Casino Royale Production

At the Gordon Vallins Studio at Stratford-upon-Avon College on Friday 26th November 2010, we, the Creative and Media group, went to go and see the BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Performing Arts Year 2 and the Design and Technical students perform a very good variety performance called 'Casino Royale.' This had nothing to do with the James Bond film however it was a very unique show consisting of everything from two German lion tamers to a lot of beautiful looking ladies singing "Hey Big Spender!" 

 The acts were based around money, gambling and overall humour. A spin of the roulette wheel decided which act performed and all of them were completely different! The venue was set up in the style of a glamorous casino, lit and amplified all by the students of the college! 

I thoroughly enjoyed every act, but if I had to choose a specific sketch then it would have to be the lion tamers, Hanzel & Gretel. They had to put on  a very convincing German accent for the duration of their performance and succeeded with it 100%. They were a very humorous duet coming out with some very mischievous lines at times but the overall experience with them on stage was on a whole new level! The host was also very funny and good at acting! He managed to pull the whole show together to make it flow well and kept the audience entertained. 

To conclude, it was a very good performance which the whole group enjoyed and loved watching. I'd like to say thank you to all the cast who put on an outstanding performance and to the director for thinking of such an innovative idea! 

The making of "The Culture Show" // Sebb, Orla & Claire.

When I was making "The Culture Show" I found out many different techniques and many different ways of creating a unique video. For example, I had never used Final Cut Pro in my life so I had to learn the basics "on the job!"We were also filming on cameras called Sony A1E which are usually used on a professional basis. We all felt very privileged to have the opportunity to use this software and equipment!


When we were editing, we were asked to incorporate Motion and Soundtrack Pro. 

I really enjoyed using Motion. It allowed me to create beautiful looking titles with complete ease. We made a title with different lines which was simple yet effective and fit in perfectly with the topic, Culture. I look forward to using Motion a lot more in the near future as I feel it could be a great aspect of my college course and allow me to take videos to the next level.


Soundtrack however was great piece of software and suitable if you need to make a sound track for a film or song but it wasn't suitable for this short video. The interface seemed a bit too complicated for my liking but Im sure after a few tests I could work out the basics and create some simple soundtracks.


Editing was my favorite part as I worked out how to do simple transitions as well as some faint Colour Correction... It made our video stand out and looked much better quality. 


As I said, the camera that we used was called Sony A1E which stands for Sony Alpha.  
This camera allowed us to do the following:

• Use a range of focusing techniques such as Tele Macro
• Use the "Rule of Thirds" technique when shooting subject on the offset of the centre frame
• White balance and Exposure played a big part in our short film as this allowed us to shoot video in real life colours so that the frame didn't look either "washed out" or bland
• Zooming allowed me to take the Rule of Thirds technique to the next level allowing me to use close ups or mid shots in my composition. 
• Angles. I used these to just make the video less ordinary with high angles or slightly low. This wasn't to change the status of the subject in shot but to create a different mood and approach to filming. 

I really enjoyed our first project of creating a short film on "The Culture Show." I cant wait for  our next task as I am more familiar with the software we are now using :)

Below I have embedded the final render of "The Culture Show" to show you the overall piece I have talked about in this post.

Final Video: 

Stratford Tour Bus & Shakespeare's Birthplace Review

Last Friday, before the holidays, the CAM group and myself took a ride on the very unique "Stratford Tour Bus!" We all walked down from the college on a brisk friday morning to find the mop being errected in the centre of town. We walked to the Tour Bus depot and waited there for about ten minutes when it eventually arrived.

When we set off, straight away the commentator said that to our left there was a "Flat Top Tree" which had been there since around the year 1500. Also we were told straight away that the town was laid out as a medieval grid pattern which was quite a common thing to do in those days. Another interesting fact was that Stratford had wider streets then most other towns in order to prevent the spread and probability of fires. As fires were very common in those days, with no fire brigade service, people would do all they could to prevent fires.

When Shakespears birthplace went on sale, we got told that a person bought it for a mere £3,000. Which obviously was a lot back then but to think of that about of money these days it sounds tiny! 

Another interesting fact was that Shottery Road used to be called Burial Lane in the time of the black plague as this would be where the infected civilization would be buried and burnt. The locals didn't like living in "Burial Lane" so it was changed to what we know today as Shottery Road. 

When we had finished with Shottery road we got told that in the 1700 hundreds,when people had a cough, they would use frog saliva to act as a anti biotic. This is why people today say when you have a nasty cough; "Got a frog in your throat?"

As we came out of Straford town we were told about what people used to drink back in the day. The answer was that they just drank ale! Right from the age of 7 you would drink full ale and when you were an adult, they used to drink 8 pints and still work the next day. Another common saying would be "1 over the 8?"

Through Shottery we got told about the thatched houses and how they were built. This was very interesting as they said about the roofs being made of "wheat straw" and that when they slept they had to have a rug over their mouths as the roof would allow things to fall in your mouth when you slept.

We ended the excitable and informative tour and headed to Shakespeare's birthplace which was our next point of call.

CaM Group - Tour Bus 2010

So when we arrived at the birthplace we were greeted in and then watched a few television screens for about 20 minutes. This gave us a great introduction to the world of Shakespeare and how he grew up. We were told that infront of us was the "most important book" in Shakespear times as this was where he wrote all of his plays in. From Romeo & Juliet to A Midsummers Nights Dream, all the plays Shakespear had ever conducted were found in this very very special book! From there we were directed into the main house where we saw many different tour guides who would tell us about different aspects, such as gloves and beds. The man in the glove room was very interesting right from the start as he gave quite an amusing speech about how he would love to put an alarm in one of the gloves so that one day, when someone picks up that glove, he would get his own little kick out of watching them freak out. Wierd, I know!

