Peering for the Final Time!

BCM302

I’ve been following Jess Jenkin’s & Georgie O’Brien’s DAs this semester. Jess has and is reigniting her photography Instagram page while Georgie is on the resources team promoting Building 29. While these 2 DAs are different from one another, they share the commonality of following interests of theirs.

Jess has documented her weekly progress update on Twitter in the form of tweet updates with images of the progress she has made or the work she is editing. This was an excellent way to document the progress but I believe that she could have benefited from further interactions on Twitter to promote her Instagram page. I feel this DA could be improved with a collaboration from anyone from the creative services team to provide feedback on her DA or to elevate the experience of the viewer of the page.

Although work has begun on this DA, I feel as though Jess would benefit from truly working on the DA, posting Instagram stories, and more images to her feed or quite possibly seeing a change in the platform she is using to see if her following would grow, as this is something that has not grown at a steady pace. I believe there is a lot of potential in this DA and I truly want to see Jess feel she has created a DA she is proud of, with experience that could assist her in achieving a dream job role. As this is not yet the end of the DA, I hope to see more, but specifically more of what she loves.

My suggestion to improve upon this DA is to reach out yourself to collaborate with a member of the creative services team to enhance your potential future client to fall in love with what you create, and Jess you have some stunning images. I would also suggest trying new platforms to promote your work or a new posting schedule to have more interactions, I’ve found that interactions are extremely helpful. Possibly researching your niche and other creators could help with the DAs development, growth and exposure. My suggestion for this is to try and follow people who are in similar fields to you and see what works well for them and your niche and just give it a go!

Georgie’s DA is already underway with the rest of the Resources Building 29 team. Georgie’s role within this group is the social media content producer and visual design manager. She has used her Twitter weekly updates to promote the UOWbuilding29 Instagram page as she has been creating posts that can be found on the page. I feel as though the page has a strong brand and aesthetic which with the continued development of the social media page should hopefully be recognisable amongst all UOW students in the future.

This DA has progressed steadily and I think it has done well with its branding. I believe Georgie could improve her weekly Twitter updates by submitting them weekly as this is something I have noticed to have been lacking. I appreciate seeing the tweets come through and I can forgive this with the amount of work I can see she has created and posted, but I enjoy seeing everyone’s weekly update at the end of each week.

As our DAs require an element of collaboration, I think it could be interesting to see how Georgie and her team have incorporated that element outside of those who are part of the resources building 29 teams. I think this could help further spread the information being provided about building 29 and the resources it has on offer for UOW students.

As for improvements, I think posting consistent weekly updates, but also I would love to see maybe more about the future of this DA’s development. Are there plans to pass on the social media pages to the next set of 3rd-year students? I think this could be an interesting topic Georgie and her team could discuss and maybe put out on their page to see what others think also.

Overall, the work that has been completed is exciting and honestly looks amazing. I’m very impressed and cannot wait to see these DAs continue to grow. I would love to see these digital artefacts help both these girls get into their dream job roles and enhance their skills in their chosen fields. My big tip for this blog post is to do what you love because when you love what you do, not only does it show but it helps you with your future but it gives you confidence and makes you happy. I’ve learnt the hard way that if I didn’t wholeheartedly love my DA and what I was creating, then it was obvious and minimal if at all happened that felt worth discussing/documenting. I just hope that both Jess and Georgie are loving their DA experience as much as I have this semester!

CONTEXTUAL ESSAY – TIKTOK MAKEUP TUTORIALS AND REVIEWS

BCM206

DA on TikTok: @oliviajlopez

This semester for BCM206, I decided to venture out into the world of TikTok. As a devoted user of the platform, I thought it would be best to test out the platform and for once be the creator rather than the viewer. I began to think about what I hoped to do in the future and I’ve always known that makeup and the beauty industry was where my dream lay and so I decided it would be best to begin my journey in content creation in this industry.

I set out my goal as outlined in my pitch with the intention of encouraging and teaching my audience how to do their makeup. Someone who may not feel confident with a makeup brush or has no idea where to start was where my thought process evolved from. Makeup can be intimidating and something my friends and family always ask me about is providing advice on how to do their own makeup and so my DA makeup reviews and tutorials began. I never set out to become an influencer but rather to help others feel confident and beautiful.

