People On the Move - Run Tommy Run

http://youtu.be/diK1GP6-oeo

Location Profile - Wellington's Column Liverpool

http://youtu.be/LGqaCimIv40

Personal Profile- JC & the Two Steps

http://youtu.be/RH8cothjP7I

Factual Short - MMA Next Generation Liverpool

http://youtu.be/DAqna6uPm9o

Factual Short Film - Editing

For our Factual Short film, we focused on MMA fighting. We felt the filming went well, and we felt we got a variety of different shots such as panning, zooming, pull focuses, long shots and close ups. This week we have spent editing, and it was not as easy as we thought. I think we restarted the film 3 times as the first time we weren't happy with it, and the second time the audio and video were completely out of sync. We spent in total yesterday 9 hours in the editing suite, hoping to finish the film. Eventually this morning, we finally got it finished, although it was deadline day! I was finally happy with the final footage, and hoping to get decent results back tomorrow.

Web Design

The purpose of the website was for an online portfolio to showcase all the work I have made over the past year on this module. We created our webpage using Macromedia Dreamweaver, one of the main software to use to create most websites, as it allows you to create simple website layouts and to create links to each page. I had to make sure all the portfolio work could be sectioned onto different pages using relevant named buttons, to make the website easy to navigate around and clear to where different pieces of work would be located. I made a template to use for each page of the site, to make sure that the site looked consistent with the design and layout. I used Adobe Photoshop to create buttons and design each layer for the website, making it much easier to design rather than on Dreamweaver. Photoshop allowed me with more font choice, to choose colours that work well with each other and button styles. Dreamweaver allows us to compress the layers together, to create links to each individual page, and to allow wrappings to make sure the layout remains the same whatever size the screen may be. I created three pages, as I felt there wasn’t really any added pages to be inserted, the first being about myself, giving any details about me, the second was photos which I have used over the past years and the last was the videos/animations I have also created. I felt keeping the site simple, would be make it easy to navigate around but also make it look more professional than making the page too crowded with too much information on. I finished the work for the deadline, and made it available for others to access. I received good feedback on how my design and layout looked, as I made sure the white font was readable on the background colour (pale orange/pink).

This is the link to my website, with all my Digital Media Tools work from the past year:
http://www.student.ljmu.ac.uk/lssaflee/My%20Site/Index.html

Character Identity

We had been given the task in the module Contemporary Media Issues, to create a character(s) with some sort of narrative, using social networking and present it to the rest of the group. We were given the choice whether to make it realistic or fictional. I worked with Megan on this task, and after a lot of thinking, we came up with the idea of creating two characters, Lucy Taylor and Sophia Jones. They are both friends and are both are 21 years old and come from Liverpool, however the twist to the narrative was that Lucy is suffering with anorexia.

We wanted to make this story and the characters realistic, as the topic is very sensitive and serious. We decided to look into it before posting anything, so we knew exactly how it would feel to be anorexic and anybody who cares for them. We found on NHS Choices website, a story from a 19 year old girl called Katie, who suffered 4 years with anorexia. It gives very in depth details about her journey in and out of this illness, and also gives different reasons why she felt she ended up with this illness. We found out one of the reasons was that her parents split a couple of years before, so we felt we could base Lucy around this real life person's story, to make it as realistic as possible and to deal with it properly.

We created both characters a facebook, twitter and tumblr each, to express any feelings they had about the illness or anything else in their life. Lucy did interact with 1 or 2 people, going through similar problems as our character. Megan spoke to these people which made her feel quite guilty as she wasn't really having to deal with any of these problems, however we felt it would be better to reply and help these real people talking to her. We felt the task went well, however next time, we would maybe pick something less serious, as we felt pretty bad pretending to have all these problems, when it is real life to many people, however it was challenging and we felt we handle everything well.

