Cut.

Although it felt like the documentary was never going to end, it has. On day on the challenge seemed somewhat scary -  where we were going to take it was very unclear.

Within the first few weeks we experienced out first problems. Initially loosing a member was a difficult way to begin the project, but it only meant those of us who were left had to work harder. I think it’s fair to say we rose to the occasion, and gave it everything we had.

Since beginning my Interactive Media Design studies in September this year the emphasis on team work in my life has been huge. Previously I had studied Electronic Engineering at Edinburgh and the team work which I experienced there did not even compare to that which I experienced in the first few weeks in Dundee. In school I would never have labeled my self as a big team player. I liked working on my own, with my ideas. However, I’ve learnt the power working within teams, and how much that can bring to you personally, and the satisfaction of sharing your thoughts and ideas with others. And at the core of this project was an incredible team effort. Every point, of every idea was worked and worked until everything was perfect. When problems became apparent we faced them head on and tackled them with vigour and determination. No matter which way you measure success, I know that team work was essential to our project being the success that it was. As a team we knew what we had created was something that we were really proud of, and that is really what mattered to us.

Honesty played a huge role in the overall project as well. What i’ve learnt through all of this is that there is a huge difference between criticising peoples ideas and, well not constructive criticism, but criticising, and helping to develop and discover more about their ideas. Many of their great ideas that we came up with for this project came from the initial idea which was iterated over and over again to the point of perfection.

There was also a definite feeling of aiming as high as possible. This was the first proper opportunity which we’ve had to show off what we are about, and we wanted to make a really big statement. At times we were worried that we had been too unrealistic. There’s further to fall from the top, so we didn’t want the whole project to crash and burn. The consequence of this was having to adjust and refine our aim as we went along. In fact, we even cut entire sections of our film that were in the plan as they no longer fitted. We weren’t 100% happy with them, so they weren’t going in! This was really difficult to swallow -  having to throw away hours of time and effort, but it was for the greater good.

I know i’ve mentioned it before but heck, GoogleWave made our project possible! The time and which this Google product feel into our laps couldn’t have been better. Having heard about it months ago, I knew I wanted it as soon it came out - foruntately I found a kind gentlemen, Chris Olbekson from www.C3MTech.com, who kindly donated one his invites to me. As a team, we don’t all run on the same schedule, so keeping up to date was a real challenge. GoogleWave rose to the challenge and made collaborating on every part of the project so simple. Now, today, GoogleWave has a lot of issues. The UI could seriously do with a look over, and the infrastructure could be beefed up, sometimes it crashes if there is too much going on, but grounding for game changing platform is in place. I would love to see GoogleWave replace my email client and become my main form of web communication - there is simply nothing out there, in my opinion, which comes anywhere near Wave.

So what does it all mean? In the end our Documentary when down great. We received praise from many people, and it went down great on the presentation day. Now I can’t wait for the next project. This documentary has opened up a world of opportunities for me. Creatively, and technically I feel like i’ve come out a lot better. On wards and upwards. Semester 2 - I can’t wait.