Friday 11 December

First of all today, we had to attend a short meeting in the Athaneum Theatre about the new project that we will be doing with TPA when we come back after the new year. This basically involved having a quick read of the project briefing paper type thing that John Wilkie handed out so we could see what we would be involved in. We also learned who from the TPA course we will be pairing up with on Monday to share their expertise about Mahara. After a quick wave to our respective partners, we were free to go.

At 12:30, though, instead of having our standard two film Friday screenings, we had the opportunity to watch 8 short films that had been made by the 4th years and 2nd years over their time on the course. This turned out to be a great experience, it was really enjoyable to watch all the different films and compare how good they were in terms of writing and composition as well as the technical aspects. It was strange to think that a few of the films that had been made by the current 2nd years were actually made in the February of this year, which meant they had only just started their term 2 of first year. That also means that the premises for short films that we will be submitting to Richard in the next few days could potentially be short film material to be used later in the year, how exciting! I genuinely enjoyed the experience of watching these films collectively. It gave us an opportunity to see that type of thing that we will be working to, and it also made me just want to go out and start getting ideas together to make projects. My favourite film would have to be the 4th year production, Slag, which was about a young girl who finds herself unwillingly transported into a life of tabloid fame. It was very well conceived overall and the amount of hearty laughs that it got from all of us in the lecture theatre indicated how truly funny and well made it was.

After all this furoure that the short films created within the three year groups we all departed for a break, some people lucky enough to be going to the academy panto. For us first years, however, it was time for us to come back to the Fyfe Lecture Theatre at half 2 to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a silent German film from 1920. It was an interesting watch. Not necessarily an enjoyable watch and probably not something that I would watch for sheer entertainment. However, it was quite interesting to see that, although I don't know a great deal about the context in which it was released, it was surely one of the first and most influential films to contain such dark and horror type themes. As we discussed afterwards, the film was very gothic in style which helped to portray its dark plot and characters. It wasn't always the easiest of plots to follow at times, I felt, but when we talked about it afterwards and how the narrator was actually insane things became clearer. This also helped to explain the crazy set design.

As for my favourite Christmas film, I would have to go for Home Alone 2. It's one of the few films I know where I think the sequel is better than the original. Maybe it's just because I saw the second one first but I've just always like it better and found it much more exciting. It's a great Christmas movie without being outwardly about Christmas itself. Although you always find it on at this type of year and I'm not complaining because it's one of those films you can watch pretty much every year at the same time and it will evoke the same great feelings from you every time.