Reflective Essay: Overcoming Production Challenges

 My product is a basketball magazine focusing on the unique aspect of what it takes to be the best from the perspective of a student athlete. This project has gone well and has become something that I enjoy putting my time into. This project has met and surpassed my expectations of how complex magazine production is. It takes a lot of precise hard work, but in the end, with enough time, it’s still possible to create an amazing product. In my producing, I’ve come across many challenges that were controllable and uncontrollable, however, I’ve learned a lot of unique tricks and tips to help get me through the process.

One main point that I know now from the experience of creating a magazine is the number of struggles you encounter but also the amount of resilience that you can unlock in the process. I myself ran into a lot of problems, a lot of them being small. Some of the small ones consist of things like the camera I used to ensure the best quality of photos, lighting, planning the scenery and learning how to use software like InDesign. Most of these are easy fixes like finding someone with a good camera or positioning extra lights correctly, but there is one thing that was the most challenging factor and that is my execution. It was very hard to stay on pace considering how busy and scattered my everyday life is, but somehow, I stayed with the work, slowly getting through step by step and process by process, and finally came out with my end product, my magazine.

Another challenge is probably the biggest, in my opinion, and that is time management and organization. This was a massive block in the road, physically and mentally. I was constantly rushing to get work done or caught up, always fighting deadlines, and even struggling to find time to take the photos needed for my magazine. In a world with so many things to do, it’s so hard to find time to do everything, which is why I struggled with scheduling and doing a photoshoot. This was my biggest hurdle, but in time, I set aside some time to take photos and put everything into my final assignment and produced my magazine. I learned key lessons from this in procrastination and how to manage the time I’m given to complete something.

All in all, I’ve gained a lot of experience in the process of this product and class that can help me in so many ways in the future. This has set a background for me to learn from my mistakes and fix them to complete something to the best of my ability, now, in academics, and even in the future when I get a job and need to support myself. Lastly, the best advice I can give to others facing similar problems is that if you feel like not doing it, it’s way easier to just get it done because doing it last minute won’t always work out for you.