River City

I have to say before coming to Glasgow I had never watched of River City, unlike most of the other soaps. Im not even entirely sure if it is broadcast in England. However when I found out that Kim was a storyliner for the show I thought that it was important to check it out. So since then I have watched an episode or two, I have to say that it has not become my new favorite TV program (nothing could beat Grey's Anatomy) but it isnt to bad. I found it slightly weird to watch a Scottish soap opera, simply because I am so used to seeing ones set around where I live, such as Hollyoaks and Corrie. Obviously it is not a requirement to only enjoy tv shows set in the place you come from, but it does help. I think it is nice to see places you know on TV or have actors speak in a similar accent to your own. That is one reason why it is good that River City is on television, as I have not really seen that many Scottish programs since being at university.

However when Kim told us that she has arranged a trip for us all to go to the set of River City I was extremely excited. I had never had the opportunity to visit a real TV set before so i fully relished in this opportunity when we set off on our trip to Dumbarton on Monday morning. When we arrived I was really surprised to see what the exterior of the building looked like, it was not at all glamourous or fancy like I imagined, in fact it looked a little like a prison. However when we went inside it began to look a little more like I envisioned, after a fire alarm as soon as we entered the building ( I am beginning to think that fire alarms follow me everywhere, as we had just had one at halls that very morning), we began to look around the back lot of the set where the majority of the external scenes on the soap are shot. I was really impressed with the set and it was much better than I had pictured in my head. I couldn't get over how realistic everything looked. If my mum dropped me off on that street one morning, i probably would have been convinced that it was infact a real street. The set design was excellent and all the tiny details that were paid attention to really helped to create a natural looking environment. All accept the exceptionaly clean kettle in the garage. It may sound silly but i wasn't expecting the set to be open air, for some reason I thought that it would all be indoor, but i thought that it was a really nice touch, and i suppose it would look alot more realistic filming in natural light.

After having lunch in the BBC canteen, sat on the next table to the stars of the show (how cool our we) it was then time for our tour of the studio. The indoor studio was like a giant maze, it was really interesting to see the wide variety of sets and the different houses the characters live in. Some of the sets, in particular the pub, looked alot smaller than they appear on television . Most of the sets also looked like the mini kitchen and livingrooms you see in Ikea as opposed to actual homes. I suppose that it is the actors and maybe the props that make these sets look realistic and lived in. I loved the fact that I was able to recognize some of the sets off the tv and i will be watching River City in more detail in the future to see if I can spot any of the sets we visited or the actors we saw.

I really enjoyed the day at the studio and really appreciate the fact that I am on a course which gives me the ability to visit such interesting places and meet a wide variety of industry professionals. The visit was very beneficial and I am happy that I know what a real television set actually looks like. Im really grateful to Kim for arranging this visit, I have really enjoyed her lessons as she has opened my eyes up to a wider variety of roles within the television industry that I was previously unaware of. I hope to have more lessons with her next year as they have made such a positive contribution to the course.

Feels like home to me

I have to say that I have been excited about this project from the very start, I thought that the theme was lovely and showed a lot of potential, but for the most part I was excited about this project as it was the first time we were going to be able to go out there and be creative.

Overall I really liked our idea and thought that we worked well together as a group, especially in terms of planning and organization. We had a very clear idea of what we wanted to film and the shots that were needed to achieve this effect. Although it was mentioned that our idea was very ambitious, it still didnt seem like a struggle to complete the film. Although traveling to Loch Lomand did take a while, we set off early and managed to plan our time well and we were back in Glasgow by teatime.

The whole day at the loch seemed to run very smoothly, there were no major complications and I felt that we worked very well as a team. However, by far the most stressful time during the shoot arose whilst filming at halls. We were in extremely cramped conditions and because of the fact that there we had lots of actors in the scene (thanks to the other group for volunteering:D) and it did get a little bit stressful. I think at some points we could have communicated better with each other, however as the filming process went on I feel that everyone improved in this area. By the end of Thursday I think that everyone was happy with the end results and it felt great to say that we had finally managed to shoot our first short film.

Seen as everyone has started doing lists of things they have learnt, I feel as though I should jump on board and give it a try:

. Communication is key, otherwise people can get annoyed or upset. And they may be about to tell you a great idea you may never have thought of alone.

. It is possible to de-rig in under two minutes. (Especially when you have the motivation of a fire alarm blaring in your ears.)

. Filming is very tiring, especially when you have to get up at 5.30 in the morning.

. Keep your actors happy.

. It's very useful to be in a group with people who have family in Glasgow who can be in our films. Its even better if you are in a group with someone who has a multi-talented performing dog, who may well have been the most experienced person on set.

. You cant rely upon Scottish weather, but it is important to be resourceful when it eventually does start pouring with rain.

. BNC cables are not vital, but they are very important and useful objects.

. Cars are in fact vital, and more of us need to learn to drive and purchase them. It would make going on location a whole lot easier. (Maybe we should all club together and by a DFTV car.)

. Lighting can make such a difference in a film, as can tracks.

. Filming is very hard work, very fulfilling and very very fun.

