Creative Futures 2013 Day 1

Our 3rd and final Creative Futures week is upon us! Here I will document the lectures and talks I attend this week and my thoughts and feelings on them.

It's hard to believe that this will be the last Creative Futures we will attend, some of the talks we've attended over the last 3 years have been very useful, and others not so much. Some have been entertaining and informative and others somewhat tedious. Still what I will take away from all 3 Creative Futures will be two very important lessons.

Firstly, networking is the most important thing you can do while at university, gaining contacts is invaluable. It has been difficult to learn to approach strangers as I can be quite shy, but I've managed to overcome this on several occasions and I've gone on to meet some very useful contacts.

Secondly I've learned that in order to succeed in the industry a person must me multi-skilled. It isn't practical to specialise in just one field as many employers expect potential employees to be able to work in different departments and liaise with people from other practices. 

So without further ado, Creative Futures 2013:

Opening address - What's current in the Creative Industries
Dr Stuart Cunningham

Dr Stuart Cunningham has opened both previous Creative Futures weeks previously and I wasn't expecting the wrestling-style entrance he came into this morning. Flashing lights, music, video and sfx were part of the show, showing the versatility of some of the creative disciplines Glyndwr has to offer. 

Dr. Cunningham explained the reasons behind the somewhat self indulgent video was to reiterate that Creative Futures is all about me (well, us students) and as encouragement to be a little self indulgent when we sell ourselves to potential employers.

Before passing on to Sarah Mair Gates, Dr Cunningham explained that the point of Creative Futures is:

1. To give an insight into the realities of working in the industry today.
2. To help improve our employability.
3. An opportunity to develop as students, people and potential employees and to network
4. To meet the requirements of academic study.

Creative and Cultural Skills
Sarah Mair Gates

Part of the National Skills Academy, Sarah (who is the manager for Wales) came to talk to us about what the NSA do. They gather statistics for the creative workforce of Wales across several disciplines including performing arts, visual arts, crafts, design, cultural heritage, live events and literature.

They also look at the national occupational standards, and offer services such as apprenticeships, careers information, training and events to help employees and potential employees have a better chance at securing a job, and keeping up to day with the industries expectations. 

Sarah gave some interesting and insightful statistics into the industry. For example, 27'990 people currently work in the creative industries in Wales, the largest sector being performing arts and music. Also that between 2009 and 2011 the performing arts and music industries grew despite the recession.

The NSA also offers a service called Creative Choices that enable young people working, or wishing to work in the creative industries. Similar to that of Helfa Gelf, once a year during the autumn the NSA opens their doors to young people hoping for a glimpse into the industry. 

Sarah mentioned that the NSA have a host of 'Meet the Expert' videos on YouTube and played one called 'Under the Sea and Backstage with Kursk' (find the video here). Featuring artistic director Mark Espiner, Tom Espiner, Dan Jones and Ed Collier who all talk about how they got into the industry. One of the things that seems to be common in those who talk at Creative Futures and that is that no one really has a straight forward path into the industry.

It is reassuring to know that there is space in Wales for those who want to continue to live and work here after graduating. It transpires that it is more often who you know as opposed to what you know, and that some employers prefer experience to qualifications.

I found Sarah's talk to be quite interesting, although she talked extremely fast and I found it hard to jot down all the notes I wanted before she moved onto the next slide. 

Skillset Cymru
Gwawr Hughes / Dr Stuart Cunningham

Unfortunately Gwawr Hughes couldn't make it to deliver his talk, so Dr Cunningham took his place. Similar to that of the National Skills Academy, Skillset has links to the industry, education, business partners and individuals. They offer training and work alongside the industry to ensure Wales stays globally competitive. 

They also offer funding for training, and apprenticeships. 

Dr Cunningham also gave us a few interesting statistics. Apparently, those in the creative industries can expect an average yearly wage of £28'700 compared to £32'000 across the rest of the UK. It isn't exactly encouraging really, especially for anyone wanting to stay and work in Wales after graduation. 

28% of those in the industry are freelance. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, especially in photography, there are rarely jobs to be found and they often don't pay very well. 83% of companies in the industry employ less than 10 members of staff. 

Reassuringly, 13% of employers in the creative industry in Wales currently have vacancies. But also 58% of employers in Wales report a skills gap, especially in communications, management skills and basic business skills.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, one of the lessons that seems to crop up often is the desire for potential employees to be multi-skilled. Something that Dr Cunningham reiterated here. 

