Halfway through the dark

As I sit in the living room of my home back in Northern Ireland, I look back and found that a lot has happened in the last few weeks since I posted anything, so I feel it is time for another catch up post. 


Paparazzi Game:


In the last post, I talked about the experience of creating a game called Paparazzi, where a group of people are hunted by a photographer who's identity is a mystery to them. James Dunn and myself created a Prezi Presentation to try and sale the game to the class, which you can watch by clicking HERE

The presentation went very well, as our game was voted the best by the rest of the class. I was really happy with the result and really enjoyed working with James Dunn. Not only was he focused on the task and provided great contribution to the creation of the game, but he made the process very enjoyable and I would work with him again anytime. 


I am still working on the video for the Paparazzi Game, so hopefully that will be done sometime after Christmas.


Narrative:


The last Tuesday morning session we had before Christmas was a "tutorial" on the next assignment. The assignment is to create a narrative with google maps, by placing five points and within these points, there will be different media artefacts that will tell the story. These artefacts can be anything from text to short video clips.


For a practice run, our tutors split us into groups of three to four and gave us two pieces of paper. One of these was a sentence that was to be our first point of our story and the other was a location within the Screen School. I was in a group with fellow Northern Irishman, Josh McDowell and Lois Bunker. Our story was to begin with this sentence: "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault." Our location was the Screen School cafe. With these two pieces of paper, we set out to think of a story to be told in four other parts.


We could have devised a comedy from the sentence, but we felt that this would be too obvious. So we quickly thought of a more supernatural means of the building's fire. In short the narrative story was about a poltergeist hunting the Screen School and the four parts of the story represented the journey a character was following to find out more about the building's hunting.


We decided to try and make the narrative more interactive, so that people would feel that they are taking part of the story. We used a few media tools for our narrative, such as using my Facebook profile to establish the ghostly events going on in the building and using my digital voice recorder, to act out the character's last moments before being disappeared.


My favourite part was when we led the class into the green screen room, where they found torn pieces of paper that they had to bring together to find out more about the story. The room was perfect, as we put the lights out and only turned them on when everyone was inside, thus creating more of an atmosphere.


I found it quite strange how creating these Narrative experiences was much more fun than walking through one. I do hope people enjoyed ours, but I felt that a lot was not explained in the end and perhaps not too many really got that a poltergeist was after the character, but I do felt that they enjoyed the experience. 


I enjoyed working with Lois and Josh, we all really clicked and came up with great ideas for the story. As always I continue to think of more ideas for that experience. I am looking forward to this assignment, I really enjoyed the experience and also the idea of bringing different media artefacts together to tell a story.


Ideas for the New Year


Well other than the tasks for University, I hope to create more films, such as for the It's Liverpool competition and the reed.co.uk film competition. I always wanted to see how well I can fare in a film competition. I am also hoping to create more short videos with James Dunn and James McKeown, as we really enjoyed working together and felt that our last video was very successful.


I also hope to write some more and perhaps work on a serious film or two. Another ambition is to take on a photograph a day project for the new year, which I hope I decide to go for. The experience may very well kill me, but I feel that I can achieve it and it will really increase my photography skill. So as Christmas day draws near I shall end this post in wishing everyone I know and met a wonderful Christmas. I hope everyone can celebrate in their own way that we are now half way out of the dark. 

The Photo Shoot Experiment

On Tuesday the 22^nd, James Dunn, and myself were tasked with creating a game for the Screen School. This game can be anything from a new phone app to a unique experience.

We discussed the different aspects of games that we enjoyed in from the past, especially from the week of the 15^th, where we were testing different games. I found that the most fun kind of game are the type that can be enjoyed by both players and spectators, such as the experience shared from the posted note game.

After brainstorming some ideas, we settled for the idea of a “Photo Shootout” game. Basically a group of people will be brought together, given cameras and are then tasked to take photos of everyone in the game. But they must also try to avoid being photographed by other players.

After presenting this idea to the rest of the class, James and myself discussed the idea further and both found that the idea to be quite chaotic. So we decided to change the game slightly. We changed the game so that only one person will have a camera and the rest of the group will not know who has the camera and will not know whom to avoid.

We decided to test the game out by letting eight students play our game for an hour. One by one, we asked the students to step outside the classroom, so that we could explain the rules further and choose which one to be the photographer. Once the selection process was finished we stated that by the end of the lecture we will finish the game and reveal who the photographer is.

