A Little Self-Promotion...

I thought I would take this opportunity to post a couple of the videos my group and I made for our production courses...

This first was part of our Introduction to Audio and Video Production module in 3rd year. The basic storyline is the guy is late...

Credits go to - Carla Veitch, Elizabeth Edgar, Stephanie Beaton, Katy Elder, Chris O'Donnel, myself and Gappy for being our leading man...

I would also like to take credit for the ninja's :)

 This next one is from last semester's Television Feature Production module. Out of a range of options, we chose to make a promo film for a new summer festival, which we decided would be held in Stirling town itself, as a kind of Edinburgh Festival type thing.

Shout out to:- Dan James-Watling, Jen Franklin, Maria Del Rincon, Lella Nilsson and Grant Crockett...

 I would like to point out that the banner that is unravelled took me about 8 hours to make, and it was used for approximately 2 seconds. I suggested it so it was my own fault :(

Hopefully one of these days I'll get our final video up, if Youtube ever decides to accept my upload :(

Tah tah for now xx

James Cameron's Avatar...

   So before Christmas I had the pleasure of going to see Avatar. We book tickets for the opening night, 3D screening of course, and traipsed along to the cinema. I, like everybody, was excited to see it, but had a terrible feeling in the back of my mind that it might be a tad disappointing, and that the 3D aspect may be just an excuse to pad out what might be just an 'okay' film.

   Those fears went unfounded.

   Everyone has said it, and I am going to join in. From start to finish, I was completely and utterly in awe. It was truly glorious. On the way home, all we could talk about was how we were going to have to and burn all the DVDs we'd ever bought because pretty much nothing we had ever seen, or would see in the future, was going to be as good. We even toasted James Cameron with a nice whisky in celebration.

   Yes, the storyline itself (evil white man tries to drive out the natives to take over the land they inhabit) is not new, but what story is these days? And as long as it's been reworked, or produced well, that doesn't matter. Everything about it, from its plot, to its characters, to its production, was wonderful. I'm always a bit dubious about when film-makers create these 'other worlds'; the 'aliens' are always clearly 'fictional', born from some animator's sketch pad, and their homelands are often too fantastical. Unless of course they are by Guillermo Del Toro. That man can do no wrong in my eyes. However, Avatar blew anything I'd ever seen completely out of the water. Cameron and his team have managed to create one of the most beautiful, charismatic, rich and believable worlds I have ever seen. The planet of Pandora was particularly well done. The jungles, the mountains, the creatures that inhabit it, were all so wonderfully done, with such rich colours, all beautifully fantastical. The attention to detail is particularly effective, from the leaves on the trees, down to Jake Sully's legs.

    The Na'vi are inspired, particularly because of the way in which the animator's have captured so many 'human' characteristics, they look like the actors, any emotion that they act out is carried across in to these giant, blue aliens. For crying out loud, when we left the screening, we all wanted to be one of the Na'vi. Though knowing my luck I'd be one of the short ones, like 6 foot tall...

    What I liked in particularly was how much I cared about the characters. I had a horrible feeling half way through that there wasn't going to be a 'happy' ending, not how I wanted anyway, and that they were going to teach us a lesson (heaven forfend) by dashing all our romantic hopes. But I'm glad they didn't. Sometimes, it's nice for a film to end exactly how you want it to.

    I think it's also important to note the importance of the 3D element, in that to all intents and purposes it isn't important at all. The film would do very well in regular 2D, just because of the sheer quality of it. With 3D, a lot of the time, the film will be made in mind of this, the actions are made so they will look great in 3D, so the audience gasp when some helicopter comes flying at you through the screen. With Avatar, the 3D is second to the storyline. What it does do is add to the lushness and beauty of what you are seeing on the screen. It doesn't play for thrills or for laughs, but is there to make you feel like you're part of the action, that you are actually there.

So, all in all....yeah, I loved it. And I insist that everyone go see it.

I'm off to burn all my DVD's in a ceremonial bonfire...

