Our first few days at College, mainly consisted of analysing Television Adverts. The first day, we were provided with a simple Advertisement deconstruction sheet, which would later become our basic advert analysis template. D:<

This morning, we were introduced to this very site, Padlet, and learned exactly how to function it. At first it seemed simple enough, that was until I accidentally deleted the previous entry and only managed to remember some of the start [:c]. I then went onto (roughly) listing what it was we had to accomplish, that included a: Synopsis, Contextual Research, Storyboard/Script and Feedback. Most of which (Synopsis, Contextual Research, Storyboard) was achieved.

Today, we begin our first hands-on filming for our 'Apple iPod' advert. Each of us have a specific role to fulfil involving Camera-work, Acting or Editing. For our first test-run, Charlie will be handling the camera, Luke will be handling the Editing (as well as minor direction) and I will be in front of the camera "Acting". 

All of us set up and shot the first half of the overall advert, in a little more than an hour - outdoors and in. The next hour was spent setting up and editing our best shots together as a group, learning the 'kinks' of the editing software as we go.

The morning was spent making sure each of us knew exactly what we were to do in order to finish the filming aspect of our overall Advert. During the start of the afternoon, we had completed our filming in the time of 30 mins; the next (30 mins) was used to import and implement the footage to our editing software. Luke showed me, step-by-step, the basics on how to edit footage and sound on 'Adobe InDesign (CC 2014)'.

The start of the afternoon was spent gathering every piece of work, regarding our first 2 units, in order to create a full and updated record. Next, our group was gathered to produce a brief questionnaire. Once we had produced one, we were given 3 copies each to distribute amongst the other groups. We used those answers, gathered by myself to other groups, and later added them into our (separate) group evaluation. The remainder of the day was spent taking photographs of my gathered work, typing up my (seperate) group evaluation and implementing them onto Padlet.

The majority of today was, unfortunately, relatively unproductive due to technical difficulties on every Mac: Load times would linger, slow-to-a-crawl, or freeze entirely nearly every minute. Due to this, I had to abandon my original plan of wrapping up the entire project and reserve it for the following day. It was only until the last 40 minutes the Mac's managed to work at a (reasonably) normal pace. 

I had managed to edit my WORK Padlet as much as I could, as well as search for solid examples of modern, well-made animation...

'The Octopus Mom' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ2YszSln9s

'Lego Batman is Jelly' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGC6h0OnbRA

'The CARDBOARD' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt3VB-7juiY

:'(

My original plan for wrapping up the project, came ahead fully today. -???

Early this afternoon, we had received our own separate iPad's. Each Media groups took turns when being debriefed on how to set up the iPad and certain conditions when using them. After lunch, we all gathered in the Motion Room and discussed the techniques and style shown in Winsor Mccay's: 'Gertie the Dinosaur'. We played the animation using our new iPad's, making notes on Cliffs lecture describing the use of line and 'Registration'(Line and background shimmer).

The remainder of the afternoon was spent generating ideas as a group and recording them onto a mind-map. We did this through watching older animations (Betty Boop: 1911) or discussing ideas amongst each other - humorous to us.

At the beginning of the lesson, our class was guided to the 'Animation Room' where we were introduced to our starting technique to creating our first (prototype) animation. We were also shown a few 'base' animation versions, e.g Clay(mation), Legos as well as a miniature wooden wallpaper/background set…

Myself and Paul began working on our first (prototype) stop-motion animation, of a man rolling a giant bowling ball down a hill, our absent group member Luke later arrived to lend us help. Using over 40 A4 pages and 2 Sharpies, it took us the rest of the day to create this animation...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whxZI2EFerc

The later morning was used researching examples of stencil animations. I first looked up and watched Terry Gilliams original 'South Park' - Season 0, Episode 1; going back to the basics of South Parks' 'Stencil Cut-out' roots. Later, I looked for more simplistic common examples uploaded to sites such as HitRECord.com and YouTube. 

The start of the afternoon was spent debriefing us on the task: our own stencil animation. My group first decided what we were specifically going to do, in both 'story' and individual tasks. Our animation (briefly) is about a Snake swallowing a Pig whole and turning into a Brachiosaurus (see below). I worked on the Snake, and its movements, Paul worked on the Pig and Luke worked on the background; we did this for the remainder of the day - unfortunately I didn't mange to fully finish all of it.

