Today’s Plan:
- Job Fair Information
- Writing Minor
- Community Engagement Project
Job Fair Information
I know some of you are seniors, so you might be interested in this.
The Film Studies Program will host a career connections panel with the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media this Wednesday, October 28th from 12:30-2 pm.
This is a chance to hear from a group of working media professionals (list below), to network, and to hear about how the paths they took in their own careers. This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who is potentially interested in a career in media, whether you’re an aspiring writer, actor, director, designer, or dreamer (!).
This year we will of course conduct the event virtually. The zoom invite is below. Plan on forty-five minutes of conversation between the panelists and then a half hour opportunity to ask questions directly.
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Career Connections @ UNC
Colorado Office of Film, Television and MediaOur panelists are:
– Michael Selditch, an independent writer/producer/director who has created and/or showrun numerous documentary and non-scripted television series since 1999
– Shawna Schultz, President and Executive Producer with Mass FX Media, a Denver-based animation/motion design/vfx studio who most recently worked on “The Social Dilemma” for Netflix
– Zhengua “Z” Yang, Founder and Executive Producer with Boulder-Based game development and publishing company Serenity Forge
– Sylvia Gregory, Owner and Casting Director with Sylvia Gregory Casting, which casts talent for SAG Feature and Independent Short Films, video games (including with Colorado-based Deck Nine Games), commercials, web spots, print ads and ad campaigns for numerous national and regional commercials
I have included the Zoom meeting ID and password in today’s email.
Writing Minor
I wanted to share some general information regarding the Writing Minor and the courses we are offering this spring.
Community Engagement Project
This week we start work on our community engagement project. My goal is for us to finish this project by November 24th–that’s only 4 weeks from now! We’ve been moving at a bit slower pace this semester, so we will have to be productive these next few weeks.
Below I outline the deliverables for each team. You can certainly change teams at this point!
- Grant Writing Team
- Social Media Team
- Website ReDesign Team
- Documentation Team
Grant Writing Team
Deliverables:
- Grant Recommendation Research Report
- Grant Application for Green Packaging / Tableware
This week the team will begin researching private-sector funding opportunities here in Colorado. I expect each team member to locate 6 organizations. Those will be compiled into a Google Sheet. Team members will then use the Foundation Center database to research their 6 organizations. [I’ll have more written up here for Thursday’s meeting with the grant writing team]
The grant writing team will share their research in class on November 5th. The grant writing recommendation report will be due Thursday, November 12th. In class on the 12th we will dissect a previous grant application and develop materials for the Green application. We will compare/discuss drafts on Thursday November 19th. Final revisions will be due Tuesday the 24th.
Let’s move to the collaborative workspace.
Social Media Team
Deliverables:
- Peer Organization Report
- Social Media Calendar
The Peer Organization report details other non-profit organizations’ social media strategies, with an eye on content. I would like each team member to identify 3 organizations and ” go=”” deep,”=”” spending=”” about=”” an=”” hour=”” with=”” each.=”” you=”” should=”” analyze:<=”” p=””>
- What kind of content the organization shares
- What other organizations or influencers the non-profit follows
- How often the non-profit posts
- How often the non-profit responds to comments/engages
- Engagement levels (what kinds of posts tend to get the highest level of engagement?)
- Donation Options Recommendation report
- Peer Organization Websites, Revision Plan
- Website Revision with Postmortem
The due dates of the website material might change depending on how many people work with this team. I am honestly unsure how many people need to work on the Recommendation Report–it feels like a one person job. Maybe two. Essentially, we need to produce something like this cloud video recommendation report.
The rest of the team can begin working on the Website Revision Memo. For this part of the project, we need two things: first, examples of strong non-profit websites: who/what should we emulate? Second, a more detailed list of the exact things we should address.
We should identify and examine exemplary non-profit sites, paying attention both to content and design. So, to get started, let’s start looking at some exemplary sites.
For next week, each team member should find three sites and apply the rubric below (note–let’s see if there’s things we should add to the rubric, I am doing this off my head):
Here’s some ideas for what we can look for:
- What kinds of content do the sites have (headings, word counts, different menu tabs, etc)?
- Mission Statement on the home page (yes or no)? How many words?
- Donate button? What happens when you click it (pop up, link to another page, do you have to sign up for something? Patreon? etc
- Where are links to social media (in the header? footer? margins? On their own page?
- How many colors are on the page?
- Describe the layout–single column text? multi-column? Large header image a la the “works every time” layout? Text on side next to image?
- How different is the layout of the homepage to other pages on the site (major change–does size of header image change? Does the actual image change? etc
- About how much of the screen is text/content and how much is white space/padding?
- How many fonts on the site? Serif or sans-serif?
- How many colors on the site?
Documentation Team
Deliverables:
- Embedded Experience Journal
- Documentation Interviews
- Documentation Draft
I need to see who is interested in this group (in both classes) and plan on meeting with them. This is the first time I’ve designed something like this, and I’m struggling a bit to map it out logistically.
For next week, we should transform some of this stuff into practical heuristics for volunteer experiences (the embedded experience journals). We need to know what we need to know.
There is another issue here.
