slides they are not listening to the commentary.
They were complimentary rather than explanatory.
Plus we had all our speech on 6 small cue cards to make them less noticeable than a sketchbook.
Everything was designed to make the audience less distracted and more interacted.
I forgot about them little cards you had, DOH!
But I still think a little bif of text would also be more helpful.
Like when Steve does a presentation the majority of it is all text and very rarely are pictures used.
Not having a go at the way your doing it Dean, each to their own and all. But I would find it quite difficult to present and also to take notes from.
As when your taking notes on presentations the speaker usually speaks faster then you can write and you can miss important bits by noting down the wrong thing as your rushing to write your notes.
At least with text on the slides, you would put the most important text on then go in detail about them, just like Steve does in his presentations. Then you can note down the highlighted words and listen what is being said.
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