Reflecting With Video

So I finally got around to posting my 'Starting Out On BAPP Arts" Video on YouTube, it took me forever to do as between now and January is my busy season and I have over 18 jobs that will require a lot of work to prepare for and carry out.

But, I personally found that I can reflect much easier using a video to talk about my experiences and I could even have scope in the future to show you some issues or experiences that I have had to go through. I think the reason I find it easier is because when I'm typing or writing I'm always looking back checking over my work but with a video my flow of ideas, thoughts etc just happen more naturally and I get into a rhythm of speaking and can go on forever in detail about things.

I can see this could also be a negative thing because if I just go on forever and in too much detail I could start to lose track of the topic I'm speaking about but to combat this I think I just have to pause and take a breath every know and then.

So to conclude, take a look at my video below but I really do think this is a great way to look back over experiences.

Learning From Reflection

So last Friday night I was working at the unique venue of a watermill to carry out a disco for a 50th Birthday Party.

As we carried all the equipment into the room where we were meant to be working, this happened to be up two flights of stairs so temporarily made me feel drained to combat this I gave myself two minutes just to catch my breath so this was not an issue.

What did turn out to be an issue was that I did not anticipate the area we were working in to have the lowered ceiling that it did, to my annoyance this meant that we would not be able to fit our overhead bars for lighting as we usually did this immediately got me thinking "Where am I going to put the lights?"

Feeling a bit cagey as we only had a short amount setup time left I started to look at ways to combat the issue, now I remember seeing a YouTube video a few years back on how to mount lights to speaker stands using a clamp called an O-Clamp. Now I remember seeing some of these in the bottom of one of my many cases, so searched them out and low and behold they fitted to the speaker stands to allow me to mount lights there.

Now in hindsight I should have probably done better research regarding the venue in advance this meaning I could have known about the ceiling before arrival and been able to pre-install the clamps saving me both time and stress. This being said I did still manage to problem solve at the time and the overall job was a success so I am pleased with myself for being able to do that.

Moving forward I am going to look into details about venues I am due to be working at prior to each job even if this involved a site visit a few weeks before the job just so I can better prepare myself for these situations. Also to avoid me getting stressed about the lack of time available to me I will leave a few extra minutes earlier than I usually would just to better prepare.

I believe I can relate the experience to Kolb's Learning cycle as:

I experienced an issue > On reflecting I looked back over the experience > This enabled me to think of what I could have done better > Allowing me to plan what I can do in future jobs to avoid the issue.

Making The Sale With Images

In the Mobile DJ industry and in fact any business people are always trying find ways of generating more income. My way of attempting to do this was with a mood lighting optional extra, now the difficult thing with mood lighting as your about to find out is trying to sell the concept with just words so let me attempt to try and first explain what it is.

"Mood lighting in terms of the Mobile DJ Industry is a way of making a room even more customisable and personal to the client. It is achieved by placing a number of LED lights capable of almost any colour around the room or even highlighting a specific element in the room then setting them to a colour or colours to create a certain emotion or ambience in the room or on the object."

The problem with me explaining it how I just have in writing really does the concept no real justice as the idea is really something you have to see to understand what it can do, this is why I think having a series of photo's for your business or in fact whatever you do is so invaluable. Backing this up in my case I used to just explain to my clients what the extra could do light I did above but after recently creating the below photo album and sharing this with potential clients there has been much more interest.

Take a look a look at my album below I bet you agree my words under sell it completely.

(https://flic.kr/s/aHskkvGzT3)

Social Networking Is Such A Useful Tool

Over the last few weeks I have been organising a project at one of the venues I manage entertainment for, the project involved getting some old heavy disco lights down from the ceiling but as this particular venue was a bowling centre this turned out to be a bit more of a challenge.

Basically the main challenge was working out a way to safely get up over two and a half meters in the air and lower down a heavy piece of equipment. Luckily I was friends with a manager at Yeovil's local night club on Facebook so started a conversation with him about my project and asking how the service the heavy equipment they have in their venue (knowing they had some heavy lighting from my heavy nights on the town helped me out) he proceeded to tell me that they owned a scaffolding tower which they erected when they needed the work at height, so the cheeky side of me decided to ask to borrow it which to my surprise he agreed.

The only issue now was that he informed me the scaffold was too big to fit in my Ford Fiesta and that I would need a van to transport it, (the annoying thing being the venue I manage is only 100 yards down the street) not knowing any van drivers I took to social media once again and posted in a group called "Yeovil Real News" which has over fourteen thousand members and is dedicated to keeping local residents up to date with news and events and help out local business's. (see my post below) 

Thanks to this group many people reached out and offered help so now the project is all ready to go. The only downside being that there was a few posts tagging people that were just not replying or giving useless information that I had to wade through, but at least my project is all ready to go.

First Post Nerves

So I am writing my first blog post which if I'm completely honest has probably been down to me being a bit nervous and not knowing what to expect from the course. I have blogged in the past but it has been a while since I have last posted something up which probably contributed to the nerves.

My initial thoughts when reading the tasks for module one was that they seemed overall quite simple, but on discussion with some of my peers I realised they are more designed to get you thinking and reflecting about how you work.

So overall, although I was a bit nervous regarding the course and felt like I was falling behind I think I am going to be okay as long as I network with my fellow students and try to separate some time from my hectic work schedule.