Dialekt; 3:1 Group Work

We started off the next term with a group task to research specific areas of London. I was given Hackney Wick, London Fields and Broadway Market alongside Sidney, Ronan, Idris, Jazz and Hedda.

On our first day as a group, Idris and Ronan were absent so the rest of us began by researching all different aspects of our three boroughs such as famous landmarks, famous people who originate from there and historical events that took place. Some information we found were that it is where the 2012 Olympics were held. We presented this information to the class and had the next task of going to the area and finding out more about it in person.

On our first visit to the area, Jazz and Idris were absent so me, Ronan, Hedda and Sidney all explored the three areas and took pictures to create a visual collage of our borough to present to our class which can be seen below.

I found that Hackney Wick is filled with graffiti and is quite empty actually and close by is Fish Island Village where there is a lot of construction work to build new homes and buildings.

London Fields has the Lido which has been around for a long time and holds significance in the area as it closed a few years ago and was reopened through the efforts of the local community.

Broadway Market has a lot of foreign shops such as Turkish and French which was explained to us by a man who owned a bookshop who said that a lot of people came to live in Hackney because of how cheap the living was. The market also has three independent book stores as well as real estates, salons and café’s.

When it came to presenting, our group began falling apart. Idris was a no show from the start and both Jazz and Ronan had not communicated with the rest of the group appropriately nor attended to help present and Hedda had decided to no longer continue the course. So, me and Sidney presented our findings to the class and were given the next task of creating a 4-minute video to showcase our boroughs. We chose to only focus on Hackney Wick because we felt there was more to tell with the gentrification that is happening in the area.

Jazz had decided to leave our group now, Idris got moved to a new group and we gained a new member. Owen. So, our group at this stage is me, Sidney, Ronan and Owen. We all agreed to help film and gather footage. Unfortunately, at the last minute I couldn’t take part and Ronan backed out too, so Sidney and Owen were left collecting footage together. After some footage was gathered, Sidney suggested writing a poem to use as a voiceover for the footage in the film so me and him wrote out a poem that we felt accurately represented Hackney Wick right now. Our poem can be read below.

Me and Owen were meant to go get more footage together but unfortunately on the day of I was unsure if we were still going as Owen only replied to my messages until it was too late to go film. So, me and Sidney figured we would just use what we have and try to use found footage from online to help. At the same time. Sidney had to leave to go to Hong Kong for 2 weeks, so I volunteered to be the editor and ask for his and Owen’s input over text/call. Unfortunately, Sidney disagreed and insisted he would be able to edit the video in time for our deadline as he has all the footage so it would be easier. I constantly said this was a bad idea and that I would be able to edit the footage and present it in class but Sidney did not give up and so I let it go. Despite constant communication, Sidney suddenly mentioned that the video may not be ready in time, to which I said that I would gladly take over and him telling me to just trust him.

The video did not get done in time for the deadline and our group was not able to showcase anything to our class nor to a visitor from Visit Britain.

After much effort and discussion with my remaining group members, our 4 minute video did eventually get done and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tahUkBM-gvU&feature=youtu.be

Overall, I am incredibly disappointed in how the group work portion of this unit turned out. This experience showed me the extreme importance of communication and how to work with people who have differing ideas and schedules to you.