Loving life, moving on

I've been thinking a lot about getting out of here recently. Well, I say recently but if im being honest I've wished to move away for a long time now...

England is rather stuck up and formal. I know people's perceptions of this are varied so if your reading this and you dont agree with me, then that's fair enough, I just wouldn't advise to read on. My blog is a place for me to voice my own personal opinions, free world and all that..

I long to live in a place full of happiness. It sounds cliche when I put it like that but I mean it (and I'm sure so does half the population). Britain is far too pretentious. There are too many 'hoo har Henry's' and what with Conservative Cameron in place, what choices are we able to make for our own future? I mean, look at the state of the economy last time the Conserv's were in favour with Marget Thatcher....Jesus. There's not much hope.

Take me somewhere else. I am not a 'you must have a career or you will fail life' type of person. I want to have a good job, but that does not mean I will do it through blood, sweat and tears. We get an average of 70 years on this planet (if your lucky) and I'm not about to live it constantly making sure my boss is happy. I am a free spirit, my mother has always taught me to be this person and to do what is right for me. I've worked and held down a part time job since I was fourteen and at one point for three years, a full time job and so in no way am I afraid of work, however I can safely say that that three years was absolute hell on earth! Whether it was the job or the fact I was treated like a dogs body day in day out I dont know. All I know from this is that I want to be happy and live a fruitful life, in a place where the public at least manage a smile rather than the straight, hard and tired faces of Britons.

I am extremely passionate about teaching and helping people and this has been apparent all my life. I am a great listener and have developed brilliant people skills throughout my life. However, my future is not planned out to the last detail like some, because if it were, what space have you got for change or surprise?

I have already done my fair bit of work experience and am carrying on with that in the fields I aim to head into with teaching one day; a two week placement at Nine Lives Media in Manchester (the production company for English/American documentaries) and studio work for one week at Dock 10 Media City in Salford. Both I am equally exited for and will take as much out of them as possible, so fingers crossed.

I'm not going to settle and stay in England all my life. My summer is pretty booked up, and I've made a start on my journeys around this beautiful planet, beginning with 15 days travelling around Europe via the trains. I dont want luxury, on this journey I'l be staying in a mixture of hostels, tents and log cabins with very, very little amenities and I cannot wait!

So here's to my next 50 years on Earth! May it be full of laughter, healthiness and good people. Cheers!

(God,  that sounds corny :D )

Campaigns

Whilst researching and making notes throughout Convergence Media Teamwork, I have come to the conclusion that activism is a positive thing. Upon reflection I discovered many different aspects to this being such a creative way to tell stories across multiple platforms, such as social media being the main 'hub' for most of the connectedness of users, and how people are able to voice their opinions globally, thus creating the term 'globalisation'.

As I have stated in my previous posts, transmedia activism is when a campaign about political or social change uses various platforms in the media such as social networking. Upon researching further into this, I have discovered that the Barbie Deforistation campaign by Greenpace is a good example of how the use of social media across many platforms is apparent. Greenpeace created a story using the Barbie and Ken dolls to sell it, forming the idea that Ken has 'broke up with Barbie over her unappealing deforistation habit'. Greenpeace used this to attack Mattel on how the company is causing drastic deforistation in order to use packaging for its products. As well as having online petitions, animations and a creative use of Google Maps, in order for Greenpeace to firstly get thier voice heard (or seen), Greenpeace created a huge banner and nailed it to the side of Mattel's building in order to make a stand for change. Good on them I say! I am a true supporter in recycling :) and the less waste, the better!

Click this link to see an animation created by Greenpeace!

Here are some creations that Greenpeace created for this campaign, which I must state, did make change in the end: 

New Projects People!!

Hey there guys, sorry its been a few days since my last post, theres been a lot going on with University work and home, all mainly good though!

So just to recap then; recently I've had a report to write, a dissertation proposal if you will. We were to write this along side a partner which I found to my surprise, worked really well! We had two weeks to come up with an idea for a title, synopsis, three chapters and a conclusion. The word count was only 1000 but we couldn't help ourselves for going slightly over that! We decided to focus on social networking and how it is connecting users throughout the world, so came up with the title 'How has social networking aided in the development of globalisation?' I was actually pretty exited to get started on this because it's really good practice for next year when we come to write our dissertation. Here we had the option of choosing to write a dissertation proposal or a review. In my case, I immediately opted for the review because I was shying away from the word 'dissertation'. I had been told by my lecture that my writing is too journalistic and therefore thought I could easily write a review, however after a brief talk to myself, I plucked up the courage and partnered up with Stevie Lennon where we went for the Dissertation proposal. I'm so glad I chose this in the end because it really did give me the practice I needed and helped alter my writing style from being journalist to a much more academic style. After researching and finding five sources, we got to work and it just flowed form then on. I would write the introduction and a chapter which I would then send over to Stevie via Facebook where she would look over it and add her bits in, then send it back to me where I would do the same. This carried on over the period of a week and finally it was finished! I think we worked really well together and I also think she helped me out without realising in a sense of sharpening up my writing style. Thanks Stevie! :) Let's hope for a good mark!

Convergence Media Teamwork. 

Once that report had been sent, I then had to begin to concentrate on a new project. We have recently began a new module; Convergence Media Teamwork, where we are to (in teams, of course) produce a transmedia response to a cause, issue or theme we feel strongly about. We are then to create a series of media assets and a structure of threads that connect 'stories' along side opportunities for users to participate; to engage in collective action rather than passive consumption. I found this exiting and couldn't wait to get started as there are so many ways you can build upon narrative strands and media elements. Once in teams of three, myself and team members took ourselves off and began brain stroming ideas. We knew that we wanted to focus on animal cruelty as the issue, and so once we had cleared this with our lectures we began storyboarding. Transmedia activism is storytelling by a number of decentralised authors (which in this case, is us) and we share and create content for distribution across multi platform forms of media.

We realise that animal cruelty is a very strong issue and intend to raise awareness of the positives and negatives aspects to this. I keep finding my eyes welling up upon researching and seeing photographs that have been taken of the suffering of animals :(

We want all of our transmedia elements to be in one place for ease of viewing for users, so we came up with the idea of creating a website (via Wix) which will be the main hub that users will go to. On this website will be much of our assets such as:

• Social media links and feeds (Twitter/Facebook)
• News report feed
• Vlogs (reaction videos) - more detail to come for this one
• Animated advertising campaign
• Diary of our own pets using Flickr and Blogger, their day to day life
• Postive and negative footage of animal cruelty
• Our own blogs - feelings, emotions throughout 
• Online petitions

We also aim to create questionnaires and polls that can be done online via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We would like to go out onto the streets of Liverpool where we will create banners/posters/flyers and hand them out to the public, and if possible ask the public what their views are, show photographs and capture their reactions which we will make into a film and post up on our website hub. 

I know there is a lot to do here, it's only the very early stages but it's best to get started as soon as possible and as we all feel very passionate about this, we aim to put all our efforts in to create a clear and outstanding transmedia activism awareness scheme. Keep checking back!

 

Finished Presentation

Hey guys, just thought I would post up my presentation for Nine lives Media. You know the one, I've done copious amounts of research on here for :)

It's a Prezi (online presentation) that works and flows well. Despite being pretty nervous the feedback from Sarah was all positive however it was stressed that there was too much text on screen. I gained 68% which is a 2:1 for this presentation. I'm really happy with this mark however just 2 more would have given us a First! Annoying as hell, but hey, I know exactly what to do for next time to gain those extra marks!

Check it out here :) 

All comments welcome :)

Nine Lives Media Presentation.