PRESENTATION

RESEARCH

Visiting the Experience Barnsley Exhibition has aided me well in inspiring my documentary’s presentation. The main aspect it helped me to visualise is interactivity.

One of the first things you notice is how well everything is laid out. It is a visual space, and you can see how much thought has gone into telling stories through images, videos, and objects. For me, that helped me think more carefully about how I want to present things—especially when it comes to visual design. Seeing how they balance text with visuals, and how they guide you from one display to the next, gave me some ideas about how to structure my own presentation so it flows better and keeps people interested.

Within my presentation space, I will have barely a fraction of the space available in the Experience Barnsley exhibit, so learning how to utilise movement within a smaller area is important for me to understand and take in. This is especially relevant considering the messier look I want my exhibition to have; it needs to fit that style while still being coordinated.

With my ideas for the presentation so far, they’ve focused more on design rather than how people can interact with it. The Experience Barnsley exhibition had multiple ways of encouraging physical engagement—setups with computer games, endless buttons to press, and even a tunnel you could crawl roughly a metre into to get a sense of what it would be like working down a coal mine as a child. Going into this, I only had one idea on how to make my presentation interactive and fit with my content: bringing in a few CDs, alongside my CD player, and letting viewers pick their album. However, after visiting the exhibition, I want there to be multiple ways to engage.

One idea I’ve had post-visit is the concept of a burn book—a journal viewers can look at and write their confessions in. I will start the book off myself with controversial opinions on music to match the theme of my documentary: “Taylor Swift is overrated,” or “I once poured my drink on someone at a concert on purpose.” Another idea is to include a small whiteboard, one that will be free for all visitors to doodle on and graffiti.

From old newspapers and letters to video interviews and interactive timelines, the exhibition is a goldmine. With it being so local and specific to Barnsley, it makes everything feel real and grounded. You feel a certain intimacy from it, and for many, a sense of nostalgia. The places quoted and elaborated on are only a few miles away.

This is something I want to apply to my presentation, but in a different sense. My goal is to match the style and setup to my target audience—mainly teenage girls, but also their parents. My bedroom is messy: makeup not put away, a bed that’s never made, a laptop usually open with the memory stick still in, and CDs I haven’t bothered putting back in the drawer. I’m hoping that by recreating a condensed version of this, it’ll resonate with my audience. “This feels like home.” “This is what I’m like.”

When it comes to the older generation part of my target audience—fathers and mothers of those teenagers—I’m hoping it resonates with them as well. Instead of “this is what I’m like,” the message becomes, “this is what my child is like. It’s like walking into their bedroom.”

Another thing I gained from the exhibit was learning how other people react and engage. Seeing how different visitors—especially kids and older people—absorbed the exhibition gave me a better understanding of what makes content interesting or boring. It also made me think about the safety of my presentation. Since it will be open to families, and young children might be around, I need to consider things like trip hazards. I also need to keep things accessible—breaking up heavy info with visuals and not overloading people with too much text or anything that takes away from the actual documentary.

The storytelling in the exhibition is another big takeaway. It’s not just a bunch of facts thrown at you; it tells real stories about real people, and that makes a big difference. I’ve started thinking more about how to tell a story in my own work—not just presenting info, but making people care about it. Whether that’s through a personal anecdote, a strong opening, or some emotional hook, that kind of approach makes a presentation way more engaging.

Lastly, visiting an exhibition made me step back and reflect on how information is presented in general—what makes something memorable, and what doesn’t.

For my documentary presentation, I have decided to try and go for a teenage girl grunge style desk, this will fit well with my target audience profile I created during the context section of my FEP.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Daisy is an 18-year-old girl, she lives at home but is stuck in the vicious rapids of deciding whether or not to stay home and go to a university nearby, or brave independence and move further afield. Daisy has a part-time job and whether or not she’s willing to leave it is factoring into her decision. She lives on TikTok and Pinterest. She tries to curate the same sense of style and authenticity as the girls she sees on the respective apps – she longs for the coolness of women like Stevie Nicks and Joan Jett. With her source of income she often pays visits to shops like Hmv, she knows prices are steep but they’ve started doing student discounts now and independent stores have the potential to be pricier. She pays for Spotify but she likes the intimacy of putting a record on the player, being able to call it hers because she owns it.

She grew up with CDs in the car and her father asking her “who sings this?”. She still doesn’t know the answer most of the time but she’s beginning to ask it back as she’s developed her music taste.

 

David works 9-5, Monday to Friday. He drives to work listening to Greatest hits radio, or whatever CDs are in the glove box. They are a mix of his and his wife. They’ve stopped buying them since Daisy got older, started taking the bus to school, and is old enough for the free version of Spotify and eventually the premium one. Still, pink Lloyd and Guns and Roses sit in their cracked cases – faithful and adoring. He misses introducing her to new music, getting to struggle as she didn’t know who was who so he could go on a tangent. Mark Knopfler is the greatest guitarist of all time regardless of what Clapton says.

to explore whether or not in the pursuit for independence from big companies and their goal of temporary ownership, is the resurgence of vinyl and cd only playing into more capitalistic hands.