Unit 10 - Work Experience
Skills Audit
This was my Skills Audit I had done for my work experience. This was a great guidance for me to know where my skills stand and for the people I am doing my work experience with. I think it is important to know where my skills lie when applying for work experience as doing that will help me work more on those skills and learn more new skills alongside it as well. Furthermore, for my work experience I going to be working with my father's company and help them in promoting their new architecture design. I will be helping them in creating Leaflets and Booklets that will have the plans for the apartments. To help succeed in this work experience I need to have experience in using the Adobe Apps and I have gained those skills throughout my course. I also have gained essential skills throughout my course and extra curricular experience like working in teams, planning, meeting deadlines and I believe these are important skills when working with a client as the client will have specific requirements which I will have to meet. I enjoy working as a team and individually as it helps me sharpen my skills and also inspire my team and motivate them when coming up with creative ideas.
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This was some of the planning that I had done with the idea of promoting a newly built apartment. My main aim was to have some sort of photography that will show the targeted audience the apartment complex so they have an idea of what the place is like. Which is why I had come with four product ideas, all of these products have some sort of photography and visual elements and will make sure that the overall aim is met. Furthermore, this is why I had decided in the end to go with a Virtual Tour and Leaflet. The reason why I chose a Virtual Tour is because something that I noticed is that a lot of online tours seems to only contain photography, but even at times those photographs are not able to give an accurate measurements to the target audience. I believe that by having a Virtual Tour in which they audience would be able to move around the house virtually will be suitable as they can get the full apartment view if they are not able to travel to the location. This means that a wide range of audience can also view it, so if they live further away and are moving to the town or are sick and unable to attend the viewing or even busy. I will be creating this Virtual Tour using a wide range of equipment and will be editing and creating the floor plan by myself by visiting the apartment complex and capture the 360 degree views.
I had also got some feedback from my classmates when I presented my idea of the work experience. Most of the mentioned my detailing which is what my main aim was presenting as I wanted to make sure my audience understands what I will be working with and what the standard would be. However, some of them did say that I needed to add more images to explain more and I will be working more on that in the future as I want to make my work is not only being understood verbally but also is easy to visualise, hence using more images and making sure my audience can imagine how it would look like.
Audience Research
For my target audience I have looked at a wide range of people who might be interested in the company. In general, the target audience for advertising an apartment will range around the specific area where the building is located. For this apartment the building is located in Bushy, Watford so the general target audience would be people living in Watford or even towards Harrow if the client wants to promote the building more widely. The people would be individuals or families who have subscribed to real estate house apps and this can be Zoopla, OntheMarket, RightMove and more. I would create the floor-plan tour and send it off to the client who will then take measures and put the floor plan on the designated websites. Another target audience would be Business Travellers. The reason would be because the apartment would also be on sale for people to purchase. Many people tend to purchase apartments on sale and either live in them or rent it to close family friends etc. Having Business Travellers as a target audience means they are likely to be living far away as they may be busy, which is why the Virtual Tour would be the most helpful as it would the Business Person a clear and organised idea of what they are purchasing and can walk around the house by just using their computer mouse. Furthermore, Business Travellers may also find it easier for this Building as it comes furnished so they would not have not worry about transporting more furniture as the building would provide everything for the Business Person.
Families with younger children/newly settled can also be included as a target audience. These families tend to look for homes that would be suitable for the children to live in by also having near transportation. This building is located in between a bus stop which leads to a main shopping centre as well which is why I believe it would be suitable for families with younger children as they want to make sure that the place they are living in is comfortable for their children. Furthermore the apartment being furnished is another plus for them as they would not want to spend much money on furniture if moving from another country so the furnished apartment can be good for them to stay for at-least they are completely settled. Real Estate agents can also be included in the target audience as they are important when advertising an apartment/house. Their role usually lies in making sure the ad for the apartment is being displayed on websites. I believe that they their role would impact a-lot which is why it would be important to be in contact with them and meet any of their additional requirement they offer to the client. Furthermore, a lot of agents tend to the physical viewing but having a virtual tour makes to easier for them as well as they can show the renter/buyer from their screen or even email the link and if they then want to view it physically they can.