Some of the challenges faced by the creative industries in Wales are the need to perform at a global level, and to stay fresh and dynamic. To help employees obtain skills and experience at a multi-skilled level, to have good business acumen and leadership and management skills. In order to solve these challenges, Skillset believes supporting freelancers will be beneficial. Freelancers often find it difficult to find the time or funds to train futher, and helping them will help the market stay bang on trend. Also by improving the employability of new entrants into the industry, and to help with this education needs to keep pace with sector developments. Finally to improve access to good careers advice.

Skillset have started several schemes in order to face the challenges. These includes a Welsh Bacc (principle learning qualification in Creative Media for 14-19 year olds), apprenticeships in creative and digital media and fashion and textiles and the Skillset media academy in Wales.

Dr Cunningham had added a few slides of his own to the end of the presentation. These were about growing in the creative industries and how to get graduates and those qualified in creative fields to stay in Wales. 

The creative industry is worth £36 billion per year to the UK economy, 1.5 million people are employed in the industry. By increasing support for the industry the government show that it is an important and valued field. There are tax breaks available for those in film, TV, animation and games. There is also growing support for super-local TV and radio stations.

It is also important to sell the industry as well as yourself. There are several minorities, the elderly, households with low income, and social housing tenants are less likely to attend arts events. It is up to us to come up with the ideas that will engage these minorities and draw them into community based arts events. 

Lastly, Dr Cunningham showed us a video, which was part of a TED talk by David Kelley (founder of IDEO and d.school in Stanford) who talked about Doug Dietz who went on their programme at d.school. Doug is a designer of medical equipment and was responsible for the way the MRI scanners looked. He learned that 80% of all young paediatric patients felt they needed to be sedated to take the MRI scans. This upset him quite a lot and so he redesigned the scanners.

As you can see from the image, he redesigned not only the scanner but the entire room. Staff we also retrained to act out the scene of the pirate ship shown above. The whole experience, including the noise and movement was changed. The results were quite dramatic and from the 80% that previously needed to be anaesthetised, only 10% now felt they needed to be. Leaving on the note that personal development can often lead to not only creative benefits but commercial ones too. 

Keynote Speech
Painting Over the Cracks
Professor Paul Haywood 

I would like to say firstly, that I struggled a bit with this lecture and its actual point. Also it had no real links to film or photography and some of the arty terminology meant I found it hard to pay attention at all times. 

Paul is the vice chancellor at Salford university and studied at Nottingham, Reading and Goldsmith. He was born and bred in Rochdale and attended the 'good art school' that they apparently have there.

He went on to talk about Plato and how he was said to have stated 'all art is useless' which seems a little counter-productive to me. I got very confused here when he started talking about images of chair and chair-ness and different tiers of reality. Perhaps you have to be an artist to 'get it' but I didn't.

Continuing he talked about how his experiences at art school changed and transformed from drawing greenhouses and pigeons to drawing with different light sources. 

After leaving art school he set up groups, and projects. He was part of a global networking group that communicated via snail mail to create projects such as logo design and performed in front of cinema goers. Then skipping from this Paul went on to talk about tax evasion, and how artists such as R Kelly owe millions in unpaid tax (Kelly owes £5m) what this has to do with art exactly I'm unsure?

Going back to one of his projects, Paul spoke about how he worked with some local youths who had been vandalising fences in a local area. They saw it differently saying that they were playing a game called Manhunt and the fence was simply getting in the way. Often art can be the connection between people on different levels and can bring people together. 

Moving on to another project, Paul talked about Guns to Goods (website here) which is an organisation that utilises guns that have been seized by the police. It was started in Mosside in Manchester where gun-crime is very high and common. They turned the melted-down guns into ingots to be changed into other metal products including a commemorative coin. Oddly, they found those interested in purchasing the coins (that cost in excess of £200 per coin) were mostly families of those affected by gun-crimes. 

In order to make the organisation more accessible to more people they started Show Metal, which is a social enterprise to manufacture products and creative solutions and ideas for low volume products. Products that relate to the campaign, to actively try and reduce gun crimes in the areas. 

The next project Paul talked about was Colour Edge. Which started at the Littleborough arts festival. Colour Brand took colours from the landscape and turned them into a palette. An example given was the red brick commonly seen in Salford. Salford is well known for its red brick buildings

Above is an example of the colours of the landscape taken as part of Colour Edge. They got involved with local young people who wanted to make photo-chromic nail varnish, which is clear until it is subjected to UV rays when it changes colour. They couldn't do this due to licencing and cost, but they did make several paint samples from the colours of the landscapes.

Next was Secret Gardens, a year in the making it brought together 50 cultural events over several fields in Salford. It was spread over two weeks in June 2012 and culminated in MediaCityUK with a 2 day showcase of the areas undiscovered talent. (More info here).