I discovered early on that there are a bunch of people who teach makeup applications but not as many who are honest when reviewing products. Many of these “influencers” were being paid or gifted the products for their reviews or you can tell from their online persona that they’re trying to get those paid jobs. As someone who was buying the products, I decided it would be best to give honest reviews and my opinions to educate my TikTok audience on what they should avoid purchasing.

Below are my 2 DA audience starter packs. The first is based on the people I wanted to reach in my updated version of my DA and therefore the type of girls I was hoping to have my content help. My second was the audience I had initially in mind who wanted to up their makeup game and improve their skills through my tutorials. Unfortunately with TikTok, it is difficult to see 100% who my audience was and is.

I first set out with reviewing 2 products that I had recently purchased but not used and thought it would be the best option to give a live review with minimal cuts or edits to be the most genuine version of myself. Genuine reviews have always been my mission and I feel like I have been able to consistently show through in my videos.

@oliviajlopez
Testing colourpop blush and lite stixs! I think they’re pretty but definitely need to give them another go! #colourpopcosmetics #fypシ #makeupreview
♬ original sound – olivialopez

The video did very well in its initial week officially live and has now become the only video that still consistently receives views. Currently, it has over 700 views, 72 likes and 2 shares! These statistics were really exciting to me as I had never expected people to share my content with others. This was extremely exciting to see especially on my first video. This video is also my only video with a comment I added with extra hashtags which could be the key to the continued growth of the video. Although this was my only comment, the 2 shares are indicative of some small success.

I found the content creation process to get easier and feel less awkward as I continued to find my place in this niche. Talking to a camera or your phone on your own although I have been exposed to the concept for years, is still an unusual situation to be a part of but of course, I persevered and pushed through that awkward stage and continued creating content.

My next few posts were also received in a reasonably well manner but have not experienced consistent and continuous growth like my first video although the hashtags used are very similar with the difference being the product or brand name hashtags that changed. Neither of my next 5 videos had any shares but all experienced similarly likes and views as seen below.

Although I had not received shares, I did receive my first comment which indicated and made me feel like I was on the right path.

After my pitch and before my beta, I decided to play around with the concept of multiple videos with 3 parts as the maximum amount, reviewing a product/s to see if this had any impact in increasing views, likes or shares. Through conducting this mini-experiment, I predicted to have one video outperform the other 2 which is exactly what occurred. The pattern was that either the 1st or the 3rd video performed the best with more likes, views or shares, or a combination.

Throughout the semester the utility was always to educate my audience on what to buy if they’re interested in makeup although my initial idea was to have a combination of reviews and tutorials, I feel I found my little niche on the platform. I hadn’t had a viral video but I’ve seen steady and consistent growth with my views, likes, shares, followers and even comments started to appear on some of my videos.

Whilst checking my analytics, I noticed that my views by regions started to feature the United States indicating my videos were reaching Americans more than Australians meaning a potentially larger audience. I even started to notice European countries were viewing my content which to me feels like a significant breakthrough since starting out my views were only reaching Australian TikTok audiences.

I truly believe with my continuation on this DA, I have the ability to grow my platform and continue to help my audience. I have felt in my element creating content this semester for BCM206. It never felt like a hassle or like it took too much of my time and because of this I enjoyed the process even more than any other DA I’ve developed in the past and I believe it has to do with the platform. TikTok is new to me and so it was exciting to learn about all its editing features and editing techniques. Prior to this semester, I hardly ever used the platform other than as a viewer which made my time fun.

Kim Kardashian Hollywood

BCM215

At the beginning of the semester and reading BCM215’s name- Game Media Industries, I already imagined having to study gaming and gamers, something I had never thought of myself as. Although the entire semester looked over the gaming industry and its different areas, I surprisingly enjoyed the weekly topics and the freedom I had with my DA. I decided after identifying that I’ve always been interested in celebrities and their reasons for their partnerships, that researching and analysing the involvement and the celebrity’s reasons for developing mobile games would allow me to answer the questions I had always had.

I decided to take my approach and analyse celebrity mobile games through a financial and marketing lens. As a commerce student as well as being a communications and media student, I find combining the two areas of my studies interesting. I wanted to see if there was a financial advantage for more than just the celebrity. Identifying if the celebrity is simply placing their name on the game for the financial benefit or if the development of the game is a venture they truly care about was something I knew I wanted to discover.