Pre-Production
This was my pre-production progress. After researching and looking at different brands of virtual tour kits I came across Asteroom and they were offering the starter kit that contained the lens, tripod and camera rotator. Since I already had a camera rotator I ended up purchasing only the Rotator and Lens which shows below on when I ordered it. This is where some of the delivery issues came up as the order was being delayed due to a mail strike I believe. In result I had told my dad to inform the client in which he had replied saying he did not mind the delay and understands why the order was not being processed. However, after contact the order service my order ended up arriving on 28th of Nov 2022 which when I started preparing for the production process. Below was an email I got after I ordered and in the email it led me to a video where the company showed a process of how film and capture the pictures. It was quite helpful as I got to learn more about how to take virtual tours as it was a starters guide to how to take virtual tours.
Planning/Scheduling
This was some planning and scheduling I did using the excel provided by my teacher. My aim was to finish the project before Christmas Break so that I could send my project to my client and get feedback during the break and improve if needed. This was a helpful guide to stay organised and I got the chance to stay on time.
Smart Targets
- Produce my virtual tour and edit it throughout the weekend so that the main product is being produced while working on a similar product. This research will help in producing more creative ideas while editing and can be a good experience
- Get client feedback and their opinions on the virtual tour. Ask the client if they are satisfied with the product and if they want any final changes throughout the editing process. Also make sure the links are working and are exported in the right format as this will help in producing a successful virtual tour.
Client Interview
This client feedback helped me knowing where I stand when creating virtual tours. The EBI was actually a helpful guide for me to know what position and camera settings I should be using next time. Furthermore, I could also make sure that next time I use the Kuula the website I edited the images on and use more of the settings the website provided itself to make my pictures more clear. Since it was my first time creating a project like this I wasn't 100% sure on the camera positions so I will be working more on them in the future now.
Client Contact
The Client Contact was mostly my dad. The reason is because my dad was on a regular basis contact with his boss, furthermore my dad also had work in the Airbnb place almost everyday hence why I was able to get access to the client's email and get more information on what he wanted overall through the help of my dad.
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The Production
This is how I produced this Virtual Tour. I first looked up Virtual Tour Cameras and Kits as I knew beforehand that most of these tours have a 360 fisheye lens, but I did not want to purchase just the lens. Furthermore after doing some research and looking into some YouTube videos I found a alternative that was a ''Asteroom 3D Kit'' which came with the whole kit itself and a beginners guide. The picture below was how the Kit looked like. I had only bought the camera rotator and lens as I already have a tripod at home. The camera rotator and lens were also the most important part of making this virtual tour. The camera rotator had settings which made it rotate from 10 seconds to 60 seconds and rotated around the whole room without me needing to do it. Furthermore, the lens helped the rotator as it captured the room in a wide angle and every corner was in shot. I also captured all of these images on my phone. The reason why I did this is because I did not know where to find a fish eye camera lens and found it a bit expensive as well, so I decided to capture it on my phone.
The picture above is how my gallery looked after I had exported all the images. I had taken some time and sorted out all the different images all into different albums. The reason why I did this was to stay organised and know which room, corridor or even bathroom belonged to which apartment. As you can see by the amount of images each Airbnb took me about 11 images and this was done in about an hour maximum. I found this quite easy and new and was intrigued with the idea of how the virtual tour was being created. After this, it was time to create the virtual tour itself.
I made the Virtual Tour using Kuula. It is a free website that is available to anyone to create the virtual tours. For my first time creating something like this, I found it easy to use and learned the navigation process easily as well. From the 1/2 image above, I first imported all my panoramas and labelled them one by one on what part of the Airbnb they were. After doing that I spent quite some time going through every single 11 images and editing the ''Zooms'', ''Pitch Movement'' and ''Sharpness." These settings were helping me fix any errors like having too much movement or being too zoomed in or unclear. I also then created the buttons and simple text using a tool called "Hotspot" it created the little white buttons and text and were the most important part of the virtual tour. These hotspots were the navigation bars for the virtual tour which is why I made sure each of them were the right size and visible to the viewer it self. I wanted to make this an easy-going experience as possible for the viewer so they can view the tour from anywhere. Then I exported it as a link and emailed it to my dad who helped me figure out any extra corrections before sending it out to the client.