The Birds

This weekend I watched the Hitchcock film ‘The Birds’. I have been interested in Hitchcock for quite a while, and the effect his work has had on many other filmmakers. A couple of weeks ago I took ‘The Birds’ out of the library at the academy but I never got around to watching it. However when I went home this weekend my Dad got out the Hitchcock box set that he received at Christmas and let me pick out one of the DVD’s to watch. I had heard good things about ‘The Birds’ and my mum said that when she watched the film she found it really scary.

I really enjoyed the film, Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers are always very high quality and this one was no exception. He builds anticipation and creates suspense wonderfully. I love how his films are all about subtlety, a look or gesture can often tell the story or portray a message more effectively than dialogue. It is so interesting how Hitchcock manages to make something that would not be ordinarily scary, such as birds, into something terrifying. This is done simply by the use of camera angles, music and diegetic sound. Some of the special effects used when the birds are shown to be attacking people look a little outdated and unrealistic. However it got me thinking, would the film be better if it was remade now? Obviously we have more technology now that would provide us with the ability to create 3D animation to show the birds attacking. However I think this may actually spoil the look of the film and diminish its appeal. Part of the charm of the film is how the birds are made to appear scary, but done within a creative fashion. If special effects were used it would mean that less creativity would be required to produce the film.

One of the best scenes within the film is achieved so simply, it involves crows sitting on a climbing frame outside of a school. Every few seconds when the camera goes back to the climbing frame the number of birds seem to have multiplied, until the playground is covered in birds. All of these crows make up such a daunting image, each bird appears so sinister and the group of them together appears terrifying.

What I think makes the movie scary is that the fear within the film is not an unrealistic one that exists only in our imaginations. Everyone knows that monsters or vampires are not real, however birds are obviously very real, and they are EVERYWHERE! After watching the film I found myself looking around warily when I saw a bird, and flinching whenever a pigeon, or god forbid, a seagull flies over my head. So clearly this film has achieved its objective of scaring people. Yet again I am impressed with another one of Hitchcock’s films, and as the film ended I found myself wanting to watch more of the boxset straight away as I enjoyed the movie so much. However I will defiantly be watching out for those scary birds when I am walking around Glasgow tomorrow.

Into the New

The past week has been very interesting and more diverse than our typical week at the academy. On Monday we had a lesson with Andy where we discussed genre and the generic conventions found within different types of films. We watches small exerts from a western, a gangster film, a screwball comedy and a musical. We then had to identify some of the elements that indicated to us that a film belonged to a particular genre. For example we could easily identify the film ‘Stagecoach’ as a western because of the typical iconography associated with the genre being present. The film contained cowboys and Indians, guns and other weapons, horses, stereotypical cowboy costumes such as boots and cowboy hats. I enjoyed this class even though I already covered some aspects of this lesson within my Alevel classes at sixth form, however I am looking forward to exploring genre and representation in further detail.

On Tuesday we split into our groups to work on the ‘Home’ projects. Our group met to discuss our ideas of what we wanted to film and organize the sequence of the short film. After our meeting we went down to the kit room to meet the rest of the class, we collected the kit we would require for our Into The New shoot and transported in to the ‘Arches’ where we would be filming for the next few days. When we arrived we were shown around the building and given a health and safety induction. I was really impressed by the venue, I had never been to the Arches before but I thought that it was a really nice location and was looking forward to filming there the following day.

Wednesday was quite a busy day as in the morning we had another meeting regarding the ‘Home’ project. By this point we had a really firm grasp of our idea and our goals were really to sort out the technicalities of our idea. While me and Michael went away and did a storyboard the others worked on organizing a location to shoot in and called up actors. At about 4pm we made our way to The Arches where we were going to be shooting this evening. The team I would be shooting in would be made up of me, Kelsey, Sam and Michael. After we were shown the location we would be shooting in we had to set up all of our equipment in time for the performance. This did not cause any major problems, as setting up the kit has become more of a second nature as we have now had lots of practice. We were not really briefed about what performance we were going to be filming. All we were aware of were the frightening stories that we had heard about the CPP performances the year before, many of these involving collecting blood and sticking biscuits in places they don’t belong. However I kind of anticipated that these were stories that had been exaggerated or at the very least were one off occurrences. However after filming several performances I cab see that many of the rumors are in fact true. It wasn’t that I didn’t like or enjoy the performances that we watched, its just that some of them appeared somewhat pointless. It seemed that in all but one of the acts we were told to film, the artist used nudity to shock the audience. It seemed the performance didn’t really have a point, it didn’t tell anything to the audience, it did not seemed to tell a story or have a particularly strong message. I think that the nudity and other forms of abstract self-expression would not bother me, and may even improve or add to a performance if the art actually had a purpose. In several forms of abstract theatre that I have seen before, the artists used a variety of weird and unusual techniques within a performance, however more often than not there is a reason behind these techniques and they often symbolize something. However in the performances that we witnessed I could not really see a reason behind many of the actions taking place. All of the performances involved the actor taking off all of their clothes. It seems like this is an overused technique and they are only doing it for the sake of it, or to add a shock factor to their piece. Time after time the main focus was the artist and their body and the ‘exploration between nature and the body’ or other generalized statements that could mean almost anything. I was disappointed with some of the shows that I watched, I am sure they are very good when looking at them via the standards of the CPP course and I am sure they fill the assessment objectives required. Its just that I had heard so many negative things being said about the CPP course and I was hoping that these negative ideas would be washed away when seeing the performances first hand. I have seen some abstract performances that have been really interesting although the things we filmed on Wednesday and Thursday didn’t really appeal to me.