Finally Paul talked about Islington Park Towers, a somewhat grim looking scattering of towers. Mostly social housing, they are considered a difficult minority to reach. This is because the reputation of the estate is very poor. However there is a positivity magazine that is distributes around the area that contains, predictably, only positive happy news. 

As part of the project called Tower Twinning the Islington towers were lit up like an equalizer as music is played. More information on the project can be found here.

Paul finished his talk with images of him de constructing a brick and turning it into paint, advising us that bricks don't make great paints. If I'm honest I had mostly switched off by this point and after struggling with most of this talk, his ending seemed mostly pointless. 

How not to be a designer (By an expert)
Robert Ball

Following the mornings talks I hoped that this would be a little easier to digest. I wasn't disappointed, Robert did a great job of explaining himself in am easy to understand manner. Even though the talk was mostly aimed at design students it was the best I went to today.

Robert started by talking about how he got to be a part of The Partners design agency. In 1990, Robert was making computer games, he was a part of the team responsible for Robocop 3. He changed from illustration and obtained his graphic design degree from Preson unversity.

Eventually, he found himself working in a ticket office and took on a 2 week placement at The Partners who took him on. The Partners are the most awarded design company over the last 30 years. 

Robert talked about the importance of branding, something The Partners are well known for. Doing the appropriate work for the appropriate people. There were some very good examples shared during the talk. 

The first (under the slide title 'How not to promote a gallery') the National Gallery in London approached The Partners 8 years ago for a re branding that would draw in more customers. The building isn't the most exciting or inviting from the outside.

Inside, the range of art on display spans over 700 years of history in a myriad of styles. At the time you could purchase a mug, or a tea towel or a mouse mat with one or two different paintings displayed on them. This would be of little use if you didn't like the painting, or in most people's cases didn't 'get it'. It talks about the artist of the work but not the gallery itself. 

To combat this, The Partners came up with the idea to write 50 words that were inspired by the contents of the paintings displayed in the National Gallery. It was called the human experience in 50 words. They used no images to advertise the gallery. It was the most counter intuitive way to solve the problem. 

How not to do advertising.

Following the rebrand, The Partners also worked on a poster campaign for the National Gallery. They took the famous paintings to the streets of London. It took 18 months to plan and Robert was one of those walking the streets & asking shop owners if they could make use of the wall space outside their shops. They put up 48 replicas (full size!) for 6 weeks. 

The above painting was erected outside an adult shop! The plaques next to the paintings contained information about the paintings and a number that could be called for further info about them. Robert was concerned that the replicas would be vandalised or grafitti'd on, and surprisingly only 4 did. Called 'The Grand Tour' it has now spread and become popular in Berlin, Canada & Russia.

How not to take the p*ss

Robert moved on to talk about how interesting jobs can often come from strange places. Perhaps my favourite and most inspiring example was from Thrislington Education, a company that makes toilet cubicles for schools. Hardly the most thrilling of projects to work on, but The Partners came up with the idea of printing their brochures on a lined school book style booklet. 

 This is what the outside of the leaflets looked like.

The inside of the books were concise and to the point. It might seem a little crude, but lots of these brochures land on people's desks, standing out is vital if a sale is to be secured.

 The Ridings School, which has a bit of a reputation as being rough had cubicles installed by Thrislington, and those cubicles were still there when the building was demolished. Despite the school's negative reputation it can still offer great marketing for this company.

These brochures were simple, and to the point and presented in a way teachers would empathise with. I think it's a great example of very well thought out branding.

The final example we were shown was for a screen saver that had been commissioned by Deloitte a company that offers services surrounding corporate finance. The screensaver itself was actually just a blank page, but the PlanetSaver screensaver has helped over 22'000 computers and laptops to reduce the amount of energy used when they are idle. It was also the biggest digital green initiative of that year.

A bit about you
How not to write a CV

Robert finished his talk with a bit of helpful advice about how to make yourself stand out to potential employers. He advises that you send out samples of your work, and not to bother with your interests and hobbies unless you have an interesting or unique one.

The people who receive your CVs are often very busy, and to keep this in mind when you send them out. Don't send anything digitally that will take a long time to load. Some of the things he mentioned were fairly obvious, like making sure your portfolio is clean, and neat before taking it to an interview, and to enter competitions as even if you don't win it looks good. 

Finally he said to look for inspiration in strange places and to show your work to people, and ask for their advice if you're stuck.

There were some interesting and useful points in Robert's talk. Many of the points however were common sense. During some of the talks it's easy to feel a little patronised as most of the talks are aimed at those who've not previously worked before coming to university. I did enjoy this talk however, and the clever branding ideas make it clear to see why The Partners are as celebrated as they are.

Business Start Up Support
Judith Alexander & Liz Wallens

The final talk I attended today was about the grants and start up help available to new businesses. Unfortunately Judith wasn't coming and Liz was late. 

