Pre-production
Prepare my mind
Annotations to Looking into the Magic Mirror, Haas and Trapedo
From this essay, I gathered the background information about Disney's princess movies and insightful comments on their influences on the socially constructed idea: the gender roles. Honestly, it is a long essay. I had to take time to patiently understand thoroughly. I developed habits of engaged reading.
Annotations to Kilbourne's lecture "Killing us softly"
I learned how social media affected our ideas on gender roles from her 40-minute-lecture and developed openness. It has changed my way to define myself as a female and been a warning for me. When I spend time shopping in the mall, watch TV shows, or even chatting with family, I come to realize hundreds of signs showing that there is still enormous room for feminism.
Annotations to Cinderella 2015
I revisited Cinderella 2015 and annotated several scenes that reflected Disney's ideas about genders as the source in the Podcats. I also read a reviewing article online. I developed the ability to apply reading skills to various kinds of media. [Check to see the final summary post.]
Production
Prepare the contents
Director of the podcast
I was the director of the podcast. I coordinated members' time: scheduling three Zoom meetings, setting deadlines for each task and making to-do lists. Plus, it was my first time hosting Zoom meetings since college life started, controlling all the buttons and being like a leader. I adapted to group working and learned how to collaborate with others and to be flexible.
One of the script writers
I participated in the scriptwriting (I didn't coordinate the script segments). When I wrote my part, I tried to make it oral. The ability to fit into the different media is important in communications. I also combined resources from all kinds of media, which helped improve my written literacy, digital literacy, and overall communication skills.
Editor of the podcast
I was the editor of our podcast video. I spent about 20 hours collecting sources and editing them with Premiere. I am now more familiar with applying communication skills to compose videos. However, if I could communicate my designs of the video with others better, I would be more efficient.
Reflections
This was my first time being the director of a short but challenging project. Some of the members were in Irvine, and others were in China. The jet lag was 15 hours and members were not available all the time. So, it was a challenge to coordinate all the time. In the production process, I changed the strategy of recording separately to recording together in a meeting. This instant change conflicted with one of the members’ schedules. So she had to record on her own, which might be an unpleasant experience for her. I have learned that it is important to stick to the plan and try to minimize sudden changes.
Apart from the scheduling problem, I have also figured out that it will be more efficient if keeping all the members’ focus on one chatting medium. During the production process, two members in Irvine used Discord, and the other two in China used WeChat. It was a bit inconvenient to jump between the two software. Therefore, in future teamwork, if I can hold the group chat via only one application, and members will be able to react to each other’s ideas simultaneously, the efficiency will be enhanced.
I learned other people's ideas on how Disney constructs social ideas about gender roles, such as the change of females’ actions and characteristics and body images. I will refer to those ideas in my essay. Additionally, in the preproduction discussion, one of the members concerned that whether to expect a huge change in Disney’s princesses. I think perhaps I could mention this problem in a short paragraph.
-Tianai