Personal Profile

Filming Reconstructions

Personal Profile

Filming in the TV Studio

C&C: Sacred Geometry

"The word, philosophy, derives from the Latin philosophia, and can be written as phi-lo-sophia in order to investigate the meaning of the word based on its parts (using the philosophical tools of “reason and interactive communications”). The first portion, “phi” is simply the Greek letter F or f (equivalent to F or f in the English alphabet). Meanwhile, “lo” (according to the Oxford dictionary) is an archaic form of “calling attention to an amazing sight” (as in “lo and behold”). “Sophia”, on the other hand -- besides being the Goddess of Wisdom (and to which the biblical Book of Proverbs is essentially dedicated) -- is considered to be a combining form meaning “knowledge”, “thought”, or “wisdom”.

The end result is that philosophia -- or Phi lo Sophia -- can be viewed as the wisdom, knowledge, or calling attention to the amazing sight of Phi. Which is precisely what sacred geometry is all about."

Our next assignment is to research any aspect of the vast topic of Sacred Geometry and translate it into smaller chunks of knowledge digestible for children ages 8-12 on Blue Peter.


I have currently decided upon my focal point but I am still developing a narrative. More to come.

Creativity: Reflective Writing

I've never really been comfortable talking about myself. I quite enjoy writing essays about defined, impersonal or academic topics because there are definite answers. However, this assignment has asked us to write an essay which is very much so indefinite in it's outcome and conclusion. I have been asked to write about myself, to write of a certain experience that has affected me emotionally or taught me a lesson. It could be a negative or positive experience. I am finding it a little difficult to fathom the concept of self reflection. I take criticism fairly well when it comes to impersonal projects as there are right and wrong answers - there are simple ways of correcting your work, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with writing about my feelings or experiences and then being critiqued them. 

In fact, the input of "I feel" and "I think" within an essay will feel a little peculiar, that's for sure, but, all that aside, I feel this assignment will be highly beneficial on some personal level once I overcome how uncomfortable it may be.

Western Genre

This week has been pretty Western themed. For starters, I went to see Django Unchained (Dir. Quentin Tarntino) on Tuesday and then on Friday's lecture we began studying the Western genre. I'm pretty excited to begin learning more about this topic. I've always loved the Western genre and I have a feeling that Django's success might cause an uprising of a new cycle of Westerns.

Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium Is The Massage"

The results have come in for the essay assignment in which we were to write about a book and explain it's theories in our own terms, using our own examples in order to demonstrate our understanding. I wrote about Marshall Mcluhan's The Medium Is The Massage. I quite enjoyed writing this essay as McLuhan had some great theories in the field of electronic media for a man of the 1950s. I also enjoyed taking his theories and applying them to modern technology and media. For example, his theory of amateurism and professionalism, I applied the case of the Zodiac murders where professional crackers were not able to solve the puzzle, whereas, upon release to the general public, a teacher and his housewife cracked the case in under a week. I feel like his theory of the "Global Village" can be applied to the modern technology of the Internet. Using this term, McLuhan was in fact referring to television and telephone system, however, I feel like the internet draws us into a global village even more-so today as we can not only watch and be seen by others on screens, but we can converse and using technologies such as Google maps - we can pinpoint and place ourselves anywhere in the world. I feel that through the internet and such McLuhan's Global Village is expanding still.

I am pleased to have received a high 2:1 for this essay.

What Is Art Presentation

"What Is Art" Prezi

Today, Joe and I pitched a short film idea based on the culture of Liverpool. We were given the theme "Art" so we decided to discuss "What Is Art?"... Unable to come up with a definitive answer between us, we hit the books and the telephone books. With myself being an ex art student, I was able to dig deep into the history of art to try and answer the question. I came up with a lot of information as to how the meaning of art has changed over the years, coming from a privileged skill to a democratic meaning. However, no matter how much research was done, we needed expert opinions from those in the field. With Joe being more familiar with Liverpool than I, he was able to find and contact a street artist, Phillip Garrett. We interviewed this artist to find his views on the subject. We also found a worker of a local gallery, Joan Burnett, to give us an alternate opinion in order to appeal to a broader audience . We structured our intended film narrative around these characters in order to bring the documentary down to a subjective human level, and added slices of valuable objective information  in-between. I feel our pitch went well as we were well rehearsed and our words were heavily backed up with research. 

snapshot from interview with Phillip Garrett

Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock, 1950)

For the second essay of the year, we have been given the task of writing about the relation between narrative and narration in any Hitchcock film. I have chosen Hitchcock's return to British cinema, Stage Fright (1950).

I have chosen this film due to the falsity that is portrayed on-screen through techniques within the narration.

Narrative: Contemporary Media Issues

Our upcoming task in Contemporary Media Issues is to create a narrative using Google Maps. We discussed many narrative theories and the organisation of events. In order to practise with our storytelling, we were given an object and free reign to tell any story we please using said object that could engage an audience.

Given a broach  my group created a crime scene detective's wall investigating a scenario in which the crown jewel's had been stolen. We included a newspaper article, Royal Garden Party invitations issued for the day of the theft, a list of suspects, motives, evidence and the final piece of the puzzle, a piece of paper where the audience would guess as to who committed the crime. 

