Last Tuesday...

I always find Tuesdays a bit of a hassle because we're in from 10-4, it doesn't sound like much but when you're used to 3 hour days, it feels like running a marathon, without the running bit - although walking up the 2 flights of stairs can often feel as strenous as running 26 miles.

Tuesday morning we have 'Contemporary Media Issues' in which we were given our first project. In groups of 4 we have to produce a wiki page on wetpaint about an assigned book and answer a specific question. Our book is called 'Futuretainment' by Mike Walsh.

Getting the book from the library was stressful enough, there's just too many books, and codes, and librarians telling me to tie up my lace. But anyway, our question is, "What changes are predicted for the future relationship of producers and consumers of media and what are the implications of these?"
The author, Mike Walsh, has an impressive website that you may want to look at: http://www.futuretainment.com/

Anyway, the lecture to follow was 'Digital Media Tools' in which we were studying sequential imagery: the process of telling a story in a series of shots. In this case, we had to tell a story within 5 shots. Our idea was someone (me, unfortunate for my dignity) watching a funny video but laughing too much that they fall off their chair - my drama GCSE came into good use. Over the coming weeks we will be working more with photography and telling stories through the medium of pictures...it will be very exciting!

Mofilm Workshop

So last Thursday, instead of Creativity and Concepts, we had an all day workshop with the company Mofilm. They are a multi-million pound company that hold contests for aspiring filmmakers to produce films for major companies such as Pepsi, Doritos and Vodafone. Mofilm aim to help unknown filmmakers get discovered and hopefully win an Oscar!
Their link is http://www.mofilm.com/ if you'd like to find out more, watch some winning videos or enter a contest yourself.

Our task was to create, film and edit a 15-25 second advert for the paper, 'The Hindustan Times'.

The brief told us that it had involve someone doing something wrong and then being hit over the head with a paper (a copy of the Hindustan times) to tell them to correct themselves. The advert then had to finish with the line "It's time to change..."

Our group's idea was centred around the issue of wasting food as we felt like this is something that happens far too often in the world especially when there's so much poverty. The idea was to have someone walking, take a bite out of his sandwich, not like it, throw it down on the floor only to have a random passer by run out of nowhere and hit him over the head with the newspaper.

Thankfully the group I was in was full of media genius' so they knew what they were doing. I spent most of the day just watching on as I didn't have a clue about filming techniques and how to edit using Final Cut Pro. Our finished film turned out really good and I enjoyed the whole process of making it.

Here is the finished advert:

The past 2 weeks...

I'm not going to lie, I haven't exactly kept on top of this blog for the past week and a bit so this post will hopefully cover all the bits and pieces I've done in uni.

Wiki
In 'Contemporary Media Issues' we were told we had to bring in an article about the media. Rushing around that morning, I found an article on a woman who was raped, and after watching CSI all the time, she helped solve her rape by leaving her DNA in the car during the ordeal. Fortunately, the rapist was found and jailed. We were put into groups based on the topic of our articles, mine being TV. We used a website called Wetpaint to create a wiki page about all of our articles.
Here's the link: http://contemporarymediaissues.wetpaint.com/page/TV
I didn't really like using wetpaint because I found it boring. It was simple to use, as all you needed to do was type but appearance-wise I didn't find it captivating to read, compared to the likes of prezi anyway. 

Photoshop
In 'Digital Media Tools' we were given the task of taking 3 photos of something we walk past every day. I chose the creepy looking shed on top of a building that I can see outside from my window.
Here's the original:

Our task was to photoshop it in anyway we want. As I've never used photoshop before, I didn't really have a clue what I was doing so decided to make it black and white by playing round with brightness, exposure, saturation and contrast.

Here's the photoshopped version:

I like how it looks creepier and more haunted.

Storyboard

As part of our assessment for the end of the year, an assignment we were given was to produce a storyboard consisting of 20-30 shots. Our story was about a husband who went on a date with his girlfriend and his wife is watching him. We then see a mystery figure follow him and subsequently kill him. The final shot is the figue revealing theirselves as the wife. I really enjoyed planning how the shots would look and positioning the characters in a way where the photos would come out best.

Antichrist
In Friday's 'Film Language' someone had the clever idea of putting on the film 'Antichrist' for us to watch and note the cinematography. All I can say is, anyone who managed to write notes during that film is a hero. It was genuinely the most disturbing film I've ever seen. There was no need for anyone's genitals to get bashed or cut off, there was no need for the wife to drill a hole in her husband's leg and bolt a boulder to it, there wasn't even a need for the wife to start bashing her head against the toilet. In my opinion there wasn't a need for the film. However, the director, Lars Von Trier, did create some very effective scenes such as the opening scene. It is shown in black and white, with classical music playing and shows the couple having sex and their child watching them then falling out the window. The music built up the tension of what was going to happen to the child and became slower once the child had died. Another effective technique that was used was that throughout the film, scenes would often be pretty quick and the transition was sharp.
But honestly, don't put yourself through the torture of watching this film, I couldn't even eat lunch after it, and it takes a lot for me not to eat lunch...

Presenting Prezi...

So on Tuesday's 'Contemporary Media Issues' Lesson (is that what you call it?) our task was to get into groups and create a presentation on http://www.prezi.com/ about our objects we had brought in. These objects were all items that were important to us and meant a lot.

Mine was my Glastonbury wristband from this year's festival. I chose it because it was one of the best weeks of my life, simple as. It was also one of the last trips my friends and I took before we all parted ways. I wear it everyday reminding me of my best friends and of the countless times I fell in the mud! It was tragic how many times I fell, we had to start leaving earlier from the tent just to allow 'Becca picking up time' before the music started. On the plus side I've never got so much male attention as they picked me up off the floor!

Anyway back to the point, Prezi. It's an alternative to powerpoint; whereas instead of numerous slides, it's all on the one page - kind of like a spider diagram. I'd never used the online programme before and was shocked by it's ease of use. It was simple to use, although after looking at other people's skills and abilities, I still need to practice and get to grips with the more complicated tools. One thing I loved about Prezi was the animation side - as the presentation goes from one piece of information to the other, it zooms round, as if you're watching a cartoon. I also loved how you could add picture, links and videos, and had we have had more time, we definitely would have. The presentations looked more aesthetically pleasing than the boring Powerpoint and captivated the audience more too, I found. Prezi also allowed you to link up different sections that were similar in theme or content, or use arrows to flow from one topic to another - something which is extremely useful and not found on Powerpoint.

Anyway here's the link to ours, it's called Mobjects - Meaningful objects: http://prezi.com/7sdjnortrq9b/mobjects/

And that's my first proper media themed entry over. After looking at some other people's blogs, I've realised that I really need to work on this blog, taking pictures, going to exhibitions and finding anything to write about that's media related - a challenge for me as I'm sure I'm the only student on my course who's never done media before! Wish me luck :)