First film for Media Professional Studies.

In our first term of Media Professional Studies, we had to create a film that could be based around the title "People on the Move". We named our short film as "A race for love".
Our group decided that we were going to create a film where a boy spots a girl in a park that he wants to get to know, while he is staring at her, he notices that there is another boy looking at her.
The two boys then both start to race to get to the girl first. However, each try to stop the other one getting to her first by using things like a frisbee's and chasing eachother with a saucepan.
In the end, her boyfriend shows up before either of them get to her.
I really enjoyed making this film. I think that our group worked really well together and everyone got a chance to give their views on what we should do. We were all there for the filming which made it easier and I really enjoyed working on this short film.
Below is a link to the short film we made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFA8oMayVA

Six thinking hats!

In our creativity and concept class this week, we learnt about the six thinking hats. The six thinking hats is a thinking tool used a lot for group discussion but also for individual thinking. This technique was created by Edward de Bono, he wrote a book on the six thinking hats to describe how it helps people with thinking in different ways to their normal thinking. Each hat is a different way of thinking and also has a different colour.
Information: (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
Emotions (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
Bad points judgment (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
Good points judgment (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
Thinking (Blue) - thinking about thinking

In class, we were each put into groups of 5 and told to come up with different ideas for a John Moore's student party. We then gave our ideas to the teacher who then mixed them up and gave each group a new idea to what they had. Our group had the six different coloured hats which we used to think of ways we could make our idea better, looking at all the flaws and trying to make them better.

I thought this workshop was good, although most of the different thinking techniques I found that I would normally use when trying to make decisions. I still thought that it was good that we separated the thinking into different hats so when we had a different hat we looked at the task with a new thoughts. I think I will look at different tasks and think about if I have used each thinking technique.

Using sound and camera equipment.

In class on monday, we had a workshop on how to use different techniques on the cameras and also how to use sound with cameras. In this workshop we were shown what all the different buttons on the cameras where and what they were used for. Once we had been talked through all the different effects on the cameras, we were then shown how to use the sound for cameras, what level the sound should be at, how to hold it when interviewing someone and if needed how to use a boom for the microphone.
Afterwards, we where then asked to get into our groups that we are working on for creating our films. We were then each  given a camera and a microphone and asked to go out and film eachother to test out using microphones.

Although I found this workshop very useful, I had already used this equipment before when I was in college. I still thought it was good because I was able to have a reminder of how to use the equipment. We will be filming our short film this week and will hopefully have sound in the film.

Telling stories through Google maps.

In contemparory media issues class, we have been giving a task of creating a story though using Google maps. For this, we have been put into groups of 4 and have each been given a location in Liverpool where we have to start our story. The story has to be in 5 different locations and we have to make up what is going to happen in each of these locations.
My group has been given the chinese arch in Liverpool. We have decided to create a love story around chinese arches.Our group is going to start off with a girl who has a dream she is under a chinese arch and meets a man who she falls for. We are then going to have her travel to different chinese arches around the world until she meets the man from her dream. The last location is then going to be in China under the chinese arches where they are getting married.

I think the idea of using Google maps to create a story is a good idea. It helps people to use their imagination more which is what I did when thinking of stories for this.

Back To University.

When we came back after our Christmas break, our first class was Production Practice. In this class we talked about what we had achieved in our first semister. We talked about our short film "People on the Move" and our storyboard photographs that we made.
Once we had recaped on everything we had done, we then were given new handouts of what we are going to be doing this semister.
In this semister, we have to make 3 different short films. For our first short film, we have to base the film around Liverpool. Because our group last semester worked so well together we decided to keep in the same group. We have discussed different ideas and thought that basing our short film around the bombed out church in Liverpool would make a good short film.
Our group hopes to have our first short film completed within the next 2 weeks.