The lady in the bedroom where Shakespear was born talked about the bed and the bed that was located underneath. It was a pull out bed which was held together with woven rope. She said that this is where you get the saying, "Good night, Sleep tight..." Because if the ropes in the bed were loose you would be pratically sleeping on the floor!

As we came to the end of the house tour, we entered the courtyard. This was like a beautiful garden where the flat top tree stood from the tour bus. Full of beautiful flowers and boosting with life, the courtyard was definetly the hightlight of the whole experience. When we were all just mooching around the courtyard, taking photos and writing notes, suddenly a random performance took place in the scene of a middle aged drunk man acting silly whilst being shouted at by what seemed like his wife. It was a very convincing and well set performance and added a little excitement to the trip. He must have had "1 over the 8!"
Overall I thought that the birtplace was intresting  but not as interesting as the tour bus, yet it was a good enough insight to what the medieval period was like. 

Here is a video of what happened in the court yard:

  

NEW BACKROUND! READ!!

I was fiddling around with making my blog look a bit more unique and I decided to make my own background. Its not great but to look at it properly you will need to zoom out of the page as in make the text smaller. You can do this by pressing "Ctrl and -  and  +" 


This will allow you to see all of it :D Hope you like!


Comment on what you think! 

Arctic Monkeys // The Culture Show

Clip:

Arctic Monkeys Interview        

Presenter:

Lauren Laverne   

Link: http://bbc.in/b5kMg2

                                                              By: Sebb 

Mise en Scene:

Right from the word go a lot of pretty amateur effects are used to create a slightly more unique introduction than the rest. It starts with a couple of shots from an urban terraced housing street blurring out into one another. It isn't synced very well to the music as it just shows random clips with no specific tempo to the sound track. They use fast zooms and blue flashes as well as some defocusing and Gaussian blurs. Then a four piece window shows clips on the panes using motion tracking probably from AAE.

 The majority of the colour correction for the first 27 seconds is a mixture of light and dark blues. After the introduction, we see the presenter Lauren Laverne coming down a narrow back street on her way to see "The Monkeys." Here she talks about their old and new albums as well as notifying people of their awards and accolades. For another 30 seconds, when she enters their studio, things get a little weird. Random red eyes pop up on the screen blinking rapidly as well as a deep blood red colour reflected on the silhouette of the lead singer, Alex Turner. She interviews the band for a good minute before cutting to a clip of the Queens of the Stone Age. The interview is sat out with a vivid red background placing the two interviewees in a sort of deep perspective which just adds a new element to the scene. 

Sound:

The sound is diegetic as the people in the film can hear the interviewer talking to them. If there was an interview where the sound was non-diegetic, which means sound outside the world e.g. music, it would be pretty useless and a waste of time.

Lighting:

The lights are mostly high key in the interview but are quite low key in the opening shot to create a spookier more surreal mood. I think they used a 3 light setup in the interview as there is a key light, fill light and a back light. Also you can tell that there are lights to the left of the band members and to the right and finally one above them. I could tell this by the shadows being casted on to Alex’s forehead and by the way the cheek eclipsed when they move their head slightly.

Camera work:

The composition consisted of a variety of long shots, medium shots and close ups. Especially in the intro, skipping from long shot to close up with a quick zoom made the scene jump out at you a little more than just simply tracking or panning the camera from left to right. Not many angles were shot on Canteo as well as not shooting high or low angles. They were just shot looking directly at the persons face. If the angle was pointing up at the interviewer then it would create a status of more importance and an interview is not a suitable scenario to place someone in a “more importance” situation.  

Editing:

The editing at the beginning as I said was pretty amateur, there was not really anything to make it look really different and stand out yet if that had been done then the attention from the band would of been taken away. The editing was focused on the ethos of the band which I guess would be more chaos and craziness other than beauty and art. This shows as the cutting rate is pretty quick to begin with but only features flash, fade and cut transitions. Anything else would have been too cheesy such as a bar or checkerboard transition. Later on in the clip a transition called a “film burn” or a “light leak” is used to create a more clean quick and professional look from going from clip A to B. These are usually red and orange colours but to fit in with the blue colour correction they changed the hue colours to a more bluey purple.

Overall this clip was good to get an insight into the bands thoughts and feelings on their new album being released “Humbug” as well as their influences in the music world. The 10 minute video finishes with one of my favourite songs “Crying Lighting” which wraps up the video with a quick cut and a slight sound fade.

Review of drama/singing auditions.

On Friday we were told that we would be watching some "rough" drama acts. I didn't really know what I'd be in for so I just had to wait and see. 


We were sat in a drama room with a wooden floor and a wall mirror behind us. 


The first act up was a young woman who looked around 17. She did a 10 minute monologue about her time getting into Chicago, performing in Chicago and how she got on with all the hype and criticism. 
She was very good in delivering her lines and really delving in to the character she was playing! She was one of my favourites.


The second act was two young women who were talking about a "boy book."
In this book they were talking about how to let boys know you didn't like them and how to manipulate boys into how you wanted them to act. Their acting was great and really convincing!


However there was a really painful act. A young man who acted out taking a pet bird back to the shop with some dodgy accent! It was pretty awful and I couldn't wait for it to end. The man serving the angry customer however sort of saved the performance with his strong and consistent cockney accent!
This made the act a little more bearable! 


There was a mixture of good and bad but it was still a good indicator of A-level Drama.

Employment Opportunities - Research

Heres some research that i've compiled on Employment Opportunity's in Warwickshire. Mostly in the media scene...


Photography:


Wink Photography - Stratford-upon-Avon
Venture Photgraphy - Leamington Spa
Storm Studios - Leamington Spa




Design:


Thinking Creations - Stratford-upon-Avon
Creative Zoo - Warwickshire