The tension between these eight students increased immediately once this selection process was finished. They felt uncomfortable being alone in case the photographer will capture them and so began to stay in packs of two or three.

James and myself decided to add an element to the game, where each player can make an accusation on who they suspected of being the photographer. But this element slightly changed the game. Originally it was about simply avoiding getting your photograph taken, but it turn into a guessing game, as everyone was trying to figure out who the photographer is.

I didn’t feel that this was a problem, I actually found it quite interesting to watch everyone’s tactics to find out who the photographer is and I feel that with some work this can be quite a successful game experience.

In the end, only one person guessed whom the photographer was. The photographer managed to capture two different people and come up with an interesting tactic of asking one of the other students to help them. So in the end this turned into a successful experiment. Everyone took the game seriously, they were constantly thinking up tactics and ways of winning the game and gave James and myself wonderful tips, which we will put forward when creating the final version of the game.

I am now creating a video containing all the footage I filmed during the experiment, so as soon as it is finished, I will post it here for you all to see.

Who am I?

After we had completed our Wiki pages, the class was to move on to the next task. This task is to create a game for the University. To help us experiment on all the different kinds of games, we were given 40 minutes to play as much board games and video games as we can. 

No I am not joking.

Though I could spend time on this post discussing all of the games that were available I am simply going to discuss one. The one that proved to be the most fun and crowd pleasing of all the games there.

It began with two young men, James Dunn and myself, a pen and some posted notes. The game was simple. James would write the name of someone famous or someone I know on a posted note. He would then stick the posted note on my forehead. Then I would take a posted note and do the same for him. So we would face each other and take turns in asking questions, as we try and figure out who is on our posted notes.

During our second round of the game, it was then that I noticed we were attracting a crowd, as the other students watched and laughed at our silly questions. After James and I were finished with our round, four of our fellow students wanted to have a go at the game. What came next was a good round of laughs, jokes and general fun.

I think this game shows that the best of games are not the ones that are simple, intriguing or random. The best kind of game is the one that can be enjoyed by all. In fact the people that were not taking part in the game and simply watched, were having as much fun as the players themselves. So James and I have partnered up for the next assignment and I feel that if we create a game with that same effect, it will be the best thing we could make.

End of the Wiki

On Tuesday morning, my group and I spent time on finishing our Wiki page. As I have said in the last post, our Wiki page was to write about the advantages and disadvantages of Participatory Culture. This subject was discussed in a book called, We-Think by Charles Leadbeater and the book served as a useful guide to the topic.

We found that the best way to describe the advantages and disadvantages of Participatory Culture was to find examples of the idea being used on the Internet. We also discussed different obstacles that could stop it from working, such as Trolling or lack of trust between users on the Internet. I was quite happy with the Wiki page, I feel that we provided good examples on the advantages and disadvantages of Participatory Culture and that it was presented in a manner that could be understood by most of the Internet. I feel that with more time we could have provided more content to the page, such as a Prezi presentation or a short film on the subject. But I still feel that we created a good Wiki page in the time that was given to us. If you wish to see the Wiki page, please click the link below.

We Think - A discussion in Mass Innovation and Participatory Culture

Research Project and a bin most devious

Well today we as a class were given our first research assignment, which to be quite frank, seemed to appear out of the blue.


With the Wiki website that we used last week, we were split into groups of four to create a Wiki page on a subject that was randomly given to us. My group, which consisted of Megan, David and Amy, are to discuss the negatives and positives of participatory culture, which is covered in a book called "We Think" by Charles Leadbeater, which you can read about here!


Even though I consider practical work to be my main interest and strength, I am actually looking forward to creating this Wiki page and to make it more creative and easily accessed than other sources of information, such as creating a short video on the subject. The more I think about the subject and assignment, the more I realise that I would rather do something like this than sit at home writing an essay, though I am sure that day is coming.


In other news, this very afternoon, we were split into pairs and were given forty five minutes to come up with a story that can be told in five photographs and to take the photographs, this set a wave of panic among the students. My dear friend Kirsty and I devised a simple story of a man trying to put away his rubbish, but instead gets eaten by the bin. I was quite proud of my dedication to this project, seeing as I had cups thrown at my face and had to place my hand inside of the bin, but none the less it was very enjoyable and I have placed the photographs in their order below.

