Helen's blog

This week’s lectorial focus is “Media is a public practice”, and there are three guests to share their mix of practical and philosophical advice and experience.   Anne Lennox Anne’s presentation focuses on copyright. She explains some copyright laws and… Continue Reading →

In this week’s practical class, we shared our own materials that we collected for our project brief 1.   Students presented their project in a group. First of all, we showed our images, audios, videos and text to other students… Continue Reading →

This week’s lectorial is about audience. Audience plays an important role in the whole society, especially for media study. Everyone can be audience, as long as you engage in “media thing”, such as TV programme, film, music and advertising. If… Continue Reading →

The project brief 3 of Jamie is quite impressive. In this portrait, she uses both original and found footage, which can show Christine’s interests and thoughts pretty well. These found footages work well with each other. The soundtrack also works… Continue Reading →

This is a portrait of my friend Ekey. One thing I have to say is that Ekey is quite cool, she doesn’t like to talk too much, and she doesn’t like her voice, so she insists that I can use words to replace her voice. That’s also why this video can’t be a normal interview. This video focuses on her hobbies. In the very beginning, I shot her eye, ear and hand to show her appearance abstractly. Ekey told me that she likes fashion stuff, and we can tell through her makeup, earrings and ring. Then I shot three major videos: graffiti, skateboarding and playing guitar, which are her favourite activities.   My favourite part of this portrait is the transition and the ending. From hand to hand, skateboard to skateboard, and shoes to shoes. I focused on the same thing, but it turns to another scene. I think this editing makes sense, it links different events together and makes the transition smooth. As to the ending, I quite like it, it’s so cool. At first, I was thinking how to end this video, then I thought I could connect with the first activity, graffiti. Suddenly, this idea came up to my mind, I could ask Ekey to spray paint to the camera to end the shot. I used cling film to protect the lens, and the effect is satisfied.   The negative part is still the sound editing. The transition of the music is not good, it’s a little bit abrupt. But I have to say, it’s much better than the last one. I think it would be better next time.

This week’s reading is mainly about the problem of methodology in a post-broadcast era. The first problem it mentions is volume. These days broadcast products and messages are everywhere, we can easily have access to these media output. Especially due… Continue Reading →

Reflection: In the second version of my ‘self-portrait’, I attempted to focus on my friendship with my best friend in a different way. The first half of the film demonstrates that I am looking for something, which I am dying for. The opening title ‘gift’ may be a clue, but audiences do not know exactly what it is until the end, and here is a suspense I made. I want to catch their attentions and follow me to find that gift together. At last, they finally know that that gift is for my best friend.   During this travel, I came cross many difficulties. I have failed several times. Here I am trying to show not only my desire for that gift, but also my perseverance. I am a person who never gives up. I put different videos here that I shot on my way to show my tour. They can divided into two series. Each series has its own shooting angle.   The most successful part of my self-portrait may be the storytelling. I am trying to present how much I love and miss my best friend through a story rather than just showing some photos of us. I stick different videos and photos together to create a story and I use different filters to show my emotion, for example, I add old film filter to the photos to show my frustration. And the opening title ‘gift’ is not just the thing I find finally, but also our unforgettable and happy memories which is a deeper meaning of ‘gift’.   The negative part of my self-portrait is the sound editing at the end of the film. It seems that the sound and the frame don’t match, it’s a little bit abrupt. Since I am not familiar with the editing software, I couldn’t make the sound perfect. Overall, by doing this self-portrait, I have learned many things, especially some editing skills.

This is a brief introduction of myself in several languages. But actually I’ve just learned few words in these languages like French and Japanese. I am going to tell you that I am quite fond of learning languages. This is… Continue Reading →

Lectorial Exercise- ‘Media is Everywhere’ Noticing Audit. *electronic advertisement *It’s an advertising of a film released recently. *This advertisement is very outstanding, easily catching people’s attentions.       *advertisement on the wall *It’s an advertising of a clothes brand… Continue Reading →