Presentation Experience - Billy Elliot

Progressing into second year has made me more aware of the importance of speech and language skills because I am exposing myself to more professionals from the design world and other occupations. In order to build my confidence with presenting my concepts/outcomes in front of a panel of people, I aim to present a short synopsis of a film. During this process I hope to articulate the outline of the plot clearly and in an engaging way as I have previously struggled articulating my concepts and ideas to people in crits which doesn't result in formative feedback.

Billy Elliot 

Chose Billy Elliot because it has been one of my favourite films since a young age. Set in County Durham, the film is about an 11 year old boy called Billy during his journey from an uninspired boxer to professional ballerina in the Royal Ballet. The film is set during the violent strikes against Thatcher's closure of the mines, where Billy's father and brother both work. 

The biggest influence for choosing this film was the music, which helps to illustrate the anarchy and rebellion against the government. Artists such as The Clash and The Jam made a big influence on my music taste growing up which originated from this film. 

Released in 2000

Presentation Slides

In order to keep the audience visually stimulated and engaged with the presentation, I kept it predominantly image based, drawing the audiences attention away from me and onto the screen. By using a lot of white space around the image focuses the eye on the image, providing a focal point. This solution allowed me to use poor quality that I sourced online without pixelating them. 

Introduced Billy:

Introduce Billy's Dad: 

Juxtaposing an image of Billy's dad with Billy and his dance teacher illustrates the themes and concerns from the film:

I aim to add a personal touch to the presentation by talking about how much the music influenced me at an early age and also how it helps to illustrate the emotion:

Used an iconic image from an iconic scene for the final slide to summarise:

Feedback

• People liked the minimal layout of the slides as they're 'fresh and clean'
• I was praised for referencing my personal opinions to do with the film such as the fact it had a big influence on me at a young age as well as focusing on the music angle.
• It was said that the justified right type was a nice break from the images
• Simon pointed out that the white space creates a 'flash' when the slide changes which grabs the audiences attention.

In terms of articulating the story, if the images related more to what I was talking about it would have informed a better understanding of the film. I was impressed by other peoples presentation techniques as the use of GIFS and full bleed images were really engaging and focused the attention on the board rather than the presenter. Using a lot of slides also achieves this as the audience is constantly stimulated.