21/02/2017
Being introduced to our Final Major Project for our second year, we were told and instructed what the future upcoming plans are such as coming up with ideas that we could possibly create, producing a pitch of our ideas etc. I can already begin imagining the stress that this fmp will bring upon me but I will reassure myself that if I work hard and complete what I must do on time, I will be on track for this project. As our first lesson being introduced our last Final Major Project, I wanted to begin by researching on the definition of the word "Diversity" and what the word can relate to such as the different kinds of diversities that exist like gender, age, cultural and ethnic diversity. However, in today's lesson, I wanted to begin doing my research and focusing on one particular type of diversity and I choose to look deeply onto Ethnic. I had read a variety of news articles from different major sources that discuss the facts and statistics of ethnic groups that reside in London and the jurassic difference of the population of white British. So far, I am feeling quite confused and conflicted on what kind of diversity i'll be particularly focusing on for the whole FMP therefore, what I plan on doing the next is researching more about diversity and seeing what I feel more passionate about.
22/02/2017
For today, as I still do not know what kind of diversity and sub topic I wish to focus on, I decided to research some short films on YouTube that portray themes of diversity and what I had come across were mostly about culture, sexual orientations and gender. Watching the films had most definitely inspired me to create a short film as I saw some really great shots and in some of the short films, their script was very moving towards the audience as they spoke about the trials, problems and tribulations people whom are culturally different or people whom are part of the LGBT community. Moreover, film making and cinematography is what I will continue to pursue as I join university. From looking at the short films, I had decided to research documentaries that speak and expand on the subject of diversity and I had found many good documentaries on YouTube and I have made comments and stated what I happen to like and dislike about the cinematography, narrative and the macro/micro-elements of the short films. However, I do not think I am as passionate in creating a documentary compared to producing a short film. I feel as if I am behind on work because I am still contemplating on what diversity subject to choose and this is making me feel quite stressed out as if I have already chosen a subject then I will have a lot more time researching through both secondary and primary sources and more time to plan and create my pitch presentation therefore, my aim for the next day is to choose a subject for my fmp and be confidently sure that it is the subject I will be fervent about when it comes to researching as I work much harder and produce better work when I discuss a topic that I enjoy.
23/02/2017
I have finally decided what diversity subject I will be focusing on and it is LGBT and how sex education does not teach LGBT sex compared to heterosexual sex. I was inspired by an online article I read from The Guardian online newspaper and it had discussed and explored how the education system does not promote in teaching LGBT sex to schools. That online article has definitely made me feel some sort of feelings, particularly questionable as to what is so wrong about experimenting with our bodies and not educating the younger LGBT community on how to have sex in their own sexual orientations and I think focusing my fmp about LGBT is the perfect opportunity for me as a person to promote and support the LGBT community, not just in London but in all countries all over the world. During my classes, I had begun my intense research using secondary sources such as the internet, books, articles and podcasts. I am quite pleased on the quality and quantity of work I have completed today as I have explored many different secondary sources for my research page but also I feel very pleased that I am on track with my fmp work and I am not as stressed out. On the other hand, as I do not have any primary research yet, tomorrow, I will initiate on planning and conducting my primary research so that I have a range of secondary and primary research and resources.
24/02/2017
Continuing my research on LGBT, I am still researching using secondary sources and I have found more interesting articles online and one of them explaining how America's president Donald Trump wishes to ban male and female mixed/transgender toilets in schools which ruin the rights of transgender students as according to some, transgender toilets are a violation of privacy and intimacy between the two sexes in which I completely disagree with. That article had helped me a lot as it discusses more issues that the LGBT community suffer in the educational environment and it had help me come up with ideas for my short film, I must come up with an appropriate storyline, script and narrative. Furthermore, I have researched the facts and statistics of LGBT in London specifically and I had found out many interesting facts that have uplifted me, for example a fact that I had no knowledge of was London is known as the gay capitol in the UK and in the past, I had always figured that it was Brighton that was the capitol of the gay community in the UK. Moreover, I had begun researching some LGBT theories that I could talk about and explain for my pitch presentation however, it wasn't as productive as I expected due to lack of many existing theories about LGBT which was quite disappointing as I will not have much to write about for my research page. I don't think today was as productive as it was yesterday when it comes to research as I did not find any new articles and I did not find much theories about LGBT which is very discouraging to me as I was expecting at least 3 theories I can research about but I mustn't spend a lot of time in researching something that is limited therefore, I will move on and continue my further research in other departments which I must research such as professional work and audience research etc.
27/02/2017
As part of my films studies and contextual studies, we were assigned to pick any film that revolves around the theme of protest last Friday and during the weekend, I have chosen to study and evaluate the film 'V for Vendetta' as this films focuses on many different issues such as lack of freedom, rights, speech, prejudice against other religions and the LGBT and disabled community and I thought this film is perfect to look at not only for my contextual studies but also for my FMP as it is related to the topic of LGBT. I had taken out and borrowed the DVD from our college's library and watched it with my partner whilst I took down notes of the treatment of any characters that are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and I think that it's a good idea using films as another secondary source as it allows us as the audience to see the negative or positive portrayal of them and it also allows us to comment on the realism and narrative of the film. However, although the film V for Vendetta portrays the negative and tragic side of lesbian treatments by society, it has inspired my short film idea and I too wish to focus my film on the unfortunate presentation of LGBT as sadness is a strong emotion that moves the audience to feel emotions of sympathy and empathy.
28/02/2017
As my class and I were informed to improve our moving image skills such as exposure, framing, lighting and movement as in the past moving image projects, some of us did not do very well in working with the DSLR cameras however, I am never content in what I do therefore, I had decided to take out a Canon 70D DSLR camera kit and begin experimenting and improving how to use the cameras properly when filming. But before physically going out, I had decided to watch some YouTube tutorials online on how to get a cinematic look for film making and how to cinematic film angles and I had found two very good and helpful videos that had taught me how to change the settings on the camera depending on what kind of look we want and how to adjust the settings depending on the environment whether there are a lot of lights like outside or not enough lighting in a dark dimmed location and it all depends on what settings are the aperture and iso are on, from the YouTube tutorials I had learned that using natural lighting as the main source of lighting is not always the best ideal plan as we cannot control the shadows that will appear and it will not look as pleasing and as cinematic on screen. After looking at YouTube tutorials, I wanted to take what I have learned and demonstrate them on the DSLR cameras and during my investigation experiment, I have found it very productive as I had managed to adjust the cameras settings outside by not allowing the shot to appear overly exposed due to the natural sunlight, moreover I had managed to discover for myself how to achieve a shallow depth of field shot as I have always wondered how to achieve that kind of look and I am quite pleased with myself for uncovering this today.
My next aim for tomorrow is to experiment using wide angle lenses as according to the YouTube tutorials I have watched, using wide angle lenses are very useful in making film seem theatrical however, overall, today has been very constructive and useful, I feel as if I have learnt many new skills and information today and I hope as the fmp continues, I will use those skills correctly when I am on the production stage.
7/03/2017
As I have begun preparing and creating my pitch presentation, I researched more political issues that surround LGBT in London as I enjoy researching and reading about politics and I had came across an online article about a British female Labour MP called Stella Creasy whom wishes to make LGBT sex education mandatory in educational environments and I found this article interesting as my topic is focusing on LGBT sex specifically and reading about a woman that holds great power that could make a difference had really enlightened me as there is a possibility that Stella Creasy could change how sex education is taught by including LGBT sex education rather than excluding it. Additionally, I still wanted to experiment more on cinematic film making therefore, I researched online using secondary sources on how to make shots look more cinematic and it had truly helped me learn more about how I should move the camera, what the camera settings should be etc therefore, next time I experiment with a DSLR camera, I'll be sure to take what I had learnt and try them out. I had also researched the history of LGBT that had occurred and what I enjoyed about researching the history is seeing the improvement and progress of LGBT treatment by society from years ago until now, I feel like researching the history helps me appreciate how better things are in the present day compared to how things were in the past.
However, as I had conducted a photoshoot that is not related to my FMP, I used this an opportunity to go location scouting for my short film in case I discover a location I may wish to use and I had managed to find a location in Excel in which has installed blue neon lighting and the ambient lighting in that location had inspired me to use lighting as a film element to represent the emotion of the characters in my short film so I will research more short films that use lighting to tell the story moreover, I will research how to use ambient lighting correctly when it comes to filming.
6/03/2017
I had been deeply thinking about my idea for my FMP and I am considering making either a short film or a documentary however, I am still indecisive on what I shall make and produce as I need to do more further research so that I will be more clear and sure on what is best to produce. I am leaning more towards the idea of creating a short film as film making and film production is a passion of mine and I will continue learning about this subject when I transfer to University hence why I feel that making a short film is the best option for me although it will be challenging to create a short film with good visuals and a good narrative without making it appear too cliche and avoiding the typical "Hollywood" story plot therefore, my next aim is to attempt to create a plot for my short film that follow the codes and conventions of short films but also does not follow a cliche dialogue. Furthermore, I had begun researching theories that revolve around LGBT for my pitch presentation and only found the Queer Theory in which I found quite interesting therefore, I did some thorough research about it in case it may help me or give me some inspiration for my FMP outcome. From reading more about the Queer Theory, it had sparked an initial idea and as the Queer Theory explains how gender is not fixated at birth and uses Amy Winehouse and the fictional character, Jack Sparrow as an example of people whom break the expectations of a male and female, I had come up with an idea to base my short film on a character that too, does not follow the expectations of being either male or female however, when I pitched this idea to my peers, my feedback was more negative as they stated that the narrative or story line is not very intriguing or interesting to my target audience whom are similar ages to my peers therefore, my aim for tomorrow is to come up with a better idea that is far more gripping.
Other than that, today has been a productive day when it comes to my research and inspiration as although my ideas were not as great, I still had managed to use my negative feedback to my advantage and improve my work.
8/03/2017
As I have been terribly struggling on creating an idea for my short film's story line, I had decided to go and ask advice from my teacher as I was beginning to feel quite hopeless as I have not seen any LGBT short films that have really inspired me enough to have an enigma. The feedback that I was given was to not just research and watch short films that are LGBT themed but short films in general as there are many styles to short films and all short films are stylised differently and so I had followed their advice and began researching online focusing not on the content of the short film but the style. I came across a website called shortoftheweek.com and saw a trailer for a short film named "The Robbery" and from reading the bio of the film, what caught my eye is that this short 10 minutes film was filmed all in one take so I was very eager to watch this film as I find one take shots very interesting as it's a difficult task to do and those cinematographers that are able to carry out a task such as a one take shot are very talented. After watching that short film, I found myself impressed and wrote a review explaining what I enjoyed and what things I had noticed that could have been improved but I must say that this short film has inspired me to improve on my cinematography skills such as being steady when holding the camera or being steady when doing hand held shots in which I will experiment with when I next use a DSLR camera. From looking at the online Independent news, I had come across an article that explains how the new Beauty and the Beast movie has an exclusive "gay moment" and how many people are boycotting against the film due to that scene and I had written my views and opinions about how I am pleased to hear that they are promoting LGBT but disappointed that it had caused a negative controversy among the media.
