Year 2 Resolutions

University is now in full swing — my second week is just over, my third week is about to start and some assessments have already been set. Plus, I want to put into writing some resolutions I have for this academic year. Let’s talk about it in an old-fashioned blog entry!

This semester, I have a lot of subjects that I like: Video Production, Radio Production, Narration & Storytelling in Fiction, Writing for the Media (Advanced) and Analysis of Media Texts. I also have a Social Media class, but I dislike anything to do with learning about social media in general (it feels very “market-y” and capitalistic), so it’s probably not a surprise that it’s my least favourite subject. But still! Apart from that one class, I’m enjoying everything, which is really a great start to second year.

I absolutely love that I have two whole classes entirely dedicated to studying fiction, storytelling and writing. It’s a dream come true! And of course, there’s plenty of storytelling involved in video and radio, too. Also, god knows I’m a nerd for analysing media…

There are a lot of meaty assessments as well, mostly for video and radio: for the former, we have to produce 8 minutes of video content, in pairs, switching roles depending on the production; for the latter, we have to produce well over an hour of radio content, in the form of three different radio shows.

At the moment I don’t have any idea what I could do for video. We get a lot of creative freedom, so we can do short films, music videos, documentaries, or anything that we can think of. I already have a short film idea in my head that I want to use for the Graded Unit, so now I have to come up with another idea that can be executed in 5-8 minutes.

In contrast to this, I already have ideas for our radio assessments, which are quite big: a 15 mins live radio music show (although we’re getting assessed for only 15 minutes, it looks like our music shows will be about an hour-long in practice, since our college is getting its own radio station!); a 15 mins radio documentary or drama; and a 20 mins magazine program that we’re going to make in groups. As I said, this is well over an hour’s worth of radio content that we’re producing this year! And I am quite happy about this — I can add lots of radio projects on my portfolio, as well as video.

Although we still have the choice over whether we want to make fiction or documentaries, for me personally, I feel like this year should be all about fiction. I made documentaries last year and I don’t feel like I have any subjects that I feel strongly about that would warrant a full documentary. Plus, I really, really want to focus on my fiction writing and my storytelling, both in video and radio.

That’s kind of been the reason I joined this course at the beginning, you know? I wanted to tell stories, using different media. Last year was about real stories, other people’s stories, through documentaries, and only one short film. This year, however, I want to take any opportunity I can to tell fictional (but ultimately real and relatable) stories.

I also want to branch out into genres I haven’t explored in this type of media before, namely sci-fi. Both my short films and my radio drama will either have sci-fi elements, or take place entirely in a sci-fi setting (for my radio drama in particular, I’m thinking of some classic cyberpunk shenanigans). I just hope I can pull both of them off — but if there’s one thing last year has shown me, is that I can do this type of stuff and I shouldn’t doubt myself and my skills so much.

This year, I want to be a little bit more confident in my abilities, too! I don’t want to put myself down, even in joke form, I want to avoid it as much as possible. It’s my new resolution and something I want to actively work on in the coming months.

I will also try to join a couple of societies — namely, I want to join the film and radio societies (yes, I do have a one-track mind, thanks for noticing, haha!). I don’t want to over-commit, given how many assessments we have, but two or so should be doable!

This entry was pretty short, but I like writing small updates about my life in-between all the tea reflections (I have two of those planned next). I feel really good about this semester and this year in general, and I have already seen my energy and productivity levels rise as I am surrounded again by creative people and doing creative stuff! ✨ Probably the best start of any university year I’ve had so far. Let’s make it a good one! ?