Once again I have been terrible at multi-tasking! How anyone manages to keep a blog running, alongside university work, I do not know....they must be magic!
Despite my incompetence, this is just a quick post to share some of the work I have created whilst at University. All the work was created, thus belongs to, my respective groups and I. It has been a great experience, working with new technology and new people, both to build the skills I need for a future career in the media industry, as well as developing new friendships along the way. Some of the people I have worked with, on these respective projects, have come to be my closest university friends. I am thankful for their individual talents and ability to handle my stress....and believe me there was a lot of stress.
Anyway, I hope everyone reading this enjoys the things I have/am creating. I know I have a long way to go, many more skills to learn, to develop my abilities. However, if this post makes at least one person smile, enjoy themselves, then I can rest easy knowing I am on the correct path to the future I desire.
For now, I hope you enjoy my little corner of the Internet.
Thank you and until next time...keep on watching random stuff...go for all opportunities offered to you...and just keep smiling!
P.S. I have had to compress the videos in order to upload them to the blog, so excuse the video quality. I still have many skills to learn, there is much room for improvement, but I believe I have made a respectable start. So I hope I have uploaded these correctly, and that people are capable of accessing them!
These pieces are perfectly imperfect! I had such a great time creating both, and l have learnt so much already.
These pieces are perfectly imperfect! I had such a great time creating both, and l have learnt so much already.
Film Adaptation of Max Ophüls Caught (1949) using modern context:
Through reinventing Max Ophüls’ opening, we intended to not only address the psychological association of appearance and wealth in modern fashion and advertisement, but also wished to extend the themes and exploration of human aspiration, which Ophüls raises in the film Caught (1949).
By including a male character, we hoped to suggest that unlike the contemporary 1940's society of Caught, men are not exempt from the desire for a ideal appearance; men now worry about living up to societal expectation as much as women do.
As cinematographer for this project, lighting became one of the most important aspects for me to exploit. Adhering to V.F PERKINS’ theory, I sought to ‘conquer the visible world’, using light to fulfil two objectives. I wanted to ‘possess the real world’s appearance’, positioning our artificial lighting near windows, for example, to enhance the expected natural light sources. More importantly, following Ophuls’ own choices, I sought to conform to a ‘traditional aesthetic’ by ‘presenting the ideal’. I used lighting to softly light actors, ensuring they ‘glowed’ to connote our themes, and the narrative driving force behind Caught, of characters seeking happiness through ascending socially or via unrealistic appearance.
Television Project: Constructing a scene for British Soap Opera Eastenders with a focus on CLASS:
Higher Quality: https://plus.google.com/u/0/100186413869660150185/posts/2rjKB1NmowX?pid=6262628724711939074&oid=100186413869660150185
Christine Geraghty comments, “British soaps offer the notion of a harmonious community, but the chimera is rarely pinned down. Soap opera format denies the final ending…the community can never therefore be finally and securely established, which would be implausible, thus threaten the soaps commitment to realism”
By introducing a visual conflict between middle class and working class, between Martin and the social worker, we intentionally ensured that a sense of ‘community’ was present but unstable. There was a relationship between these two classes in the characters, as is realistic because modern society is an amalgamation of many classes, but in being juxtaposed against one another, our drama was evident and our scene’s dialogue was propelled forward.
NOTE: Music used in the clips...unfortunately not mine and is owned by the respective artists (Aloe Blacc and Paramore respectively)
Books Used:
Geraghty in Buscombe, Edward. 2000. 'British Television: A Reader'. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
•Perkins, V. F. 1993. ‘Film As Film’ (London: Perseus Books Group)