Museum Exhibition

Today we were to explore idea's for user profiles for a 'museum exhibition' we will be producing for a brief for the creative module.

I am in a group with my friends Hannah and Elicia, and the idea we chose for our exhibition is 'photography'. The reason in choosing this was because it is so broad and can be extremely visually entertaining. There are many things you can do with this and so we began jotting down all of our ideas onto paper and a white board. In brainstorming divergently, we were able to come up with so many ideas that there was eventually no more room to write! I find this technique very useful when in a group and sometimes you do become slightly stuck, so the notion of being able to come up with the craziest idea's works really well as then you can think convergantly.

So to come up with the idea's, we decided to first think of our user profile's and thought of 2 ends of a 'timeline' or 'spectrum'. At one end we had an older person who could maybe be a industry professional in photography or has an archive of photos throughout their life, and on the other we had a younger person who is maybe a student or trying to break into the photography industry or just finds it appealing, therefore from these user's, we placed inbetween all our ideas and fired them out onto the white board, for example the younger generation may find a task appealing or the fact there is industry professionals there, and the older may be able to show case their work to younger people and also may find the history of photography appealing or give out advise. Or even, vice versa. 

We will continue with this brief over the coming weeks...

MY FIRST BROADCAST AS A GUEST ON THE RADIO!!

WOW.
My course mates Becca and James have a radio slot on loopervil radio (liverpool's student radio station) and tonight they kindly invited me to be a guest!!
At first I was so nervous it was unreal. I was apprehensive as to what I would talk about, what people would think of me and surprisingly, I was slightly worried that I may even swear by accident! however, after the first half hour I really began to relax and take in just what was going on. I mean, it's a very relaxed atmosphere anyway as they are very good friends of mine, but when your put in that situation its really scary.
Everything went so well and I even got to play one of my favourite songs. Having had that experience, I feel as though I would like to go into the broadcasting area of media, but we will see...
Im just so happy to have been able to have that experience and would do it again any day now Ive done it once! I just wish I wasn't as nervous as I was to begin with!

Brilliant show, with brilliant hosts. I had such a great time, if only we were on air for longer...

Here's the link to the radio show. Wednesday's 4 - 6 pm:

http://looprevilradio.co.uk/

EDITING 'IT'S LIVERPOOL'

I began my journey to uni this morning with my team member James, and was feeling slightly apprehensive as to what are finished 'It's Liverpool' film would look like.
I got to uni and began capturing the footage we filmed on the previous Thursday at the Albert Docks. When I was studying media in college, we used Final Cut Pro to edit with therefore I'm pretty new to using Avid. I only experienced a few difficulties in using the editing software but I love editing so powered through the small mishaps that occurred.
Once I had gotten well into editing, I found myself not being able to tear away from it, not even for lunch! I had an idea in my head of how I wanted the shots to look and in what sequence I wanted them, so once my other team members arrived we then all gathered round the computer and really got to grips with it.
We managed to have a rough cut finished by 4pm and showed it to our lectures, who were surprisingly impressed with our footage. The only advice they gave us was to go out and re shoot more footage to make our film look as if it is a 'day in the life of the Albert Docks' type. This was because on the day of filming, the weather was horrific and full of rain one moment then clear the next so this lead to some of our shots looking as if they go from day to night, then back to day again.
We have planned to go out and re shoot on Thursday to make our film look smoother.
All in all, today was a very productive day of editing, because from what I have been told and what I could see in class, my group is well ahead on this project!

Here's a pic of the editing in action!

Filming 'It's Liverpool'

Today myself and my group members went out to shoot our 90 second film for the competition; 'It's Liverpool'. Basically, it is an online competition where you have to portray Liverpool using one location, and the winner gets £1000, so how could we resist!
We decided the best place to capture Liverpool at its glory is The Albert Docks. Here, tourists flock to see just what liverpool is about and also as the Liverpool Museum is located here, you can get a real feel to the history of liverpool. We had such a productive day of filming today as we had planned out what shots we wanted before hand, some I admit were filmed on the spot, but most were planned. We captured the famous Mersey Ferry, The Liver Buildings and The Liverpool Eye which of course is another major attraction.

