DON'T SHOOT!... Gotta Fix The Camera First

You know, I really enjoy working in the gallery. There are no intense lights beating down on me and I don't have to stand around for long periods of time. That and as long as I've remembered to switch various thingmahoohahs on, everything should be working just dandy.

 Playing lighting director's great craic as I feel a little in control of the scene and what's going on in it before we actually start any run throughs. 'Move this over yonder', 'tell what's-her-bake to stand here so I can shine light 24 in her face at 100% intensity... please' so I can achieve the effect I want, whether it's a happy accident or not. Once that's done, I just sit there and become increasingly frustrated every time I look at the monitors because it looks like the cameras are drunk. Other than that, I start getting bored.

 Vision mixing, on the other hand, is great fun. That is, once you get over the initial stress that, despite seeming like a complete dosser job, you have to press particular buttons at particular times otherwise it's all your fault if things go wrong. Unless, of course, the cameras suddenly seem to move sporadically about the place 'cause they're drunk, apparently, in which case you switch to one that looks at least a wee bit sober.

 For the most part, you're in control of the visuals. Or, at least, in charge of it, to an extent. It's especially fun to do, so to speak, if the studio is conducting interviews because you don't need to rely so much on specific cues in order to switch which camera comes up on transmission, but whichever you feel is right. Is someone making a funny face? Switch to them. Audience love silly faces. Should we see how everyone is doing in the scene in case the audience forgot where we were? Switch to your establishing shot. Have we been looking at somebody's ugly mug for too long? Give the audience a break and look at the other person's ugly mug.

 Before all the shot switching, we really gotta sort out said shots so they look at least aesthetically acceptable. In an interview, for example, if the interviewee sits on the left, s/he must always occupy the left. It gets a bit confusing for viewers when we switch to his/her close up, s/he is, all of a sudden, on the right. Rarely, if ever, in the middle of the frame. I mean, what if said interviewee suddenly leans in towards the interviewers? This goes for shots with the interviewers as well except, of course, vice versa. Anyway, if your interviewee sits on the left and you have him/her occupying the right of the frame and s/he leans in, said interviewee is going to get cut off, maybe completely, leaving you with a ton of empty space in shot. This is what I mean here:

I so totally am good at art. Shut up. ...His name's 'Lou'.
This man would be a pain if you had to use a chroma back drop.

Lou is on the right. He's facing the interviewer, who is sitting on the left. This is right (ha!). Now, if Lou were to lean in as if he were comfortable with the interviewer...

Lou is an eccentric art critic. He's not so much a critic as he is an art admirer.
His name's short for something. Guess what it is.

That looks much better than this, where it kinda, sorta looks like Lou is talking to himself:

That open space is just asking for someone to pop by for a jump scare.
How could you scare someone as lovable as Lou? I mean, really.

Open spaces are for entities to enter into, be it another subject or a body part, for example, Lou's hand as pictured previously. When Lou inevitably leans in, this will end up happening:

No, Lou! I'm not finished asking you about your
fictitious life yet!

Now, say if Lou were to lean in (or out, by the looks of the framing) so much that his entire face were to be cut off, and if he were to make a silly face, we wouldn't be able to capture that tender moment. You might a wee bit on the master shot but you won't get as much emphasis on it or as much detail from it as you would in Lou's personal close up. Well, 'medium close up' in this case, I suppose. Anyhow, you want to see Lou's pretty face as much as possible, so we don't want it getting abruptly cut off.

 Speaking of framing and the like, I haven't really had the chance to have a proper go on the studio cameras yet. I would absolutely love to. I've wheeled them about on the dollies to get to grips with them, to get used to the movement and feel of them and what have ye, but I haven't really had the chance to really use them properly. I intend to! Mind you, mentioning the cameras, I just remembered that one of them is actually currently broken and the other has something wrong with it. It still works, it just means we have to pretend we're sophisticated by shooting film noir scenes. We've come out with some pretty nifty lighting effects, though, so it's worked in our favour thus far!

Ye'd Be Braindead Ti' Miss It

You know what I find rather entertaining? Besides scaring my gentleman friend with my doll and action figure collection by simply pointing them out to him, I enjoy researching how media producers develop through the years, and how their work shapes their careers (tehe I made a rhyme). It's just fascinating to me how someone can change so much in regards to the likes of genre, yet sustain this uniqueness that one has had since the very beginning, making his or her work so much more wonderful to appreciate.

Well. Someone's resourceful.

