Liverpool SoundCity! Expo 2012

For Liverpool's SoundCity! festival this year I spent 2 days working as a Runner for the Expo down in the Echo Arena. This was the first year that the Expo had taken place and was an exhibition of lots of DJ, Music and Digital companies.

I know it's taken me a little while to write this post but I think that's because I'm not really sure what to write. This was my first chance to gain experience as a Runner and it's definitely a job that I want to do again.

I learnt a lot from this whole experience and I realised that I was capable of doing things that I didn't know I could. Even though I'm a media student the Expo was a great opportunity to get to know and network with people who work with sound, as that's the one of the areas that I tend to shy away from - I'm sure those contacts will come in useful one day!

I'd love to have the chance to be involved with more Expos like Sound City and really want to do this again next year - it's as much about the people you meet as it is the experience you gain and building up your CV.

Expos are also a great way to expand your wardrobe for free if you're lucky - thanks to Vestax and Denon DJ.

If I decide one day that the media industry isn't working out for me (or even between contracts) at least I now have a plan B - I'll become a professional van packer - I'm sure Prism and PMC would have me!

Britain in a Day

'Britain in a Day' is a BBC Learning project which aims at creating a film and a video archive using footage which has been shot by the British public on one specific day - that day being 12th November 2011. The project was inspired by Ridley Scott's film, 'Life in a Day'. LJMU, along with many other universities around the country, were invited to get involved with the project.

By getting involved with the project it gave us an opportunity to see what the BBC has to go through when checking crowd-sourced videos for compliance. This involved us each watching a series of videos on YouTube and going through a check-list of things that all the videos had to adhere to.

Whilst we were checking our videos for compliance we had to pick out a few which we wanted to put forward for our 'uni playlist'. This playlist is a selection of 10 entries which we liked as a group and will go live on the 'Britain in a Day' website over the coming months. It wasn't easy trying to decide what order we all wanted to videos to go in on the playlist but we got there in the end.

End as You Begin

So my first post about 'Hustle' came after the very last episode, and now the second post comes after the very first episode. In the other post I asked if anyone wanted to buy me the entire box set of all 8 series - well who would have known that a blog could be such a good way to drop a hint! I now own series 1 and 2! (Thanks Mum and Dad - Dad googled my blog - I never knew 'Hustle' DVDs came in Easter eggs.)

Back to the title of the post then. Having watched the first episode there were a few things I noticed that paralleled the last episode as well:

You need to get the whole crew back together.

You have to get shot by one of your own whilst the other side think they're one of their's.

Money falls from the sky, one way or another.

Everyone has to break the forth wall.

And, Mickey will tell you it's one last con...

The glamour of grifting has only just begun!

A Different Way to Use Images...

You may well have gathered by now that music videos are something which interests me quite a bit. Well here's another one for you.

I happened to be watching Demi Lovato's new video for 'Give Your Heart A  Break' and at the end of it, caught site of what is now another ambition of mine. Throughout the video Demi had been putting photos up on a wall of her and the 'boyfriend' in the video. Once she'd finished she projected a another photo of them together on top of all the photos on this wall.

I just really liked the whole idea and, even though it is very ambitious and a bit out of my reach at the moment, I want to do this some day.

A Year On

So today was the final deadline day for assignments and I've just submitted my final essay. Now I'm all done for my first year of uni! It seems like the time has gone so quick and it's definitely been an experience. It's had it's ups and, unfortunately, it's not been without it's downs, but I've come through and I'm still here. The point of this post was to sum up this year, but I'm not really sure what to say about it. I can't tell you if it's been what I expected, which is what everyone asks, because I don't really know what I did expect - it's been a whole new ball game. I'm just glad I don't have to catch a bus any more and can't wait to get into the Redmonds' Building next year.

The plan now? Well, I'm going to try and get as much work experience in the media industry as I can and start on my little business venture. So here goes...

Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacular

From Friday 20th April 2012 to Sunday 22nd April 2012 the city of Liverpool was taken over by 3 Giant Marionettes as part of the 100th year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The Little Girl Giant (30 ft), her Uncle (50 ft) and her dog Xolo were created by Royal De Luxe and make up the UK's largest piece of street theatre to date. Read the story of the Giants and visit the website to see what all the hype was about at www.giantspectacular.com.

This was an incredible event to have witnessed across all 3 days and something that won't be forgotten in a hurry by anyone who turned out to see the spectacle.

Dreamweaver

Over the past few weeks I have been designing and creating a website using Dreamweaver for the Digital Media Tools module. This website is to showcase me and some of the work that I have done since starting LJMU.

To begin with I had to design the website using Photoshop and save all the individual elements ready for Dreamweaver. Once this was done I could begin to put everything into Dreamweaver and start building the actual website, ready for putting online.

This was the first time that I'd used Dreamweaver but I had previously built a web page using the online creator Wix. Getting used to using Dreamweaver didn't take me too long as once you get the hang of how to do something it just becomes a process of repeating. As always, using this software didn't come without it's problems but through perseverance I got round them one way or another. I quite enjoyed the process of designing and building my own website but I found Dreamweaver to be a bit awkward at times. As this was only my first time with this software I thought it was quite good to use and wouldn't mind using it again. Hopefully the second time around I'd find it a bit easier as I'll know what I'm doing then.

To view my website just follow this link (the domain URL is annoying but we'll just have to deal with it for now) - www.student.ljmu.ac.uk/LSSCDACK/My%20Site/welcome.html

Lost & Found

It's no big secret but I don't like going to the Aldham Robarts LRC to get books out. Taking them back is fine but getting them out is quite a scary prospect - I always get lost in that library.

Well today brought with it a trip to the library to get a couple of books out for my film essay. I knew what I wanted but trying to find where they actually were in the library was no mean feet. However, when you've spent a while in the library because you have no idea what you're doing or where your going and you finally find the book you've been looking for, it's a great relief when you discover that the photo on the front cover actually comes from the film that you're going to be writing your essay on. That's when, for once, you know you're definitely on the right tracks!

Factual Short

Today marked the end of our filming for the 1st year of the Production Practise module as it was the deadline day for our latest assignment, the factual short. This film could be about a person, a group of people, an event, a place - anything that had an interesting story. We decided to create a film about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool FC lost their lives.This assignment was also linked to the previous location profile (it's liverpool) and the personal profile which we did.



Justice for the 96.

Reversing Levels

A brand new track is played on the radio and within a few weeks someone has done a remix of it that's also being played. Well, who'd have thought that if you just reverse the music on a track it could sound so good? George Monev certainly did when he reversed Avicii's 'Levels'.

I love this track the right way round but I have to say, I definitely prefer the reversed version - it sound's like Summer's finally here!