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.