 Take one Sir Peter Robert Jackson for instance. Most of us are familiar with his 2005 remake of King Kong, and far more notably his film adaptations of J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy,  and the widely anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. But before you begin flocking to cinema screens on the day of the 'Apocalypse', please be sure to add Peter Jackson's 1992 film Braindead to your bucket list so that, as you watch Bilbo Baggins frolicking with dwarfs, searching for enchanted jewellery, you can cast your minds back to PJ's good ol' slapstick horror period and, before you know it, your fingers will be in knots in the hopes to see more gore. Well... either that or you'll be thankful with what you have post-splatter period. You spoil sport.

 Braindead, also known as Dead Alive in North America, is set in 1958 New Zealand where we follow fated Lionel Cosgrove (Tim Balme's first lead role) as he attempts to balance his new-found romantic relationship with the lovely Latina, Paquita Sanchez (Diana Peñalver) and caring for his strict, overbearing mother (the late Elizabeth Moody), Vera. Soon, he is purged into the unfortunate situation of having to restrain Sumatran rat-monkey zombies after his mother receives a nasty bite from the wee zoo critter and goes on a bit of a rampage. Not to mention his Uncle Les blackmailing him into giving up his inheritance. He's really not having a great week, this young man.

At least she has her vengeance, I guess.
With her foot. On his head. Poor, wee buggeh.

 There is a lot to love about this wee gore-fest and that most certainly does not exclude the performing talent of the actors. Tim Balme, co-writer and one of the protagonists for Sy-Fy's The Almighty Johnsons, does a fantabulastic job with physical humour from flailing all over the place, rolling and bouncing off the walls and onto trains to swinging bagged zombie-born toddlers in the park in front of onlooking, middle-aged ladies. Even my grandad laughed his socks off at that scene and did every bone in my body proud by doing so. Hell, according to ol' PJ himself, that was his favourite scene to shoot. The zany characters are full of life (snicker); each and every one of them buzzing with uniqueness, coming off with some of the wackiest lines I've ever heard, such as the 'Kung-Fu priest''s 'I kick arse for the Lord!' portrayed by Kiwi actor Stuart Devenie, all the while demonstrating his impeccable martial arts skills which, uh, don't help him for long, I'll say that much.

Relax, it's only raspberry sauce.

 There was one thing that caught me slightly off guard while watching Braindead, and that was the use of the word 'zombie'. Why? Because it's set in the late fifties. So what of it? Well, the word 'zombie' wasn't even used in George A. Romero's, Night of the Living Dead until its sequel, Dawn of the Dead. On that note, it was the one and only mention of the word in the entire film. What could be noted as well was that the person who exclaimed the word was a biker thug, so perhaps he was familiar with White Zombie, the 'first' ever zombie film made in the '30s, predating anything by Romero, the godfather of the modern zombie. I could go into the origins of the word but let's just leave it to the fact that he's an observational B movie fan.

 I don't get tired of this. As a matter of fact, I haven't watched it in quite some time; 'quite some time' being maybe two months or so, which is preposterous if you ask me. It's certainly brought about some funny moments with the gentleman friend exclaiming things like, 'Anya, what the fuck are you making me watch!?'. What am I making you watch, you ask? A romantic, slapstick horror film by Peter Jackson and his wife, Fran Walsh, that's what. In other words, a bloody masterpiece.

Good, ol' PJ with Baby Selwyn.

Fresh! A-ahhhh-AHHH!

I was rather enjoying what I was doing in my classes; A bit o' vision mixing in the ol' Practical Skills class and a touch of it in Interview Techniques (I got complimented on my vision mixing; it made me pretty happy), having fun with the cameras in Cameras & Lighting, receiving our new brief in Set Design, etc. Things had been going rather well. We were only about five weeks into our course when we were suddenly plucked from our classes and thrown into E3.

 When I think of E3, I imagine video games; video games everywhere, from talk of new consoles to previews of new games due later that year. I honestly cannot wait for the third installment of the Bioshock games, Bioshock: Infinite and the umpteenth reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. I bet that's what you were thinking as well, reader, wasn't it? Unless, of course, you are familiar with the brand spankin' new Belfast Metropolitan college campus.

 We were there attending an event known as 'Fresh'. The aim of the game was to get about 120 students from about four different courses (this included year 2/3 Biology, year 2 Sports, year 1/2 Tourism and, of course, our own one, HND Media Moving Image), mixing them all up and handing them a brief from official companies who didn't want to do their own work by getting students to do it for them for free by disguising it as a, so called, 'skill building' and 'team building' exercise week to encourage them (the students) to think outside the box, coming up with weird and wonderful ideas and innovations for said companies. Oh, did I mention that the lady for our brief didn't even show up to introduce herself or even, from what I learnt, when the presentations were being made?

