Finalizing My Final Project

The semester is finally coming to an end, and so is my first part of Capstone class. For our final on Monday we will be turning in our Amazing Race applications, as well as our binders which include all the information about our senior projects. For our final period we will be learning the importance of teamwork once again and completing the Titan Traverse course which is outside, so hopefully we will have good weather. Although I feel as though I have accomplished a lot in Capstone so far, I still have quite a ways to go.

After talking with my professors, I finally pinpointed what I want to do for my senior project. Originally I had the idea of mixing broadcasting and Public Relations by picking two clients, one being a non-profit organization, and the other being just a regular local business. My plan was to create an advertising campaign for both organizations and then produce both radio and television spots, which would hopefully be used on air. However, after discussing my ideas with Dr. Barner, he suggested that I stick with just a non-profit organization and sort of be their public relations person by creating radio and television spots. The one non-profit organization he mentioned was the Women's Crisis Shelter in Lawrence County.

After talking with Mr. Corso I found myself a little unsure of what I wanted to do. I have my mass communications class with Mr. Corso and for our final project we created 5-minute documentarys. He really enjoyed my documentary and thought my group did a good job so he suggested that I do something along the lines of a documentary for my project. I told him that I do enjoy editing and I really liked creating the documentary because it let me use my creativity.

So after speaking with my professors I talked to Mr. Weaver about my project again in Capstone class. One non-profit organization that he mentioned was the 4-H club, which is not very well-known to many people. He thought that this organization would be a good idea because there is not much awareness about 4-H, but there are many people in the area who are involved with the club. So after hearing from each professor I took awhile to think about what each one had to say and finally came up with an idea. I have been thinking about it all semester and it feels great to be sure of what I want to do.

For my project I have decided to take Dr. Barner's advice and stick with just the non-profit organization. After choosing the organization I would like to work with, I will contact and meet with whoever is in charge for an interview. In the process I will conduct both archival and descriptive research to get a good background of the organization. Then I will create two 30-second radio spots and one 30-second television spot, however this may change due to what the client may want. Then in order to tie in the documentary aspect that Mr. Corso suggested, I would like to create another 5-minute documentary for the organization. This way, they can have something to show to anyone who is not familiar with the organization and is interested in finding out more.

Although deciding on what to do for my project has been a large task, the actual project will be even more time consuming. I feel it's still early to tell exactly the direction my project will go in, but now that I have a good outline, research, sources, goals, and timeline I feel that I have a jumpstart and things will come together as I go along.