As I was researching controversies that are revolved around the theme of LGBT, I wanted to see the arguments fore and against LGBT when it comes to religion thus, I researched for religious websites that may have an explanation as to why they are either fore or against homosexuality. As this FMP project progresses, I feel as if it is getting more and more stressful and quite difficult to keep up with as there are many things to research and limited time in which spots me in the spot however, I must overcome the feeling of stress as I am the only causing the stress if I do not get work done hence why, I am aiming to complete my work on time and do everything on the day so that I will not stress about it in the future.
9/03/2017
As I have really enjoyed watching the short film yesterday on the website shortoftheweek.com, I wanted to find some more short films that are differently stylised from the previous film I had watched in which was a one take film. From scrolling and looking around the website, I had discovered a film called "The Problemless Anonymous" directed by Gary Roberts and as I proceeded in watching this film, I began taking down notes about what I adored about the film's content, style and visuals to add on my research page. What I had really enjoyed about the film is it's odd content as the narrative and story line of this short film is immensely peculiar in which I found quite interesting as it makes the films more distinctive. The Problemless Anonymous had significantly inspired and heavily influenced me with my ideas for my short film as this film's film elements such as the cinematography and their use of different lighting was incredible and I am using this short film as my inspiration for experimenting with different low key lighting and high key lighting moreover, the film had also incorporated red ambient lighting to represent a sinister or menacing theme. Furthermore, I also was inspired about the cinematography that was used in The Problemless Anonymous as from analysing the film, the camera movement was very smooth and there was not even one shot that the cinematography was not good as every shot was perfectly shot. This film has inspired me to both experiment with lighting and cinematography as these two film elements have a huge part in revealing the contents of the film in a symbolic manner and what I wish to do with my short film is to use ambient lighting such as using coloured neon lightings to signify what my main characters are feeling or what the mood of the scene whether it is a melancholic, joyful or puzzled, it will all depend on the lighting for my short film so my target audience will gain more of a better understanding on what may be occurring in a scene.
Due to the cinematography inspiration I had gained from watching this short film, I wish to purchase a DSLR slider to use for my short film as camera slider as it would help me with experimenting different camera movements moreover, I can test new filming equipment that will possibly aid me in the future for my short film, which will allow my film to have a variety of different shots and camera movements. My next objective is to conduct my pitch confidently and know my research about LGBT and also another objective of mine is to research more about short films and to analyse the difference between short films and long running motion films.
10/03/2017
I had conducted my pitch today and I personally think it went quite well as I spoke confidently about my topic of LGBT and the research I had completed which I was pleased about and I think that I was able to positive and confident on speaking about my FMP topic as it is a subject that I am passionate about therefore, it had motivated me to do more further research and eagerly learn more about LGBT as I think that choosing a subject that moves me or that I am fervent about will allow me to have a better outcome or ideas for my outcome hence why I feel as if my pitch went well. I had received positive feedback from my peers such as providing a large amount of research about the topic of LGBT including case studies and controversy topics such as religion vs homosexuality and the new controversy about the gay moment in the new Beauty and the Beast film and some of my peers had commented that from the other pitches they have seen, I had conducted the most research so far in which I am pleased with myself about. Additionally, another set of positive feedback is that my idea is very unique but also follows the theme of a character from the LGBT having internal conflict with themselves and it is a relatable subject matter to the LGBT community that may view my short film and I am glad that my peers had managed to pick that out for feedback as that is exactly my intentions as my message behind my short film is to inform young people that are struggling with learning or discovering what their sexuality is a part of their journey of finding out who they truly are. However, although I had received positive feedback from my peers and teachers about my FMP ideas, I had also expected and received critical feedback, one of them is that I need to consider whether making a short film is the best option as my subject of experimenting sexuality with males and females is quite difficult and challenging as I need to find actors that are willing to act and do challenging acts on camera and actors that are reliable as some may not be free to act on days that I may ask for therefore, an objective of mine is to find actors that are open to act and that are dependable according to my production schedule.
Moreover, my peers had critically asked whether I have good locations to film in as they had mentioned it may be difficult to detect good locations that permit me to film in but the positive argument to that is that I had already found many good locations to film in that I already have permission to film in as previously in the past, my friend and I had planned to create our own short film/music video to put on our portfolio therefore we had conducted a location scout and we had discovered many adequate locations that are appropriate to use for my LGBT themed short film, which I am thankful to already being prepared for the locations that will be used in my short film as this will save me the time looking for locations and I can use the time to do more research or conduct more experimental test shots that I can upload on my Wix and hopefully use for my short film.
13/03/2017
As part of our lessons today, my peers had continued conducting their pitch presentations and from observing their ideas of their FMP, it had motivated me to continue researching further about my topic and not be content with what I have so far as my research does not end just because I am beginning to start my practical work, always researching news articles and information that come from social media as it allows me to learn what has occurred in the world and expands my knowledge of a particular subject matter, in which my case is about the LGBT community. A positive occurrence that had happened today is that I had managed to find a female actress that is willing to act for my film and she is willing to be able to do physical things on screen such as kissing both males and females which was one of the problems that I knew I would face and I was quite anxious and distressed about this obstacle as I thought it would be quite challenging to find a female that can act and that is open minded and enthusiastic to doing scenes that are complicated and a little complex to do but I am incredibly thankful that I was able to find someone to act for my short film and my next aim is to find more actors that are able to make an appearance in my film as major or minor characters as the sooner I get the casting done, I will be able to have more time to experiment on the cameras how I want the style of my short film to be like and also create a storyboard and script. However, I want to use a few weeks, maybe around 2 weeks of my production schedule to do intense research on my topic of LGBT as this would allow me to gain more knowledge to obtain more inspiration and ideas for my outcome.
14/03/2017
In one of my lessons, I had researched articles online and found an article informing about Trump's views on LGBT choices in public toilets and bathrooms and form researching, I had found out that Trump is restricting transgender students from choosing which ever type of public toilet they will be using and enforcing transgender students to use toilets that are their gender identity. I found this article quite concerning as Donald Trump is a man that is not keeping to his word as I had also read from another similar article that Donald Trump had stated that he supports the LGBT community and he will grant the LGBT community protection when it comes to their equal rights yet he excludes transgender students from choosing what to use in public environments which allows Donald Trump to appear unreliable and perfidious as he is not upholding his promises hence this is one of the main reasons unto why he should have never been elected as the president of America. Reading articles such as these about Donald Trump and his traditional views really fuel hatred towards him as he is slyly discriminating particular people whom are different from what his norms are and it is wrong for him to exclude them due to their differences in which Trump may not accept.
In the next lesson, I will do further research on articles of discriminating the LGBT community as I feel as if reading these particular types of articles will help me in forming more ideas for my short film's narrative and storyline.
17/03/2017
Today, as I am producing a short film, I wanted to find out what the codes and conventions of short films are and what the difference between short films and feature length films are hence I did some research on this topic as this would help me in the journey of creating my short film so that it follows the signs in which will create meaning for the film. From researching this, I definitely consider these new pieces of information helpful for me as it had allowed me to learn what other macro elements my short film needs. Moreover, from learning about the codes and conventions of short films, It had definitely helped me improve and changed my ideas as my original idea that involved a few main characters however, from the online sources I have read from about cods and conventions of short films, it is advised to only have minimum 1 and maximum 3 main characters as having a limited amount of main characters will not make the short film as complicated and as complex compared to to feature length films that have a long running duration therefore, having more main characters in a longer feature will have enough time to expand on the main character's backstories. I will be having just one main character, male or female as this will permit me to focus my audience's attention mostly on her/his feelings, mood and thoughts as this will not confuse them too much.
My next aim is as I am focusing on just one character, I am going to plan the story of this one character and plan detailedly making sure that the storyline is making sense with the character's personality and I should begin creating a first draft storyboard soon. Researching the codes and conventions of short films is definitely helpful as using this information would allow me to plan my short film thoroughly and accordingly to the rules of short films.
20/03/2017
I had watched the new Disney Beauty and the Beast adaption in the cinemas as I was quite intrigued to see what the big and heated controversy was all about that was occurring on social media about the quick gay moment that is in the film. After watching the film and experiencing watching that gay moment, I was quite confused and bewildered on why this 3 seconds duration shot had caused a massive controversy on social media as I did not see what the deal was on why many people do not approve or are offended that the film had included this. The scene was nothing but a male character that had dressed in a women's dress and his body and facial expression was happy as he liked what he was wearing and this is all this particular shot had consisted of and nothing more hence why I am still puzzled on this trending controversy. But on the positive note, I honestly enjoyed the film from analysing their use of macro and micro elements as I personally am fond of focusing on those particular elements of film when I watch new films. An aim for me throughout this Final Major Project is to always watch new films to gain more inspiration and ideas for my own FMP outcome and it will also allow me to learn new things that I may notice in films and it'll motive me to want to learn how to do particular things that films may use.
Although I did not do a lot of work that is written or practical today for my FMP, I still think it was quite productive as for my research page, I had studied the Beauty and the Beast gay controversy and I think seeing that for myself in cinemas had allowed me to find out and judge the controversy for myself and write my thoughts about it on my research page.
22/03/2017
For my film, I had mentioned how I mainly want to use ambient lighting to symbolically represent the character's emotions and the mood of the scene in my short film therefore, as I have never used the LED lights with colour gels, I thought today was the perfect time to experiment using them by learning how to use them correctly and learning how to adjust the camera's settings that is fitting to use whilst using the colour gels so that my shot would look professional. Today's experiment I had conducted was quite good, I am pleased that I had managed to experiment and try using them but I think I could have taken better shots as I am not entirely pleased with what I had taken. I think some of my shots were still quite grainy which could be due to the positioning of the LED lights or how I positioned the led lights that had the colour gels attached and as I am not too pleased with the shots I produced, I want to redo the shoot and experiment for the second time but before I do, I will continue researching how to use LED lights and colour gels properly before I conduct my second experiment. Moreover, I also think I should've have planned this experiment thoroughly by noting down specific shots I want to take, how I want the lighting to be positioned and where I want to lighting to focus within the frame: These are things that I should have thought to myself before and this could be the reason why my experiment did not go accordingly. From this, I had learned to completely plan and I should always have an idea of how I want the photoshoot to look like and this is what I will do for my second experiment shoot but I should also ask the technicians for help and as they teach me, I should take notes so that I can use those notes to help me further in the future.
Despite the fact that my experiment was not as successful as I was expecting it to be, I think it was productive that I did an experiment with the colour gels although the shots were not great as this will allow me to re-evaluate myself and how the shoot went so that I can acknowledge the weaknesses and note them down to avoid them in the future to improve my work to make them more stronger.
