The end is near! (And I'm not talking about the 21st December 2012)

This the last blog detailing my assignments for the final semester. I still can't believe the first year is over already! I know it's an old cliche but time does fly when you're having fun! Yes I've really enjoyed the first year, I've had a great time working on my assignments and have made some great friends. Can't wait for the second year now. But don't worry I won't stop blogging I've got some projects planned over the summer and will provide updates here so watch this space!

So now for the assignments, these were given to us in a pack with a deadline of 16th May (to complete all of them) so it was up to us which ones we tackled first. The Music video (Pink Skies) and Horror film (The Wrong Way) were also part of these assignments so I won't be blogging about those here as I've already done those (see previous blogs).

The first assignment was a storyboard for a commercial. The brief asked me to produce a 6, 9 or 12 frame client presentation in A3 size. It could be produced using photography, images acquired from magazines or the web with development ideas, images and thoughts to be kept in a sketch/ideas book.  The subjects to choose from were Volvic, O2, Kit Kat and Eggs. I initally thought about some ideas for an egg commercial to do with recipes and making food from eggs when there wasn't much left in the cupboard. However, I thought something similar had been done before so I changed my mind. I then chose the Kit Kat brief which said that Nestle had brought out a series of different flavours and wished to bring this to the attention of consumers. The strapline for the campaign would be 'What colour are you?'. After a fair amount of research I decided on a fairly straightforward idea where different types of people would appear in a montage describing their favourite Kit Kat colour and flavour. Below is the storyboard I produced:

The next 6 assignments were all photography based. I had to produce photographic images for the following:

Shooting for Stock

The brief asked me to produce 6 images within a category that I feel empathy with. After some research I decided to go for alcohol. Below are the images I produced:

Joiner
For this one I had to produce an image that turns a 3 dimensional space or object with space into a 2 dimensional image. I actually produced 3 images for this assignment.

Typologies
I was required to produce an A2 wall poster containing 9 images based on typologies, laid out in portrait mode (3x3). I decided to base my on shop signs from Chester.

Street Photography

For this assignment I had to produce a mini portfolio of 12 images in monochrome or colour. For this assignment I took photos from Chester and also some whilst I was in Sydney. Due to limited space I've only uploaded 3 of my favourite pictures.

Whilst walking in Hyde park I spotted a couple of guys playing 'Street Chess'.

This photo was taken on a street corner in Sydney. I called this one 'Ignored Beggar'.

Men at work!

Still Life

I was asked to use commonplace objects to produce a still life image to illustrate the front cover of a book, the opening page of a website or a poster. After spending some time in the photography studio I decided to utilize some tripods. I also mocked up the image as a magazine cover to demonstrate how it could look on the front of a real publication.

Human Landscapes

The final assignment in the photography section of the brief was to produce 4 human landscape images using different lighting effects and viewpoints.

Thunder, Lightning, delayed trains & Romance at Wrexham train station

On Friday I was asked if I would help Jo (a 2nd year Student) with the sound boom on the shoot of her latest film. Filming started at 9 o'clock at Wrexham train station. Jo had arranged for a couple of actors to participate so it was great to work with a couple of professionals for a change rather than being the actor myself! I won't give the story away (as Jo hasn't finished editing it yet) other than the fact it is a romance. Shooting the film was a bit of a challenge due to the weather we had thunder, lightning and heavy rain showers. There were also delayed trains that were very noisy when silence was required! It was great experience working with Jo and I had good fun helping her out.












I'll hopefully post some further pictures in the near future.

Pink Skies

Well we've finally finished editing our Music Video! It was produced for a track written and sang by Tracey Green (a very talented singer.) see previous blog for a photoshoot she took part in. Gemma, Sue and I filmed the outdoor footage on a freezing cold day on location at Caergwrle Castle. Despite the cold weather we had good fun filming the footage. The indoor shots (for the storytelling part of the parallel edit) were filmed at Sue's house (thanks again to Sue for letting us use her house!).

Colin Heron (a Tutor in Sound Production) kindly arranged for two of his students (Jonny and Tom) to provide us with access to the sound recording studio at the main Glyndwr Campus. They 'laid down' three tracks to produce the end result which was a professionally polished song. The track also included harmonies by Tracey and her friend Bryn provided the acoustic guitar track. He also added further depth to the song with his great backing vocals.

 Editing was tricky as we had to match the song to the video but we got there in the end. Gemma and Sue did a great job creating a logo for our groups work.

Below is the a link to the video on YouTube. Constructive feedback is welcome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szbKNdMgWb4

Guitars, a new rock star and friends

Another day in the photo studio with Tracey and her friend Lucy. Today I was focussing on low key lighting. Tracey is a singer in a band and she brought her guitars along so we could take some shots of her. These shots could potentially be used for a promo or cd cover.

A day in the studio

Back in January Sue kindly arranged for her daughter Kirsty and friend Myra to take part in a couple of photo shoots. It was a fantastic opportunity to practice my portrait photography skills in both high and low key lighting. I took many different shots with the girls in a number of poses. I also experimented with longer exposures and achieved some creative results (see shot of the dancer below)Unfortunately I don't have space to post them all here but I've posted a few of my favourites.

A Good Friday

I'd like to start this blog by thanking Gemma (who kindly sent me a Facebook message whilst on honeymoon!) for telling me there was an opportunity to help out Dave Robinson with a short educational film the week I got back. The aim of the film was to give guidance to people with learning difficulties about how to recycle. I was keen to get involved as this was a good opportunity to work on a project outside of the University and would form part of my professional development.

The filming took place on Good Friday at Talacre. Gemma's sister had kindly agreed for us to use her holiday home as the location which was great considering it was a holiday and the weather was fantastic!

Along with my fellow first year students Sue & Gemma, two second years (Dave and Helen) were also there to help with the film. Dave R surprised us a bit as I'm sure everyone was expecting the shoot to have already been planned out and scripted. However, Dave told us that he expected us to take charge and plan the shoot from start to finish! Dave had also brought along his semi-professional Canon XH-A1 camera so it was great to get some experience on a video camera with a manual mode that gave professional results. Fortunately the controls are very similar to my Canon SLR so it didn't take too long to get used to it.

However, before filming could start the first thing we did was get our heads together to plan the shoot. We had to show how to safely recycle glass, plastic, cans, paper and also food waste. Helen had kindly volunteered to be the actress in the shoot so we filmed her whilst in the kitchen cleaning items such empty bottles and cans and then putting them into a recycle box ready to go outside to the relevant bags or bins.

We all had a chance at directing and also working the camera. The camera was set to manual so it was vital that it was sharply focussed, the f-stops were correct and the tripod level of course!

It was great to work with students from the second year and I got some great help and advice from Dave R on use of the camera. Overall it was a great experience, well worth giving up a bank holiday for. Many thanks to Dave R for the opportunity and Gemma of course! I'm looking forward to seeing the end result.