To be perfectly honest, it wasn't the most useful of talks for me because even though I am starting a new business, it won't be in Wrexham and the help available differs from county to county. Also, the 6 part course that Liz talked about is the same one I've already attended in the Conwy business centre.

Both Liz and Judith are business advisers for Wrexham. They offer help and support to start up businesses and ongoing support once you've set up. They hold a 6 part course that deals with the basics of setting up including how to raise finance, tax and marketing. It is funded by Business Wales. 

Liz mentioned the graduate bursary scheme, which I learned about during my time on the course at Conwy. It's a grant of £6000 available to graduates who've left higher education within the last 7 years. However it is not really much use to many as you have to have a projected turnover of £80'000 for year 1. There's talk that this might be lowered soon.

We also discussed approaching banks for funding and what is required to do so. A realistic cash-flow forecast (where you predict the incomings and outgoings for the first 1-2 years of the business) and a business plan (an outline of how the business will be run, and grow, where you expect to get the funding and what your aims are). It is the same for approaching companies and organisations for grants.

This talk was probably quite useful for those who are setting up and a great way to advertise and promote their courses. It wasn't very well structured and Liz said a few minutes of introduction before opening up to questions. However, most of those interested in setting up their own business have little idea of what to ask. It could have worked better if it was a little more well structured.

Day 1 summary

The opening address was much the same as last year, except for the opening which I quite enjoyed. Although I've picked up several important and useful hints and tips, again it seems there's a common vein running through creative futures. My favourite talk from the day was by Robert Ball from The Partners. I enjoy being able to see visual examples of work as it helps me to absorb what is being said. 

Summer? What summer?

Hello!

It has been a while since I posted anything on here. This is because I've recently set up a Facebook page for my photographic exploits. This is for a number of reasons, it's quick and easy - I can post albums of photos easier than I can on here, and posts can be short and sweet.

It is also a great tool for getting my work across, at the moment it's only friends and family who like the page, but I'm working on that. If you don't already, then please like my page I post links to photographs and videos not just of my own, but others work too! Link to the page here.

This summer has passed by in a blur of working, dissertation research and contemplating my directions for the final year. Getting to grips with our new camera has been a fun time too, so many buttons and settings that have me in awe. Definitely worth the investment.

I've been working with a few people over the summer, mainly on a freelance basis. I'm lucky enough to be working with the charity Cruse in Holyhead, creating a short video explaining what they do. Cruse are a bereavement counselling service for those who have lost someone close to them. I've also had the opportunity to work further with Rhyl FC and hope to start an internship with them soon, working with local children in their football academies. 

A friend of mine, Woody who has been making music for a long time now, asked me if I'd like to begin a collaboration, making a short film with clips and photographs as a music video for one of his tracks. Something that has proved to be quite fun. 

I was asked to photograph Sam's 50th birthday (Sam is my sister's husband's brother!) at the Cheadle Golf Club back in July. I gladly accepted and Chris and I had a lovely time, we were both welcomed and had a great deal of fun filming Sam's birthday messages, as everyone was a little more than tipsy so some of them were actually quite funny. 

The weekend we photographed Sam's birthday was also the weekend we stayed at my sister's house in Cheadle, Chris took me to the Peak District for the day where he showed me many places he used to climb, it is full of beautiful landscape and I especially loved Row Tor, which is said to have been made by the Druids. 

Lastly, today is World Photography Day I hope you'll be photographing something! 

Wildlife, football and gorgeous weather!

Last week was such a wash out I was concerned that this week would be no different. I've been so busy that I've had to buy a diary to keep note of where I'm supposed to be and when, and so it was with a little gulp that I saw I was to be outside a lot this week doing this and that.


Dave and I were due to visit the North East Wales Wildlife sanctuary on Wednesday 19th, but I needn't have worried, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful drive through the countryside with the windows of my car open and music blaring. I reached the sanctuary and was surprised to see a big green gate blocking it off from the public, I parked nearby much to the chargrin of the local curtain-twitching woman across the street. 


I met with Dave and we were warmly welcomed by the security staff who told us we could park in their car park. After moving, Lucy Jones arrived with her friend and the children from a local school who'd been picked after scoring the highest in their writing at school.


We met up with Kate, who's the volunteer coordinator for the wildlife sanctuary. Dave and I had gone into this a little blindly as we'd unfortunately been unable to meet with Kate previously. Luckily she was very clear in what was expected of us. The children were to come up with a script about the sanctuary and then film them speaking their lines. The aim of the video is to help draw in groups, and younger people to the sanctuary to help out and enjoy the various events they hold throughout the year.