 I, to a certain extent, felt a little bit insulted. Our course in particular, we're already supposed to be coming up with creative ideas hence 'Creative Media Production' in our course name. If not, well, most of us will pick it up along the way. We don't need to be off timetable for a week to develop this skill, I feel that we should already have it. You know? Not only that but the 'ideas' that they were getting us to come up with went way against the briefs that we were provided at the start of the week, and ended up sounding completely wacko; like something you'd see in an '80s sci-fi film set in the not-too-distant future of the 2000s-- ohhh, that's how they come up with them... I see, I see.

 Anyway, the week consisted of posting sticky notes full of our ideas all over white boards already full of sticky notes, playing with plasticine, pipe cleaners, juggling balls (I don't even know, guys), and, later on in the week, I also drew a comic related to my brief! The posting of sticky notes lasted an entire three whole days, from 10am to 3:30pm (excluding ice breaker Monday morning, of course), interrupted every now and again by team building exercises (games), such as the, and I quote, 'never before seen' Who Can Build the Tallest Tower Out of Only Paper and Cellotape? except maybe three-five times in primary school, and video presentations that were genuinely interesting to me. Also sticky notes. Lots and lots and lots of sticky notes.

 We were situated in 'zones' with 'zone leaders'. Patronising zone leaders. I don't know how many times it was emphasised to us that we were going to be treated as adults. You know, considering that the students there were between the ages of 18-36 (I am dead serious). You know how people used to baby talk to you when you were younger? How they tried to coax things out of you by, perhaps not intentionally, talking down on you, almost intimidating you? Making their voices as high as possible, breathing down your neck as much as possible to see what you're up, to make sure that you haven't accidentally swallowed or shoved your crayon so far up your nose that it's popping your eye out? Well, that's what it felt like. Trapped within these 'zones', being watched by hawks in case we try to escape to, I dunno, for like five or ten minutes to the toilet or something.

 Though I digress; it could have been much worse. It felt like it was picking up later on in the week at least but, honestly, the whole coming up with ideas definitely should not have lasted as long as it did, therefore the entire shenanigan could very well have been over and done with by Wednesday, not Friday. Mind you, I've had no benefit from it whatsoever. Well, except for maybe wasting sticky notes on boards with any writing idea that I may get instead of just scribbling up a mind map. If you could even call that a benefit, I don't know. I guess I could make a game out of it. Hopefully the six weeks up there next year will be better. I hope.

My Destiny

I've always been worried when taking little personality or intelligence quizzes in case I'm too 'conscious' with my answers. I've noticed this wee pattern that I seem to pick a 'median' answer for a lot of the questions. They're fun to take to see what they make of you but I reckon I always think too much about what they're asking me as I take them: 'Uhh, five/one seems too high/low', 'What if they work out X when I say I like Y? Oh God, oh God'. I really ought to learn to just go with the flow, eh?
 I took a little intelligence test not too long ago to get an idea of where my strengths lay. I wasn't overly sure what the results would be like because, without sounding like a total swat or whatever, all of my hobbies link into my chosen career path or 'dream job'; generally just being a creative person, I guess, so consequently, I am loving every class I have (so far). So having laid out those cards, I was surprised that writing showed up as a weakness.

 I've always loved coming up with original or innovative ideas so creative writing was always fun for me. I took a short course in Writing Fiction (it was just prose but still!) at the Open University and I really enjoyed a piece of coursework as a part of my English Literature AS, involving writing a short script based on A Street Car Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, who happened to greet Mr Reaper by choking on a bottle cap, as you do. I've also taken part in National Novel Writing Month (once) and Script Frenzy April (once). I didn't complete the goal set but I took part nonetheless. Not to mention how much my li'l buddies want to knock my front teeth out with the amount of puns I come off with (they are glorious, let me tell you now!). Mind you, I have this nasty habit of starting a piece of writing, be it prose, a screenplay, a teleplay, webisode, whatever, and then stopping. I'll say, 'Eh, I'll do it later' so I end up with two episodes of something written that need redrafted for the upteenth time, or something half finished. I really ought to break out of that. I'm also really, really waffly as you'll probably soon find out. Constant reminders from teachers all throughout High School (well, Grammar School. Some people get pissy about that for some reason).



 Anyroad, I'll wallow over that some other time. What I did score generously enough in that achieved my top three rankings were, from bottom up: Musical, Social, and... Spatial. The only one I'd say I'm a little surprised at is music, until I read what it said about how I could put this form of intelligence to good use.

