Evaluation of My Young Money Experience

I have had some great experiences on this project. I have learnt so much and hopefully been able to do justice to the project by showing what is important and also displaying that young entrepreneurship is newsworthy. The project started with an idea that had long stuck with me about the concept of entrepreneurship. It culminated into me finding out about what it means within the British society to be an entrepreneur, especially amongst the working class. What I found was not so surprising. Although many wanted to get into business, most are not aware of the intricacies of starting or sourcing for fund.

Doing my Piece to Camera and Interviews

I had to book the Sony V1, some radio microphone, which will allow me to work with needing a boom operator. I also had to book some red heads to light my set which was in my living room for my piece to camera. I thought the redheads were pretty good as they for my piece to camera but while I was shooting Zoe Smith, even though I looked in the monitor to make sure my light settings were quite good, it wasn’t until I downloaded the footages later that I realized that they were a bit overexposed. I tried darkening the footage but it didn’t look flattering so I decided to leave them the way they were, hence why Zoe Smiths footage looked a bit bright.

Lesson learnt from Sound

For my Piece to camera, I used my DSLR camera to do my recording. Because the DSLR does not actually allow you to choose external microphone, which I was going to be using, I did some research and found some third party software which allowed me to do this. I downloaded magic lantern software on my SD Card, nonetheless, because I was overly careful not to peak my sound, I later realized that the sound levels for my PTC was not great as it was a bit quiet. However, it was too late to redo them, so I tried using Final Cut Pro to adjust them, the problem doing this was that the static noise behind my actual sound also increased which meant, I was advise by my tutor to put some filters which I did. The filters didn’t change much but this is probably because of my inability to effectively use them as I am a beginner at FCP.

Filming for my Vox Pops

Filming my vox pops was quite interesting as it was done in Manchester and my able assistant in person of my wife, Emese, helped me. Because it was a very cold morning, and we had our son Korne´l with us, it was quite cold as he became a distraction as his little hands were cold. However, we were determined to film that morning and Korne´l had to withstand the cold. Thankfully, we quickly found people who were interested in being interviewed.

Editing

During the editing process, I learnt quite a lot thanks to people around me including Sam, Ricardo, Danny and of course Youtube. I did the my news opening using motion and although I could have made it more animated, I settle for a simple zoom. I hope to improve my skills doing this in future. I also did my sound recording on garageband and used compressor to get it to the AIFF setting which it needed to be in order to used on FCP.

Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take pictures during most of my shoots but I found my self in shot here so I took a screen shot of it as evidence.

Why Young Money?

The reason why I chose to do my News Item on the subject of Youth Entrepreneurship is connected with my background and upbringing. As someone coming from Nigeria, a country where the rate of unemployment is 7x the rates obtainable here in the UK, entrepreneurship is a ubiquitous phenomenon. Almost everyone runs their own petty or large business alongside working for others. It is not uncommon to see university lecturers selling hand outs in order to supplement their wages, which is usually quite low. A lot of students run their own business alongside their studies.

As a student in Nigeria, I had at least two streams of income. This helped me with my upkeep. And this has stayed with me till today even in the UK, as I am always engaged in one form of business or another. Nigeria is a country where Winston Churchill’s famous saying “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” holds true more in the aspect of youth entrepreneurship than in the UK. The difference between Nigeria and UK couldn’t be more stack in this respect. Perhaps this is why commentators have deemed Nigerians as the happiest people in the world- the ability to decide your own destiny. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/jan/04/nigerians-top-optimism-poll As a welfare state, the UK makes provision for her populace in form of unemployment benefits, income support, and housing benefits etc., something that is Utopian in Oil rich Nigeria. Nonetheless, the fact that many British people get handed everything on a “platter of gold” in my opinion, makes a tangible amount of people less competitive and unproductive and perpetually living on the breadline. Many will live out their lives never using their innate skills and talents because of the lack of an environment where creativity and entrepreneurship is actively encouraged. Thankfully, now, there is a case for youth entrepreneurship. With unemployment among young people hovering around the one million mark, it is time to start debating the topic as well as shining some light on its intricacies. And since obviously the media shapes our worldview in a larger way than we are aware of, there isn’t a better time than the present to put the subject of Youth entrepreneurship in the headlines.

New Year

Just before Christmas I went into Manchester Piccadilly to do some vox pops, some of which are quite good for my project. I also interviewed Zoe Watson, director of Leap29 in Wilmslow. The interview went swimmingly with Zoe pouring out herself, there a lot to choose from. Risk assessment for her Wilmslow office is quite straight forward. The voice over script is being written out and being practiced for recording. Now I just need to get some graphic and one final vox pop done and that will be it with recording. The Project young money has been quite enlightening for me. From her experiential point of view, Zoe Watson opines that although Entrepreneurship is definitely the best, however, it is more for people who are educated in accounts and finance. She believes that starting young is definitely an advantage as one has the drive to try new things. From my vox pops I got similar responses. A gentleman told me that if one does not have finance available then there is no point going into entrepreneurship as one will be hovering on the breadline.

Interviews and Vox Pops

I am planning to do some interviews and some vox pops tomorrow as part of my primary research. Obviously, it is quite important that i get some informed views on the subject of entrepreneurship for my news item. I am hoping to get a positive reply from a business lecturer from Manchester Metropolitan University tomorrow. Also, I am looking to interview a Director from one of the UK's foremost small companies, Leap 29. They where one of the top ten company to work for last year. I have booked out my equipment hoping for a positive outcome from my contacts.

YOUNG MONEY

This project will be taking a look at a group of young people who have decided against the status quo of getting a job after university or college but embrace entrepreneurship. Finance is one very important issue, which most British youngsters do not actively think about. Why? When there is no pressure to pay for housing, electricity, or even education. With unemployment among 16-24 standing at almost 1million, you have a situation where a lot of people are waiting in line for a job while languishing government handouts. However there are a minority of people who think differently about their financial future, and actively do something about it. These are the ones, which this project will be focusing on here. Welcome to young money! At this point I will be interviewing a young person who has started his own business. Education Department abolish http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/blog/why-young-enterprise business link – interview someone from business link