We filmed the children coming up with the ideas and writing out their script, after we'd gone for a brief walk about the premises. It used to be a top-secret WWII chemical weapons factory that had just been left to return to nature. And it had! We saw lots of buildings dotted around the sanctuary, which is around a mile and a half long and about a half mile wide. At the moment you have to be a member in order to enjoy the sanctuary, this is due to the site being a previous chemical weapons factory, and the law stating there be a certain amount of time before the land becomes public right of way. Of course all the buildings have declared safe, but there are a few who are closed off for various reasons.


After the walk, and the script was written, we were given a fair amount of creative freedom in terms of filming location and angles. Credit to all those who took part they remembered and delivered their lines like pros! Here are some pictures I took on the day:

 This is a room that lots of different groups use to meet, and make things. It's full of installations and artwork that's created yearly.

 Going for a walk before script writing commences, Kate has been with NEWW since last November and knows her stuff! She's also really passionate about what she does, and was very welcoming on the day :)

 This is a Willow igloo. This are is being built as an outside classroom, the stone circle is in the process of being built (not pictured) it will be lovely for people to be able to sit outside learning about nature.

 This is a bug hotel! I didn't want to get too close, as I can't say I'm a huge fan, but it's nice to see that everyone is catered for here!

 This isn't a fantastic picture in my opinion. This was the inside of one of the buildings dotted around the site. It was very very dark inside despite it being a lovely bright sunny day outside. I look this on about 25600 ISO. For those of you who don't know about ISO it stands for International Standards Organisation, it alters the sensitivity of the sensor to the light of the image. In other words the higher the ISO, the more light. Most DSLR cameras can go up to 400-1000 ISO before noise starts becoming a problem (noise is another word for grain in your images). It's one of the many reasons I love this camera, it can be used in almost any light condition, and even at 25600 there's very little noise to be seen.

 These bird and bat houses have been places here, and made to look old so they fit in. The site has seen an influx of blue tits this year thanks to hidden and old-looking houses like these ones.

 Up the stairs to the left is a bird viewing box, and feeders. The children were given food to scatter and fat balls to put in the various holders. Strangely, no matter how still we stood while trying to film, only one brave little sparrow came to eat!? The tunnel to the centre of the image is closed off to the public, however we were hold the tunnels above and underground run for miles and miles, and that the site even had its own train platform and evidence of tracks!

 One of the many bird boxes attached to trees around the site.

 This is mother nature. There are many art installations around the site, the trick is to keep an eye open and look up to find them! I like how she is almost camouflaged into the background.

 This tiny baby frog was one of many spotted in the grass near to the man-made wetlands. Apparently there was a lot of frog spawn this year, once we started looking they were everywhere. I really hope there were no casualties with all those feet!

 This made us giggle, but even after I asked I'm still not sure if it was real or a joke, besides they found it amongst lots of other paraphernalia that was uncovered when the site was originally acquired.

Unfortunately my batteries ran out about half an hour before we were due to finish filming, luckily Dave's was ok so he finished (thanks Dave). But I was glad I snapped away during the short walk we went on. All in all it was a lovely day, and it was topped off by the chivalrous gent who served me in the local petrol station. Looking forward to seeing the end result, and it appearing on the NEWW website as well as their YouTube channel. If you would like more information about the sanctuary, please visit their website here.


Just after I got home I looked at my phone to find that my sister Tracey had text to ask if I could pop along on Thursday afternoon to take some promotional shots of the Rhyl FC grounds. That was all I got from the texts, so when I arrived I was lead in by one of her team and told that the two people I was meeting would be here soon and could I just start snapping away until they got there. 


I must have been there for around 10 minutes taking shots and watching a man cutting the grass on the pitch when I met Silv and Mike from a local design business called Brag (website here) who showed me a brochure they were working on for Rhyl FC aimed at local businesses who might want to sponsor the club in one of the many ways available. They wanted a few specific shots, some of which I'd already taken while I was snapping away. 


In the end I was very glad I went and met them both as it looks like more work may come of it! They are always looking for photographers to take shots for their various work projects. Here are some of the shots I took yesterday.

On the left Alix Natris, who is the new ladies development officer on the right is Mike Jones the general manager. 

Despite the fact I know very little about football, I do enjoy visiting the grounds and having the opportunity to photograph something out of the ordinary, yesterday was a great networking opportunity for me too. (Thanks again Tracey). I know I'll be back at the club soon enough, and I'm excited to see what comes of working alongside Brag.

Call Miss Jones Go Wales Project

Summer is in full swing, ok so it's more rainy than sunny but days like today where the sun is shining and you have no work hanging over you, well they make up for the rain. Besides I don't mind the rain :) Anyway, I digress. 


