Author: hadleyrobbins

By: Hadley Robbins

Have you ever felt like you’ve hit an inspiration block where you can’t come up with anything creative or exciting to do for a project? Well, that was me at the beginning of the semester. I felt like I had already covered the topics I was passionate about in other projects and wanted to do something new. That’s when it hit me – I haven’t done anything on fashion or feminism yet. After brainstorming and chatting with friends, I decided that for my individual multimedia project, I would combine the two topics to show feminism’s effect on women’s fashion between the 50’s through the 80’s. 

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It’s safe to say that this is my favorite project I’ve ever done. I love how all the photos came out portraying the different fashion trends and the studio effect that they have. I also am really pleased with how interactive the page is through the use of visual, textual and audio elements incorporated. If I were to take this project farther, I would have loved to have done a video including interview’s with experts of each era on the impact of feminism on women’s fashion or a scripted voice-over with b-roll showing images of fashion icons of the eras. Adding this element would have driven the story even further by utilizing a tool discussed in “Design Is Storytelling” called multi sensory design. As stated in the text, multi sensory design goes beyond the traditional focus on vision – it entails a whole body experience. Including various elements to your story keeps viewers interested and engaged. Moving forward, it is my goal, for whenever I have any new projects, to find ways to incorporate different design elements to make the story stronger. 

On top of creating an individual multimedia project, I was also tasked with working on a group multimedia project this semester. As mentioned in my earlier blogs, my partner, Alexis Hildenbrandt, and I created a video for a non-profit organization called A Child’s Haven. Alexis and I encountered many roadblocks trying to get this video done, but nevertheless, we did it! We were both really happy with the final outcome of our video. Our main goal for this project was to evoke emotion out of our viewers. To do this, we had to think about “how users will anticipate an experience and how they will remember it moving forward”, as quoted in the same textbook previously mentioned. After finalizing and presenting the project, I feel confident that Alexis and I successfully captured emotion. One thing that I wish we were able to do was to have more than one interview in the video, but given the current state of our world with COVID-19, that was not permissible. 

All in all, despite my apprehensive feelings at the beginning of the semester, I feel proud of the two projects I created and am more confident in my abilities as a content creator. 

By: Hadley Robbins

For many college students like myself, it’s that time in the semester where everything is starting to pick up and move full steam ahead. Needless to say, I’m exhausted BUT it’s the final push and we have to keep going. Working on my individual project all semester means there shouldn’t be much left and luckily, there’s not. So, what’s left to do?

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Wrapping Up The Photoshoots

This Sunday I will be shooting my last photoshoot of the project. This shoot will consist of 50’s and 70’s dress. Overall, this has been my favorite part of the project. Being able to see the pre-planning of what people will wear and how they will do their hair and makeup come to life is truly rewarding. From there, I will begin editing the photos and the behind the scenes film footage using different Adobe software’s like I have been with the content from the first shoot. To me, the editing process is relaxing (if and only if, the content comes out well). You can do it anywhere at any time whether you’re sitting outside or have thirty minutes to kill in between a class or meeting. To make this aspect of my project even stronger, after the editing process, I will need to go back in and fine tune everything to make it to ensure a consistent aesthetic.

Putting Words to Screen

Similar to the media sources of my project, I have also been working on the narrative aspect of my project over the course of the semester. My biggest struggle with this has been transitioning my brain away from formal, academic writing to informal, digital writing. If I can offer up any advice on digital writing it would be – ask yourself if you or your friends would read it and if not, make adjustments accordingly. In this final phase of my project, I will continue to tweak and edit my narrative. Since my target audience is women, I want some of my female friends and family members to read it so they can give constructive feedback on how to make it better.

Web Design

Lastly, the long form is where the narrative and media sources will all come together to create my individual multimedia project. I would say this is the part of my project that I most dread and where I have the most work cut out for me. I have decided to redo my personal website to tailor it more to my liking, which means more work, but if that’s what it takes to make my project better and for me to be proud of it, then that’s ok! With that being said, there is a lot that goes into web design. UX, user experience and UI, user interface, are two crucial web design concepts to be aware of. They are pretty self-explanatory but UX focuses on the functionality and UI focuses on the appearance. You can’t have one without the other. Therefore, as I get closer to the final product, it is crucial that my website is both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly in order for it to be great.

By: Hadley Robbins

Have you ever travelled with sixteen other women where everyone has an opinion on where to eat, what to do, where to stay, etc.? After going to Nashville for fall break this past weekend with a group that size, I would equate our day to day struggle on making decisions to some of the issues I have run into in the production phase of my individual multimedia project.