We also captured a mini time lapse of people simply walking past the camera but situated as a long shot, so hopefully when speeded up, this will be a nice shot.

WELL DONE TEAM!! :D Hope we win...
(or come close!)

Where the magic happens...

HTML..WHAT??

Today I learnt about creating a web page where I will then post my short films, animations and photographs gradually creating a portfolio. I found that many people on my course have created web pages previously at college however, I have never done any of this type of media so I'm finding it slightly confusing. At first when listening through my Digital Tools lecture on HTML and compressing files, I did get a little bit lost what with the many different names for coding and HTML, but once I got my head round it and asked my lecturer what it is exactly we are doing, I began to understand more.
To be honest, now I find that slowly I'm getting to grips with this module, I feel like I'm not fearing it as much as I was to begin with. As undertaking a career in the media you must be able to use programmes like flash and after effects easily, also making websites and web designs. Even though this is not the area in which I would like to pursue a career within the media (I am wanting to go into production or journalism writing) I defiantly need to have a good and thorough understanding of everything.
Hopefully, I will continue to progress in this module.

FACILITATING...

Today in Creativity and concept, we were exploring the term 'Facilitator'.

We were told to get into groups and were given the idea of a festival for JMU that will go ahead in the summer. We were told that this festival should be aimed at students of JMU and also, staff. We were given a £1000 budget and were told to come up with around 20 concepts each (in other words, 80 concepts in total in my group of 4 members) by thinking divergently, and then once having done this, we then had to think convergantly by squeezing all the concepts down into just the best 3.

Below I have taken a photograph of how our brainstorm looked today. It looks a bit crazy, I'l give you that, but I found that having a Facilitator within a group, really does help even if you are the Facilitator yourself. That person's role is to keep the group on track to what it is they are brainstorming and to keep everyone involved in the discussion.

I also felt in having a Facilitator, this gives chance to the people that are rather quiet when it comes to group decisions and therefore, everyone is then involved.

MY FIRST FINISHED FILM FOR UNIVERSITY!!!!

HERE is my first film that I produced, shot and edited (with the help of my group members James, Emma and Emma of course) for our module PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.
The narrative of our film is a groom who wakes on the day of his wedding (a little late from a drunken night before hand) and rushes to get to his wedding on time, only to realise he is at the wrong cathedral....
Give it a watch, hope you enjoy!!

First Week Back After Christmas...

So this past week has been my first week back after the Christmas break. I had a lovely time off, seeing my family and friends again was great, but if I'm being truly honest, nearing the end of the holiday i couldn't wait to get back to Liverpool and back to uni.
I've been doing some thinking over the holiday's and have decided that I need to begin making a port folio that is separate to my university work. Im going to do this via Tumblr. Im not too sure as of yet what exactly it will be that I will post, but I'l use it as an online blog and as I go on, add more and more, for example my own animations/photographs and films.



This week back at university, we have been given our briefs for each module. Im really exited for our Production practice module as we have 3 deadlines. The first deadline is to produce a 90 second film  based on Liverpool for a competition online. My group has decided to film our location at The Albert Docks. We feel in using the Docks, this will portray Liverpool in a way that is close to Liverpudlian's hearts and will show our audience what Liverpool is about. At the Docks, there is the Mersey which is obviously a major part of Liverpool and you immediately associate it with Liverpool and also many other things such as Mersey Ferries, the liverpool Museum and I feel from here, you can really get a feel of the history of Liverpool. In the film, we will use time lapsing which I have never done before but cant wait to try out and get stuck into this project. We need a rough cut for this film produced on Monday so this gives us a week to get filming. This is defiantly my favourite module out of the entire course, I love being given deadlines and working under pressure.

Below is an example of a film someone made for the 'It's Liverpool' competition that I am entering...