24/03/2017
As I have not come up with any new ideas for my short film, I felt as if I need some inspiration and motivation to continue planning for my short film about LGBT therefore, I had decided to watch more short films from the shortoftheweek.com website as I've noticed something about myself and that is whenever I watch their short films, I feel very influenced and the films on that website really inspire me and allow me to come up with new interesting ideas for my own short film. I had been scrolling through the site and I had come across an interesting short film that had the aspects of not only a short film but a documentary which I found oddly weird but very fascinating and it was After Sophie. From watching the short documentary film, I felt very inspired due to the cinematography of this cinematic piece of work as the type of framing shots and camera movements that were used as although the layout and style of After Sophie is stylised to appear like a documentary, the camera movements and shots speak and appear more like a cinematic film. Discovering and watching After Sophie had incredibly inspired me to work on and improve my cinematography skills by trying new types of shots and movements that I have not tried yet and attempt to try different techniques to produce creative shots and inventive movements that I could possibly use for my short film. One of the shots that I want to recreate in the future is a shot when the camera is a tracking shot and what I really admire about this particular shot in the documentary film is how smooth the shot is and the shallow depth of field that was used in the shot. I truly use this shot as my inspiration since I want to create a film that is has shots such as that with very good quality of shots, movements and colours. For my short film, I aim for every shot to be perfect when it comes to what is placed within the frame, the type of depth of field I use whether it be shallow or deep and I want the type of lighting to be fitting for specific scenes that have different moods. But to be able to achieve this for my short film, I need to research more techniques on how to attain the cinematic look and use the knowledge from researching and put it into action with experimental shots. I should also ask the technicians to teach more skills on how to use the Canon DSLR's.
27/03/2017
For my project proposal, I had begun writing up my rationale and project action plan and timetable as writing up my rationale will allow to gain an idea of what skills I have learned from past projects that I have done and how I will be utilizing those skills in my FMP. Moreover, writing up my rationale is helpful to me as writing down how I have gotten inspired by other sources and writing down my own creative ideas motivates and influences me to broaden my mind to other spectrums of creative ideas and always improve my ideas or footage as I can never be too content with what I produce unless I have spent a lot of time experimenting, re evaluating my work and requesting peers or teachers for feedback and using that critical feedback to improve my work. As I am writing up my project action and timetable,it had immensely motivated me to put my time managament skills to use in this FMP as managing my own time efficiently plays a huge part in this project and I know for a fact that I do not have time to waste in this project and it reminds me that I must work hard every day even on the weekends although I am not in college as working hard and following a schedule will empower me to be on schedule when it comes to my work and I will not fall behind and end up stressing out when I am nearing the deadline for my FMP. I can truly feel that this FMP is not going to be an easy project and my journey in completing and always updating my work on my Wix site will be difficult however, I am reminding myself daily to work hard on my project because I refuse to be content with just getting either a pass or a merit but I will aim for the highest as this is the attitude that will aid me in obtaining my distinction.
Therefore, my next aim is to complete the rest of the project proposals to my best writing abilities, always checking whether my writing makes sense and that my grammar, spelling and puntcuation are all correct.
28/03/2017
As of the work I had completed today, I have been been focusing my FMP project on the topic of LGBT and the discrimination of LGBT, I had met up with a friend of mine that is studying a course similar to mine of creative media and I had been given a magazine from the British Film Industry about the BFI Flare Film Festival and their theme for the film festival is about LGBT. I had read the magazine that was given to me and I noticed that the BFI Flare Festival is showing many different kind of LGBT short films about love, sex and mind. Finding out about the BFI Flare Film Festival was something very helpful and something that I should consider attending a couple of times and watch these short films that others have made about LGBT and review them for my Wix site as part of my primary research.
I think attending one of these film screening events will aid me in gaining more ideas for my own short film and if I happen to receive the chance to attend and watch an LGBT short film in the BFI Film Festival, I should think about bringing a notebook and taking down notes such as what I thought was strong or weak about the film, analyse the content of the film moreover, analysing the micro and macro elements of the film as that is something I enjoy doing when I am watching and reviewing a film. When it comes to this topic of attending the BFI Flare Film Festival, I will aim to look for a day where I am free and available so that I can book a day to watch an LGBT film of my choice so I may have more research to put on my research page. Furthermore, hopefully, I gain some more creative ideas for my shot film when I do watch a short film as I feel as if I need more unique ideas for my short film as I need more ideas to consider using for my short film.
29/03/2017
Two more days before we leave for our Easter holidays and as I have not managed to speak to my advisor about my project to see what her opinions and suggestions are for me, I decided to book a time where I am able to speak to her. From seeing and speaking to my advisor, I had been told that what I have so far for my project is going well so far with my experimental production shots, research and evaluations are all up to date. Furthermore, my advisor had stated that I have a lot of research on my page with both secondary and primary research conducted. However, when my advisor had asked my what my LGBT topic is focusing on, I did not know how to respond as from my project so far, I had been focusing on LGBT as a whole. What I personally want to focus on is the discrimination of the LGBT community but as I was still quite indecisive on my topic, my advisor had suggested the topic of discrimination and labels as it seemed to my advisor, these two topics are what I am most passionate about from what I have said to her about what my topic is truly about. At first, the idea of changing my entire subject for my Final Major Project sounded and seemed incredibly daunting and my feelings towards it were very unsure as I had completed a huge amount of work for the topic of LGBT however, I had thought about the strengths of changing of my FMP topic and I know that the journey in creating and producing my final outcome is what matters as seeing my journey of choosing a particular topic I wish to focus on, heavily researching through secondary resources and primary researching about my topic, producing an idea for my outcome and experimenting for my outcome to finally construct a strong and high quality outcome for my FMP.
As I have now decided to change my topic to discrimination and labels, my advisor had also proposed that I do some further research and look into what kind of subjects within discrimination and labels that I am passionate about as if I am passionate about a specific subject, I will work more much harder and my performance will be stronger. Although I am completely changing my subject, I am aware that I will have to start from the beginning meaning that I have to conduct a lot of research online or myself and I do not mind, in fact I feel more fresh in this FMP like an artist beginning to create art on a blank canvas hence why I am feeling no where stressed or helpless as my journey in this FMP is productive as I am showing my ideas and work transitioning and from transitioning, my work will be better than my last ideas. What I plan to do tomorrow is research a particular topic that links to discriminations and labels and begin to do my intense research.
30/03/2017
Last night and today's class, I have been continuing my search for a topic within discrimination and labels yet so far I have not come across a subject yet. Therefore, I had decided to think to myself on what subjects I am incredibly passionate about and issues that I fight for. I am a feminist, although I am not an activist of feminism, I consider myself a feminist as I believe in equality of both men and women and as I hear so many stories and I come across many news articles and stories about feminism, inequality towards women, anti feminists attacking people, this is the moment in which I realised that I want my topic to be about feminism and the discrimination of women in this present day as equality between men and women still does not exist as feminists are still currently fighting for equal rights whether it be political or social as I know for a fact that us women still experience violence such as rape or domestic violence and women still experience discrimination in work places as some women not get the same pay as men do although they work same hours and same shifts yet they still face prejudice due to them being a woman.
As I have finally chosen my final topic and I am certain that this is the topic I wish to base my FMP on, I had pitched this topic to my advisor and she had agreed that it was a good topic to focus on as there are many issues within feminism therefore, a lot to write about and research about to gain ideas for my FMP outcome and inspiration for my outcome. I'm feeling quite excited to be focusing my FMP on feminism as it's a topic I am vigorous and fervent about hence why I feel as if my FMP will be successful. Although LGBT is a subject I too am passionate about as I believe that the LGBT community should not be discriminated due to their sexuality and sexual orientation however, I personally take more an interest in feminism. Maybe this is because I do not understand the LGBT community as I am not a part of it but as a young woman and seeing the world attacking women socially, politically, mentally, physically and emotionally and experiencing some of these hostile behaviour myself, I can extremely relate to feminism and fighting inequality against women.
As I am going to be going on out of the UK during the Easter holidays to Spain and Portugal, I will be unable to gain access to wifi or to the internet therefore, I will not have the chance to research through online secondary sources about facts and statistics, blogs, vlogs or videos and websites about feminism that may aid me in my research page. Since I will not be able to do a lot of writing and research, I had decided that my aim during the duration of my Easter holidays in another country, I will capture some unconventional shots of the locations I see in Spain since I do not know anyone in Spain that I can photograph but I will take odd yet abstract photographs of my surroundings as part of my experimental shots since taking shots from different angles that may not be commonly used can allow me to create ideas or shots that I will use for my outcome. When I come back from my holiday, I will upload the alternative shots that I have photographed and write up a paragraph explaining how I had chosen to take each photograph from a particular angle or why I choose to have the photo in either low key or high lighting.
Although I am excited for basing my FMP on feminism, I feel quite blue that I will not be able to do research about feminism for 2 weeks and as soon as I arrive back in the UK, I will be extremely behind on my work and I will feel tremendously stressed out about trying to catch up on 2 weeks worth of work however, I must stay sanguine and optimistic on my work if I wish to achieve high standard work and manage my time effectively to catch up on my schedule for my FMP.
03/04/2017-17/04/2017 EASTER HOLIDAY EVALUATIONS
During my holiday in Spain and Portugal, I was very limited as to conducting research on feminism however, I did not want to spend my holiday just enjoying the sun and not being productive when it comes to my Final Major Project therefore, during my holiday as I have travelled many different locations from beaches, plazas, rural and urban locations, I wanted to use my surroundings and these different locations as my muses rather than using people as my muse in my photographs.I had taken many photographs in which explore a variety of unusual and unordinary types of angles and framing shots. I am feeling quite content that I have been productive with my technical production work and I have something to upload and write about on my Wix page when I return back to the UK and I have something to show my advisor and class peers so that I can request for both positive feedback and critical feedback about my work to improve them. I have taken around 7 photographs that all have different locations, different focusing points, different angles and different lighting that are intentionally meant to appear that way. I definitely consider taking odd photographs of locations of Spain as useful or beneficial when it comes to my outcome about feminism.
I have been thinking about what I wish for my outcome and as my original idea before was to make a short film that as along the theme of LGBT, on the other hand, now that I have transitioned my idea from LGBT to feminism, I want to change my idea completely and I do not want to make a short film. Throughout my holiday, I have been contemplating and attempting to come up with ideas for what I shall produce as my outcome however, it was quite difficult picking between a documentary or a blog website that consisted of writing and vlogging. Although documentaries are difficult to create especially with a last minute, tight and short schedule, I thought it was quite challenging trying to find experts, waiting for experts to get back to my emails and booking day where I can interview them. If I do not have any experts that are willing or available to be interviewed for my documentary, then it would consequence in my documentary not being as strong as codes and conventions of documentaries consist of involving interviews with experts therefore, that was one of the cons to producing a documentary as my outcome for my FMP.
Still in search for an outcome idea for my project, I enjoyed looking at the view of Spain and Portugal, hoping that the view would inspire me somehow but it inspired in a different way and I had been influenced to write poetry about how infatuated I am with the views I have seen. Eventually, I had become inspired by my inspired moments and I had come up with the idea of writing a poem about feminism and creating a poetic video montage as my final outcome. I personally think that this idea would be increasingly better than creating a typical short film about fighting for women's rights and having actors act as feminists since a lot of other students wish to create short films but I want to create something more symbolic and I want to create something that my audience would not understand immediately but cause them to reflect and ponder on what my poetic video montage is trying to represent and signify to my audience.
