25th January- Screen AAAAARGH

Screen R presentation

Now as well as our initial presentation we had to record an online presentation using screen R. this meant that we had to seriously consider what parts of our presentation needed to be edited especially when it came to what parts of our video to use. Rather than in the presentation we felt as if we needed to keep the only particularly relevant pieces to our research instead of just letting people’s opinions be heard. This resulted in us cutting out most of what one of the woman’s ideas were because as the presentation had to be able to standalone we couldn’t relate what she said back to the presentation. The other main interview that was cut was the international perspective as we didn’t see the likelihood of people watching our presentation and willing to sit and read subtitles.

A problem we uncounted when using screen R was that we needed a voice over. This was an issue because I have a strong Liverpool accent which is even harder to understand when recorded especially as the recording software used was not great. The other member of our group available to do the recording is from Ethiopia giving him and international accent making him also difficult to understand. We decided to record both and decided that Senays accent may be slightly easier to understand.

Another issue that arose when using screen r is that unlike with a live presentation where if you were to stumble over a word you can just carry on and recover as you go were as with a voice over if there is a mistake made this means you have to start again to keep the presentation looking professional. With these issues it ended up taking 5 hours to recreate the original presentation into a standalone online presentation.

20th January- Glad thats over

Presentation review

I believe the presentation went very well. After having to wait before we managed to actually perform our presentation, there was a worry that unknowingly we may rush right through the presentation. I don’t think this happened and I believe the presentation flowed nicely.

On a personal point of view of my own effort I was pleased with how I performed. I believe that I spoke clearly and explained myself properly. As I had the important job of explaining the results, then linking the videos to the presentation and finally putting them into some kind of context. I reckon something that helped me perform well was using cue cards as a way of helping me remember the statistics that’s I needed to say. On presentation I did last year I tried to just read of the board and then ad lib but this did not work at all as I caused me to rush through the presentation after and stumble over what I was going to say compared to this presentation were I didn’t have everything scripted but I did have the key facts which helped me ad lib around them.

The video we made luckily for our interviews we had managed to find characters that had very interesting points of view which in my opinion kept the audience entertained as many of their answers were unexpected and humorous. Spending a day standing in the snow seemed to pay off.

I believe that the presentation worked the way we split it into 3 parts an introduction an explanation into our findings and a conclusion. The introduction worked as standalone research and then the findings were actually concluded in the conclusion something that is supposed to happen but doesn’t always when concerning group work. I also did like the fact we managed to add a part in describing how to actually make the perfect female console game.  

14th of January- Presentention prep

Preparing for the presentation

To finish the presentation a few things still needed to be done I needed to explain the results to Tom for him to conclude the presentation. I also had to sit with Senay and edit the video footage. Finally we had to decide who was going to say what and where.

To help Tom make sense of the results I talked him through them and explained our original hypothesis compared to results we actually got, then how the two compared. I wrote down a brief conclusion for him to go off he then reads the results himself and starts to write the full conclusion. It was pivotal that I did this work with Tom or our presentation would lack any direction if the conclusion didn’t explain the results of the research we had done.

When it came to edit the video interviews there was much debate on what parts we should keep as we’ll had different ideas on what footage should be used or shouldn’t I ultimately had final say due to the fact it would be me explaining the video footage. This was probably best I only wanted to use footage that was directly relevant to the question. Whereas other members were wanted to use some extra footage which though interesting I didn’t feel it was relevant enough to the question.

When going through the prezzi presentation the way I was going to speak was change originally over one interview I was going to stop the video after each individual question and give the relevant information to it. This idea was scrapped as thought that it would ruin the flow of the presentation and would almost give the presentation a stutter so instead I chose to speak at certain specific point in the video rather than keep breaking it up.

20th December- Making sense of it all

The results if the questionnaires

It is time to gather the results of my questionnaires

For the males I found that

·         They all owned a games console

·         They had all bought a game in the last year

·         They had all played a game in the last month

·         That the characters were always male

·         That the characters were either people or a mixture of people and cartoons

·         That round about half of the people are putt off by the price of games

·         That males don’t still consider gaming to be for boys

·         Round about half of them didn’t believe the aesthestics of a game mattered

·         0 males use to play games and stopped

The thing they enjoyed most about games

·         Competing

·         Time wasting

·         Avoids university work

·         Escapism

·         Relaxing

·         Socialising

·         Fun

·         Variety

The aspect they least enjoyed was

·         Boring

·         Team based

·         Price

·         Difficulty

·         Repetition

·         Bad unbelievable plots

·         Take up too much time

For the female results I found that

·         Under half of them owned a game console

·         Under half of the people who didn’t own a console had owned one previously

·         The last time they played a game varied between over 2 years ago to the day they filled in the survey

