The Immortal Sky

For my media product I decided to use the pictures I've been continuously taking of the sky. Some locations include, Germany, London, Bradford, Kettering, Wellinborough and Birmingham.
I also wrote some poetry to fit in with my pictures. I chose this music because it links in with the calming and serene image of the sky. I'm pleased with the way my video has turned out because the scenes or images fade into each other well and even though it was hard to try to get the timing right, it still works well.

The majority of my pictures were taken with my mobile phone because i liked the way the pictures turned out. That is to say i liked the slightly 'rough' feeling of them since nature isn't exactly controlled or refined. The pictures that were taken with my camera were sharper and much more focused and some pictures even had a slight 3D like effect, however, in my opinion they looked too clean and sharp to represent the image of nature and that is why I picked my mobile pictures over the camera ones.

My poetry was inspired by the long bus and taxi journeys I took to get back home in the evening. After looking at the sky I felt calm and I could easily allow my mind to wander. Over the past couple of years, I have been moving around the country and realized that even though the sky might look a but different in another town, it's still the same sky no matter where you are. I was also inspired by Philip Larking. In one of his poems he said:

"How we live measures our own nature" - Mr Bleaney

  I actually agree with this because we live by following our own beliefs and by making our own decisions so surely that reflects our own nature or personality. By writing and creating this video I realised how much I enjoyed writing.

In my opinion this video is visually soothing because it calms you down and just listening to the song itself it fills you with peace.

Blossoms, the sign of Spring

I took this picture without even thinking about any details. The only thing i thought about was taking it as soon as the sunlight was covered by the clouds because the pink petals stood out even more with little light. There is an element of beauty because even though the tree is has a car park in front of it and a busy building behind it, it still tried its hardest to blossom. I personally like how the tree looks with the dark and angry looking sky behind it, the dull colours also make the tree look more magnificent. I did consider changing the brighness and contrast of it and even sharpening the picture a bit, however after trying it I found that the original copy looked the best since it looked natural. I think that this picture could represent the beginning of spring time.

YouBe-TV

YouBe-Tv is our univesity Tv channel that we are hoping to launch in September. This is the final design of the logo. At the beginning the body was red but in the end we decided against it since it looked to much like the YouTube logo. After a while we decided to make it blue since it's our Student union colour. Usually Tv logos are 2D, ours as you can see is 3D which makes it more noticable. When we put this logo in the corner of our videos, we make sure to keep its size small since our audience is supposed to focus on the video rather than the logo.

The aimn of our channel is to entertain and inform not only the Students at the university but also anyone else who happens to watch our videos. So far we have already produced a trailer for it, recording of the varity matches are also available and so is the footage we took of the charity event we held for Japan. Anna's story will also appear on it soon.

By doing this we are hoping not only to leave a legacy behind but also to help develop and engage the university in new and different things; to allow them to experience a variety of things.

Horizons Ablaze

I took this picture on my mobile phone which explains the poor quality of it. I personally think that this is one one the best pictures I have taken because it makes the sky look like it's about to burst into flames. I made sure to point the camera towards the sky which created the silhouette of the tree and hill in the foreground. This picture truly conveys the feeling that the day is slowly coming to an end. I especially like how the clouds were captured because they look like they are passing by in a lazy and sleepy manner.

Anna's Story

This was a feature film Produced and Directed by my friend Vytautas Rudys also known as Alex. I played the main role of Anna. Anna died in a car crash in during the film she re-lives some of her favourite times and says her final goodbye to her friends in a way. Whilst playing this role, I truly felt like I had become Anna, because her friends were my real friends in reality. The film itself took over 3 days to film and Alex spent around 2 nights editing it. I prepared the clothes and helped Alex with some locations and camera positions since i couldn't film properly with the sun shining directly into my eyes. Throughout the film I'm doing a monologue which took some time since I changed and improvised some of the script so that it was easier for me to say. The timing also took a long time to get right because when Anna was listing her possible career paths, we wanted to insert the scenes of her actually doing those jobs. In my opinion the film was a huge success and we're hoping to put it onto our University Channel as soon as possible.

Beliefs vs Modern Times

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

- Philip Larking

A forgotten Dream

This is one of my favourite pictures that I took and I loved it even more after seeing Fay Godwins exhibition. The old Alambhra Theatre used to look so glorious but once the new one was build, this one was slowly forgotten. I wanted my viewers to feel this. I wanted to make this picture and building seem like a memory so naturally I took it as a black and white picture. I then increased the light that came from the lamps in the picture and made the sky look slightly darker. By doing this i made the building itself more noticable. Fortunately the streets and roads were empty which added a slight ghostly effect to it which in my opinion is perfect.

Buildings

I took this picture as part of my Visual Literacy coursework. I considered just taking the picture using the natural colours, however, after taking a closer look i liked how the building stod tall and strong above the small Forster Square train station. I then remembered that stream trains used to run through that very train station. This then made me think of miners and coal miners, factory workers and so on. With this mind set i decided to use the serpia tone on my camera and then continue to change the hue and saturation as well as the colour contrast and balance until it gave me an 'old' and nostalgic feeling.

Japanese Anime

 

Over the past few years the Western audience has been widely influenced by anime. Examples of this are popular cartoon channels such as Cartoon network and Nickelodeon both of which regularly air anime such as ‘Bakugan Brawlers’ and the very popular anime series ‘Naruto’. These two channels access a wide global audience which means that more and more people are exposed to anime. So what is it that makes Japanese anime so appealing? Roland Kelts, author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese pop culture has invaded the US” has said that “anime and manga were both designed to be cheap to make, cheap to literally make and inexpensive to consume, they’re post war media that were distributed on the streets”. 