As soon as I get back, I will pitch this idea to my advisor and hear her thoughts on my outcome ideas whether it is a strong or weak idea as I want to create an outcome that will get me the distinction I am aiming for.
18/04/2017
I am finally back from my two weeks holiday from Spain and Portugal and I am feeling quite stressed out as from looking at my production schedule, I only have 5 weeks left until the deadline for the Final Major Project comes and 5 weeks is not a long time but a very short limited time. I have not managed to conduct any research on feminism yet and I find that incredibly worrying as I technically have not even started my new project of feminism and I am behind in a lot of work such as research, experimental shoots, writing up a new project proposal and outcome ideas. However, I refuse to let te stress get to me and consuming me and allowing me to be filled with anxiety therefore, I am glad I am back where I have access to wifi and the internet and my research begins today. To start off, I have begun researching the facts and statistics of feminism in the UK and in the USA where feminist movements are most active and inequality towards women are most high according to online newspapers.
As I continue researching, I learn more new facts about feminism I was not yet aware of and one of the most interesting facts that I was quite astonished by is that the UK is one of the worst countries when it come to inequality towards women and this fact was something that got to me and a fact I can relate to due to the fact I am a British citizen and a young female. Reading this fact is quite triggering for me as I question to myself whether or not I will experience discrimination and prejudice because I am a woman in the nearby future and how I should react to this discrimination as I certainly will not take it lightly and fight for my human rights and my equal rights. Moreover, I am quite glad that I have read this statistic and felt some sort of feelings towards it as this motivates to me to work harder in my education and to achieve the highest so that in the future, I can say that I was successful in my education which had led to me having a successful and bright future and I had did it all myself, as a woman, in which I hope that I do not sound like a cliche feminist but I truly feel as if some do not believe that women can't be as successful as men because I believe that anyone can do anything if they put their mind to it, as a man and as a woman.
Even though I have not done as much research, I am still pleased with myself that I had used my time efficiently and begun my research as I would rather have a little bit rather than no research and that is why I am still feeling as optimistic about my FMP project but tomorrow, I will aim to do further research on more facts and statistics and attempt to look for good feminist blogs with particular writing styles whether they are written informally or formally.
19/04/2017
As I was scrolling through my twitter page the night before, I had come across a tweet I had retweeted from a while back and it was a video link to Emma Watson's feminism speech that she had conducted at a UN meeting. I had rewatched her speech in my lesson and I must say that I honestly find her a role model for women that support feminist movement as she is not only just saying that she supports feminist but she is an activist for feminism and she is doing something to make a change between the equality of the sexes.
From Emma Watson's speech, I had become intrigued on what feminist organisation she is supporting or is a part of and I wanted to look more into this organisation to see what other events they have conducted and from reading articles about Watson's speech, the organisation is called HeForShe and one thing I found interesting about HeForShe is that they focus on how men feel and hindering men from following masculine stereotypes as HeForShe believes that men and women can experience both masculine a feminine feelings without being judged by others saying that it is not right for them to feel something that the opposite sex should be feeling and I personally enjoyed researching and reading the HeForShe website online as I can relate to it as I believe similarly to what HeForShe are fighting for as I too think that men and women should equally have the right to feel what they feel and not feel obliged to keep their feelings bottled up inside.
Being able to find an organisation online that have similar beliefs as I do is frankly relieving and soothing to me because knowing this allows me to remind myself that I am not the only one that believes that men are suffering from discrimination too or are hiding away their true feelings due to fear of being told off for feeling something they are conditioned to think they are not allowed to feel. This is the reason why discovering HeForShe is a convenient and useful organisation for my project, it will empower my beliefs which will eventually allow me to come up with an idea for my outcome that links to my beliefs. For the next day, I will be attempting to look for more feminist blogs or websites that revolve around the theme of feminism and discrimination towards women as part of my further research.
I am keeping in mind that I only have 5 weeks left until my deadline and I cannot help but still feel a little bit stressed out about my deadline date and the time I have left but as long as I continue my work and work my utmost hardest, I think that I will be able to catch up in no time.
20/04/2017
Since I have been always aiming for myself to look for more sources and facts about feminism and as I have been researching about the HeForShe organisation yesterday, I wanted to find out more facts and information about them and I had come across a particular post they uploaded on their website that is mentioning about a collaboration with a brand called Boy Toy. I had begun reading this online post and what I found fascinating is that both organisations of HeForShe and Boy Toy had created a donation and produced a boy doll that kids, whether they are boys or girls can play with to increase diversity in the toy universe which will hopefully allow kids to grow up and be conditioned into accepting all types of cultures, skin colours and gender.
Moreover, I had also come across a video of a father talking about how his son choosing a Little Mermaid Ariel doll as his birthday present and how the father is there to support their decisions no matter what. Although the boy doll collaboration was a very good idea in making a change for younger girls and boys, it did not inspire me as much as watching the video of the father and his kids as in the video, the father's speech to his kids was very touching as the father in the video I had discovered passionately spoke about bringing his kids up to make their own decisions and how he and his wife will be there to support their choices in life and yet again, this is something that inspires me as it is something that is relatable to me for this is the type of parenting I wish all parents would follow as from my own experiences and analysis from other parents that I know, all I see are parents correcting their children when they do something abnormal as a girl or as a boy such as boys paying with barbie dolls or girls playing with action figures and it always made me feel quite sorry that kids are growing up this way hence why I feel as if this video had such an impact on my thoughts. The father's speech should impact all of the viewers whether they are parents or kids, those who have watched the video should use this father as a leading role model and example of a loving parent.
Stumbling on this video of a father and his sons was definitely the highlight of my research today as due to hearing the father's speech towards his sons and giving them the freedom to make their decisions and feel how they wish to feel yet still supporting them no matter what is a huge inspiration and influence as it allows me to want to write a poem about how men and women as children or as adults should too have the freedom to feel what they want to feel, speak their minds and be treated all equally no matter what their sex is.
Yet again, for tomorrow, I am aiming to research popular feminist blogs and I have got one blog in mind called Lenny Letter in which is led by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner. I want to be able to read some online articles that Lenny Letter has posted about feminism and analyse their writing styles and the way they portray their message through writing and images.
21/04/2017
Yesterday, I had planned and intended that today I will research Lena Dunham's infamous online newsletter called "Lenny Letter". As Lenny Letter have many articles posted that are themed with social, political, health and lifestyle, however as I am focusing on feminism, I researched on Lenny letter feminism to attain written articles about feminism or articles related to feminism and I had come across a few articles but I had chosen two very interesting stories that had caught my eye and one of them was written by award winning actress, Jennifer Lawrence.
After I had looked and read her article about why she isn't paid as high as male actors, it had left me feeling quite annoyed and irritated about her situation that had occurred It's difficult as a young female reading about how women still struggle to gain equal treatment in their workplaces especially if it's a well known and famous woman that a lot of younger women and girls look up to and adore, it's difficult reading about how our role models actually suffer the same situations we do although we thought that they may not but they are human, they are women so of course the still face the discrimination all women feel as we live in a world where we still fight for equality as no one's lives are perfect. Yet again, I feel somewhat quite joyful that I found an article that had triggered feelings and emotions about Jennifer Lawrence's unequal situation as the more I read and discover that women's unequal treatment, the more I become passionate about speaking out for women's equal rights and also men of course.
From reading Jennifer Lawrence's article on her personal experience about men she has worked with not treating her justly or equitably, it had caused me to have the want to write a short poem and this is one of the main reasons why I wish to write a poem for my final outcome and record myself whilst playing a video montage that will symbolically signify feminism and events that had occurred due to feminists. I decided that one article is not enough for me to read on Lenny Letter therefore, I had chosen another article that was written by Lena Dunham and Gigi Hadid, discussing Hadid's attack and self defence experience in Paris. I chose to read and analyse this article as I think the article was symbolically implying the message of fighting back, not physically fighting but fighting for what people personally believe in hence why it's a great article as it can have multiple meanings and it depends on how the audience or the readers interpret the article.
Reading these articles from one of the feminist blogs that I am inspired was very productive because these articles especially the article that was written by Jennifer Lawrence had influenced me to write about the problem that some women ignore situations when they are facing inequality and my aim for my Final Major Project is to promote the message of equality for men and women and for it to not be ignored but for action to take place in order to make a change.
23/04/2017
I had been contemplating whether to just produce a poetic video montage as my final outcome but as I have been thinking, I think that it is best to create an online blog as with online blogs, I have the chance to post whatever I wish to make whether it is an article, a video montage, educational video talks, podcasts, photographs or even poems. By creating an online blog as my outcome for my feminism project, this will not limit my work and my experiments as I can experiment in different writing styles for when I write an article and I can experiment different ways of conducting a podcast whether it be an audio only podcast or an audio and video podcast session. I have the opportunity to create many outcomes in my blog and this could target a large variety of people when it comes to my audience as some may enjoy reading rather than watching videos and some may enjoy listening to podcasts rather than visually watching or reading, this signifies that having an online blog with different kind of outcomes can allow my online blog to have a larger range of different people that are a part of my target audience.
I feel incredibly relieved that I have managed to come to a conclusion on what final outcome I will be producing for my FMP as I have been so indecisive for the past few days whether to produce a short film or a poetic video montage but I am immensely happy with what I have decided to make since online blogs allow me to combine my strengths such as writing, taking photographs and filming and editing into one outcome.
All I must do now is begin researching what blogs are and what bloggers usually include within their blogs as there are many different styles of blogs on the internet and what I will aim for the next upcoming days is to find examples of blogs that inspire me when it comes to their blog style. Furthermore, another objective that I am targeting myself is to research more blogs that address the issue of feminism and read some articles to gain some inspiration on what I can discuss on my own feminist blog as feminism is a very broad subject and there are many issues within the subject and I should aim to find subjects that I will talk about or focus on. I cannot describe how positive and confident I am feeling about my FMP project as some of my ideas are coming together. I do not have a complete and clear idea of my whole outcome yet but I am glad that I am coming up with ideas and being inspired by articles I discover online as they play a huge part in aiding me come up with creative ideas for my blog.
Time is ticking and the deadline draws nearer and nearer each day but what I must say is that I am proud of my improvements when it comes to starting a new topic and catching up with my research as I did not believe that I would be able to catch up as fast I did this week as I expected to take around 2 weeks to have enough research about my topic and create an idea for my FMP outcome.
22/04/2017
To me, research is not research until one researches about the history and backstory of the topic of their choice. Knowing and being aware of the history of feminism is key in me gaining a better understanding of feminism as feminism has played a huge part in history as many occurrences had happened over the centuries when it came to women politically and socially fighting for their human and equal rights and to be accepted and treated like how society treat men. I read many different articles from many different secondary sources online and I had learnt so many new facts and information about the rise of feminism in the first wave, learning all of this was very overwhelming to take in as it teaches me as a young woman to not take anything for granted such as education, having the right to vote as an 18 year old, having the freedom of speech and equal rights.
