Proposal: Preproduction

My friends will laugh when I say “I’ve done a lot of speaking”. Whoa understatement.  But what I mean is that I’m not worried about my public speaking skills.

I am, however, worried about my presentation on the 10th. It’s meant to present to the entire advisor board what I’d like to spend the next few months doing, and I’ve been told that it is a possibility to fail right here and not go on. I don’t think it’s likely, but it does point out how serious this Proposal Presentation is.

And truth be told I haven’t made many powerpoints and none of them formal. I’m not real super set on my exact topic/thesis question so that’s not helping much. The teachers are exacting but they’re contradicting each other and the exact grading rubric is not clear. This is a big chunk of my grade.

I’m spending my time on 3 things: 1, boiling my thoughts down to a clear, exact thesis and 2, researching how to make and give great powerpoint presentations and finally 3. the mechanics involved in presenting.

So – ‘slideshow’, projected from the teacher’s station desk to a big screen. I’m not familiar with Keynote or powerpoint – but what else do I use? iPad with scrolling content?  But how does that relate to my thesis, and how do I project it? It doesn’t, it’s just something I can do. Do I make a PDF issuu book, bring it up from online and and flip it – but again, how does this relate to my thesis? Cause if it doesn’t relate it’s just a distraction from the expected slideshow format.

My next issue is: my strength is speaking so how do I untether myself from the necessity of standing at the Teacher Station desk mouse-clicking the computer? I may have a great solution to this one – download a Keynote remote to my iphone, control the slideshow through my computer through to the Teacher computer and up to the projector.  Or figure out how to connect remotely to the Teacher Station computer (almost got this one technically figured out) and then I can roam using the iphone to forward the slides. Worst case scenario I connect Brother Bud’s old skool mouse via bluetooth to the Teacher Station, place the pointer on the Next arrow and then click in my hand as I move around.

… I know these things, learning to make powerpoints and finding ways to connect/project my slideshow, seem to be taking time I don’t have, sucking energy away from the thesis and study itself.  IT VERY MUCH IS. But this is what I’ve been told I have to do to progress so that’s what I’ll do.

In the end the point is: I don’t see how right now but I have confidence I can do this and do it well.