Anime represents Japan itself. Whether it's culture, legends, traditions or just everyday life in Japan, anime re-creates all of it. The fact that it brings Japanese manga to life is amazing because sometimes the themes they explore in these 'cartoons' are serious. For example, 'yaoi' is an anime genre which focuses on male homosexuality and how the characters learn to live with their secual preferences. They also have a genre called 'slice of life' in which they explore everyday problems teenagers, young mums and general people face from teenage pregnancies all the way to being cheated on and finding a way to survive on your own.

The beauty of anime lies in how the characters are drawn. Every anime or every company has their own style. Some anime are drawn to look realistic whereas others are made to look like cartoons. The one other praise I have for anime is that most of them explore or have morales behind them.

Landscapes

Heptonshire, backlit Yorkshire, 1978

I truly enjoyed Fay Godwin's exhibition called Land Revisited. The picture that was taken in Heptonshire gives of a feeling of hope, as if to say there's always going to be a new tomorrow. The way she captured the light just about touching the hills gives this picture a healing and rejuvenating effect. However, it also gives the landscape a mysterious air, as if to tell us that this landscape knows and has seen many secrets unfrold. It makes the land look old and you can almost see the history that was created upon it. The way the clouds were captured makesw it look like time is passing by ever so slowly which again emphasises the nostalgic feeling you get from it.

The first picture reminds me of a long, long journey. I like the way she angled to camera so that she could get as much of the path and landscape into the shot as possible because it makes it look never ending. Once again she has captured the light at a beautiful moment because it looks like the sun is lighting the way for whoever it is that is traveling on the path. You could say that this could be the path of life or the journey we must face during life since life is always filled with ups and down, rough and smooth patches.

The Legend of Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva by John Collier 1897

Lady Gadiva is one of my favourite legends because a legend that hasn't got a supernatural element to it and it also gives the human race some hope. Lady Godiva willingly accepted her husbands challenge and rode through Coventry naked on horseback. Even though there was someone who disobeyed her command that everyone should stay inside, she still forgave him and thus allowed the citizens to live a slightly happier life.
There are many paintings of lady Godiva and i chose this one because it was the most realistic looking painting. I also find it ironic that she is riding a white horse, since a white horse is usually associated with a knight in shining armour. The painter used very dull colours for the background and the red cape that's covering the horse seems to lack vibrancy, however, Godiva's skin seems to be radiating vibrancy. She looks vulnerable and fragile yet there is an air of defiance surrounding her. She could have cowered on the horses back to hide some of her body, yet she is sat up straight and is using her hair as a means to protect herself.

Is this our Future?

Personally I'm not a very big fan of video games but I do play them. Over the last few decades, gaming has progressed enormously, so much that it can be hard to differentiate between what's real and what's not.
'Gamer' is a film that emphasizes or rather brings this simple fact to our attention. Will we be ruled by games one day? iRobot was the same. It showed us how much we have come to depend on machines. Will we depend on them so much that one day we won't leave the house or go to work?

Roland Barthes states that images are imitations or re-productions. If this is true then could 'Gamer' be between an imitation and a reproduction of the real world? In 20 years time or even less gaming might become more than just a game. There is already evidence to show that games have had an impact on our everyday life. Meaning is created through the film by the storyline and also in the characters behaviours. They are reminded about human nature, naturally it is only human for the convicts to want to survive, however, killing each other off is something that wild animals would do. Does this mean that as games progress, we, as civilised humans, are starting to lose our humanity? Do we give in to our primal instincts of wanting to be the best?

Whatever the answer to that is, 'Gamer' made me think of these things as I sat there watching the film. Whether the director intended to deliver a message or some sort of morale to the audience, who knows? All I'm saying that the film, as with many pieces of art, can be interpreted in many ways and people get different messages or ideas from them.

Strenght Thy Name is Woman

'A woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste - indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence' - John Berger in Ways of Seeing

Winter By Karl Bang

Marilyn Monroe

Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci

'Winter' by Karl Bang shows that the woman is graceful and there is also a strong sense of beauty in the painting. However, there could also be a vulnerable side to her since she has her arms crossed.

Everyone knows that at one point Marilyn Monroe was seen as a sex object after staring in films such as 'The Seven Year Itch'. Was it simply because she was the stereotypical blue eyed, blond beauty that men found attractive? The truth is that even though she appeared as a carefree, fun, mischievous and maybe even flirtatious person on the outside; inside she was falling apart with news that she continued to have miscarriages and her marriage was over.


The Mona Lisa has become one of the most famous paintings in the world. In this painting Mona Lisa looks graceful yet, viewers immediately know that she is from an middle or upper class background from the way she is posing and holding herself. It is said that Da Vinci asked her to lay her right hand over her left to represent Lisa as a faithful wife and virtuous woman. The landscape in the background seems like a distant land far away. This makes Lisa stand out more and thus makes her more eye catching.


Berger also said:

 "From earliest childhood she [women] has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually."

 I agree with the author because if we look at these paintings and pictures we see how women portray themselves. The first one may be a picture but even so, she is graceful and portrays an icy defiance as if to say she will not be controlled or owned so easily. In the second picture we see how Marilyn shows her audience and fans her slightly childish and mischievous side even though she wasn't like that in reality. In the third and final painting we see how Lisa holds herself as an upper class lady as well as her pride of being a respectable wife and woman.