What seems like forever ago, but really just the beginning of April I started out on my second project through university and Go Wales as part of my professional development. It was to film a short commercial and shoot some staff portraits for a local company called Call Miss Jones. As my previous project with Gelicity had gone so smoothly I had mistakenly assumed it'd be pretty much the same for CMJ. Oh boy was I wrong!


When I first met Peter Belton who runs the company I could tell straight away that he runs a tight, but friendly ship and all his staff seemed very happy in their roles. Their office is a lurid green, which really brightens up the place. It was against this background that I shot the staff's portraits. One of which has gone on to be featured on promotional leaflets (of which I have several) and also a rather large banner that is taken along to seminars and conventions to help advertise the company. Here's a photo of the banner that Peter kindly forwarded on to me.

I was very proud to see my work displayed in such a way. 

Here are some examples of the portraits I did for the staff at Call Miss Jones.

As you can see, there are a combination of 'working' shots and head shots. Peter wanted the photos to show the staff working, but enjoying themselves at the same time. In the end this was achieved through asking the staff to smile as they worked, it was successful for the most part but the work that the staff do here means you have to pay close attention to what you're doing to ensure you don't miss anything. With such a high call volume the agents can't afford to waste time on the phone. With this in mind, some of the photographs are therefore 'staged'.

Peter wanted the head shots, usually taken against a dull, or blue background and looking all formal, to be anything but. The lime-green walls provided a great backdrop, and although it took a few goes to get the settings on the camera right (I'm still learning all the buttons and ins and outs of our new kit) I eventually had it to the point where little to no photoshopping was required later. I had done and finished all the portraits by the second time I visited CMJ. Peter and the staff we happy with them, they're (hopefully) going to make an appearance on the new website. 

Now onto the video, by this point, Chris and I had bought a shiny new PC from PC World, since we both enjoy photography and Chris is now getting into film-making and editing himself we also invested in the student Adobe package including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Audition, Illustrator and many more we have no idea what they do! We were assured by both the very helpful staff at the Llandudno store, and after careful and meticulous research that our chosen machine was capable of handling the software and so off we went and two hours later we came home laden with shiny new equipment and a lovely matching black desk to put it on. (We also ended up with 3 mice and 2 keyboards by accident! But that's another story). 

Also around this time I was in the early stages of filming my last video of year two, Your Friend, Luke and since Wrexham is now an hours drive for me, I figured being able to edit from the comfort of home would be great. Our machine is as fast and powerful as we all expected, but what we didn't expect was how rubbish and buggy Première Pro would be. Eventually, we figured out that the more clips you import, the more display as 'media pending' and you have to save every time you want to import a clip in case it crashed, which it often did. Eventually I trawled the internet after loosing my temper for the millionth time to find that this is a very common problem for Première. Doesn't make much sense to me to charge so much money for something that doesn't work well with larger projects.

Anyway, something or someone was looking down on me the day I finished editing Your Friend, Luke and not only did all the clips load when I was ready to render and export, but it did it first time! Happy days.

Back to CMJ, I was asked if it would be possible to have the video ready for May 10th, which was over a month away from the first date I went to visit the office. I was certain I could do it, so I said yes. Like most of my friends at university, I really hate letting people down, but when I sent my first draft to CMJ I received a list of changed that they wanted making to the video that meant I would have to revisit once more to get more footage for the video and meaning I'd never complete it by the deadline (which wasn't a deadline really, more a guideline) I got in contact with Lucy Jones at Glyndwr who was extremely understanding and supportive and along with her and Peter, we managed to make a date to get the last bits of filming underway. At this point, I'd neglected my own university work to ensure the video would be completed in time, so needless to say I wasn't exactly happy about the list of changes. 

We also had multiple issues with sound, which is down to a combination of a noisy office and the cameras microphone was not much better than the external mic we had bought when we got our new Canon. So the 4th and final time I visited the office, I took Chris with me to help press buttons and for some moral support. We recorded the audio directly only Audacity on my laptop (which you can see in part of the video) and then later edited it to make it sound clearer and matched it up to the video.

I sent it off to Peter and Lucy last week, and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. Admittedly I was worried about the reception it'd receive, but I got a very positive response from Peter, so I aught to be happy. In hindsight, I feel I've learned a fair bit about businesses and the way they are run. Having said that, I think I need to become a little more confident and assertive when dealing with the expectations others have of me. After all, I'm still learning to make film and the editing part is at times infuriatingly confusing and hard, I had to watch a lot of tutorials in order to create the 38 second clip. But in the end I am very proud of what I have done. 

Link to the video here

Charity starts at Manchester House...