Don’t Stress, Divert.

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The biggest issue I have encountered thus far is finding a date for the photoshoot. I have had to change the shoot date a few times now, which is totally expected when working with twelve individuals to find a time that works for everyone but, it sparks panic for someone who is a huge planner AND has a type A personality. It also does not help that October is the busiest month of the semester with fall break, Homecoming and Halloween taking over three of the four weekends. BUT, things do not always go as planned and I constantly have to remind myself of this, so what do I do when this happens? I work on the aspects of my project that I do have full control over such as curating the outfits, and editing the narrative.

Styling Process

Originally, I thought that organizing everyone’s outfits was going to be the most difficult part. Turns out, this has been the least stressful part (*knock on wood*). To start this process, I wrote out a detailed outline consisting of what 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s women’s fashion entailed. To visually understand and gather inspiration, I created Pinterest mood boards for each decade. From here, it was and still is, for I am not done yet, my job to piece the outfits for my models together. One of my friends’ moms volunteers at a clothing donation place, Safe House Ministries, Inc. and was kind enough to lend me a few pieces from the 50s and 60s – checking three out of twelve outfits off. My friends have been really helpful in pulling items from their own closets and envisioning how they’re going to do their hair and makeup to create the final look.

Perfecting the Narrative

Writing for digital media is so different from writing an academic paper. As a college student, I constantly alternate between the two forms of writing. I often have to remind myself that it’s not about proving academic credibility, but instead, keeping readers hooked. You have to get over the fact that digital writing feels so casual, because it’s supposed to be that way. You’re supposed to connect with your readers. For my individual project, the tone and language of my narratives first draft was more academic than blog style. It takes time and practice to get back into the swing of writing blogs. To refresh my memory, I went back and read some of my old blog posts. Even just writing this blog post, I feel more confident about editing my narrative. 

If there is anything to take away from this post, remember to not rush the process because good things take time. I was reminded of this while reading Austin Kleon’s, “Show Your Work,” in which he talked about how going through the steps of starting a project can make us vulnerable. With that being said, if you feel yourself start to stress or panic, use those feelings to fuel motivation and work on something else until you have calmed down and are ready to go back. 

By: Hadley Robbins

For the group multimedia project assigned in, my partner, Alexis Hildenbrandt, and I are creating a success story video for a local non-profit, A Child’s Haven. Our client, Emily Harper, wants the video to show what the program does for children – how they were prior to starting at A Child’s Haven and how they have grown since being enrolled. On top of that, she wants us to make the video informational, so they can show it to prospective families. In pre-production, Alexis and I have researched sources for inspiration and learning purposes. We looked at past videos made by A Child’s Haven to understand their brand identity and vision. For learning, we also looked at their website and spoke to various clients to gain a better understanding of the program and all that they do for children. As for sources of inspiration, we read some of Make-A-Wish South Carolina’s wish stories to learn how to create a success story. Last semester, I interned with Make-A-Wish South Carolina and wrote wish stories, so my experience with that has helped me tremendously in knowing how to successfully capture a child and their families story. 

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Concept Development Process

When going through the pre-production process, it is important to follow a concept development process. Alexis and I designed ours when we met with our clients for the first time. We identified their need, – the success story – talked about their target audiences, – pediatricians/physicians, social workers and teachers and started brainstorming how we would create a strong video. We began acting on our development process last week when we went to A Child’s Haven to shoot an interview with one of their clients. Our interviewee did an amazing job – showing emotion that will hopefully inspire our audience. After we had asked the interviewee all of our questions, an unexpected moment happened where our interviewee continued to talk about her child’s experience and tears came to her eyes. Alexis and I quickly turned the camera back on to shoot the moment. This was something chapter one of one of our readings, Multimedia Storytelling, touched on. It talked about how “unguarded moments” can happen at any moment and it is important for storytellers to be “on the ball” all the time to catch the “perfect” moment.

Emotional Journey

Another concept that Alexis and I have been utilizing from our reading, Design is Storytelling, is the emotional journey. The emotional journey consists of “the feelings those events inspire.” This concept has great importance to us because one of our main goals with the success story is to evoke an emotional response from our audience. We hope to shoot real, candid content that will inspire individuals to get involved, speak highly of A Child’s Haven and refer others who might benefit from the program.

Alexis and I are continuing to work on completing our development process. We are going back to A Child’s Haven on Thursday, September 23, to shoot b-roll of the children during their school day, engaging in activities dealing with emotions, which is one thing that A Child’s Haven is designed to help children with.