Initially, my goal was to play and analyse multiple mobile games which I had selected after researching which celebrities had developed games. After selecting the games I wanted to trial, I began my DA, but shortly after my pitch, I knew I needed to change my process because my plan was not achievable so I made the decision to research one game and one celebrity, more specifically, Kim Kardashian Hollywood (KKH) game. The concept of a celebrity can be seen as a commodity or as a commercial product that can be manufactured and traded by promotions and publicities in media industries (Marshall, 1997, 2014). A celebrity can also be seen as having or being a persona. Kim Kardashian has, like all other celebrities, her everyday persona and her celebrity persona which is portrayed and transferred into her KKH game. In the game, her character is your mentor who assists you in developing yourself as a celebrity ‌(Soehendar & Widjayanti, 2020).

15 Problems Only Kim Kardashian: Hollywood Addicts Understand — Cosmopolitan, 2014

Through my research, I learnt that Kim Kardashian Hollywood was released in 2014 which looking back on that year makes me feel old since I’m 2 years into Uni and that was the year I started high school. 2014 was also the year and time the Kardashian name took off, the marriage to her now ex-husband Kanye West and in general social media grew tremendously. The game in its initial launch accrued more than 42 million downloads and $13.6 million from in-app sales in its first quarter (The Kimpact: How Celebrity Apps are changing mobile gaming 2016). The money the game made in its first quarter was equivalent to 24% of the game developers, Glu Games’ revenue. This specific mobile game changed the gaming industry. It was now females who wanted to create and play games when the industry was previously so heavily led by males. Gamers preferred changing outfits rather than slaying dragons and it clearly showed with the success of Kim Kardashian Hollywood.

Financially, Kim Kardashian Hollywood has had significantly large success based on the earning the game as achieved and has been a great business move on Glu Games’ behalf especially approaching a celebrity with such a high celebrity status like Kim Kardashian. To partner with and create a mobile game suitable for her largely female audience and followers, it’s safe to say that she understood the assignment. She understood her audience and followers, their wants and needs and her understanding of how influential she is from her use of social media, and of course, let’s not forget Kris Jenner, they knew this would be the correct move to make. It was also a wise decision that Glu Games used the same mechanics as one of their previously developed games, Stardom Hollywood to use as the base of KKH.

Using the mechanics of an already existing game and rebranding the game to suit the celebrity was a simple way to have Kim Kardashian Hollywood live on the app store allowing for the downloads and ultimately the in-app purchases that accompany the game. Before beginning to analyse KKH, I mentioned I was questioning if the game was on-brand with Kim Kardashian as her aesthetic in all her other business and brand ventures has been neutral, simple but also sophisticated and at an initial glance, KKH looks like the opposite of her aesthetic.

Games aesthetics as I mentioned in my game aesthetics blog post, is a determining factor on if you continue to or stop playing a particular game. Game aesthetics refers to the sensory phenomena that the player encounters in the game (visual, aural, haptic, embodied). Game aesthetics also refers to those aspects of digital games that are shared with other art forms. Lastly, game aesthetics is an expression of the game experienced as pleasure, emotion, sociability, form-giving. (Niedenthal 2009).

Similarly, branding is important. Self-branding is a form of marketing that a person will use to develop a public picture or persona that exhibits their values and reputation and is very popular with celebrities (Fita, 2013). Often they translate this public persona into their ventures such as Kim Kardashian portraying herself as your celebrity mentor in the KKH game. She has also translated this persona in the way she markets and promotes her game on her social media platforms.

Social media marketing (SMM) is very important for the success of any business. SMM works by brands, in this case, Kim Kardashian, although she is a person, has also become a brand, engaging with existing customers (her followers) or reaching new and potential customers or followers to promote new or existing products, culture or missions through sites such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (Hayes 2021).

Kim Kardashian has used her platforms to engage with her followers and 7 years later still promotes her game concluding that although she may have created this game intending to make money, the game has evolved to be more than just a game. It’s become a passion project she can pass down to her kids and followers to enjoy. The success of this game has to be attributed to her celebrity status and hence the financial benefits the game developers accrued as well as her portion of the profit. You can’t have finance without proper marketing.

References:

Fita, M 2013, What is Self Branding?, 36creative, 36creative, viewed 29 October 2021, <https://36creative.com/branding/1901/self-branding>.

Hayes, A,2021, What Is Social Media Marketing?, Investopedia, viewed 29 October 2021, <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media-marketing-smm.asp>.

