Breakin’ a Sweat for CU Today.

This task was the most fun out of the magazine edits and what not. I clearly hadn’t learnt from the stress that was involved in RAO in putting together ONE page. No, I had to think better of myself, want to achieve higher, prove to myself and others that I am not just coasting along at University. I had to go ahead and chose to edit TWO pages. The double-page spread. CU Today’s magazine supplement on the Olympics. AS a separate group from the Cu TOday newspaper, we had to produce a magazine all about the Games coming to Coventry, because conveniently they have the football in Coventry…. so to find all about other things going on was tough but somehow we managed it, if not loosely. We had definite articles about the Ricoh Arena being turned into the football stadium (City of Coventry Arena.. or something or other) and the massive Lady Godiva that will wake up in June/July at the Uni square and walk herself to London. What I meant by loosely, was my page in that it was about the torch relay and the exact whereabouts the torch was going through Cov… Not a clue. This left me for weeks wanting to give up, wondering what on earth I was going to. Unprofesssionally I wanted to hand it over sub-editor Artlee and resign, but I kept going and found ways around it. Jon Dudley and I worked together to find a solution and decided on a student vox pop/tourist based page. Public opinions and pictures of places in town that we thought (had to make an executive decision) the torch would visit, without claiming that we knew. The Olympics help line weren’t very helpful so they were just a ‘line’ that gave me no information whatsoever because the route wasn’t to be released until summer. Yes, now I am ripping my hair out and biting my lip rather hard. My only saving grace is Becky, my housemate, who has Photoshop, a Mac and a graphics tab. Let’s get creative.

With Becky’s computer I was able to create the Polaroid paper/picture effect with the masking tape. I can’t remember why this became a feature, but it did because my ‘5 year old drawing’ of a map of Coventry didn’t suffice. There was no way I was laying claim to that bit of work. Then it clicked, why not use Polaroid pictures to create a vintage and original effect. No one would have thought of this, and if they hated it I didn’t really care anymore. But they didn’t, I know this could have blown up in my face but it didn’t. For that I am grateful. (I am also really pleased to have my work put up on the wall of the Journo corridor in Ellen Terry – not impressed that my name was mis-spelt though.) I think out of all the work I had produced over the 3 years in Journalism, I am most proud of this. It has my stamp on… out of the ordinary and a little bit fun.

Artlee was my sub-editor and helped me to get the interviews for 2 of the vox pops in order to have enough. I realised at my most stressful moments that he was the one I should have turned to for help, but instead I turned to my friends who helped me through the work and suggested ways of improving.

The double page has one of my articles on it (name spelt correctly – because I wrote it). This was about the torch relay, where it’s coming from, where it is going to, and where it is being made. This was all based upon information I had found on news websites such as the BBC and Olympics web pages as no one would give me any more information, and after sending emails to the torch makers company and receiving nothing, had to make an executive decision to just use other sources from the news.

We had a few problems with the page because the images were lost and un-retrievable due to technological issues. See why I got so stressed yet? So the final printed version is missing a few details, but it works, just the Herbert Gallery is either named or un-named, if it is named, it is very small and unreadable! Unfortunately, at such a late stage in the game this was unavoidable and couldn’t be repaired. Either way I was pretty impressed by it. Well done Wonford.