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.

Week 8 - Term 2

This week began with our regular Monday morning class with Kim. In the past few weeks of classes we've all been developing the ideas for characters and storylines that we came up with. A few weeks ago, we each had to come up with one new character for a soap and come into class and pitch it. We were then put into small groups and had to go away and come up with a story that these characters could be involved in. For this week, we were tasked to write the outline for a full week's worth of Coronation Street episodes for our particular stories. In my group were Sam and Amelie. So on Friday we sat down in the library and briefly planned what would happen in our stories in each episode and then assigned each other different episodes to write. I was also assigned to role of script editor.

So this Monday we had to read out the outlines for our week's worth of episodes. After that, we then wrote a line on a piece of coloured A4 paper that summed up each episode and posted them on the wall. As a class, we then had to figure out for each day's episode which of the four stories would be the A story, B story and so on. This was quite an interesting process especially because Kim told us this is the way storylining is done in many professional programmes such as Coronation Street.

In Andy's class in the afternoon, we were discussing our favourite ever year for films. There were many different answers but most of ours were around the 90s and early 2000s. My year was 1994 because some of my favourite films including Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption were released in this year. Other favourites released in this year include The Lion King and Dumb and Dumber.

On Tuesday, we all met in the DTU for our first editing class in a good while. This class involved learning how to export footage from Final Cut and compress it into a smaller file. We also learned how to make DVDs for clients by using the program DVD Studio Pro for the first time. After this at about 12 o'clock, Adam, Andy and Ray came into the DTU just to try and put Gav off as he was showing us how to do one final thing. The purpose of this gathering was to tell us about some of the new upcoming projects that we will be involved in. The first topic is a collaboration with CPP students where we will be filming their performances at the Arches. And despite some of the crzy stories we've heard about previous years' Into the new performances, it sounds like quite an exciting and challenging project. We were then handed out a sheet of paper detailing the next project that we will all be involved in. This divided us into two groups and told us that each group would be making a two-minute short film on the theme of Home. So, at 2'oclock we assembled in our respective groups and had a meeting to discuss everyone's initial thoughts and ideas on the project.

On Wednesday, we had our television class with Andy in the afternoon. This particular lesson focused on advertising from its origins in Britain with a commercial for toothpaste right up to the present day with the likes of GO COMPARE! It was quite funny and interesting to hear eveyones else's views on the adverts that we all remember whether it's because they are funny or have a catchy tune or whether they are just plain annoying.

Our sound class on Thursday morning with Cammy was cancelled so instead we met in our respective groups for the Home project to collate our ideas and then send them on to Gav via e mail. After this, we had our new Web and Mobile Technology class with Adam in the DTU. In this we continued the discussion about how this new wave of mobile techonology is going to affect the film industry. We also briefly discussed The Virtual Revolution, a show we had been asked to watch for this week's class. This class is always quite exciting and frustrating at the same time when we always reach the same conclusion: no one knows yet of the correct business model for the combination of film/television and the internet.

Our Friday screening this week was the original version of King Kong. I actually found this very entertaining and it was a really good watch. I've not seen the recent remake of the movie so I can't compare them but the story was very fast moving and gripping. It was also funny to see the movie which, at the time, was regarded as too shocking and had to be censored when it was re-released several years later.