During the remainder of the morning, our class met inside the Motion Room where Cliff discussed TV Ident(ities); Short 10 - 30 second sketches unique to and used by regular running Channels e.g. BBC, Channel 4, E4 & MTV. Our class, tasked with researching these TV Idents. were provided with a few examples such as the ones mentioned above. Our group however, first needed to animate our Snake Stencil Animation... 

Using the "Movement-Capture" Camera, our group positioned each movement on the Pig and Snake, paying close attention to the length of our frames- depending on what was happening. Although we did our Stencil Animation, I did not FULLY complete every hand-drawn portion; mainly due to medical concerns (outside of College). Our group did however discuss, and made note of extensively, ideas for Channel Idents. both existing and completely made up; taking into consideration the 'creation process', what each of our 'roles' were and the overall time it may take us to fully complete them.

During the later morning, our group (still) consisting of Luke, Paul and myself was used preparing everything from the storyboard, 'props' and camera. At the very beginning of the lesson, I was wrapping up the sketches for the storyboard for our Cartoon Network Claymation, not long after-;

Returning from our half term break- as well as my few extra days out of College; our class began our newest project of 'Exploring Visual Production & Technology (a.k.a Photography). As with each new project, we were first briefed inside the Motion Room: Although I did turn up late, I did not miss too much… Cliff had discussed the different mediums as well as the type of Photographers, such as Historical/Documentarian, Landscape, War etc. He also referenced a few former students' Photographic Essays on major historical photographers, including Robert Capa and Sebastiao Salgado. 

Afterward, we proceeded to research a few photographers, each within the provided genre's: Documentary, Photojournalism, Fashion and Music… My lack of sleep did however have a part in hindering my work productivity. I had only managed to do a single photographer Bio [with only ONE fully analysed image] :(

Due to the (Media) Departments day off from College -as well as my tiredness, the duration of the day was spent continuing the prior research started on Monday afternoon. We were however, made aware of our following task in eventually making our own Documentary. 

After I had wrapped up my first photographer research -Jacob Riis- with a brief Bio and three fully analysed images; I then moved on to do the same with the photographers: Robert Frank and Sebastiao Salgado [Though with Sebastiao's work, I explored more in depth and just looked at for the most part] |:(

Later this morning, as with some of our briefings on Monday's, our class continued on with Unit 6. However, today we began on an entirely new topic (still within our Unit) regarding Documentary analyses. In our briefing, Cliff discussed the eight Key Conventions and how they work in TV/Film based Documentaries. After providing us with an extensive Doc. Deconstruction sheet, as well as the names of a few documentarians the get us going, the remainder of the lesson was spent doing some short background research on each of the provided documentarians -particularly Louis Theroux…

Returning from lunch, I began my Mind-map on Louis Theroux (which later turned into a Mind-map write-up). After some time looking up his many collections of Documentaries; 'When Louis Met', 'Weird Weekends', 'Miami Maximum Collection' to name a few, one in particular caught my attention: "America's Most Dangerous Pets". The duration of the day was spent adding to my Mind-map write-up, whilst simultaneously watching (and pausing) the documentary. [:

Once again, our class started the day within the Motion Room where Cliff taught us how to properly handle a (handheld) Camera fit with built in zoom & flash, as well as the base terminologies that have a consistent role when learning and doing photography. For today, we primarily focused on Formal Elements: Shape, Colour, Line, Pattern etc. || DD:<

~absent~

As with most Monday mornings, our class rendezvous inside the Motion Room. However, this meeting had nothing to do with our Unit; it was instead a government issued presentation raising awareness of Radicalisation to students (due to a recent crisis in Paris) -since this concerned ALL College students, our neighbouring class also joined us.

After the presentation (and Lunch) we all returned to our original classes. Returning to our documentary topic, our group was tasked with proceeding with our chosen documentary analysis, whilst implementing in additional finds e.g. Text/Descriptions, Screenshots, Annotations etc. (See Below)

This was however done almost from scratch, since my original Mind-map write-up was exactly that… Written. Up. Thankfully, this was not all a bad thing as I did manage to make slight changes whilst adding in what was required; this did however, take me the remainder of the day to do...

~No College~

We begin the day -as usual- with a short briefing: Today we were to complete any outstanding work regarding both our Photography and Documentary work/subjects. Though I did have one or two pieces of incomplete pieces, I found that I was steps ahead regarding my Photography work after reviewing it (like roughly 95% complete =^.^=). Whereas I am falling somewhat short with the documentary analyses, along with keeping up-to-date with (daily) Padlet entries. 

