@Maurice_W_

Update's from Auckland - New Zealand. I write about my experience as an international studenten at AUT - Creative Technologies. You will also find video updates about my hiking trips ;) You should check out my Twitter; @Maurice_W_

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Nice to see how everyone prepares his showcase!

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When you create a promotional strategy using social media you can’t work without guidelines. That’s why it’s a must to know the Do’s and Don'ts for DOTS Instagram!

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Hiking through a canyon makes us feel like two little #DOTS discovering the world 

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It's always a good idea to let someone else test your game! Even when you got beaten in your own game.... Feedback: it's fun and a real challenge when you add more balls. She asked for an option to decrease the amount balls if you added to many balls to make it easier.

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Twitter vs Instagram vs Facebook

Social media is a great way to promote a product. But the choice of which social media I’m going to use is important. My target group are world travellers and adventurers. Why I choose this specific target group is written in my conceptual statement. Where do I find this target group?

If we look at monthly active users Facebook wins by far. But there is a reason why I’m not going to choose for Facebook. The algorithm of Facebook changes every few months. One of there recent updates is changing the visibility of Facebook pages. Facebook pages are mostly used by companies to promote their product and interact with their fans. Besides that company pages are less visible, Facebook currently deal with an information overload. Facebook makes it almost impossible to reach your target group without paying for it. My budget is $0,- on the DOT so that’s not going to work for me.

Twitter is a great place to interact with your customers. But I don’t believe I can find many of my customers on Twitter. I really like the idea about only using 140 characters because I think a good product doesn’t need more to explain.

My final decision is Instagram. Because I think ads shouldn’t look like real ads I use beautiful pictures to connect with my customers / fans. Travellers share many pictures of their adventures. DOTS wants to be part of their adventure and give inspiration for new adventures. 

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Promoting DOTS

Promoting your product changed the last few years. A simple poster or tv commercial doesn’t work like it used to and customers are overwhelmed by advertisements every day. So how do I get the attention of my customer? Interaction! I believe interaction is the key to success. People don’t want to only hear what you have to offer. They want to be part of it and have the opportunity to communicate back. For example you can see this in the online web support. KLM, an international flying company responds within 30 minutes on your question! Do they promote their product? Yes. Do they yell at you that they fly every day from Europe to New Zealand? No. They create a customer journey and show you that flying is safe and fun. 

I want to create a customer journey for DOTS. Important is that I choose the right medium to do this.

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Almost at the end!

My exchange at AUT is almost over but not before I finish my final project. This semester we created a card game, our own instrument and a moving image. For our final assignment we choose one and further develop this project.

I will further develop DOTS. The card game we created.  I put a lot of effort in this project and I think this project is the most successful of the three. I loved designing the cards and I really want to further develop the strategy behind it.

I pitched my idea to Ben about further developing the promotional strategy of DOTS and he thought it was a good idea. I really think nowadays a new product needs a great story and a specific target market to be successful. 

What do I need to know?

1. Who is my customer

2. What does my customer want?

3. How am I going to interact with my customer?

I will discuss those three topics in my conceptual statement. 

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Reflective statement Moving Image

It’s a wrap! After writing our proposal, having fun with the green screen and some editing work our moving Image is done. Our goal; show people the emotion happy with a smile. During the presentation of our video everyone was smiling! Mission completed!

We had some positive feedback, but I know there is still room for improvement. People look in the space between the person in the front, and the images on the back. I think we can use this space even more to create a happy feeling and try to give the watcher the freedom for his own imagination. 

Furthermore we could create our own soundtrack which fits the situation even more. I learned how to work with a green screen during this project what can be useful when I ever want to work with one back in Holland. My passion for editing movies started the moment I came to New Zealand and started filming my traveling journey with my GoPro. After this project I’m sure that this is something I really enjoy and want to get more professional with. 

The group worked really well together and we all learned some new things. Even nobody had experience in real movie making, we made our goal come true and made everybody smile!

Our moving image; Just Smile

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Yeaterday we had some fun in the green screen room! We recorded part of our moving image.

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Week 9: Monday

Working on the moving images proposal with the team.

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Want to go on Exchange to the Fontys University of Applied Science?