Analyse Similar Product
This was a similar product I had seen when conducting my primary research. This is a Insta360 Camera Bundle, which contains not only the 360 camera but the charge case, the lens, a magnet pendant and more. This product makes 360 virtual tour 10x much easier as all the person would need to do is place the camera on the stand and use their phones to connect the bluetooth and use. Furthermore, this product is more modernised and expensive than the one I used. Insta360 also only weighs about 27 grams and is no bigger than one's thumb which makes it easy to use and travel around with. I liked this product because it has a variety of things you can do with it and use it in different ways to record a virtual tour. More over, this product also has about 32GB storage which means that it can easily store a good amount off 360 rooms shots and also operates with a 120 frame rate resulting in a smooth captures. From my research, I found out that a lot of professional 360 virtual tour photographers use products like these as they are not only easy to travel with but have a dynamic use as well. This product is from Apple as well which means that is also trust worthy and can be purchased and used easily if you own an Apple Smartphone.
After watching professionals talk about how to capture a good 360 Virtual Tour, I also discovered that using products like these can actually be quite helpful when working with a lot of clients. If a person has a busy schedule, they do not have to worry about how they are going to carry their camera bag, a camera rotator, phone and charger all together but instead can just take the Insta360 or similar item and travel easily. Furthermore, Insta360 comes in a various forms and can also be used outside just apartments because it is easy to navigate and does not hold confusing options. This can range from 360 of museums, hotels and even shopping centres and give the person who wants to visit the place more information and they can easily visualise their experience before deciding. This can also be done without the Insta360 but it would be quite harder as the person would not only have to carry a lot with them but the charging system can also be hard, as you don't know where you would find a charging cable or how far it would be from your work space.
Since it was my first time ever doing a Virtual Tour, I went with a much cheaper option as I found it affordable for myself. However, even though I had to deal with some difficulties I have realised that if now in the future I was to go another Virtual Tour I would think about purchasing a Insta 360 or similar as it is much easier to travel with and I would not have to worry about carrying more stuff with me if the journey is long.
Final Production
This was the Final Production of the 360 Virtual Tour.
Client Feedback
This was some client feedback I had got after I showed my client the final pieces. This feedback was quite helpful to me as I got to know what my strong points are and what my weak points are. The client said I had communicated well and also said I had kept it professional but also said I should make sure next time there is less blur on the camera. This guided me into knowing on what matters I should be focusing on now, as now I know that I need to work more towards my photography/setting up elements and make sure the lens is not blurry.
Evaluation
How well did you communicate with the Client?
The aim for my product was to create a virtual 360 tour that captures two Airbnb's and shows a guide to each room and what they look like. Furthermore, the main aim was to be able to walkthrough the flat through a phone/website by using creative tools and formats. My client told me the main audience for this production would be business owners/travellers and people who are looking for a place to stay for a little while as it was an Airbnb which means most of the targeted audience was either coming for vacation or from somewhere outside the town. To communicate with my client I had been in constant with my dad as he was the one managing and bringing in the brief to me as his boss (the client) had a busy schedule. Furthermore, I had talked to my dad after that constantly where we talked about the brief and what steps I should be taking too get a successful design. Furthermore, to achieve this I had a phone conversation with client where he told me this production was to be made in such a way that it could be easily navigated by people who have never used a virtual tour before so this means adding some sort of guidance for them and also making sure the production itself was easily exported by email or different networking sites.
How well did you complete your tasks, was it in a timely manner?