Learning about how women in the past that did not have the same life that I live with the opportunity to access these political and social pleasures allows me to be grateful to have this chance as a large amount of feminists from the first, second and third especially the first wave had died and became martyrs for feminism. In addition to that, the history of feminism had allowed me understand the changes that have too occurred and how today's society is the way it is, linked to the subject matter of women. The subject of history itself gives us humans an insight of the origins of the humanities and philosophies of the past hence why, being able to learn and gain a better understanding of why men and women had to follow traditional gender roles and stereotypes will aid me in the ability to comprehend what women and men that were part of the feminist movements that were founded and created over the century had done what they did for their beliefs.
Did I feel something when I researched about the history of feminism? Yes of course, I highly relate to feminism as I have stated many times. I feel as if all women can relate to feminism because there must be a time where most of women have experienced inequality due to being born with a vagina. I will always feel some sort of emotion when I research and read something that is about feminism because I have so many different views about discrimination, labels and feminism. Although I have conducted a large amount of research on the history of feminism, my research will not stop and there are many more events that transpired that I may not have been able to research yet. I would consider today as one of my most productive days during the duration of my FMP as I have researched a great quantity of research within one lesson compared to other lessons where I would sometimes lose concentration and not produce as much work as I usually would but as I have been feeling sanguine abut my FMP recently, I have been overly driven to catch up on the FMP project.
When it comes to my research, I have only been focusing my secondary research on secondary sources from the internet and this isn't very good as it is not portraying my wide range of different secondary sources such as books, podcasts and videos therefore, I will target myself to go to the library and borrow books about feminism and take down notes and information I have learned for my research but using a different type of secondary resource.
24/04/2017
Since scrolling through twitter had resulted in me discovering older news reports and articles about feminism, I decided to look and scroll through twitter yet again in hopes of finding some more interesting news on feminism back in 2016 and luckily, I had stumbled across the video that was surfacing the internet around fall time of 2016 and it was the video about "Hugh Mungus". I think coming across this video again had helped me in my research as I have discovered another topic I can look into and research and that is radical feminism and extremism within feminism. I think that Hugh Mungus is an example of extreme feminism as a man was wrongly accused of sexual assault by a violent feminist and is being patronised by the woman whilst she is filming the whole incident. Being able to comment my own thoughts about what is going on in the video helps me gain a better understanding of the different perspectives of feminism as there good sides and bad sids to feminism as some feminists can be quite extreme and the feminist in the Hugh Mungus is an exmaple, in my opinion. As I have researched about radical feminism, I want to continue learning about the negative topics that surfaced due to feminism. I think that looking into meninism may be interesting as when this word had emerged in the world, there was a huge social battle against these "meninists" and feminists and I found it quite interesting and honestly, ignorant. Today I have only researched a limited amount of material and I am not too pleased with that since I have a deadline to worry about and I cannot afford to waste any time not doing any research or not producing any work for my wix site. I must always remind myself daily whether I am at home, in college or outside that I must work harder each day if I wish to achieve the highest grade in this FMP project as I will not be content with what I have so far as to me, it isn't good enough compared to the work I have if I put more effort in.
25/04/2017
Since one of the targets I have set myself this week was to research other feminist blogs that have particular blogging styles. I have researched top 20 feminist blogs on the internet as this could easily lead me to the best online blogs that discuss feminism. I had randomly picked out websites that had the most interesting and intriguing web names and I chose MsMagazine and Feminist Frequency and these were the best choices as when I had begun looking into these blogs, I had discovered that I really like their distinctive writing styles and how their blog layout style for example MsMagazine had a very nice conversational informal writing style and their writing style made me feel as if it were a conversation between friends as I was reading some of the articles the bloggers had written and I looked up to that as with my own blog that I will produce, I want my target audience and I to be able to communicate and I want my target audience to sense a friendly and casual atmosphere when they are reading my blog articles I will post.
Also, on my research page I have commented on how I adore Feminist Frequency's blog layout as they do written articles but also they have created videos that discussed the theme of discrimination against women in the gaming industry and also in actual video games. I had decided to watch two of their videos to see how they talk about the issues they addressing or trying to make their viewers aware about and I watched a video of theirs called "All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games" and from hearing one of their fellow bloggers talk about the problems that video games are portraying in videos such as not promoting beauty within bigger or larger women but only slender women as most female characters in video games all have similar body shapes and in some video games, their bodies are overly enhanced in areas such as their breasts and buttocks making them bigger and unrealistic yet attractive towards straight male gamers as video games are usually targeted towards a male audience, in a way sexualises women's bodies and promotes sexual objectification on women. This is one of the most interesting and influencing videos I have yet stumbled across as from re watching this video around 3 times, I have been incredibly inspired to make videos such as this in which address an issue whilst explaining why the problem is so significant hence why my audience and I should raise awareness on the problem.
I am thinking on the lines of also filming videos and editing them to make an educational video about any topic I wish to focus on about feminism, this way will allow me to expand the different ways on how my audience may wish to learn whether they wish to read one of my articles or watch a video that tackles a topic of their interest. To be able to make these kind of videos, this would require me doing a lot of research and creating a good script. I will need to write a few drafts of the script to be able to perfect my script that will be good enough to use for my video. I am very pleased to say that today is another productive day linked to my planning for my final outcome as the more ideas that come to my mind, the more my outcome planning is becoming stronger so I will be able to begin creating and producing my blog and the contents of my blog.
Later on during my lessons, as I was rewatching the very same video from Feminist Frequency and a friend of mine in my class had begun watching the video and commented on how he disagrees with how video games do not promote body diversity when it comes to women. I was quite surprised and taken back that someone would disagree as to me, it was obvious that there is a limitation to body diversity on female characters in video games but as my friend and I had begun debating on this issue, I had come up with the idea of creating a podcast that can have a session where I can introduce an issue that women suffer and I can have people that do not agree with the statement to say their arguments during the podcast session and this is a great way of my target audience to see the fore and against arguments to statement and it can allow my audience to choose which one they personally believe in or support. I think the podcast idea is something worth trying and experimenting on so that I can personally make a decision whether it is fitting to put on my blog or not however, I am feeling quite sure that it's a good way for my target audience to learn new information rather than just reading or watching but opening their eyes and listening to a podcast.
My objective for tomorrow is to begin researching the definition of what a blog is and how to create a blog for my research page because this will help me acknowledge how to make my own blog for the future when I begin creating my online site. Another aim for tomorrow is to conduct an experimental podcast using the TASCAMS and microphones as my equipment to help me record the audio and edit that experimental audio footage to see if making a podcast is a good idea for my online blog.
26/04/2017
Today I had begun researching on how to create an online blog as I have no knowledge or even an idea on how bloggers have created their own blogs and I have always been curious. The only blogging platforms I am really aware of is Tumblr and WordPress however, I am not fully aware of the other examples of blogging platforms hence why I had started searching online. From researching, I found out that the top most popular and most commonly used blogging platforms are WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger and Wix however, since that is quite a few suggestions, I asked myself how I will choose between them all and I had come up with the idea of researching the pros and cons on each blogging platform as this will allow me to come to a conclusion which one will be most fitting and the best option to use for my online feminist blog.
Gathering all the research altogether, I had come to the conclusion on what blogging platform I will be using and my decision is to use WordPress as the information that was given to me on the websites state many positive and great reviews as compared to Tumblr or Blogger and as I wish for my online blog to be top quality as my final outcome, I wanted to choose the greatest choice. Since I have chosen to use WordPress in creating my online blog, I should be start experimenting on WordPress as I have never used this platform before unlike with Tumblr as I have had previous past blog accounts on Tumblr, I will need to experiment and investigate how to set up a blog and how to design my own blog layout. Experimenting before will allow me to gain a better understanding and be familiarised with WordPress.
Moreover, another aim that I wanted to achieve today as part of my productivity for today is to ask one of the technician that are experienced in conducting podcasts and has knowledge on how to set up equipment for a podcast. As the technician is giving me a tutorial on what podcasts are and how to conduct a podcast, explaining to me what equipment is needed and how to set up the equipment, I was taking down notes because I will definitely need these key information in the future when I conduct my experiments on podcasts and if I happen to like how my experiments on podcasts flow then I will use the information provided to help me set up when I record my professionally done podcast that will be uploaded on my online blog. As I was quite excited to conduct a podcast as I have always been interested in podcasts and the idea of having a group of people have a conversation about a particular theme in which leads to speaking about more topics within a huge broad topic therefore, I had begun doing my experiment for podcasts. One person was not enough for me to consider a an experiment and as a result to this, I had spoken to three other students in my class and we had discussed feminism in three different podcast sessions and I think it all those sessions have gone incredibly well and I am happy with the responses I have gotten from those whom I have conducted the podcast sessions with as I happen to agree with their beliefs and they have bought up other occurrences that have happened within the subject of feminism that I have not yet read about or yet heard of.
I am definitely happy with how my podcast experiment as it went excellently well with how setting up the equipment, adjusting the setting of the TASCAM to make sure that both channels will be heard and I am pleased with how the conversation in my podcast session went as I was originally going to expect that it would not flow effortlessly and those who I am doing the podcast with will treat the podcast as if it is an interview however, I was surprised that it did not turn out like that and it went better than expected although one of the podcast sessions sounded more like an interview and the conversation about feminism did not flow as I would have thought it would however, I am still pleased that I have two other podcast conversational sessions that turned out better than my expectations.
My next aim for tomorrow will be to upload my podcast experiment files on to an edit suite and begin editing it. I need to edit these audio files as there are parts where I or the other party speaking begin to stutter or have a long pause of silence and I did not want that to be heard on my podcast sessions therefore, I will begin editing all three podcasts on Adobe Premiere tomorrow. Today has been very productive when it comes to my production page as I have more to add in and analyse whether they are strong or weak pieces of work.
27/04/2017
Since yesterday I have organised and directed a few podcast experiments, today I had targeted myself to begin editing them so that I can make the audio files sound more like a podcast. I had begun using Adobe Premiere to edit the audio files however, Premiere is used for editing videos and a bit of sound and using this editing platform was not at all helpful and it was useless trying to edit my podcast audio files on this as I was limited to audio effects on Premiere. Since I was feeling hopeless on editing my podcasts, I didn't know what other editing platforms I could use to edit my podcasts as I had no knowledge on how to use audacity and from researching, I have heard and read that audacity is not the best platform to use when editing podcasts.
I had resulted in asking a technician for advice on how to edit my podcast and they had introduced me to another editing platform specifically focused on editing audio. I was given another short tutorial of the basics on how to use Adobe Audition and was given the answers to my questions such as how to separate the right and left channel when editing and how to increase the audio gain as I had faced problems when it came to the audio because only my voice was being heard and those whom I was previously talking to could not be heard as much and at times some were not even heard at all. I must say that editing the audio on Adobe Audition was a lot harder and very challenging compared to when I edit footage on Adobe Premiere, this could be because I have more experience on Premiere compared to Audition but overall, editing the audio was quite stressful and tough. An example of how difficult it was to work with is that when I attempt to cut unnecessary silent pauses, if I am not specific in where I cut the audio, the rest of the audio will end up echoing and this had gotten very annoying but as I kept editing and continued experimenting, I learned that I must be very careful and specific where and how I cut the unwanted audio.
