My Recent Experience

This term I took a “Writing for Multimedia” class. I do not have much experience in this area so I was hoping that this class would teach me some skills, as well as give me some experience by putting me out there, challenging me, and letting me face and solve obstacles that come in my way. This class was very rewarding to me, because I was able to choose a topic that inspired me, and I was given freedom to express it in my own way. It was also rewarding because of all the obstacles I have faced and did my best to overcome throughout the development and execution of my project. In the second week of class, I decided that the topic I wanted to focus my project on was PLUR, the heart and soul of the rave culture that is found in EDM events. After I decided on this topic I had a vision of creating a multimedia piece that joins together all the aspects of PLUR in an authentic and natural way. I planned on finding EDM events in Eugene in which I can capture the PLUR society; I wanted to let the people express it in their own way, and by using their own words. My image was to create a piece that lets the viewer feel like he/she is experiencing the atmosphere of the event, and seeing what PLUR stands for, first-hand. As soon as I had my idea set I started contacting officials in charge of press passes to different events coming up. To my disappointment I was only able to get one response, so I had to let my project rely on footage I would get from that event alone. When I got there I realized that the majority of the crowd was not at a legal age, because the event was a 16-and-over event. I had to filter the people I interviewed by making sure they were over 18, and this decreased the number of interviews I was able to successfully gather. The organizers of the event gave me a press pass along with a few conditions, one of the conditions was that the word “rave” was not to be mentioned or linked to the event in my video, this restricted my interviews and effected the outcomes. Another issue I faced was the knowledge and investment that the attendees in this event had towards the concept of PLUR. Many of the people I interviewed were first-timers, so they could not deeply articulate on the concept. They did, however, articulate on their experience and what they felt and saw at this event, and these explanations went hand-in-hand with the meaning of PLUR. By facing these issues I learned that you must be able to read the people you interview to be able to ask them the right questions, the questions that will help them express their thoughts. I do believe that I could have gotten more material to work with had I been able to attain access to another event. The technical issues that I faced certainly did not help me against the stress of gathering all the footage in one day. I rented my equipment for this project and the earliest possible time for me to get the equipment was one hour before I had to be at the event receiving my pass and briefing. The camera was given to me with less than 25 percent battery charge, and I did not have time to fully charge the camera before the event. This caused me to stop gathering my material several times during the event to wait for the camera to charge. The technical issues kept coming when the videos I was recording filled the memory space, I had to go back to delete some of my footage several times to make space for more. Going through this experience showed me the importance of having an extra battery and an extra memory card. The lack of these back-ups cost me a waste of valuable time and potential material. My biggest technical issue, however, was the audio quality that I lacked. Due to my lack of experience, I was only able to rent a basic video camera, this video camera did not have the option of attaching a microphone, and so I had to rent an audio recorder, to which I attached a simple lava microphone. The equipment that I had was not a good match to the loud venue, and although I tried to adjust the levels and raise the audio quality, it still did not sound as well as I’d hoped. In the future, I have only one solution for this issue: better suitable equipment. Although the quality of my project needs improvement, I do believe that the essence and soul of PLUR shines through my piece. I am grateful for this experience that has taught me so much. I look forward to creating many more projects because I know that I will face new problems every time I try, and I also know that I will learn and grow through each and every one of them. As Arianna Huffington said, “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success”.