·         That the characters were usually cartoons

·         That the characters were usually both sexes

·         That the price is a serious issue why they don’t play games

·         That they still consider gaming to be for boys

·         Over half thought the aesthetics mattered

The things they enjoyed about gaming

·         Variety

·         Socialising

·         Time wasting 

·         Escapism

·         Challenge

·         Achievement

·         Skill

·         Fitness

·         Boredom filler

Things they didn’t enjoy about gaming

·         Would rather buy other things

·         Anti-social

·         Over sexism

·         The repeat effect

·         Rubbish at most

·         Take ages to load

·         Too competitive

·         Nothing

The reasons why girls don’t play games anymore

·         Grew up

·         Can’t be bothered

10th December - Plan B

Filming

As the school we were trying to visit seemed reluctant to let us go without all of us having crb checks we turned to plan b which was to stand on the streets of Liverpool and stop random people in the street. Try to get them to fill in questionnaires, possibly on camera to later be used in our presentation. A draw back to this filming as the one day 2 of us were available it happened to snow so we had to show commitment to stay out in the snow and gather the information required.

The location selected was just past the holy corner in Liverpool city centre this was because I knew it was legal to film their without permission as its public property. I knew this because I had been filmed here before by LFC TV in a similar circumstance just one interviewer one camera man randomly stopping people in the street. This location was also relevant as there are numerous game shops along this street; Gamestation Granger Games and the other name eludes me.

We decided that I should approach and conduct the interviews with people as it would be easier for me to talk random people into completing questionnaires and being filmed. This worked quite well as I managed to convince 3 people to speak on camera and get numerous questionnaires filled in. Even if for one of them there was a slight mistake by the camera man forgetting to change the microphone from internal to external. It’s something I have done myself before.

2nd of December - Fork in the road

Fork in the road

It’s looking more likely that we will not being getting into a school. When I last spoke to the teacher he told me that you won’t be able to speak before Christmas but you could try again afterwards.  Now this raised a few problems 1^st being the deadline for this assignment is in January so unless it was the 1^st week of January that we went to the school the information would be arriving too late for us to seriously process it and create a fair argument to prove or disprove of hypothesis. Also with us not being able to speak to the students before Christmas when usually they would just be watching films or being able to what they like as in most schools teaching unofficially stops about a week before the actual Christmas break for year 7s and 8s I don’t see how they’re going to find time in January.

All this has meant that the presentation I was creating for the children has been scrapped as well as the idea of using post cards. As without a vast amount of postcards of each questions being answered it would be hard to draw any conclusions. Luckily throughout this waiting period I have been pretty much forcing my fellow university students to fill in the questionnaires thus I do have some good feedback to base any conclusions off.

Now its good thing I always had a plan B which was to go on the streets of Liverpool and ask/ possibly film people answering the questions on the questionnaire of just simply give their personal thoughts on why girls don’t play console games. This we can do at any time as it is only dependant on my team and what days we can do it there no other variable. One of the reasons it was plan B was it couldn’t fall apart. It’s just a matter of speaking to my group when I next see them and sorting what day were available and picking a suitable location for us to stand.     

20th November - Be prepared or prepare to fail

Now though I still haven’t heard back on whether we are going to be able to go into the school I have started to put together the kinds of questions that will be asked if we are to do so. Using two different forms of surveys postcards and a questionnaire. The idea behind postcards is that because they are much quicker to fill in people are more likely to answer one question if their only asked one then to fill in a questionnaire. I decided that the questions on postcards should be the following

If were to use post cards

Possible questions

·         What console do you own or what was the last console you owned?

·         What was the last game you bought?

·         What is your favourite computer game character of all time?

·         What do you want for Christmas?

·         What did you get last Christmas?

·         Do you enjoy competing on games?

·         Do you enjoy competing with your friends e.g. in sports?

·         Can you name any games made for women?

·         Name a girls game? (This should be given to lads to see whether what they feel is a girls game do the girls agree)

These should give us some relevant information upon which to base an argument why don’t more women play console games.

Now for the more qualitative research I created this questionnaire which it wont only just be pupils filling this in like the post cards

 Survey

Age

12-20                     21-30                     31+

Male or Female 

do you own a computer console

Y              N

have you ever owned  a console

Y              N

if yes which one/s

PS3         XBOX360              Wii          PS2         Playstaion           Xbox      sega dreamcast                sega  megardrive             gamecube                supernintendo                  Nintendo             other (please specify

When was the last time you bought a game?

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When was the last time you played a game?

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What is it you enjoy about games?

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What don’t you enjoy about games?

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Do you find that the lead characters of most video games you play are

Cartoons              people                  mixture of both

Do you find they are ?

Male       Female

If you use do play games but don’t any more at what age do you believe you stopped and why?

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Does the price of console games put you off buying them?

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Do you still consider gaming to be for boys?

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Do you believe the aesthetics of a game matter to whether you would play them?

Y              N

Did they choose?

White    Black        Silver