Additionally, I wanted to edit my audio and make it sound as similar to a podcast, I researched on YouTube for a video tutorial on how to edit podcasts and I had learned that there are audio effects on Adobe Audition and I could locate an effect called "Podcast Voice" in which will allow the audio I have selected to sound like it is a broadcasted podcast session. I have managed to edit one whole podcast session and I am quite pleased with with how I edited my experimental podcast since it sounds like a casual conversation talk between two friends whom are discussing feminism as a whole. Although conducting and editing the podcast both went well, I should remind myself that when I conduct another podcast in the future as part of the content on my online blog, I should always think about how to properly set up the equipment and adjust the TASCAM recorder settings and microphones correctly so that both channels can be heard when editing so it is easier for me as the editor.
The next aim I should think about achieving is narrowing down my subject of feminism and focusing on a more specific topic within feminism. Moreover, I should edit the rest of the podcast audio files and once completed, I must upload the original audio footage and the edited audio footage on my production page, stating how I conducted the podcast, what equipment I used, how I edited the podcasts, the problems I have encountered and the strength and weaknesses of the podcasts.
28/04/2017
I wanted to achieve my aim today and I wanted to narrow my subject of feminism down to a smaller sub topic. Feminism is a very broad and important subject however, I need to find a sub topic within feminism that I am passionate about and interested in. I have researched on the net and even went to the library to find some books about feminism hoping to find some interesting feminist themes. As I was reading through a book that I had picked out in the library, I came across a page that discusses the issue of female workers lacking behind the camera and the page had further discussed about gender role stereotypes being portrayed in films and the media. Knowing me and my likes, I have always been interested in film making and films overall and I had decided in that moment that my topic for my Final Major Project will be women in film and behind the cameras. After discovering my topic, I wanted to do some research on it and find some facts and statistics to put on my research page.
Moreover, as I am still in the making of my online feminist blog, I needed a name for my blog but I was conflicted on whether to use "feminine gazette" or "candid feminist". Since I could not choose, I made a survey monkey poll and sent the poll to members of my class and I wanted to find out what they would like for my online blog to be named as other's opinions and thoughts are significant for my project. My poll had resulted in the majority choosing "candid feminist" therefore, that will be the name of my online blog for when I begin creating my blog on WordPress. Furthermore, before I had conducted another experimental podcast session, I wanted to listen to some more podcasts to gain some inspiration or ideas for my upcoming experimental podcast session and I had visited the BBC iPlayer Radio and I had researched if they had any podcasts that discuss feminism and I'd stumbled across a podcast playlist called "Call Yourself A Feminist" that is led by Historian Bettany Hughes. For now, I only listen to one of their 30 minutes podcast and I must say that it was very educating and informing as the podcast had explored through the history of feminism in the second wave and their own experience with joining feminist movements at that time and I definitely would say that I had taken in new information and knowledge that I did not know, even from previously researching all the waves of feminism.
After listening to that podcast example, I had began conducting my next experimental podcast and having an podcast session a few days before today was very helpful and useful as in this session, I was able to set up the equipment that I have borrowed within a short period of time as I have learned how to set up a few times already and I think that is something to be proud of. The podcast that I had conducted today was not as great as I was expecting it to be especially with whom I was speaking to for my podcast. I think what went wrong with my podcast conversational session was that the person who I was discussing feminist issues with had gone out of topic and shifted the subject matter on something else rather than the issues of feminism in which made the podcast very long and I did not have enough time to discuss other issues that I was planning on discussing. I don't think that I would use that if I were to put my experimental podcasts on my online blog as it was not the best podcast session I have done and I had done better podcasts that flowed more freely and smoothly than this podcast.
During the weekend, I want to think about what I can talk about when it comes to women in film and behind the camera for my articles and moreover, what kind of videos I can produce. I should research what issues are occurring with women in film and behind the camera and ensure that there are a variety of topics and issues that I can talk about in the articles I will write, videos, poems and podcasts. However, although the podcast did not go well, this podcast experiment can still go on my production page and I can explain unto why it wasn't a good podcast and what I could have done to make it better. I think that my research for my online blog name went well as I really like the name that was elected, also I was able to learn new things about the history of feminism not just form online sites but from a podcast in which had made my day very productive.
03/05/2017
I have decided to set up my WordPress online blog today and I have also begun experimenting on WordPress attempting to work out how to customise my site and edit the layout however, I was having a really hard time trying to get used to how WordPress works as it is quite difficult since I don't know where the menu's are to edit them and moreover, when I try to upload a header that I have quickly made for my blog is not uploading at all but no photos are uploading at all and they are not appearing on the site when I am trying to edit them and it is making it very difficult for me to edit my site the way I wish to.
I have tried to watch YouTube tutorials on how to set up a blog on WordPress however, the tutorials I have watched still did not help me in learning how to use WordPress and I am honestly feeling quite hopeless with using WordPress and I am currently contemplating whether to find another blog platform to set up my online feminist blog which may be easier to use and one that is a better option in hosting a blog. I did not expect to find using WordPress so challenging as from the research I have done about the comparisons of WordPress and other blogging platforms, they had stated that WordPress was the best option because it is easily operated, does not consume time in setting up a blog and it has no technical problems when it comes to customising a blog site however, I can definitely say that the reviews were not at all truthful as from my experience today, WordPress had a lot of technical problems: I was not able to upload a banner header for my blog, I was not able to change the background to a colour of my liking as every time it changes back to the default colour it originally was and I must say that these technical problems were very irritating and it was stressing me out since I wanted to be able to set up my blog and make layout changes by the end of today but I do not think I am able to do that unless I quickly find another substitute for a blogging platform and quickly make an account so that I can set up a new online blog.
Not only that but I targeted myself to adjust the layout of my online blog to how I want it to look and appear so today, I must do a lot more research on what other blogging platforms I can use to set up my blog and I must keep in mind that I should read a lot more reviews on a blogging platform as I want to avoid making the same mistake I did with using WordPress and suddenly realising that it is not as good as other users have stated it to be. I am quite disappointed that I have wasted quite a lot of time today with setting up a blog using WordPress and wasting my time trying to edit my layout when the WordPress site is refusing to let me.
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As I have not managed to find a better alternative for my blogging platform, I had decided to use Wix as my last resort as Wix is a blog site in which I use everyday and I have most experience on this platform therefore, I will find it much easier to work on, publish my work, customise my layout etc. When I had finished setting up my new blog and customising the layout and the theme of my blog, I had decided to upload a small description on what my podcast discussion is about as I think that having a small description will allow my readers to be aware of what each podcast sessions will be about as some podcast discussions may not talk about interesting subjects to specific readers therefore, having a description can allow my readers to be able to choose their own interests when it comes to the subject of the podcasts.
I think that my blog is looking great and I am really pleased with the layout of my blog because my original aim for my online blog was to have a french vintage theme but contains modern photos and the writing style of my articles and text are very casual, similar to a regular conversation between friends as I want my blog readers to relate to my articles.
Overall, although I had wasted time attempting to work on WordPress which was very time consuming, I am pleased with the other work that I had completed today such as doing further research on lack of women in the film industry as this particular issue are what inspire me since I can almost relate to it since I am a young woman that wishes to pursue a career in the filming industry in the nearby future. My next aim for tomorrow is to continue experimenting on my feminist online blog and to choose a topic to base my first article on. I must remind myself to search for an interesting topic that I am incredibly passionate about so that when I am writing, I am able to produce a good writing piece as my first draft.
04/05/2017
Today, I had already set up my online blog on Wix and I also completed editing my first podcast on Adobe Audition, I decided to upload my first blog podcast post on my blog site. At first, I did not just want to upload my podcast audio on my blog as from looking at other blogs that published a podcast or a video, the writers of the blog write out a description of what the discussion in the video or podcast is and I had decided to do the same so that my readers or my target audience that view my blog will be able to understand and acknowledge what will be explored in the podcast.
After I have completed writing my description, I am pleased with how I wrote the description text as it is very casual and unpretentious yet it is still informing the readers what they will be listening to in the podcast discussion and that is exactly what I am aiming for when it comes to my writing style so being able to complete the description was quite productive today. I planned to upload my whole edited version of the podcast with my friend, Wura on my online blog however, when I tried to upload the audio on Wix, it was not allowing me to upload the whole podcast as it was a 614MB file and I can only upload files that are up to 5MB and this was very stressful as I had edited my whole podcast the previous day on Adobe Audition and now I have to re edit and take unnecessary content out of the podcast and this was very unfortunate for me because I liked all the topics that we had talked about in the podcast and I think that my target audience and readers would be interested in listening to the podcast.
However, I had come to the decision to keep the whole 28 minutes of my podcast and just split the podcast into five sections with 4 files having the duration of five minutes whilst one file will have the remaining 8 minutes of the podcast. I had decided to use the sound editing programme Audacity rather than using Adobe Audition as I am only simply splitting my podcast into 5 files and I am not complexly editing the audio with effects therefore, using a simple and easy platform such as Audacity is fitting. Editing was very easy using Audacity, it went very smoothly and I did not have any problems when it came to the process of editing however, when I had attempted to export the 5 edited files on audacity, the programme would not allow me to export them into an MP3 file and I could only export them as a WAV. file and this was a stress for me as Wix does not upload any music files that are not an MP3 files. But I had overcame this problem by exporting the files as an WAV file but i had researched on google and found a good website that allows me to convert my WAV. files into an MP3 file and it did not take a long time to convert but it only took a few seconds which was very convenient for me as it was not time consuming and not wasting my time. I uploaded the edited versions on to my Wix production page and I did not go through any technical difficulties as each files was under 5MB and successfully uploaded which I am pleased about since this could mean I have more time conducting more research or experiments for my project rather than re editing once again to be able to get the chance to upload my work on to Wix.
Not only did I upload these edited podcast files on to my production page but I had also decided to post them on to my Candid Feminist online blog and publish it, I did this because I am 100% pleased on how the editing went for the podcast and I am further pleased with how I edited the voices as both voices can clearly be heard and the podcast sounds very similar to radio podcasts in which is exactly what I am aiming for when it came to producing my podcasts. I think that I managed to reach the targets I had set for myself when I first began planning for my podcasts therefore, that is why I had decided to publish my first post on my online blog site. What I should think about doing next is conducting a focus group by showing some of my class mates or peers, second year and first years my online site and allow them to hear a snippet or the whole of my podcast with my friend Wura about feminism and receive some positive or critical feedback as this will help me see what I must improve on my site or on my posts so that my target audience will be more engaged.
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Another aim that I had managed to further complete is that I had done some more research on online blogs and analysing their themes, layout and their writing style. I had come across the online blog called Feministing.com and their writing style had really spoken to me as the writing style that I am planning on using is a casual and friendly writing style where the readers feel as if I, as the writer are speaking to them and having a normal conversation with them. I am really glad that I had found this online blog because their writing style is not only casual but their choice of vocabulary is aimed towards a younger audience and the way the article is written sounds very relaxed but the writer's feelings about the subject matter that is being discussed is still applied and being rendered in a passionate way and that is something I look up to for my own blog. Moreover, another reason why I am glad I had discovered this online blog is because as it acts as a huge inspiration and influence when it comes to my writing style for my own blog.