MMA Production Practice Film

On Tuesday morning, we went down to Next Generation MMA Fighting group, to get some footage for our last production practice film for this year, Factual Short. We saw what happens in training for MMA fighters, and what MMA includes. MMA is Mixed Martial Arts, and people who went to the club are all different ages and both male and female fighters. We got different shots of them practising different moves in partener work, and managed to get two interviews with a female fighter and a professional MMA male fighter. We found out more about the club and what MMA fighting, and we hope to focus on people's opinions on the violence and limits to the sport.

We are still yet to film more footage and edit ready for our rough cut, but I feel quite pleased with what we have got at the moment.

What you need in a team

On Thursday's Creativity and Concept lecture, we worked in groups to focus on team-work. We discussed that a team is 2 or more people working together to achieve the same goal. We also talked about the negatives in teams that can occur such as having no communication with each other, taking control of everything, not sharing out tasks and not listening to other people's ideas. We felt these were important negatives to think about, as they are ones that affect how a team works, as it can cause problems and make team members feel less motivated. Having been in a difficult team to work with in the past, I could relate to some of the things said.  We discussed solutions to these problems, and the one we felt most effective was to talk to a team member face to face about problems, rather than in text, as people can be misunderstood. It would also be better to have all the group join to sort problems out but have just one person talking, so no member of the team feels intimidated by all members of the team.

Narrative/Storytelling

We were put into groups and each group picked a particular object to create a story about.We had chosen a brooch which we had to base our story around. Looking at it, it had gems on and looked like something older people would wear. We decided on a story that the Queen of England had her brooch stolen from the palace. We thought it would be interesting to have the suspects people who are close to the Queen. The suspects were  Prince Charles, Pippa Middleton, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Nick Clegg.We thought using our paper, we would create a police board, making it look like a police investigation. We created a tabloid front news storyprint to give details on what had happened. We also created an invitation and a guestlist of the Queen's garden party, where all of the suspects were invited to, giving them each a reason to be in the palace on the day. We used postick notes to show each of the suspect's motives and any evidence found for each suspect.  As we were showing the rest of the course members our story, we decided to create a tally chart of each suspect and titled it with 'Who's Done It?' giving everyone an option to choose which suspect they think it was, allowing people to interact and engage with our story. I enjoyed making this story as I thought it was enjoyable and funny thinking of motives for each of these famous suspects.

Liverpool

 Photos I've taken around Liverpool

Visiting the Automatic

On Thursday morning, we had our lecture for Creativity and Concept moved to a different building at the Innovation Park, which is about half an hour away from where Redmond's building is. Different businesses such as the BBC have previously payed to visit the Automatic, to help team building and to solve any problems in the businesses. We were split off into groups and were given pieces of Lego.

We were given three different tasks, the first was to design a new snow mobile which was descriptive and had certain boundaries we had to stick to, the second was to design a new product for the snow which gave a bit more freedom however there were still certain boundaries. The third was to make a new product for the company Snow Inc, which had nothing to do with snow, which meant we had more of an option to be creative. These tasks were set, to make us think about which tasks we each individually felt most comfortable with, to show us what type of team of person we are. I felt I liked having some freedom into being creative, however I felt I needed some boundaries and guidelines to work with. Knowing this will help me in the future, when being creative, as I will know what I personally best at working with.

Personal Profile

This week we finished our production practice film, which is Personal Profile, which my group chose to focus on a 19 year old guy called Jack, and his band JC and the Two Steps. I found this the most enjoyable film we have produced in the year we have had so far, as it was interesting finding out about Jack and his passion in the band. Also as I enjoy listening to music myself and my brother is in a similar genre of band, I found I really liked the music JC and the Two Steps played.

We went down to the Wirral to film some footage of the band practising their setlist for the gig they had the next day. JC and the Two Steps practice at Jack's house every week, so we felt this was something which needed to be included in the footage. We got different shots of each of the bandmates, and some short shots of objects and photos of Jack around the house, to see if there was anything relevant. We then recorded Jack being interviewed, asking questions about his inspirations, how passionate he is about music and what he wants to do in the future. Considering the film only needed to be at the maximum 5 minutes long, we ended up getting nearly ten minutes of audio to put over the film, making it difficult in the editing sessions to pick out what bits we wanted in our film.