So we're a couple of weeks into the holidays, and if it wasn't for the frenzy that is looking for a new home, I'd be at a complete loss of what to do, and be utterly desperate to get back to uni already. 


I've already applied for around thirty jobs this summer with little to no success, and that includes getting any 'thanks, but no thanks' responses. Luckily, I've found The Hunger Games trilogy of books, and along with a few other additions to my collection I've got plenty of material to fill the gaps between sleeping, eating and seeing so many houses online and in reality that they're all blurring into one and I'm forced to differentiate them via unusual means such as 'this is the house with the death shed (looks terrifying!)' and 'this is the house with the out-door spiders breeding ground (aka, outside loo) and I hope no one ever sees our spreadsheet with all the properties on as Chris and I had a little too much to drink one night recently and while adding another batch of finds to the list, one or two little profanities may have found their way into the list.


This meant I had to find something to do with my time, and mercifully an opportunity cropped up that would fill my Tuesday afternoons and help a good cause at the same time. To cut a long story short, I'm volunteering for a charity shop. My own personal experiences of these places isn't that big really, I've ventured into several to wander around and see if anything catches my eye, the one time that really stands out is the time I found Woody in the local Tenovus charity shop. I used that wooden drawing mannequin in one of my uni videos, for those of you who have not seen Woody's Time Lapse Adventure, please click here to watch.


I don't want this post to be all preachy, that anyone should be purposefully shopping in charity shops, or volunteering themselves, but just to raise an awareness that I did not have before and share my feelings about what I'm doing. It's a mutual beneficial endeavour for both myself, and Manchester House, in Conwy that raises money on behalf of the local charity, Carers Outreach, that support adult carers, link to their website here. I'm going to be volunteering every Tuesday afternoon until the end of September, and I imagine it wont be the last time I'll be posting about it on here.


Sorry about the lack of funnies and pretty pictures though...

This is it! Final work of year two.

The summer holidays are upon us already, and I'm not really sure how to feel really. I do feel like I've spent A LOT of time doing written work this year, which I felt distracted me from my practical work. This means I've also spent a fair bit of time working from home which has its advantages and disadvantages. 


Instead of so much writing, I feel like we might have benefited from more practical lessons. Lighting, and sound for both film and photography for example. However, I do feel that this year has seen a huge change in both my skill and professional development through work experience and tasters, and even though they haven't all gone exactly to plan, it has shown me that I am perfectly capable, and can adapt to almost every situation.


So what were we asked to do? Well we were given the option of choosing a direction. Personally I started out with the intention of concentrating on my photography. Then I decided I'd concentrate on both aspects of our course, and finally I decided I didn't want to pigeon-hole myself, or limit my experiences and went down the route of both. We had the option of doing a narrative film and two photography assignments, or a non-narrative and three photography assignments. When I read the list of the photography, there were three projects that stood out to me straight away. I knew I was going to do a narrative film straight away, purely because I do much better at coming up with stories than the idea of the non-narrative.


I close 'modern master' as my first project, choosing a painting wasn't as hard as I thought. Honestly, there was no real method to my choice, I simply typed 'well known paintings' into Google and came up with this.

 American Gothic by Grant Wood

    Whistler's Mother - James McNeill

 The Son of Man - Rene Magrittees

The first two paintings I've seen before even if I don't know the names of the artists or the titles. When I saw the man with the apple I knew straight away that'd be the picture I'd choose. With living right by the sea, there is a number of places that would be suitable to take the picture, and luckily between us, Chris and I had the suit and the bowler hat and the rest was down to photoshop.

 Beginning with the obvious I recreated the painting using a red apple photograph.

Then, taking into consideration the part of the brief that asked us use the painting to advertise something I began with a suggestion from my friend Dave, by using the Apple logo, it worked very well. I took it a step further again.

Starting with the Financial Times, one of my initial ideas was a pound coin, to demonstrate the importance of money in the current financial climate. With the recession making itself felt in almost every household, there's little more current than that. For the advert, I used the slogan for the Financial Times, as well as using an image of an FT cover with a low opacity behind the figure. 

Part of the brief was to bring the painting up to date, I've always been a fan of the Guinness adverts, although not so much the drink really. Initially I had the idea of using a pint of generic beer, but it was too non-descript, and so I chose a pint of Guinness instead as it fitted in quite nicely with the feel of the adverts. Apparently the slogan is 'good things come to those who wait' so I would change that, but really I'm happy with the whole idea.


Next up was the 'elegance in decay/broken grandeur' project. This appeals to me on a personal basis because Urban Exploration is something I've been doing for years, where you find out about, or discover places left to rot/abandoned and photograph the eeriness, which can often turn out some really beautiful pictures. So I was lucky enough to already have a plethora of places I could visit, but what better excuse than this to take to the road and look for new places, here are some of my favourite shots.