Also I have heard today that there was a mistake in my identity, as people thought that the photos in the last post were of me, well they were not, these photographs were of James McKeown, who is also my friend from Northern Ireland. The mad man getting eaten by the bin above is actually me, so if you are reading this and see me in class or the street, don't be afraid to say hello and laugh at my misfortune.


Also what I really enjoyed from the experience of creating this photo story and the last one is just experimenting on how much stories you can tell from single images. As a writer and film maker, this is very exciting, as I can feel more confident in using less dialogue to tell a story and simply trust my eye on visual interest. But the main reason why I really enjoyed these tasks is because I enjoy reading simple web comics, such as the ones that can tell a joke or story in three to four panels, such as Penny Arcade or PVP Online, but because I have no talents on drawing, I never thought I could try to make something like those Web comics, well today and the past week have proved me wrong.


Still that is all that has happened today, so I shall end this post and continue on with the week.

Busy Week

Well I have been a bit behind this week on updating my blog, so I'll just post a few events from the past week on one post, so enjoy.

-Photo Story

On Monday for my Production Practice Class I was part of a group that needed to create a Photo Story and hand it into class for our first assignment. We needed to develop and tell a story that can be shown in twenty to thirty photographs, which was a great challenge, for when we were thinking of ideas, we were constantly thinking about not only about whether we can achieve the story idea, but also if it can be told without dialogue or sound.

My production team, which consisted of James, Kirsty and Elicia, and I decided to go with a comical murder mystery, titled "Murder in the Dark", which was about a group of friends having a party, when all of a sudden the lights go out and one of them has been murdered!!

The shoot was extremely fun, as we used different props and cheesy Halloween fake blood to create the horrific effects of murder, but for those who were wondering why James is wearing a moustache in some of the photographs and some without, I have a valid explanation.

You see, due to complications of home trips and illness, we couldn't get enough people for the photo shoot, so I came up with the idea of buying a fake moustache so that one of us can play two different characters, thus having enough characters to make the story work.

-Paint Wiki

On Tuesday, we were to each bring a media related article in to our class and I decided to bring in an article about Mass Effect 3's new feature of multiplayer, which I was disappointed about, but instead of explaining why I was disappointed, I'll just give you the link for the Wiki Post I typed about the subject here:

Mass Effect 3 - Single player vs Multiplayer

But you may now have guessed that we were to write a Wiki about our different subjects. As a writer, I enjoyed the experience of sitting down and expressing my thoughts and opinions on the subject, but the more I thought about the matter, the more I realised that my opinion is simply not enough, that I would have to look at the subject critically, not just to let the world assume that I was cleaver, but to be more fair, because though I am not excited about the multiplayer feature, I am sure that there are those out in the gaming world who are and the feature will not stop me from buying and enjoying this game.

But I also felt better after writing this article on the wiki site, because when I read about the new feature, I had many thoughts buzzing around my head that wanted to get out, but my mouth just couldn't process it very well, but after slowly thinking and typing out my thoughts, I found that I was calm and now know my opinion about this new feature..........I simply don't like it.

- Other little events

Well this week my taste for photography has returned with the help of the photo story, messing about with Photoshop and just seeing other media students work. On Thursday I seem to have found that words stretch my creative juices more than images, but my creative head is a bit too crazy to really pin on one technique and I now have a new taste for writing up new ideas for short films and other little mad creations, so watch this space.

Special Items and Prezzi

Well yesterday in University, we were required to bring a special item that has a story or meaning to us. I decided to bring my keyring bottle opener, as this was a free gift I received during LJMU open day and it was on this day that I knew that I wanted to study there, so it has a special meaning as well as being useful for a night out.

We were put into groups of six where we show and discuss each of our items on where we got them and why they were special to us. Afterwards, we were to find links to our items and create a presentation discussing this using Prezzi, which was an online presentation tool that lets you create a presentation that is less linear than powerpoint and much more interesting, as each topic is placed on a map and the screen glides to each subject instead of simply showing another slide. I have never used Prezzi before, but I was quite impressed at how it can be so simple to use and yet you can get far superior results when compared to a powerpoint presentation, but there were techniques that other groups used that I will hope to use for my next presentation.

But what really impressed me from that day was the variety of items that was shown and all the different stories that those items held. I believed that it generally shows the power of stories, at how they can make simple items something far more. I say that everyone in the world has this gift and so every item in the world has a story or a print of memories and emotions, we just need to discover them.

Films I have Made

Here are two films I have written, directed and edited in the past year or so. The first film is a short that I decided to do over the summer with my friends, Katy and James from collage, during the time the film was for me to generally try different angles and different effects, but to also have a go at doing a very strange and abnormal story. I was generally pleased with the finished film, despite some mistakes here and there, but I feel that I failed to make the story more understandable and audiences were left utterly confused at what exactly happens during the film, in short I was simply trying to be too smart with the writing.


Inside the Box Short Film

A few months after finishing Inside the Box, my media course in Collage acquired us to create a ten minute short film and I decided to use an idea that I had playing around for my head for some time, a simple yet complicated situation, where a man has tried to live through life, but doesn't see the point in living anymore, so he decides to commit suicide, but finds out that he is immortal and cannot die. Every time he dies, he simply wakes up and walks off, so the film is about how he could change his ways with a help from his friend.


With this film I decided to focus mainly on the story and characters and I feel that I was trying to explore if people can really change who they are, or are they cursed to forever be the same. My team and myself ran into quite a few problems with this short film, this is due to weather, actors timetables and the general workload of the end of the year that I faced many re-writes of the script to keep production going and to have a full film in the end, I gained quite a few experiences with this production, but mostly from working with actual actors for the first time instead of my friends from collage. I was only given one piece of advise from the main actor Mark, he said that I was "too nice" of a director and should try to be more forceful, so I tried to keep that in mind


Living at Deaths Door short film

I enjoyed making these two short films and I do hope you enjoy watching them, but I always constantly see little things that I could have done different or I am just not happy with, but I think that is how people get better with their work/art, you have to constantly hate your own work, otherwise you will have no hunger for trying to be better.

Past Work

Well moving past introductions, I think it is time for me to show off some of my past work, so I'll post some up in separate posts, so I can talk a little about each one.


In the three years that I have been a Media Student in collage, I have created quite a few different media artefacts, I have created two animations, which in my opinion are not very good as I consider animation to be a weak spot, simply due to the fact that I have no patience for it.


I have designed quite a few images for print, one was a poster to raise awareness of pollution and one was a film poster for a fictional dark sci-fi film, with both made on Photoshop.


I was also part of two muti-camera productions, one that was to create a short show for one of my collage classes and the other was for a motivational speaker called Billy Dixon. For Billy Dixon's show, I was simply part of a camera crew that took shifts in between breaks, we were to film a close up of Billy Dixon while he walked about on stage, so we would be constantly moving the camera. For the short show in collage, I was a producer, which carried a lot of stress and responsibility, as I was to make sure that everyone that was suppose to be in front of the camera at a certain time was and that the presenter would know when to stop talking for breaks. This is also an aspect of media I wish to avoid, as I feel that I couldn't handle the stress of live television. 


I have also made a small computer game, which is a zombie game that I really enjoyed making, but it really isn't something to parade about the place, as it is very basic graphics and game play. But I simply see the work and fun that went into creating it.


Well thats most of the work that I either don't really want people to see or I do not have a copy to show, so I'll post up some of the work that is already on the internet, which is mostly my short films and photographs.

Introductions I suppose

Well as the title and description as established, my name is Mark and I am a 22 year old media student, currently in his first year in John Moores University, studying Media Professional Studies. As a consumer, I enjoy watching films, playing video games and reading fictional books, mostly sci fi and fantasy. As a student I have quite a passion for Media, mostly with video production and photography, but I still can appreciate most other aspects in media and I feel that I am not ready to focus on one area yet as the future is still not too clear.

But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, first thing I think I might add is where it began, which thankfully has a simple answer, I don't really know.

Three years ago, I applied for a First Diploma course in Newry Collage back in Northern Ireland, simply because I wanted to study something for a year and wasn't too sure what I wanted to do, thankfully I loved the course and the subject, but even better was discovering something that I thought for many years was never possible, I was quite good at something. Coming up with ideas and executing them to a good standard.

After that course, I then applied for the National Diploma, which was two years long and I continued to create more projects and discovered that I had a passion for filming/video production and also developed an interest for photography, but I didn't want the journey to end there, so I applied to John Moores University and here I am, in a University class room writing this blog post.

The past three years have been amazing, I discovered what I want to do with the rest of my life and made friends for life, but I'm sure that the next three years will be even better.