The next day, we went back to the Wirrall, in Hoylake to a club/bar named 'Jack Rabbit Slims' where the band play every Friday night, to film more footage of the band performing. I found it fun and also was nice doing something with the rest of the group, and being somewhere different.

Teamworking Skills

I completed a questionnaire about teamwork skills. I answered 28 questions about myself, which would show me in my results, what type of role I play in the teams I work in. As teamwork is an important factor to be good at, especially in the media industry, it is definitely something I needed to look at and analyse what role I play in teams. From my results, I was shown to be an ‘encourager’. Out of the seven roles I could have been, this was my strongest role. As it is described on Kent University’s website, an encourager is someone who tries to energise the group when there is little motivation and to do this they use humour and enthusiasm. I feel it is someone in the group who tries to keep everybody in the group feeling positive and happy, by trying to make them feel good about themselves and their ideas. I do agree that this is one of my strongest roles, as I am kind to everyone in the group, and try to encourage others to suggest their ideas, if they have any they want to share.

 

Google Maps

On this task, we had to develop a narrative using Google Maps, influenced by 'The 21 Steps' by Charles Cumming which similarly tells a story using a map of the world. We were told to use Liverpool or an area we have/are visiting to make the task much easier for us. The story had to contain at least one of these things; images, link to audio, text or video assets from the map. I personally found this task difficult to do, as I couldn't think of a story that would work effectively using a google map. I decided to locate the story in my hometown Morecambe as I was visiting there, and I feel I know it a lot better and felt more comfortable collecting images, audio and videos. As I kept changing my mind on the idea, I feel my idea didn't work as well and only managed to gain images for my map. I did a simple story of someone being late for a party and having to simply deal with ways of getting there as quickly as possible. I feel next time, I should plan my idea more and stick to it, giving me more time to make it professional and interesting, and being able to collect more media.

 

Personal Profile

For our production practice module, we have been set a brief to find someone we know, who has an interesting story to tell, and should be based near or in Liverpool. The film must be between 90 seconds to 3 minutes long. The film must be based around one person's story, but it must not show the person talking/being interviewed, it must be voiceovered footage relevant to the story of the person.

This is our 3rd film we are creating in this module, and I feel is going to much more challenging as it must include interesting footage and the voiceover must sound clear for audiences to understand. Each person in the group, wrote a treatment of an idea they had on the film. We decided on Mike's idea of filming his friend Jack who is in a cover band based in Liverpool, and performs in different venues in Liverpool. He performed solo a couple of years ago and then put a band together a few years ago. As Mike knows Jack, it will be easier to contact him and to arrange plans for filming.

Media Contemporary Issues - Play

Redmond's Runner

Our brief we had been given was to create a game which can be played in the Redmond's Building only. In the team I worked with Sian and Lois, we came up with an idea of 'Redmond's Runner'. It was based around the game 'Hide and Seek' and 'Where's Wally?'. Looking at Raph Koster's Theory of Fun, we felt that our game was defined at Grokking, which is when our brains understand something so well and throughly that we become one with it and love it.

To play our game, each player would have to join our Facebook and Twitter group, which we created. A photo would be posted onto the Facebook page of the runner/hider, which all other players would see, and would then have to look for this person. The runner would be given the password to the Twitter account, so they could tweet to the players clues of where they are in the building. Basically, the first player to find the runner would have to take of photo of themselves and the runner and upload onto the Facebook page. They would be the winner!

The team and players felt the game was successful, and everyone involved really enjoyed playing. It was simple and easy to be played, and any amount of players could join in. Both people finding the runner and the runner all enjoyed the roles in the game. One thing that we felt we could improve on, from playing the game, was to keep the game to one social network, preferably Twitter as it got confusing having to check both sites. Also we would want players to play the game individually, as people whilst playing the game formed small groups to find the runner.

We presented our game and feedback we gained to tutors and course members and felt really pleased.

Presentation: http://prezi.com/oe0ghxwcetwi/redmonds-runner/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/redmonds.runner?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedmondsRunner