Reflection: Initial Ideas Tutorial with Matt

I met up with Matt to discuss potential ideas for my Personal Development. I had been researching around and considering what areas I would like to study in and stretch my practice and to use Matt as a sounding board for these. The ideas were wide and far reaching but all would help me develop as a practitioner, add to my knowledge and skills base and also in the long term as a commercial entity. As mentioned in my previous post the areas I was considering were.

• Create creative corporate video content I could use to market myself.
• Research getting my documentary work screened at festivals. Latitude, Sheffield docfest etc.
• Develop a branding and marketing presence. Logo, website, and social media.
• Consider a marketing campaign to attract business. Linked to the above. Online, website, social media, speak to clients agencies etc.
• Possible teaching on the BA (Hons) in Digital Film Production with a look to picking up some paid work on this course of opportunities arise.
• Investigate arts funding and residencies opportunities.
• Work with established links at Age Suffolk to develop video content to promote them.
• Create links with clients to develop installation pieces to raise their's and my profiles and issues. Greenpeace possibly and direct activism (video) and campaigning through large scale video projections and mapping.
• Develop education and public art events to work with the general public. These would be of 
• Collaborate with local film festival (Aldeburgh docfest) to arrange screenings, speakers (Q&A), educational workshops etc.
• Create and curate own mini film festival 1-2 days of screenings and speakers through IFTT.

From discussions with my tutor Matt we together felt that as I thought the educational work was a little too safe given my full time job as a media lecturer in a FE college. The film festival work sounded interesting but I have experience of trying to get work into festivals (with varying degrees of success) and again no real new ground here.

The two areas that were the most interesting were.

• Create links with clients to develop installation pieces to raise their's and my profiles and issues. Greenpeace possibly and direct activism (video) and campaigning through large scale video projections and mapping.

This would allow the gaining of experience of working with a well known client and all of the pros and cons that this entails. Red tape, collaboration, expenses, time management, research into client and issues etc. It would be great to work on issue based pieces as well as promotional based pieces too. I have a close friend who is very senior at Greenpeace and may be able to help me make the necessary contacts to get in the door. Working with a well known institution like Greenpeace would also obviously be a feather in my cap and be great for promoting myself in other ventures. Matt pointed me towards the work of Allan Sekula, Krzystof Wodiczko and Olgur Eliasson for initial research.

• Create my own production company branding and marketing (web/online) and try to work with client(s) to create content to show off my range of skills.

A lot of my previous work has been TV and film based documentaries but the funding for these is very thin on the ground as is funding for the video installation work I have been developing on my MA this year. What I need to do is to use my vast and varied skill-set to make myself more commercially viable. This would hopefully lead to finding some local corporate work to bring in money in between my other work. This idea would as I have previously mentioned mean the creation of some strong video content for clients to use to develop my own video production company. Currently I have no real examples of such work and need to create some to use as calling cards for my services. This would provide future revenue streams and definitely develop me professionally. Combined with developing a brand and online presence as well as marketing this would be a great kick start to developing myself in a commercial sense. The eventual aim is to decrease my teaching work and to increase my freelance corporate work as well as documentary and installation work.