The final items turned out professional and the client was pleased with the execution of the product as well. The final items were about four Virtual Tours captured in four different Airbnb's and two of the Airbnb's were furnished and the other two were unfurnished. The process of capturing each Virtual Tour took about an hour each with about plus +40 minutes of editing and improving more, so in total it was about 6/7 hours in a whole in the span of three days. I created these four virtual tours myself and a little help from my parent to travel in the client location and getting access to the apartments itself as my parent worked with the client as well. Furthermore, to create the virtual tour itself I used both hardware and softwares, the hardware products were a phone, camera rotator. tripod, fisheye lens and an iPa and the softwares Kuula, Asteroom as these are websites in which I created the guide itself and navigation process. The work was done in a timely manner as it only about three to four days and I had submitted the work via email to the boss.
More of the process was first gathering all the materials and going to the location with the help of my parent. Then I had set up all of the products and used Asteroom; an application that captures panoramas specifically for virtual tours and then connected the application to my phone and put on the fish eye lens which would create a 360 degrees of one specific room itself. After setting it all up, I then put the camera rotator on a 30 seconds timer which meant it would rotate in a 360 angle for about 30 seconds capturing the shot of the room/area. While capturing itself I had to make sure I stayed out of the shot itself so I was either behind the camera or was in a different room as the camera captured the panoramas. I did this process throughout the whole Airbnb for four times before I exported them onto my iPad and began the editing process.
I had airdropped the images to my iPad and put them in specific folders naming them the Airbnb number so I did not mix up any different apartment rooms with the other. I had then used Kuula to import the images and started editing them. The editing process was mostly me making sure that the pictures were in order, adding sharpens and pitching the zoom in and out movement and the most important adding hotspots. Hotspots were the most important as they were the small white buttons pasted throughout the whole tour that create the navigation through the apartment. I had to make sure this was done for every picture which meant that for each tour I had captured about 10/12 pictures so I had to go through each of them and add the hotspots and connect them to the next room and more.
What is one area you felt you could have performed better in?
This was my first time creating a virtual tour ever, so in the start I was quite nervous on how it would turn out and what tools I would need. Some problems I faced while doing was first the delivery issue that came when I had ordered the products itself. This led my products to arrive a bit later than they were meant to which is why I had to contact my client and make sure they didn't mind that, in which the responded and said I could take my time. Second problem I faced that was the when capturing the panoramas itself for first unfurnished apartment some of the pictures had actually come out unclear and blurry. I had tried my best to retake but could not figure out the issue as I was not sure if it was my phone, the app or the lens itself. To overcome this problem I ended up cleaning my phone and fisheye lens with proper tools I had beforehand but also had to end up visiting the apartment once more in the end to recapture about two rooms again to make sure they were not blurry. I believe the reason why I might have struggled a little was because it was my first time and also because I might have not had the much easier products as they were out of my budget.
Are you happy with the final product/service you provided to your client?
However, with the final production itself I was quite satisfied with it all turned out. It was my first time creating this sort of advertising design so to overcome the issues I faced actually helped me know what to make sure next time i had to do something like this and what products/process would look like. Furthermore, capturing the pictures itself was quite easy as I only had to make sure my camera was set in the right place and the pictures were being taken correctly as well. As for the editing process, I enjoyed editing it because I got to experiment with the hotspots and the sharpness/blurriness as well as created the navigations was long but it was nice to learn as I was curious in the past on how people created such tours. For next time however, I would definitely make sure I have more of a professional products itself as even though my client said the production itself was professional I feel that it would be better next time to make sure to have the Insta360 or even some cheaper alternatives. The reason why I would do that is because I would not have to worry about carrying all of the materials and tripod when I could just use the 27 grams camera and its associated tripod to capture the pictures itself.
I would also make sure my products itself arrive on time, this means I would just travel to the shop itself as even though it would be a long journey I would get my products on time and could start right away instead of making the client wait. Overall, I believe this was a successful work experience as I got to create something new and got to work in a professional like environment. Furthermore, I also got to learn more communication and photography/editing skills as well and got to be better at time management. This was also successful because my client was satisfied with the product as well, as it met all of the main objectives he had listed from the start and while doing my pre-production I had made sure beforehand I was meeting all of the objectives/aims and had also improved and represented it well.
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