Week 10 - Term 2

On Monday morning we had a guest star appearance from Gavin Blyth, the current producer of the soap, Emmerdale. At the start he asked the room filled with first and second year DFTV students how many of us watched soaps. And even though I know for a fact some of us do watch soaps no one raised their hands. Mr. Blyth then proceeded on a tirade about how we would never make it in the television industry if we did not watch soaps and if any of us managed to ever get a job on working on a soap we should count ourselves blessed. But despite everyone else's serious indignation about the producer's words, I thought the guy was actually alright. After he got his soap rant out the way he was quite interesting and I enjoyed learning about the different ins and outs of how a show like Emmerdale is actually produced. He showed us a promotional video for the "new style" Emmerdale of 2010 which was a bit weird and looked more like a spoof with the usual sweeping country music replaced by some dodgy Rihanna remix.

Not a great deal happened on Tuesday as we didn't have any formal classes so my group had another meeting to try and finalise all our preparations for the Home project by devising shot lists, looking into what props to buy and what locations we would be filming in and who we needed permission from etc.

Wednesday began with a programme meeting at 1 o'clock. This was a joint meeting with DFTV and TPA to bring forward the proposals for the upcoming collaborative project. There was only one pitch which was the LipDub pitch by Ada and Ian Jolly from TPA. After this we had our last television class with Andy this term. For this we had a brief discussion on representation and how different members of society are portrayed on TV. We then watched a BBC4 documentary about the representation of men in TV adverts throughout history. Although the programme focused on how men were represented, it also said a lot about how women were represented in the process.

The programme turned out to be quite amusing as it was mainly driven by examples of different advertisements all through the decades starting off in the 50s right up to the 90s. It was interesting to see how the representation and the perception of how men should be evolved and changed through those decades. From the very sexist and patriarchal commercials in the 50s, to the 70s where it was seen as cool for every man to be wearing Old Spice aftershave and smoking the same brand of cigarette right up to the 80s and 90s where individualism and the successful office worker style image of a man was commonplace.

On Thursday I woke up bright as a button after the previous night's St Patrick's day celebrations at 7 o'clock in preparation for a day's filming. Today was the day we would be filming our Home projects. Murray picked Harry and I up from halls and took us up to the academy to collect the kit. The first location of the day was Glasgow's Botanic Gardens in the west end. We had arranged to meet our actor and actress there. So after a couple of hours setting everything up and getting all the different shots we required there, we made our way to the next location in Kelvingrove Park. It took quite a bit longer in Kelvingrove to get all the footage we needed because although the filming was mostly in the one area, we had to decorate a tree with all the various props that we had brought with us. All in all it was a really successful day. Our actors were really professional and everything looked great when we filmed it. And we learned the valuable lesson never to try and use a balloon in a film ever again especially in a windy March in Glasgow.

Friday began with a screening of a film that has been mentioned dozens of times since the start of the course but one that I had never watched: Casablanca. I hadn't heard a great deal about what the film was about other than everyone seemed to really like it and it is regarded as a classic. Before he put the film on, Andy told us that Casablanca is like the Hamlet of movies in that it contains the greatest number of well known phrases still in use today. So with that in mind I tried to spot as many as I could throughout. Anyway I really enjoyed Casablanca. It's a great story that doesn't need masses of locations or complicated characters to be successful. It is a simple yet very effective story because you care for the characters and their story. A good deal of the film actually takes place inside Rick's club which proves you don't need millions of pounds worth of fancy locations and costumes and explosions to make a brilliant film. The climax of the film is really gripping and has you hooked right till the very end which I think is a very appropriate and sweet ending.