Marshall, PD 2014, Celebrity and Power : Fame in Contemporary Culture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. Viewed 29 October 2021], < https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uow/reader.action?docID=1762165>

‌Niedenthal, S 2009, What We Talk About When We Talk About Game Aesthetics, DIVA, DiGRA Online Library, viewed 24th September, 29th October 2021, <https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1408066&dswid=7801>.

‌Soehendar, TP & Widjayanti, EP 2020, THE MANIFESTATION OF KIM KARDASHIAN’S AESTHETIC AND GLAMOUR LABORS IN KIM KARDASHIAN: HOLLYWOOD MOBILE GAME | E-Journal of Cultural Studies, Unud.ac.id, viewed 29 October 2021, <https://ojs.unud.ac.id/index.php/ecs/article/view/70497>, <file:///Users/olivialopez/Downloads/70497-373-197105-1-10-20210210.pdf>.

The Kimpact: How Celebrity Apps are changing mobile gaming 2016, Mixpanel, viewed 29 October 2021, <https://mixpanel.com/blog/celebrity-apps-changing-mobile-gaming/>.

Peer Feedback- The BETA Edition

BCM241

Providing feedback to my peers is always a difficult task for me as I know how much work has gone into the task having completed it myself. I also feel conflicted whilst commenting on my peers content as I do not want my bias opinion on theirs topics to cloud my feedback.

Below are my 3 beta blog post comments. I choose to leave comments on these 3 posts as they are the furtherest from my own media niche as well as being topics that I have very little knowledge on. I did this to try and give myself a challenge when examining their work and providing genuine feedback that runs beyond saying “this is good” or “I didn’t like this”. I looked through the marking criteria as a guide in providing my feedback.

Each blog post had conducted a lot of research to support their DA, which was really good to see as it showed their levels of commitment to their DA. The main point that differentiated each of these DAs, apart from their topics, was their video structures and tone of voice. Some sounded more confident than others but all showed genuine interest in the area of their research.

From this process, and receiving feedback myself, I have learnt that I need to speak in a slower manner as many people have mentioned that they struggle to keep up with my videos. I definitely understand where they are coming from and I always keep this in mind but with strict time limits, this is an area I always struggle with but I truly appreciate the feedback I receive during peer commentary.

Links to my comments can be found below!

Alek’s Blog Post

Daniel’s Blog Post

Alex’s Blog Post

Analyse with me- Epiphanies Edition

BCM241

Last weeks epiphanies for me were my light bulb moments. This week those light bulbs were replaced with even brighter LED style bulbs. So let me expand on them.

My first epiphany, surrounds my niche and their relationship to the “eras” Ariana Grande (AG) has released. All fans of AG have a specific time from AGs discography that they love. The preferred “era” has an emotional connection to the fan. For me personally, my favourite era is the Thank U, Next era. Why? Simply because the music released and promoted during this era(November 2018 – 2019 December) resonates with me. This time in my life was extremely difficult for me mentally and the music in this album also had a sense of struggle and pain to it that allowed me to connect to it. The connection music has to a fan has been linked to evoking our brains, limbic system among other parts of our brains (Pharm, 2021). In a study by Finnish scientists, the “Limbic areas of the brain, known to be associated with emotions, were found to be involved in rhythm and tonality processing”. This means that a listener our brains are processing the music and bringing up the emotions we have associated to the music from the tone and rhythm of the song. Each AG fan has their own story and their reasons to connect to each song, album or era and it’s become very interesting to learn about from observing other content creators.

“You got me all up in my feels”

Nasty (2020), Ariana Grande

All of Ariana Grande's Albums, Ranked From Worst to Best — (Ahlgrim 2021)

TikTok is a platform with its sole purpose of showing each user new content and creators. Due to this, I’ve found it to be difficult to identify if the content I am creating is reaching my desired audience. Checking through my posts, it can be seen that I am trying to mould my content to fit within the current trends of the platform also utilising niche specific hashtags and trending hashtags to try to reach my audience as this is how the platform has been built (Abidin 2020). At this time, this has not been as successful as I had hoped. Pushing me to try to rethink my content style. TikTok is unlike other social media platforms as it does not need to have a consistent aesthetic or style for your content to go viral (Abidin 2020).