 One of which was, 'Read a story with great emotion - sad, then happy, then angry. Talk about changes [...] tone?' and... uh, this is embarrassing but I, eh, this reminded me of what I do when I'm bored while reading a book. To amuse myself and to maybe pick up my reading pace a little bit, I will read aloud to myself. Not monotonously, no, no; that annoyed the hell out of me when I was still in school, but each character would have a different voice; raspy, accents, twangs, pitch, rough, sass, the occasional tic, etc. It gave life to the characters at hand and just made my reading experience that little bit more enjoyable. Either that or I just need some serious mental help. In fact, this slipped out in school on me once. We were reading Harper Lee's  To Kill A Mocking Bird - I'm sure you're aware of the primary accent in this setting - and, I can't remember whose lines I was reading, but I started off reading it 'normally' until my sub-conscious must have decided that I was being far too boring. Needless to say, I didn't even clock onto this myself until a couple of girls erupted with laughter. Well, excuse me, princess, for making that reading session a little bit more interesting, even if it was by accident. Jeez.

 I guess I was indifferent with Social. I know I'm shy and a little quiet at first but once I feel that I have a situation wrapped around my little finger, I am on top of the world and I can shine a little. I've always loved drama because the opportunity for me to be naturally outgoing or to simply try on a new personality (perhaps even a buried one; who knows?) momentarily in front of a few people was actually really good feeling. It gives you a real break from your boring, old self. Maybe other people will disagree but I've been with this chick since the beginning so a break or two every now and again is good and when you do well - especially when you know you've done well - the feeling is exhilirating.
 Social, I reckon, is useful for my TV Interviews class. This class is good fun. 'Go watch some interviews and think about how they've been done' which is what I do all the time. I think they're interesting and I've always thought it would be fun being on either side of the interview; learning a thing or two about an interesting person or telling someone or an audience a thing or two about you because they find you interesting. So long as I know what I'm doing and I've got the situation under wraps, it would virtually be a cinch. Key words there, hey; so long as.
 It's simply nerve wracking when you're not 100% sure of yourself and when nothing but 'say something. Say something, Goddamnit!' is racing through your mind, it's pretty damn difficult for things to go according to what you had mentally planned. I'd love to try to be funny but I have this sarcastic, sometimes dark sense of humour with a touch of good ol' banter that I certainly would not be able to pull off until I've got enough confidence in myself. I don't really want to come off as an arse to a guest, either.
 Either way, I'm actually pretty riled up about interviewing people in the future once I've got more practice under my hat. Apparently there's a fiery personality under my skin that wants to show itself to the world, I guess.
 Aha, Spatial, at long, long last. Basically I have an eye for a good set; I can draw, I like purdy pictures (hurrhurr) and illustrations. Perfect. Apparently being geographically challenged yet being able to describe the surroundings is gonna come in handy after all. Though, thing is... I prefer drawing people. Still life, for me, is awesome. Not the 'fruit in a bowl' kind of still life, but the kind where I draw my literal 3D models as they stand there before I end up chaining them to the spot because they can't seem to stand still for just five more minutes. Having said that, I do enjoy sculpting, so long as I don't risk sawing my hands off (because women can't seem to be able to do anything right other than stand at the stove all day, where my size 4 UK feet will actually come in useful, apparently).
 I started a rather short lived papier-mâché project in the summer which came to an abrupt end as I'd ran out of PVA glue halfway through it and didn't have the money to go out to buy more.

Apart from the actual workshop giving me migraines from constantly being exposed to solvents and loud machine noises, what we do in it gives me a creative buzz all the same. I made a little set based around the moods 'depression' and 'isolation' - if isolation can even be considered a mood at all - which was actually pretty fun to mess around with. I've always been intrigued at stop-motion sets and the like; how easily enough they'd be to make yourself, at home. Many's the time I've looked up tutorials online on how to make them properly as I was growing up. Then realised that a lot of drills were to be involved and imagined gory scenarios where I end up losing one or more of my hands.


 Was this test accurate? Maybe only a wee, wee bit. Totally hate math. It got that bang on at least. Though after actually sitting down, thinking about and writing about these three main aspects, they do feel pretty familiar to me, if that makes a speck of sense. Anyhow, who knows what the near future holds, eh?
Was this test accurate? Maybe only a wee, wee bit. Totally hate math. It got that bang on at least. Though after actually sitting down, thinking about and writing about these three main aspects, they do feel pretty familiar to me, if that makes a speck of sense. Anyhow, who knows what the near future holds, eh?