Liverpool Through the Lens

Telling Stories using Google Maps

So you want to find directions to a somewhere or take a look at a place, where do you look? Quite often you'll go on Google Maps, what else would you use it for! Well, how about using it to tell a story.

For one of our assignments we were given a location in Liverpool and we had to use Google maps to tell a story across 5 locations. These locations could be anywhere in the world but we had to start off at our Liverpool location. Our location was the Anglican Cathedral. We decided to find out who the architect was and then see if they had designed any more notable buildings. It turns out that he, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, has a whole list of buildings to his name - even the red phone box. As a group we picked 4 of the other projects that Scott had been involved with and then created diary entries related to each of our choices. In the diary entries we have put Scott's thoughts and feelings from the time which he was working on each of the projects.

View Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in a larger map

I'm on Flickr

So as the title of this post suggests, I now have a Flickr account. This has come about because of one of my uni modules, Digital Media Tools. On my account I'm going to put lots of photos that I've taken in Liverpool as quite often I will just go out into the city with my camera. Some of the photos I'll upload as I've taken them but others I will edit using Photoshop first - it just depends on what the photo is and whether I have any ideas as to how I can edit them.

So here's the address for my Flickr account: www.flickr.com/photos/ynwamediaproductions

RIP Sherlock Holmes...or not!

In the closing moments of BBC One's 'Sherlock' tonight, I was all ready to write a blog post about the BBC having a habit of killing off a main character in order to end a series of programmes - until the final few seconds before the credits that is...

Back in 2009, the BBC ended 'Robin Hood' by killing off Robin himself. A sad end to such a brilliant programme that unfortunately only lasted until its third series. If you kill off a character then the general rule is that they can't return from the dead right? So it's an easy option for closing a series as that way the viewers can't have more. However, as we have just seen tonight, thankfully, that is not the case if you're Sherlock Holmes.

Shock value seems to be one of the BBC's core elements to its dramas as that is often what the audience wants. No-one could have seen it coming when Sherlock Holmes announced himself to be a fake and then commit suicide. This indeed did come as quite a shock and seemed to be quite a let down for viewers only 2 series' in. Being such an ingenious and gripping drama I really didn't want 'Sherlock' to come to an end but, as the BBC have let me down before, I did believe that that was it as we'd all seen Sherlock fall off of the rooftop. [By 'before' I mean 'Grange Hill' but just don't get me started on that one - I might end up discovering that Blogger has a word limit on it's posts.] Much to my surprise, and joy, and most probably to the surprise of most of the viewers, John Watson got what he asked, and what we'd all hoped for - a third series of 'Sherlock'. The appearance of a very much alive Sherlock Holmes leaves the BBC with a lot of unanswered questions that they definitely need to address in the next series, preferably the first episode please. Until then, we'll just have to wait...

One Shot Wonder (well, nearly)

Another post about Eric Saade tonight, I clearly am a fan. Another one of his music videos caught my attention, this time it was 'Hotter Than Fire' (featuring Dev). After the opening sequence, the video is shot with just one take. The location for the video is made up of a series of rooms that are connected by a door but each room only has 3 walls, allowing the camera to pass to each room without cutting. As the video doesn't use a range of shot types, the camera is mounted on a crane and it uses the movement of the camera through tilts, pans, canted angles, etc. to create variation. I think that this creates an interesting aesthetic to this music video and something that is different as many videos use a locked off camera or one that moves fairly steadily compared to the camera in 'Hotter Than Fire'.

Behind the Scenes of a Music Video...in a Music Video?

If you go on YouTube to watch a music video then chances are you'll also be able to find a 'Behind the Scenes'/'Making of' video to go with it. Well Eric Saade went one step further than this.

Eric Saade is a Swedish singer who represented his country in the 2011 Eurovision song contest and finished 3rd place with the track 'Popular'. I love the track and wanted him to win, I even downloaded the track afterwards, but it wasn't until the end of last year that I decided I would check out some of his other stuff on YouTube - turns out, I really like a lot of his tracks and think it would be really great if he could break into the UK music scene.

Anyway, as I was watching a few of his videos I noticed one that had a preview at the end for the video to the next track. This video that I'd just watched, 'Break of Dawn', happened to be the 'Behind the Scenes' video to 'Masquerade'. The video to 'Masquerade' is about a masked ball in a historic era so the video for 'Break of Dawn' is about a love developing between the male and female leads whilst they are shooting the music video.

I've seen music videos that have backstage shots within them but I've never seen another set of videos like Eric Saade.