[Side Note: This is mainly due to having multiple Padlets to have to update on a regular basis, at times with not much to add onto each because of my 'perfectionist-personality']

However, despite my shortcomings- I had managed to do a rather extensive Documentary piece (in my iPad) on "Man on Wire" AND am very close to wrapping up BOTH and starting the Photographic Essay… there's still hope \^O^/

The first half of the morning was spent continuing the TV Ident. research started the previous day (mainly for Channel's 4 and E4), (rather abruptly) the second half was spent alongside the group; deciding if we should proceed with our original decision for our Channel Ident: 'CrimeDramaTV' or discuss new ideas, either for the same or different Channels. |:

Though I had a rather somber start to the day, it later got better with each passing hour. I was somewhat hindered back from continuing with my work due to personal reasons, but was later able to continue on with a bit of support from my Tutor... 

Finishing up the shortcomings of my Documentary deconstructions (D.d), I did manage to add in a bit more notes to my brief "Man on Wire" D.d whilst watching the Documentary itself. Plus, I further fleshed those notes out with a somewhat detailed Mind-map analysis companion-piece using the screenshots taken from watching it.

All-in-all it was a relatively productive day, despite setbacks such as the one mentioned above- as well as my account almost completely crashing :P -I can now continue on to producing ideas for my upcoming Photographic Essaaaayyyyyy [D':]

Today, after a brief summarisation from our Tutor, I almost immediately began mind-mapping ideas for my own individual Photographic Essay. Though, at first some light research was required on putting together a proper one- since I had little to no ideas or clues as to how. Luckily, I happened to come across an online Photography School FULLY explaining what it is, as well as a handful of useful tips to utilise whilst making my own: 

http://digital-photography-school.com/5-photo-essay-tips/

It also pointed out the names of some Photographies most reputable Photographic Essay creators; so I continued on to search for other Photographers works… one of which stood out to me the most. Behind the Mask: Revealing the Trauma of War, by Lynn Johnson & Caroline Alexander: 

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/healing-soldiers/

Finally, after doing some research, I started on my ideas for my Photographic Essay... 🙃

Near the end of last Wednesday, our group were tasked with capturing images (preferably on the iPad) for our Photographic Essay. Despite my relatively busy time off, I had managed to gather a few images as well as some info with two of my chosen subjects…

After a (rather short) briefing in the Motion Room on both our new group-based Documentary short,

http://teen.allwomenstalk.com/common-misconceptions-about-teenagers-today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p034jsj5

...

[Disclaimer: A separate Padlet was created recently due to our newest Tutor Delta Muntean tutoring our class on Monday's, plus most of the missing entries are mainly due to our week long break- 01/12/15 & 02/12/15 are honestly non-existant primarily for the reasons explained after this disclaimer…

ALSO! (just in case I guess) I will be leaving the country in less than a week and in turn be absent for a few daysuntil I return on the 12th of January] 

In a nutshell: 

During the days before our week long departure, I was left by myself to properly begin the set group Task of creating a Documentary Short of a chosen subject. This included: Planning interviews, setting up filming, lighting gear and actual Interview set, performing the interviews, as well as putting together a Photographic Essay; over the course of just two days. ,;,O,;,

Today, I had returned from my 3 week long holiday. Thankfully, I didn't return to mountains of incomplete work and should be up to date with everything from Cliff and Delta's work (at most) by the end of next week…

Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, I was immediately met with quite a lot of technical difficulties regarding both my College account and Qube account (as well as the Mac speed slowing to halt at times); because of this, it took me nearly half the day to completely sort through and (hopefully) completely fix those discrepancies. 

As far as the work, I sadly did not get very far at all; partly due to general confusion and a certain 'learning-curb' regarding a particular App (both of which I try my best to solve myself). However, lest I be mistaken, I do know everything that needs doing for the rest of the week and (most likely) next week.

Right off the bat, I can definitely say that a whole lot more was accomplished today than yesterday- with minimal issues. After going over the required task again, I went back to the App downloaded from yesterday: Simpl, and took the time to work out every intricate detail to its functionality (this took some time) and eventually managed to create a small site promoting Harlow College's Media Department.

After capturing images of my created site, I spent the remainder of the day going over- and making sure of each detail, in creating the site and integrated that info into a short (but extensive) Report found in Delta's Unit 5 V.D (Visual Diary) Padlet.

~Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden (The Making of Harry Potter) TOUR~