Hi! For all the BCT students that are interested in an exchange program at the Fontys University of Applied Science, come talk with me! I’m a student at Fontys University and currently on exchange at AUT and happy to help you with all your questions! I will go back in Holland after this semester so don’t wait to long ;) 

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Moving Image concept

Today we came up with an idea for our moving image. We want to expres the emotion; Happy. We are a group of 6 people with all a different background and culture. Our meaning of happiness is in many ways different, but their is one aspect that is the same for everybody. Smile! We all relate happiness with smiling. 

Recording every group member smiling while he is thinking of something that makes him happy. It would make me happy if we could create a moving image that shows people smiling, with their happy thought on the background. Because of the diversity in the group we all have different backgrounds, but one thing will be the same. We all smile! At the end of our moving image we want to show more people smiling to end our moving image with an even more happy feeling.

Equipment we need;

Green screen, camera’s, tripod’s, lightning, 

We booked the green screen room for Monday because this was the first available option. Every member of the group will collect their own happy thought video’s before Tuesday so we can start editing and we have three days to finish our video. If we have time we will go to Queen street and Albert Park to record happy people, and people smiling before the weekend.

For tomorrow: Every group member writes down his own idea of the video script / how we should record the video. We will discuss with each other which way we want to film and write our storyboard and timelime so we know exactly what we want to film next week. Furthermore every group member will think of his happy thoughts so we can share them with each other to see if nobody has the exact same thing. If so, we will figure something out!

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My Flipbook is done! See the video above for the result.

In my previous post I said that I was inspired by a video which showed some beautiful timelaps of New Zealand. To create a flip book of a timelaps, you need a timelaps first! With my GoPro I recorded my first timelaps ever at Lake Wanaka in the mid semester break. I didn’t use every single frame for my flipbook. Because when you flip the flipbook you’r a lot slower then my digital timelaps (24frames a second). I decided to use only 1 out of every 5 picture to make the difference bigger. You still have to pay attention to see the movement but you can definitely see the clouds and the water moving! Furthermore I decided to leave a white part on the bottom of the flipbook so my hand wouldn’t cover the picture.

My original timelaps;

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Flipbook prototype one. I first contacted a printing company but this was above my budget. So now I have to find a new way to print my flipbook. First I tried the printer at the Studio, and the quality seems fine. Only the paper is a little thin. I tried to print four pictures on one A4. After that I used the Batch mode in Photoshop which automatically resize picture and put them on a A4 format. When I tried to print my file, which contains 16 pictures the printer didn't print all of it at the left and right side. Sow now I have two different sides. When I want to use my flip book my finger is on the most part of the picture so I might try adding a little white area on one side of the picture.

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Movin Image

Project 3! Creating a moving image and we kick-off with creating a flipbook. I’m a big fan of the environment of New Zealand and I leave Auckland almost every weekend to discover new places. While I was doing my research I saw someone created a flipbook based on a timelaps. I’m also a big fan of the concept timelaps and I think it would look really cool to capture New Zealands beauty in a timelaps and make a flipbook out of it! 

This video was part of my inspiration;

And this video shows some awesome timelaps of New Zealand. Probably these timelaps are shot with a $5.000,- camera, but I will try to get something similar with my GoPro ;)

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Reflection of the sound project

Making your own instrument? That sounds like a real challenge! The first two sub projects were a good introduction to sound. Making visuals to let you start thinking in the right way really helped me getting in to the right vibe. Making my own instrument was a challenge Without many resources (All my spare stuff is still in Holland so I didn’t had many object to use) I created my instrument. The first few days were a struggle. My instrument didn’t made the sounds that I was expecting. After I figured out how to connect my instrument to a laptop, to add some sound effects the result was amazing. First my instrument barely made any sound, and now it was unstoppable! Learning the technique of sound editing was a cool experience that I will definitely will use back in Holland!

Here the video of our group performance;

The group project was fun. Besides that I got to know some more classmates that I didn’t know before, we created a 5 minute performance. Okay I will be honest. It was not the best performance ever, but I still learned a lot of it! Creating a story by sound in a real challenge. All our instrument had a different sound which made it a cool combination when we played together. The performance went well just like we practiced. Up to the next project!

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TEDx Auckland let's go!