05/05/2017
Since I have already uploaded my first post on my Candid Feminist online blog in which is the edited podcast and description, I wanted to received some critical feedback on what my peers in my class or college think about my site and work I have published so far therefore, I have decided to conduct a focus group today. From the feedback I have received so far from second year media students, most of the responses that have gotten back to me were mostly positive and some responses had said that they really liked the layout and colour themes of my site as it was fitting for my subject of feminism, moreover, in the subject of my podcast, the responses were also very positive such as all were able to clearly hear both channels and voices in the podcast and the volume were perfect and one voice was not louder than the other however, a critical response I have gotten was to conduct and post another podcast session with a male and get his opinions on the subject of feminism in the gaming industry. I can say that I have already managed to o this task as when I was beginning to experiment with podcasts, I have spoken to a male friend of mine and I had managed to record his opinions on why he disagrees about how some video games are not anti feminist or portray women in stereotypical ways.
Furthermore, most of the responses I have gotten from everyone I have emailed had stated for my to post more posts and I will be able to do that in the next upcoming weeks as I am still currently planning and on the journey of producing my upcoming posts to publish on my site. However, doing the focus group has really helped me when it comes to improving my work as knowing what other people's thoughts and opinions on my work will allow me to acknowledge what areas of my work will need to be changed and constructive feedback will also allow me to formulate good quality ideas for my work.
I have also spoken to my FMP supervisor about my project so far and I am glad that I have managed to receive predominantly positive feedback on my Wix site which I am quite proud of however, I was also advised to do some further research on Geena Davis and her organisation and research more about women in the film industry, whether it be on screen or behind the camera as this is the narrow subject I have chosen within feminism. Not only did I managed to conduct a focus group today but from speaking to my supervisor about my project so far, I was advised to gather some more primary research and gather the public's opinions about my subject matter hence why I had thought of the idea of filming a group discussion. After conducting an filming the group discussion, I would definitely say that the discussion was very interesting as many of the participants that had joined had much to say as some of them agreed and some had disagreed hence why the footage of them stating their thoughts is fascinating and I am glad that I had managed to film the entire session as this would be great to upload on my research page.
Although, one thing that did not go as well as I expected is that a lot of unnecessary students were walking into the room and can be seen in frame and this ruins the atmosphere and setting of our discussion as this would promote the participants to be easily distracted and lose focus away from the distraction. I think the work I have produced today was very productive however, I am feeling quite doubtful that I will be able to complete my online blog with all my outcomes published on the site by the end of the deadline but I can only work harder and push myself more to be able to do my work on time and get all my work completed before the deadline.
The next objectives I should think about completing is to think about what my article will be based on as I want to begin writing my first draft next Monday or Tuesday and also, I want to edit the footage of the discussion on Adobe Premiere and upload on to my research page and write a description of the footage.
08/05/2017
I had conducted a discussion last week Friday on feminism within the filming industry and I did not get the chance to edit the footage therefore, I had decided to edit the whole footage today. Overall, the footage was almost 20 minutes however, I had to edit it down to only 4 minutes as the audio was not good at all and the participants of the discussion that were speaking could not be heard due to unnecessary outside noise from the windows, sadly I could not use that part of the footage for the end outcome. I could have avoided this by closing the windows in the beginning before I had started to record and this would have allowed my audio to be more better and could improve so that I could be able to hear everyone speaking. Moreover, I had also cut out parts where some students had walked into the classroom and begun speaking to some of the participants in the discussion as it would have appeared very unprofessional although I do wish I could've prevented this from happening as all I would need to do is warn the classes that I will be filming in the room and lock the classroom doors, this would have helped make my footage better and able to use. Although I had to cut out most of my footage due to distractions and lack of audio, I think the remaining footage and audio that I have edited in is good as the group is heard discussing about how film stereotype genders and how women do not receive the same opportunities as men when it comes to being employed in the film industry and these are the subjects I wanted them to mainly focus on therefore, I am quite content with the outcome of my discussion video as the group still had managed to speak about their opinions and thoughts whether sexism exists within the film industry or even the gaming industry. I did not manage to complete as much tasks I had originally planned to do as I had attended a talk in college that had taken up my time to work in class therefore, I did not manage to be as productive when it comes to my project however, I will use my time effectively tomorrow and make sure that I complete a good amount of work so that I could get as much work done for my final major project.
09/05/2017
Since the previous day I did not manage to receive a chance to do as much productive work due to some obstacles that had prevented me from doing work but today, I had told myself that I should complete complete my first draft of my blog article. At first, I had begun trying to find a topic in which I can focus my article on however, I had found it quite difficult trying to find a topic that I can passionately discuss. But, in the end I had managed to find a subject from researching sexism in the filming industry and finding out the negative encounters some female directors, producers and cinematographer's experiences with sexist comments from other workers in the film industry.
As I had felt quite offended whilst reading these experiences, I came to the conclusion that my first blog article will talk about sexism towards women in the film industry and my reason on why I chose this particular subject is because I relate to this subject not because I have experience sexism whilst working in film but because I wish to pursue a career in the film industry in the nearby future and I could possibly experience these acts of sexism therefore, I think that talking about a subject where I am passionate about the topic and I find it relatable will allow me to produce a good strong piece of work. I had managed to complete my first draft today and I feel quite content with how I have written my first draft of my article as I had followed a particular writing style in which is a casual and informal style as I personally think that having an informal writing style allows my target audience which vary from teenagers to young adults to relate to how I write since the recent generations would be able to correlate to an article that involves slang and laid back choices of idioms.
Moreover, I think that writing my first draft was quite easy and I had written the article as if I am having a conversation to a friend about sexism in film and I personally think that one strong aspect about my first draft is that the text flows well but what I must do next is to present my first draft of my article to my supervisor or a teacher and receive some critical feedback on what is strong about my first draft and what I must improve to make a better article for my second draft. As I could not wait until tomorrow for feedback as I really wanted to get another draft finished tomorrow or the next day after that, I had decided to ask a film studies teacher as my topic on my blog article is mainly focusing on the film industry and a film studies teacher that is specialised in film's feedback and comments would be helpful for me.
I had received feedback from this teacher and she had given me a lot of critical comments and other topics to include into my article. Some of the feedback given to me was to include how world leaders such as Donald Trump openly making misogynistic remarks and the media have not challenged his remarks to make a change and how Margaret Thatcher did not make much of a change when it comes to modern day feminism as this would aid me to talk about the political side of feminism but also, I should also mention more female directors that need to produce films that aren't what is considered as "masculine films" but also feminine films that portray broader issues in the world as this too is a problem in the film industry.
Another critical feedback that was given to me was to raise questions on what women bring behind the camera and whether or not women see the film world differently or use the cinematic space or lighting differently and how they may direct in a more feminism way as to men because these are interesting questions and subjects to raise and discuss on my article. After completing my first draft article and feedback on my work, I would consider that today has been very constructive for my project and also I am very, very content on my first draft article as I think that I had managed to hit the criteria that I aimed for myself within writing my blog article but also I am glad that I had managed to push myself to asking for feedback as this would allow me to acknowledge what I must improve on my first draft and continue writing a second draft that is more better than the first.
Tomorrow, I shall aim to complete my second draft and adding all the advised subjects on my article but also following the casual writing style that too is informative for my readers.
10/05/2017
From the feedback I have been given by a film studies teacher on my first draft of my blog article, I had begun writing up my second draft as I have been given critical comments and suggestions to add on to my second draft. I think writing up my second draft was quite more challenging than when I was writing my first draft because I found it more difficult writing about the political side of feminism and talking about the Donald Trump and Margaret Thatcher issues as I do not have much knowledge on these particular subjects and I had to do further research to further understand what is occurring with them do that my article will make sense.
However, I found it much easier talking about how more female directors should be employed in the film industry and the difference on how male or female directors direct and produce a film as males and females both have a different way of illustrating a message in a film and also use the cinematic space differently. These subject matters were easier for me to discuss on my article because I have a larger interest in film and film making rather than politics as I am studying about media and I relate to film as I will further continue my studies in University to study about film production and cinematography.
Having finished my second draft of my article, I am pleased with how I have written it as I have still followed my casual and informal writing style however, I need to work on how I must end my article as I am not very content with how I have finished the blog article since it doesn't sound as if I have finished the post. I think what I should do next with my blog article is ask for more feedback on my second draft so that I can be given suggestion on how I must improve my work and also how I can end the article. Furthermore, from speaking to my advisor about my project so far, we had discussed about what I can do for my moving image video that I will produce for my blog however, I am still unsure on what I can create as I do not have a variety of video ideas that I can film but I was suggested to look into the Godley and Creme Cry music video and the Black and White Micheal Jackson music video as both these music videos share similar cinematography and editing as both the music videos consist of close ups of people's faces and the transition from one close up to another close up is almost merging the faces and an idea for my online blog is to film close ups of a large number of girls saying their thoughts on anything related to feminism or films and I will later edit the footage of all the females so that they can smoothly transition from one close up shot to another close up shot. Another idea for this video is to have their thoughts that they say also transition the same way the video footage of their faces do so that the editing for both sound and the video footage are the same.
The idea of this video is that this is a promotional video that is promoting and advertising my online Candid feminist blog so that my target audience can be attracted to find out what else is on my online blog but also to reach out to other people that are possibly not part of my target audience to spread awareness about feminism and sexism. What I must do now is to approach a technician and ask for advice on how I can possibly recreate the effect that the the two music videos that I had looked however, I think that I will need to use the editing programme, Adobe After Effects for this kind of effect.
Moreover, I should try to plan on who and how I can film the footage and for this, I will need to think of girls that I can recruit to participate when I begin filming and make sure that I have enough participants to film for my promotional video. I also must think about what kind of background I will use when I am filming the girls.
11/05/2017
As I have come up with the idea of creating a promotional video in which involves the special effects of morphing, I had decided to ask a technician for guidance on how I may do such an edit however, the advice that I was given wasn't too useful or beneficial for me as I was told the easier that does not require a lot of editing but the technique of using cross dissolve transitions does not sound as good to use for my promotional video. As it did not go as well with asking for advice form a technician, I had decided to research for myself and look for a morphing tutorial on YouTube and I am glad that I had done that as I managed to discover plenty of tutorials using After Effects.
From watching a tutorial, it seems very difficult and challenging to do, I am personally not as great when it comes to editing on the programme of Adobe After Effects however, I so still wish to pursue trying and attempting to morph the faces of the female models that I will be using for my promotional video as I want my promotional video to be quite fascinatingly bizarre for my target audience but I think having a weird special effect on my promotional video will attract a lot of viewers to watch the video and take a look at my blog.
Moreover, I had come up with more ideas for advertisement: Since my online blog's colour scheme consists of mostly white and a peachy pink colour, I am planning on filming all the female models that I am recruiting for my video in front of a green screen background so that when I edit the footage on Adobe Premiere or After Effects, I can easily change the colour from green to a peachy pink as using a green screen method separates the subject and the background from each other, which is a perk for me as editing will be no problem. What I am planning on doing tomorrow is conducting a shoot where I shall gather a bunch of females and I will begin filming them standing in front of the camera and I will direct them to say a sentence that relates to films and sexism in films. I should also book equipment as I have a lot of equipment to use tomorrow such as a Canon DSLR camera, the TASCAM and sound equipment, the green screen and lastly, LED lights so that the subjects will appear more brighter and happier.