Student Life Necessities...(or 'The Reasons Why We Failed')

Salutations all!

There has been a lot of reshuffling and too and fro-ing between my blogs the last two days, but from now on, 'BrainWork' will be found here! This a place where hopefully I will post things of slightly more intellectual worth...only slightly though. So without much further ado, I now pronounce this blog...Open! Huzzah!


Now when I said this might me more intellectual fodder, then this next bit might prove me wrong. But if any companies that produce any of the following read this...you know where to put you're advertising now don't cha?

So, I've been at university for 3 and a bit years now, and I've come across a few things that are essential when it comes to living the student life. Whether it be just general day to day necessities, methods for procrastination or for when it comes to finally doing some kind of work, here are the things that have come to be invaluable in the lives of today's students...

1.The Laptop:-
   This is pretty much your life. It is your be all and end all. Here you keep you're essays, your stories, thoughts, videos, music, you watch DVDs on it when you're ill and lying in you're bed (hungover...),and most importantly of all...your laptop houses your best friend in all the world, the gateway to everything...the beloved Internet. Here you find everything you didn't find the library on Google Scholar or JStor. Who needs a TV? You're only going to watch it on 4OD, iPlayer or track down some programme that hasn't been broadcast in 20 years. You don't need a CD player or radio, you can just go online and listen to whatever you want, pretty much whenever you want. And...possibly the most important thing of all, it houses this
next entry...

2. Facebook.
   Oh how empty and desolate our lives must have been before the age of Facebook. Goodbye Myspace! You were too alternative for us lot who weren't in an unsigned indie band. Bye bye Bebo! You were just on the borderline of chavvy, too much for us, and we grew too old for you. And so we turned to our saviour - Facebook. Oh you're clean lines and status updates confused us at first, but how we warmed to thee!

   Now every moment of our day is spent on Facebook. I've got Facebook open just now in another tab. I'm going to pause to check if anyone's spoken to me...They had, yay! If there is someone you knew at school, you didn't know them but want to snoop and see what their doing now, that's okay, add them on Facebook. If you thought that Kelly Rowland said 'Winner takes over' in that David Guetta song instead of 'When Loves Takes Over', which is the song's title, like I did...that's cool too, because there's probably a group dedicated to that very thing. Most important of all, it is the prime offender when it comes to methods of procrastination. ''So...you have a 3000 word essay due.'' "Yup." "When?" "Tomorrow." "You started?" "Nah. I'm playing Geo Challenge." Alternatively you spend all day staring at the screen waiting more that little red notification sign to pop up saying someone may have commented on a status that you like yesterday. Or that someone's just levelled up on Mafia Wars...one of the two.
   It sounds like I'm being quite harsh on Facebook but I'm not. I love it. I literally check every 5 minutes, just out of habit. It has consumed my time. It's pretty good for keeping in touch with people, but it has become so much more than that. 


3.Twitter.
   My new favourite obsession. I'll admit for a while I wasn't fussed when I first joined it, but after setting myself up with Twitterfox (Echofon) and now Tweetdeck, I can't get enough of it. For us Media students, it's just one of many endless networking/blogging etc applications that we surround ourselves with. Though I first didn't see the point in it, I now enjoy Twitter. It eases the slight 
celebrity stalker in me, and I think it's nice that 'celebs' can kind of keep in touch with us regular folks, keeping all the fanboys updated, and keeping connected to their fanbase. I've also found it excellent for getting answers actually, particularly for any kind of technology/internet based questions, as a lot of the people on Twitter are generally that way inclined. For a student, yeah, it's just another thing that stops us from working, but I reckon it appeals to that part of us that like people to know our thoughts, what we're doing, etc. Twitter allows us to share with the world whatever is going on at almost any point in time. As does my next item. 