My third epiphany was about the identification of content styles and personas which have led me to the development of my persona. As I identified above, my content is not receiving the engagement I would have aspired to have had. From my analytics, I can see that I have to rework my content and persona as a potential way to reach a larger audience. The different use of music and a more emphasised use on transitions or challenges (Literat 2021) may help me reach my niche audience and the for you page on the platform better than before. This may be more beneficial than I had anticipated and is an area I hope to educate myself in to further my DA’s progress.

References

Abidin, C 2020, ‘Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours’, Cultural Science Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 77–103, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://culturalscience.org/articles/10.5334/csci.140/print/>.

Ahlgrim, C 2021, All of Ariana Grande’s albums, ranked from worst to best, Insider, Insider, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://www.insider.com/ariana-grande-albums-ranked-best-worst>.

Alluri, V, Toiviainen, P, Jääskeläinen, IP, Glerean, E, Sams, M & Brattico, E 2012, ‘Large-scale brain networks emerge from dynamic processing of musical timbre, key and rhythm’, NeuroImage, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 3677–3689, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/science/article/pii/S1053811911013000>.

ArianaGrandeVevo 2020, Ariana Grande – nasty (audio), YouTube, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3BuLzTvo0o>.

Literat, I 2021, ‘“Teachers Act Like We’re Robots”: TikTok as a Window Into Youth Experiences of Online Learning During COVID-19’, AERA Open, vol. 7, p. 233285842199553, viewed 14 September 2021, <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858421995537>.

Pharm, J 2021, What Are the Major Functions of the Limbic System?, MedicineNet, MedicineNet, viewed 13 September 2021, <https://www.medicinenet.com/what_are_the_major_functions_of_the_limbic_system/article.htm>.

An Update on my Research Approach- Let’s Take a Trip Through Grande Lane

BCM241

Having begun my DA, creating content and gathering information, I have been able to identify epiphanies that have stood out to me in the process.

My Epiphanies

Ariana Grande Eras are very specific to the time her music was released. Each fan will have different memories and feelings that are associated with each era. Whilst scrolling through TikTok, it can easily be identified that each fan has their own unique account of what happened at the time a song or album was released and they are vocal about their experiences on the platform through the content they create.

@arianaimhh
i miss it 😦 #fyp #arianagrande #arianator #arianatiktok #foryoupage #xyzbca
♬ love you like a love song – chillytunees

arianaimhh, TikTok, 2021

My second epiphany comes from the identification of the difficulty of reaching my specific niche audience. The platforms algorithm is focused on showing users new content on their “for you page” making it difficult for creators to reach their desired audience. In the mean time, as I continue to create and post content, I have been taking screenshots of the videos I have interacted with as well as saving videos that give me inspiration to create similar content.

My third epiphany is the identification of the different content that can be found on the platform. Each creator is known for their unique video content and therefore their unique online persona. The exposure to such a vast variety of content and personas has allowed me to sculpt and refine the persona I want to portray on the platform and more specifically within my niche. This has now included refining the style of content I want to produce and publish.

The platform through the personas created have identified “micro-celebrities” who curate, rearrange, and recirculate what they consider to be their best videos online (Senft, 2013). The creators in my Ariana Grande Fan Niche have become micro-celebrities on my ‘for you page’ as they receive a large number of views and likes on their content. These personas have influenced me and the content I have begun creating for my DA.

@oliviajlopez
I love you @arianagrande #foryoupage #arianagrande #rembeauty #iloveyou #rem #viral #bcm241 #bcm206
♬ R.E.M. – Matt

@oliviajlopez
#viral #fypシ #arianagrande #mamasaid #foryou #foryoupage #fyp trending #rembeauty @arianagrande @r.e.m. beauty
♬ Mama Said – Lukas Graham

My content is centred around using the current TikTok trends, music or style of video, and applying it a relevant Ariana Grande related topic. These videos try to include my personality to attract other fans in this media niche who after a few posts, I have been able to identify as being mainly younger females. This is suggestive to say that the niche is heavily saturated with younger females. My best option is to explore this in more depth and create my content targeting this demographic with the hopes of attracting their attention.

In the digital age, attention is an extremely valuable resource. The concept of the attention economy suggests that in the new realities of information overload, human concentration is limited, and attention is a form of cumulative wealth (Abidin 2020). Understanding my target audience will assist me in continuing my research in discovering the persona I portray in this niche by attempting to capture the attention of my audience niche.