A Critical Analysis of Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) in Terms of Mise En Scene and Cinematography, Essay 1

Our first essay that we were instructed to write for the Film Language module was a critical analysis of any given film in terms of any given elements. I chose to analyse Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) in terms of Mise-en-scene and Cinematography. I then went on to link these two aspects of film-making to motifs that would reveal an explicit meaning within the narrative.

I am more than pleased to announce that I received a First for my efforts in writing the essay. 

Production Group

My classmate, Lee Reid, and I are coming together to make a small production group in which a big group of our friends and will be involved. Within the production group we will be doing various university side projects stemming from documentaries to short films to photography and everything in-between that takes our fancy.  I feel this is a great idea as it gives us a medium for free creative outlet and will help to build our knowledge of the media and strengthen our technical abilities.

Here's to hoping all goes well.

What Is Art? - Creativity & Concept

A time-old debate, what is art? What makes it art? There are two main opinions on this topic, the first being, talent. The artists with ability to put brush to canvas and paint photorealistic images such as Nicholas Poussin make “art”. Many would say only these artists deserve to make money from their art because they are gifted. Nevertheless, traditional artists in today’s society receive criticism due to the fact that in some cases their paintings lack meaning. A portrait of a face may not tell an audience as much as they’d like, as beautiful as it may be, there is no meaning behind the façade. On that note, is art then defined for its intrinsic meaning and how it can incite an emotion?

Modern art is rich with meaning, however, artists such as Damien Hirst and Jonas Gerard can be an acquired taste. One may perceive what they do as child’s-play but it can be argued that it does take talent to invoke a strong impression upon an audience-you can look at a piece and find your own interpretation, as many modern artists refuse to reveal the true meaning behind their pieces so every audience member can find their own identification with the piece. Modern art is like being invited to write a novel guided by colours, patterns and objects. In this sense, modern art involves the voyeur in a way never seen before.

Street and Gallery have forever been juxtapositions in the art world. However, with the onset of modern art, they are no longer dissimilar. Classical art was traditional in technique, the renaissance artist commonly depicted scenes as seen through the eye. The modern artist lends us a new set of eyes that offer us a different take on difficult subjects, forcing us to see their opinions. This is the Street artist’s territory also; they now share the same platform, creating pieces for the sake of provoking its audience. Street Art also has its criticisms, not only because it is classed as vandalism but through the use of stencils it receives the same “I could do that, why is that art?” attitude that is bestowed upon Modern Artists.

Somewhere along the line, classical art developed and become modern art. The question is, what provoked this drastic change where the art exhibited inside galleries for large amounts of money began to take on a similar focus as the art we see pasted on the grimy wall outside the building?

Ludology

Studying Ludology, we were asked to invent a game. We were shown such videos as The Piano Staircase... My group began thinking of similar concepts in order to adjust human behaviour. The rule that was set was that the game had to take place in the Redmonds Building. Therefore, we discussed how we could reassess something within the building... The vending machines. Come lunchtime, students flock to Starbucks and Greggs. The vending machines on the top floor remain virtually untouched. We designed a game using various theories of fun based around the Vending Machines to promote their usage. Here is how the test-run went:

We also created a Prezi and a website to present and promote the game. We also used the Prezi to evaluate the experience, weighing it up on it's effectiveness with factors such as Anxiety and Skill. We found in order to create a more effectively fun experience, we would need to decrease levels of Skill. However, due to the high levels of skill, people were forced to team up - creating a sense of community with in the game, thus generating a very different style of fun than Competition. Therefore, the project was an all round success.

• An update on the Ludology project, I am pleased to announce we received a First for our efforts in the Vending Machine project. 

Filming On Location: Albert Docks/Birkenhead Ferry

Timelapse Filming: On Location Profile: Ferry

The Star of our Stopmotion Short

Playing With Stopmotion

First Production Piece: People On The Move

CLICK TO VIEW "GOTTA GET UP" VIDEO

A2 Media Coursework - "10 Billion"

For my A-Level production piece I created a movie trailer for a post-apocalyptic science fiction called “Ten Billion”, the narrative centres around modern society’s fear of government control and pandemic that the government tried to control overpopulation by releasing a virus in small well-contained areas such as hospitals. However, the virus broke out and a world-wide pandemic was caused, leaving the last man alive, Charlie Marx.

Through my investigation I discovered a wide array of generic conventions associated with post-apocalyptic movie trailers through studying specific movies, “I Am Legend” (2007) and “28 Days Later...” (2002) utilising the internet and books to conduct in-depth research. I used my discoveries to influence the production of my trailer.

Street Art: Business or Talent?

For Creativity & Concept Development we were given a set of concepts to extract an idea from for a short 3 minute factual film promoting culture in Liverpool. We have chosen "Street Art" from this, we are going to explore the business of Art. Is Art a commodity? Does the business of art stump creativity?

We are looking to discover more through interviewing our possible subjects, one in particular, Phillip W. Garret, in the above photograph taken earlier today. He is a street artist, but he is not as we usually except when we hear the title. He has a much more classical and traditional style of painting than most street artists. In fact, he is professionally trained and has prestigious degrees under his belt. Why has he chosen the streets as his gallery?

We are also looking to interview artists who display their work in galleries. As of now, the Liverpool Biennial is all over Liverpool and it is a hotbed for up and coming gallery artists. However, their subjects are much more unclear than that of Garret's. Simplistic themes are reoccurring with exhibitions including two hanging coats, and a short video of a dancing man. Is this art? Does the message make the art? or does the business of Art take from all meaning and effort?