4. Smartphones e.g iPhone, Palm Pre etc etc
   Now I personally feel a little left out here. Everywhere I turn somebody's got some really swanky new phone that does pretty much everything in the world. I would blimmin' love an iPhone, almost only because of the Tea Round app, and yet here I am still chugging along with my little Samsung E250, though I do love that little thang. 
Anyway, thanks to these Samrtphones we can now be connected to our beloved Internet 24 hours a day, wherever we are (unless we've got no 3G...ugh). There's not much more to say really, bar that these phones allow us to be connected to the things that consume our lives, but while we're on the move. But actually, aside from us checking Facebook and all manner of things, we students, when we're in uni, we are flying round like blue-arsed flies. We've got emails to check, grades to get, classes to go to, books to request from the basement :(, dissertation tutors to track down, amongst other things, which these days, are pretty much all done online. Apart from the classes...although, the notes for them are online too...


5. Spotify.
   Spofitfy has certainly become a large part of my life, my only problem being that I never have enough money to buy the songs, so they just have to stay on my laptop while I trudge round listening to whatever rubbish I've got on my iPod cos I've not put anything new on in months :( 
   More than that though, thanks to Spotify I've been able to discover a whole world of music that I've never heard before. These days I've got my Spotify playlists pretty much in the background on a loop all day. If there's a party, chances are there's a laptop on somewhere, with their playlist on the go. The adverts are a bit irritating, but after a while you're not really fussed anymore. So good on you Spotify, hurrah for meaning I don't have to clean my flat in silence.


6. iPod.
 In a similar vein to the above, though I feel I perhaps may have got to it sooner. So Apple is carrying on with it's Tesco-style invasion of our lives, and possibly no more so than with the hallowed iPod. I've got one, you've probably got one, we've pretty much all got one. I at first refused to get one, but alas then my beloved Sony Walkman MP3 thing broke and was replaced my (now almost old-school) iPod Nano Video...1st Generation. Yeah, I know...how retro. 
Anyway, I challenge you, sir, to walk down the street of any town, or round the campus of any university and find someone who hasn't got a pair of headphones sticking in their ears.It won't matter even if you do, because I'll have my headphones in and I won't be able to hear you. iPod's are pretty much essential to student life. It provides the soundtrack to your day to day life, all tucked up in your pocket. Can you imagine having to sit in the library all day and just have to listen to the rest of the place, sniff and cough, and god forbid, talk to each other. Never fear! Headphones in, Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo on shuffle and you're away! Just make sure you charge it before you go out. Though actually, that won't matter because you'll probably have your laptop with you to charge it, or you'll iPhone with you, so it's not a problem :)

 
7. Digital Camera/Video Camera.
   We all need a good digital camera. Whether it be from taking those traditional high angle Myspace photos (we all do it, let's stop the stigma) or doing what I do, which is pretty much walking around with it stuck to your face and documenting everything you ever encounter, we all need a nice camera, so we can share the photos on Facebook. Or Twitter. or Flickr. Wherever (you see how these things are all interlinked?). Also, we're a very media-savvy bunch these days, us students, so of course, we need a video camera, to make our short films, or our video blogs or whatever else we need to capture. We're a crafty bunch, and all you need to do is go on Youtube and see what some people can do with a camera, a laptop, and a half-decent editing software. Some of it is rubbish though. But some of it's awesome. 


8. Relentless, Red Bull, Rockstar, Tesco's Kick 6 Packs...

   This is my last one, because I feel I'm been concentrating on one thing for too long, and I need to check Facebook. I realise that the rest of this post has been a bit gadget/internet heavy, but this entry is as essential as everything that has gone before. Energy drinks. 
Yes they don't taste that nice, yes they turn you're tongue a hideous colour, and yes they probably rot your insides. But if you are sitting in front of your laptop, at 4 in the morning, and you have a 3000 word essay due in at 12, for which you have done absolutely nothing, you better believe that you'll have six cans of some high in caffeince carbonated drink sitting next to you. 

I can imagine that I have probably left a few things out, but these were some of the major players. Please feel free to chastise and shout me down :) Also looking back at it, there are some excellent product placements in there, so a big 'You're Welcome', to Facebook, Apple, Twitter and whoever else I've mentioned. 


Cheery Bye!