References

Abidin, C 2020, ‘Mapping Internet Celebrity on TikTok: Exploring Attention Economies and Visibility Labours’, Cultural Science Journal, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 77–103, viewed 8 September 2021, <https://culturalscience.org/articles/10.5334/csci.140/print/>.

i miss it 😦 #fyp #arianagrande #arianator #arianatiktok #foryoupage #xyzbca 2018, TikTok, viewed 9 September 2021, <https://www.tiktok.com/@arianaimhh/video/7001892580963273989?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1>.

Senft, T 2013, Microcelebrity and the Branded Self, viewed 8 September 2021, <http://fws.commacafe.org/resources/theresa_senft_microcelebrity_branded_self.pdf>.

‌

Delving into Ariana Grande- Field Site Mapping

BCM241

In my previous blog post, I had identified my media niche to be based on my love and interest for Ariana Grande with my main focus on identifying what type of Arianator or tiny elephant I am. This week was all about determining our field sites and discussing how we were thinking of conducting our DAs.

After some careful consideration, I’ve decided that the best method for my research around my Ariana Grande DA is to use the method of auto-ethnography and participant observation to determine my place within the community.

Auto-ethnography is qualitative research method that allows the author to write in a highly personalised style, drawing on their experience to extend understanding about a societal phenomenon (Wall, 2006) while participant observation is defined as Participant observation is the process enabling researchers to learn about the activities of the people under study in the natural setting through observing and participating in those activities. It provides the context for development of sampling guidelines and interview guides (DeWALT & DeWALT, 2002).

Through conducting my research in this method, I am able to share my passion and love for Grande’s music and the love and respect I have for her as a person with other fans but I will also be able to interact with others from the content I produce. I’ll be using my personal experience to talk about what her music has done to help me. To conduct my research, I will be posting on my TikTok page and observing other fans and their videos to gain an understanding into where I fit in as a fan of hers.

This past week we looked at mapping our field site. Below is the image which is further explained in the video below.

References

DeWalt, Kathleen M. & DeWalt, Billie R. (2002). Participant observation: a guide for fieldworkers. Chapter 1, p1-4, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://books.google.com.au/books?id=p1wcO3UNXQ4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>.

Wall, Sarah (2006) An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5, viewed 14th August 2021, <https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/3037105/mod_resource/content/1/Wall%20S%202006%20An%20Autoethnography%20on%20Learning%20about%20Autoethnography.pdf>

Audiences

BCM110

When I was 13, I was part of my first TV show audience. It was for the channel 7 show The X-Factor Australia and I went with my then best friend, my mum and her mum. I was super excited to get tickets to be a part of this audience. I had applied all because I had seen an advertisement that Ariana Grande was meant to be making an appearance on one of the episodes. So naturally the 13 year old Olivia started applying to get tickets every single week! Just to get the boring details out of the way, no she was not on the first show I was ever at and no I never got to see her perform live on the show and yes I cried about it.That first show though, was amazing! I had never seen or understood how a TV show was filmed. Many of the special guest artists who performed were not recorded live but sang prior to the show’s start time. This confused me a lot but looking back now, I understand why the show was filmed the way it was. The time it took to set up their sets and then to pack them up and then film the judges arriving, filming the contestants and even filming the audience, it took a lot of time. More time than allocated for the show on TV.

At the time, the only negative aspect of being a part of that particular audience was how long we stood in the MoshPits. I was on the right side of the judges. Although waiting around and standing there was tiresome, overall I enjoyed my time. It was an amazing experience and one that is very memorable.

One of the most important things I took from being part of that audience was how hard the jobs of the stage crew and even the cameramen were. They were rushing around on stage or setting the cameras, checking their angles, finding the best places to set up their equipment or the sets for the performances and even dealing with the cheering. That day I found a new appreciation for those who work in the TV and film industry.

BCM110 this past week we looked at audiences, active and passive. I learnt that we have a choice in each audience, whether we want to be active within that audience or if we want to be passive and accept what we are an audience for. In my experience, I chose to be active. I chose to clap and laugh and sing along to the performances. I also learnt that an audience is anyone who connects to what they are watching, whether they watch live, a few hours later or a month later. An audience can be one individual person connecting to a show or 100 000 people watching the same show.

Tell me in the comments below your experiences in an audience or even if you have ever seen how The X-Factor Australia is filmed live.

-Olivia