However I do think that it was beneficial to film the performances. Even though this is not the type of work I hope to be doing in the future, it is always good to use the kit and it felt nice to work in a professional environment and be filming live. It was also nice to have some variation within the week and spend a couple of days in a different location. However I think the images of a naked man wrestling with a log, a woman on a plate of glass covered in flowers, and a naked woman eating sand will be imprinted in my mind for a very long time.

My favourite year

In Mondays lesson we all discussed our favourite year for films. I struggled to find out which year was in fact my favourite, this was mainly because I have so many films that I really enjoy, and most of the were made in different years. It was also a challange for me to select one year in particular because more often than not, I did not actually watch the movie in the year it was released at the cinema. However when I finally came to a conclusion I narrowed my choices down to two years. The first being 1996, this was the year when I went to the cinema for the first time. I was four years old and watched 'James and the Giant Peach'. I remember feeling really special because I went with just my Dad and my baby brother stayed at home with my mum because he wasn't old enough to go. Watching this film is still so clear in my mind, and I remember crying at the end of the film because it was very scary (in the eyes of a four year old anyway) and I suppose looking back, I can see how cinema had such a strong effect on me from such an early age. There are also some other films that I really like made in 1996, these being 'Trainspotting' and 'Romeo and Juliet'. It surprised me that both of these were made so long ago as their styles appear very modern and look as though they could have been produced within the past year or so.

The other year which I enjoyed was 2001. 'Moulin Rouge' and 'I am Sam' were both made in 2001 and happen to be two of my favorite films. I think another reason why I like the year 2001 in terms of the films being made is because this is the year when I started to visit the cinema more often. I was 10 years old and felt as though there was a lot of new development in terms of film within this year. When I went to see Lord of the Rings i was amazed to see a film that was so long and such a spectacle. The first of the Harry Potter films was also released in 2001, I remember reading the book and waiting with excitement to see the film. This was also a year for me when I became aware of other genres of film, I watched both 'Bridget Jones's Diary' and 'The Others' on VHS that year as I was not old enough to see them at the cinema. For me I chose the years 1996 and 2001 not only because some good films were made within this year, but also because of the childhood memories that the year of cinema holds for me.

On Tuesday we had our first editing class in ages. I was really glad to have the lesson with Gav today as I felt as though out of all our classes this was the one where i have had the least practice. In the lesson we learnt how to export footage and produce the menu and layout for DVD's. After this lesson finished all of the teachers came together and spoke to us about two new projects coming up. The first being "Into the New" which involve us filming some of the members of the CPP course at their performance at the Arches. I am looking forward to this as I feel as though it will provide me with more hands on experience with the camera which is a really positive thing. In the afternoon session we were split up into two groups. Our group had a meeting regarding our second project in which we have to create a two minute short film around the theme of home. A enjoyed our brainstorming session and i think that we have come up with an interesting idea. Talking about this project with the rest of the group really got me excited about filming the piece, and it will be a good chance to work on a real shoot.

On Wednesday morning I submitted my written editing assessment to Gav and in the afternoon we had a lesson with Andy. The main focus of this class was centered around advertising, which is something that i am very interested in. I am glad that we are studying advertising on our course as it has such a power and impact on peoples lives and it is important to be aware of this. I also think that adverts can be very interesting and creative and I often find myself watching programmes such as "The 100 greatest add's of all time". I also attended a meeting about our collaboration with TPA and had a PAT tutorial which seemed to go well.

On Thursday morning our group had a meeting about the 'Home' project and we discussed some of the findings from our research. Our lesson with Adam continued to explore web and mobile based technology. I really enjoyed this class and felt inspired by Adam's passion for the subject. The lesson got me thinking about how to make television shows more web based and interactive, something i think is quite an exciting prospect. We also discussed the documentary we had watched outside of class, this brought up topics such as how the internet was created, the power that it has, and possible ways to make money from it in the future. I feel as though this class is very up-to-date with what is going on within the industry at this moment in time which is a very positive thing that will benefit us after leaving the Academy.

Instead of watching King Kong with the rest of the class on Friday I had to complete my editing assessment that I missed when I was off sick. I feel as though the assessment went well as I felt as though I was able to edit the clips into the sequence without any major problems. Obviously I will have to wait for my tutorial with Gav concerning the results of the assessment. Fingers crossed I have done well.

After I completed the assessment a group of us went to watch the Oscar nominated film 'Crazy Heart' at the cinema. I enjoyed this film overall and was glad that I went to see it.