I’ve gotten my permission to shoot a video from the NEW PEOPLE. As this store is considered new, they’re really open to media. The person that I talked to was Beth, a marketing coordinator of the NEW PEOPLE. She was really helpful and even asked if I needed to talk to someone, she will do her best to make some of the staff available to me.
So… the responsiveness of the NEW PEOPLE made me really excited. I was ready to do my video but wait… there were way too many things that I wanted to focus on. Final week was on the way too. Lacking of sleep and tiredness were definitely something that got in the way because besides working on my final video or other final projects related, I also had several final exams. I literally freaked out and my friends said if I can handle them.
My biggest obstacle will lie on my time management. I was quite a stress person and thus, when I stressed, I cannot get things done. I was so busy figuring out how to manage my time while keeping my sanity. Balancing school and fun is definitely not easy. Someone actually said students do not live from day-to-day but from deadline-to-deadline. I thought it’s pretty funny but when I experienced it myself, believe me, it’s not funny at all. My suggestion (although it sounds easy): don’t be stressed because you’ll not get things done if you can’t think.
One of the reasons why I chose the NEW PEOPLE was because it’s located in the neighborhood that I covered for my reporting class. Besides doing this business story, I also worked on another article for my reporting class so I figured, probably it’ll increase my time efficiency but wrong… I’ll suggest students who will take this class next semester to choose a business that is closed to their home.
I also suggest if students pick a small business that does not require a lot of permissions before starting recording or taking pictures. Although Beth has been a great help and a wonderful person, she still needs permissions from the vendors and also the owner of the business. It does take time to get an approval. At one point, I attended an event at the NEW PEOPLE and I forgot to mention about doing my reporting on that day to Beth. So… I just spent my time there, be a good guest and actually not doing any of the works that I should be doing. I wasn’t sure if I can shoot a video but I did take pictures because some other people were taking pictures before me and the staff did not bother them. I was just a bit disappointed with myself for not planning things before hand.
Also, with small business, you have time flexibility. You can say, “I’ll come sometime at noon this week.” With the NEW PEOPLE, I have to have someone to accompany me when I took pictures and Beth was definitely a busy person with tight schedule. It was really nice of her to make time for me.
Next thing that I have a problem with is the sound. I did my recording on the cafe shop because that’s where the main entrance of the building is. However, if you ever ordered drip coffee at the Blue Bottle Coffee, you’ll know how noisy the coffee-maker machine is. That’s what I experienced and Beth was a soft-spoken person so it’s kind of hard to try to get a good clear sound while the machine kept on making “taraattatataa” sounds like a train. I’ll ban drip coffee maker machine from my next video. Drip coffee is awesome but avoid it when you’re doing your video is the only suggestion I can think of! Probably hanging out a lot at that place will help. You’ll naturally get an idea of what works and what’s not. I confessed if I didn’t spend enough time at the NEW PEOPLE’s cafe so I totally miscalculated the noise of the coffee-maker machine.
It’s important to have a good time management and know your subject really well before you actually doing your recording because with a big business like the NEW PEOPLE, chance to do a re-shoot is small when you screwed up. If you have to do a re-shoot, you have another permission and that will take some time. It can’t be instant. It’s not instant especially when it’s the holiday season (read: shopping season).