This tree is near an abandoned factory in Beaumaris.

The same factory, which consists of several separate buildings, this one looked like some kind of developing room as there was a big Kodak deveoping chest, possibly for X-Rays judging by the signs knocking around. This was a pendulum of sorts that we set swinging and used the flash to get a ghostly shot of the pendulum mid-swing.

This is an abandoned theatre in Dolgarrog, I've visited this place multiple times, and it's always very quiet and eerie inside even though its just set back from the main road through Dolgarrog by some trees. There's rubbish everywhere but you can still see the left over feelings of grandeur inside the main hall, along with dressing rooms, toilets, box office and upstairs where there's a hatch that presumably held some kind of projectors or lights.

 This boat is moored on Conwy Quay, right next to a very well known boat called the Gray Lady, both of which are in need of some serious TLC. Sadly the very next day after this shot was taken some stupid people came along and set the Gray Lady on fire, and it has since been taken away.

 This door belongs to a greenhouse on a huge estate that has been left to nature. It consists of a large house with a caravan outside (there was a way in, but it looked as if someone had recently been squatting there, and so I lost my nerve), several acres of land with ponds, and verandas, and across the estate is another large property that looked as if it may have been a residential home once. It has several out buildings, and sprawling gardens that would have looked stunning once, now like the greenhouses, they've been taken over by weeds and nature.

 Part of the large estate in Caernarfon, this property was borded up on the lower floor, however to the right of this shot was a broken window where one could walk right in. 

This is the Duke of Lancaster. A ship that has been landlocked in place near Mostyn ever since I can remember. You can see it from the coast road, and it holds a lot of mystery to most who spy it for the first time. We took an amble to the ship and got some great shots of it, we wanted to attempt to get onto the side of the dock that the ship is moored in. Sadly there was a very unpleasant guard who had few words for us. 


Lastly for the photography projects was portraits. It's the very first type of photography I was trained to do and worked photographing people for years. It still holds a lot of appeal, and whether I'm in the studio or at location I'm in my element. My very first idea was to photography my dad, but because he isn't very mobile along with my idea no longer being original, I chose to photograph Chris instead. I feel like I know him pretty well, so choosing the shots that best describe him as a person came easily, here are some of the shots I used and my favourite pictures.

Finally for the project was my narrative film. Sadly, I wasn't able to film my initial idea, which was a horror film due to my being unable to source a decent location and also I needed a number of actors, as well as a lot of props that are sadly necessary to aid with the overall feel of the film. So I had to come up with something else, and fast as time was beginning to run out and I knew I'd need lots of time to edit as this was the first film I've edited alone.


Eventually, with Chris' help an idea formed into something I came to be quite proud of. It became pretty clear early on that most of my ideas have an element of darkness to them, and this was no exception. Although, it isn't all doom and gloom! The main issues I came across with making this film was Premiere Pro, we recently installed a new, and very fast desktop PC and the Adobe package, this meant I could edit at home, as travelling between Conwy and Wrexham has been proving quite expensive. However, it turns out that the more clips you upload into your sequence in Premiere, the slower it runs. This became infuriating after a short time as it kept crashing and not loading all the media clips. The day before I was due to hand in all my work at assessment, it miraculously loaded ALL the clips and so very gingerly, I made the last few changes, added the music and end credits and crossed everything and clicked export. It took about seven minutes. All the days of anger, and tears and frustration and worrying that I'd never finish it, and all it took was seven minutes.


Anyway, I don't want to give away too much about the film, and it's taken an age to upload to youtube so I'm just going to put the link to it here.


That's it, year two over and done with. What have I learned? Well, firstly that Premiere pro isn't worth the CD its printed on, or the space it takes up on our shiny new computer, I've learned that I can adapt well to new and unknown situations. Also, I would have liked my assessment to last a little longer, although I got some positive feedback, I was hoping it would have been a little more detailed than last time. Personally, I can't understand how fair marks can be awarded unless the work is taken away and looked at at least twice. In July, we'll receive our marks on Moodle and we'll find out how we've done in terms of a grade, but there will be no feedback and no way of telling what we need to improve and where we're doing well. This can get a little frustrating. 


I'm looking towards my final year with a mixture of emotions, a combination of trepidation, and fear that it's my last and most important year and that I've still no clear idea about what direction I want to be heading in, and excitement at the unknown. Where will I be this time next year? I can't believe how fast my time at university is going, and I do worry that when I leave that although I can say I've met some wonderful people, and had some wonderful opportunities and experiences, but I really haven't learned an awful lot. But I remain open-minded and I'm still extremely grateful to be living this life-long dream. :)