Final film - Person profile - Paul Rimmer (MMA)

Right so here is the finished piece to which we had to do a short film on the person profile. Paul Rimmer the head coach was really helpful and without his permission to film in the gym I don't think we would of got our final mark of a 2:1, which we were all pleased with in our group! I think because it was a lot different to the other finished films and it had some really good shots throughout.

Failed attempt at an imaginary person

Have to be brutally honest here and say that I didn't live up to expectations for creating a fake person online using social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and tumblr etc.

I attempted to make a profile of an alien called Skippy the alien to which I added a twitter account. Also with conjunction of weavrs, which as you will see has a totally new way at looking and using public data.

Unfortunately I received no tweets or followers through using this tool so I can't really comment on how I thought it worked.

Mojo: The Train Detective

This was something myself and the creative genius of James Dunn had the pleasure of performing.

Basically we were given a task to use Google maps in a more creative way in the sense of a story. So we decided to put an extra twist on this and styled it like an old 1970's cop series. The detective Mojo was on the hunt for the infamous graffiti artist Shanksy. We even put in our own theme song! Enjoy

Mojo: The Train Detective. One man fights against the criminal injustice to train graffiti. With humourous results.

Preperation for our new filming project.

This week our group have been given a filming assignment on a person profile. Luckily I managed to track down the head trainer of the Next Generation MMA gym in Liverpool's city centre. It was good to get in touch with Paul Rimmer and introduce myself, basically asking if we could film about what he provides and generally does in the gym. Were going to do our best to get some great shots of combat and also the tuition in which Paul provides for his members.

Our finished short film! Football In The Blood - It's Liverpool entry

Well here you go, our final short film for the 'It's Liverpool entry'. I must say the editing was left pretty much till last minute but were all really pleased with the final piece. I literally spent three hours on the Internet trying to find a poem or speech bed from a Liverpool fan to tie in with the visual. In the end thanks to SoundCloud, I found a great poem that really had depth and feel towards our film, so it was all worth the searching and listening. The poem has since been taken off and was done by Keith Wilson, so I was lucky to upload it while it was still up! You also get to see the camera work I touched on earlier with the lad and his dad buying a scarf at 00:21 in, such a shame it wasn't a blue and white one! Listen out for all that ambiance sound I touched on as well... Hope you enjoy.

The joy of editing... again

Back to our head quarters were we have uploaded all our footage on to Avid, the editing software we are currently using. This is interesting to hear what people think about this software because it has a lot of mixed reviews. I've heard good things about another application called Final Cut Pro, were word is on the grape vine that we may be introduced to it in our second year. It'll be good to compare the two because I really find it time consuming having to manually upload onto Avid. Anyway here is a lovely point of view picture that myself and Ian look at hours on end!

It's Liverpool - Filming at were I dreaded!

On a cold cold Wednesday night to which I have since tried to delete out of my memory, myself, Ian, Nat and Coral headed off to my first dreaded destination of Anfield, the home of Liverpool football club. As I am a team player of course, my Everton roots got me through this I have to say! It was the semi final of the FA Cup with Liverpool playing Manchester City. Me and Ian strategically placed ourselves outside the ground in the hope of getting a nice time line shot of the fans all building up around the ground. I really feel sorry for any camera men out there who do all the reports you see on the likes of sky sports, because all you get is people jumping in front of the camera in the hope of being on the TV! This was rather frustrating for us in particular because the aim was to get a time line sequence of the fans building up. So it was just a bit of character building lets say that got us through it. The others looked more around the ground trying to get more intimate shots of fans, magazine sellers, souvenir sellers and general banter you get on a typical match day. I emphasised to everyone to try and get as much ambiance as possible, because I knew that this would be a great sound bed to have over the visual, giving it more realism and feel. It was funny actually because literally to the right of this picture ITV were filming as well, so we picked a good spot!

Really hoping the footage we got turns out to be good because we literally split up into three's at times all trying to get good footage. I was particularly pleased with a bit of filming that I had done were I spotted a young lad and his dad buying a scarf by one of the stalls. Even as an Everton fan it was good to hear all the banter involved between Liverpool and City fans, so fingers crossed we've got enough good shots for our final piece! It also helps having Ian's editing skills!

The magical mind of De Bono

Here we were first introduced to Mr Edward De Bono's thinking technique called the six thinking hats. (A touch on that below). We were then put into groups to come up with some brainstorming, in the hope to come up with an idea for a university event with a budget of £1000. The group I was in decided to merge the creative parts of the universities, e.g were the sound and engineering department would help with the set up for a fashion show for the fashion and design department. So in essence two groups that would be able to compliment each other. The cost would be not outgoing then as the students in essence would be the ones volunteering and then the money could be used on a band or celebrity for advertisement purposes. The idea of also established companies and successful ex students came to mind as well, so that this would be an incentive for all current students to look at, as well as it giving a lot of networking opportunities and platform to show off talent.

Good old Mr De Bono here looking very philosophical whilst resting his chin.

Being introduced for the first time to this dexterous man was very intriguing I've got to admit. Here we looked at and discussed De Bono's six thinking hats tool. It does exactly as it says on the tin really, were by six different thinking methods are put into practise on a problem or idea, with each colour representing a different opinion and thought.

This is something that would be useful if you were perhaps on your own and you wanted to develop an idea, or look at all the factors good and bad that could come from it. I think naturally we all have a different hat on as individuals so it was a good exercise to see one another look at something from a different angle.

New project time - It's Liverpool

So this week gives us our new project called 'It's Liverpool'. Were we are asked to film and produce a short film lasting at least 90 seconds which captures a part of Liverpool. The options were endless and within our group we came up with a football idea, were we looked at a match day involving Everton or Liverpool. We wanted to be a little different to the other groups and thought that this would perhaps give us a slight edge because of the fact that we were going to see a lot of different people that love the game so much. As a passionate Everton fan I'm sure you can imagine my feelings if we were to film around Anfield stadium!

The joy of Adobe Photoshop

Again my lack of current editing software came to the fore front once again, this time in the form of the picture editing software called Adobe Photoshop. It really is endless in terms of what you can do to any given picture and I did find it rather useful. Here's a screen shot of the layout from the software.