However, I am very happy with the ideas I had constructed for my promotional video as I personally think that the videos I have come up with are quite unique as not much promotional videos use the idea of morphing faces as it may appear quite odd and weird but I think that it is considered as visually pleasing to the human eye and it will attract my target audience. One thing that I am quite worried about when it comes to this promotional video is attempting to morph all their faces together and have a smooth transition from one face to another as the tutorial I have watched looked very complex and I must take my time with the editing as I would not want to mess the editing up and have to start it over as that would be very irritating and time consuming but so far, I think my Final Major Project is going accordingly and I can only hope that I will complete all my outcomes before the deadline.
One thing I did wish to complete today was to start my experiments on the green screen as it would have been nice to do some experiments before officially filming tomorrow the footage that I will need to edit for my promotional video however, what I can do is experiment in the morning so that I am prepped to film and shoot later in the afternoon tomorrow.
15/05/2017
I wanted to complete all the targets I had aimed for myself last week and today, I had accomplished in finishing my final experiment on After Effects with doing the morphing and warping special effect and I think this had turned out very good considering it was my third time editing as the transition and the way I had edited the features on the face were very smooth and steady as I did not want it to look too harsh when they are transitioning form one face to the other. Despite the fact that I was rushing when I was editing this experiment, I did not manage to focus on doing the white outlines and editing them on Adobe Photoshop hence why the outline of the photos look quite messy and harsh however, that was not my highest priority at that moment as I was only focusing on transitioning the facial features and the shape of the hair as smoothly as I can.
I think that experimenting on editing these photos has given me a clear idea on how I must edit the footage that I will be later filming today however, I know that editing photos were the easier option and it is not as challenging as editing videos as these images are not digitally moving hence why having being able to edit the easier way first will gradually build me up to editing more complex and difficult videos. I had conducted my shoot today and gathered as much female that have free time and can participate in this shoot however, the number of females that I had filmed including myself were few in number and I had expected more females to film for my promotional video as I had contacted and texted more girls however, they were not free at 12pm or they were not able to make it to the shoot which is quite annoying however, I had expected that I would face problems with the shoot such as models not turning up. Due to the number of my models had decreased, this would consequence to my promotional video being shorter than I had originally planned As some of the models I had contacted did not make it for my shoot to film, I had to make do with the number of models that were available and I had directed them and conducted the shoot to the best ability as I could and it had turned out quite well as the lighting was very nicely set up, I had set up the camera and positioned all the models to the way I had wanted them to be positioned.
However, although some things had gone well with my shoot, I did still experience more problems that I needed to fix: As I had given each model a statistic of feminism and sexism in the film industry, some of the models had found it hard to memorise the statistic given to them and this was a time consuming problem since I could have searched for more girls that would be willing to be a part of my promotional video in other classes but I had stay, direct and prompt my models when they forget their statistic. Another problem that I had undergone for today's shoot is that there was a lot of noise and unnecessary background noise coming from the classroom next door from other students and it was very difficult to record audio as the TASCAM audio recorder could easily pick up the noise from next door and I had to result to requesting for the class next door to be quiet for a few minutes so that I could be given a chance to record the models speaking however, the silence from the other class did not last long and this had made it difficult yet again to record the other remaining models that I had to record. What I had to result to is to wait for the class to be quiet although this is the most time consuming option it was the best option considering how the students did not stay quiet although I had requested silence for a few minutes.
Having complete my third experiment on after effects and conducting my shoot for my promotional video, I feel quite productive and content with the work I had managed to complete as the work I had completed today are the aims that I had target myself to achieve for today from last week. Furthermore, although I had gone through many problems that could have prevented me from completing the work today, I am glad that I had dodged them as that would have consequently slowed me down and I would have been behind on the work I should be producing and this would not be good considering the deadline for the final Major Project is drawing closer.
For the next day, I should think about editing the footage on Adobe After effects just like the way I had edited the photos on my experiments. I will also remind myself to watch plenty of After Effects tutorials on editing two videos to morph together and take down notes on the step to step instructions to achieving this effect.
16/05/2017
From adding all the footage and audio in Adobe After Effects, I had realised that I had no knowledge or any idea on how to edit a green screen and change the coloured background. I should have researched instructions online or even watch a tutorial on how to edit a green screen on Adobe Premiere or After Effects during the weekend so that I would get have a good understanding on how to edit the green screen but since I did not manage to research, I had to quickly result to asking for a technician for help and advice on how to edit the green screen to another colour of my choice. If I had remembered that I was not only editing the models within the videos but also the green screen behind them so that I can choose a colour that will match and follow the colour scheme of my Candid Feminist blog, then I would not waste too much time on editing however, I had wasted editing time to asking for help in editing the green screen and experimenting on how to edit it whilst I could had already had an idea on how to edit the green screen and attempt to change the green screen to a different colour.
Finally learning and knowing how to edit the green screen to different colours, I had experimented using the key colour and key lighting effects as these effects are what will aid me in changing the green to a colour of my choice and it will also help me decrease the harshness of the edges of the models so that the edges are more smoother and this will allow the footage to appear less obvious that a green screen was used. However, from editing some of the footage, I had attempted to edit footage of my friend Mariam however, as she was wearing a yellow top, the yellow colour is quite similar to the green screen and this has made it incredibly difficult or almost impossible for me to edit the green screen due to the colours being very similar and this has ended as a consequence to me not being able to use it for my promotional video.
It's really saddening for me not being able to use this particular footage as the footage was very clear in quality, the audio was good because there was no loud ambient sound that can be heard in the background and I think that her footage looks very bright and bright footage would attract my target audience as usually and psychology, bright colours would attract the human eye. I had found it very difficult to edit the green screen if I am to be frank especially when it had come to making the edges of the models within the shot less harsh and more smooth as it looks very unrealistic when I experiment and that is not how I want the video to appear. It was also difficult to work the key colour effect as when I use the eye dropper tool to detect the green screen colour and the remaining tiny pixels of green still on the shot, when I try to rid the pixels by decreasing the colour tolerance, it would at times effect the model rather than the unwanted number of green screen pixels on the screen and it was difficult to get rid of them and I am still finding it quite hard to edit the footage.
If it is difficult to edit the green screen, I can only image how difficult it will be to edit the footage transitioning in a morphing warping effect and I am honestly quite worried that I will not be able to edit all the footage I have on time for the deadline or I will not be able to understand how to edit the green screen and how to morph the videos together and I will produce a moving image outcome that is not high quality and not worth even a merit grade. I am not really enjoying producing this promotional video so far because I don't think anything is going accordingly and going as I had originally planned, I am not too sure if it is because I do not know how to conduct a promotional video and how to edit it into a morphing and warping effect but I feel as if I do not have much knowledge about this and although I have done my research, I still do not understand because the websites and tutorials I have read and watched are not as helpful and useful in teaching me how to do these effects.
However, I will still continue researching and attempt how to edit this promotional video because I do not want to give up on it so soon and I want to try and complete this challenging task. I had made the decision to continue researching tutorials on the morph effect on After Effects and also how to edit a green screen because I think I need to have a clear and straightforward mind and understanding on how to edit these two things then maybe tomorrow, I will find it easier to edit.
19/05/2017
I am currently carrying on editing the footage and the audio for my promotional video however, although I have watched plenty of tutorials and researched step by step instructions on a variety of websites, the editing is still very difficult as I am still not very confident in editing the green screen as what I have edited so far does not look as professional as I wish for it to appear due to the tiny yet visible remaining green screen pixels that are still located on the edges of the models/subjects within the frame and I am finding very difficult to figure out how I can rid them without affecting the subjects as it seems that every time I increase the colour tolerance using the Key Colour effect on After Effects, it affects the subject too and it makes it even more challenging for me to attempt editing out the green screen and making it transparent.
However, I do not want to give up with editing this promotional video as I personally want to know how to perfect editing green screens or blue screens in case I may need to do this very same task in the future when I pursue learning about Film Production in University. Other than continuing editing my promotional video, I have spoken to my adviser yet again about how I am doing through the Final Major Project and updating my adviser with the work I have completed and the work I am still in the process of completing and I have received very good feedback with the work I have produced so far which I am quite content with. Another piece of feedback I have been given is to think about producing another outcome in which is making an online magazine spread for my online blog. I think making an online magazine spread is a very good idea for my blog because my target audience may be interested in reading magazines rather than articles published on a blog therefore, this would allow me my audience to have a variety of places on my blog to take a look at or read over and this will also allow me to reach the personal preferences of my target audience and this will have a variety of choices on my online blog to see which one they would rather look at.
I was advised to think about writing another article however, this time my new article for my online magazine spread should be a different topic as to lack of women in the film industry having job opportunities behind the camera but still in the lines of feminism and sexism in the film industry. I have been thinking of writing an article about the stereotypical portrayal of gender roles in films and focusing on the negative portrayal of female characters, this subject is a good subject for me to discuss in my magazine spread as I have researched a huge amount of information about this particular subject and I have attained a large amount of knowledge from doing deep and thorough research on many secondary sources from the internet and I think I would be able to produce a good written article during the weekend so that next week when I am back in classes, I can conduct a photo shoot for my magazine spread and begin editing the photos and I will be in the process of creating my magazine spread. What I should do this weekend is begin writing my first draft on Saturday and email the first draft to my adviser and gain some critical feedback on how I can improve the first draft.
If I do happen to receive feedback, I should write the second draft and complete the article before Monday so that on Monday, I will focus on the shoot I will conduct. During the weekend, I will also think carefully about what kind of photo shoot I will be conducting and what kind of photos I want to have for my online magazine spread. I should think about symbolism for discrimination and try to incorporate the symbols with feminism and this should construct an idea for my photo shoot on Monday.
21/05/2017
Today, I had decided to be productive in my weekend as my deadline is in 2 days and I am still planning on producing another outcome for my online blog and I am still in the process of planning on what I can write about for my magazine spread article and also what type of photos I should take that I will feature on my magazine spread. I had been deeply thinking on what subject I will write about yesterday and even today and I had finally chosen a topic that I am passionate about within feminism and sexism in the film industry and that topic is: Negative portrayal of gender role stereotypes. This is a really good subject for me to write about as I had been previously researching the negative portrayal of women on the films screen and I had eventually and gradually begun researching the stereotypes that films depict on films especially in horror films.
Another reason on why I had chosen this topic is because I personally do not like the thought of gender role stereotypes as I feel as if men and women can both equally do whatever you wish to do and their gender does not impact their abilities and strengths. I continued researching about this topic so that I get a more better and clearer understanding about how Hollywood films and films in general produced by film industries portray women in a negative way and how films portray men in a more positive way compared to women.
I had read many articles with facts and statistics and managed to produce a first draft of my magazine spread article and I am a little bit content with what I have written so far however, I feel like to improve this draft, I need to write a little more as I did not write as much as I was expecting to. I will need to research more information about gender role stereotypes in films more so that I will discover new facts to talk about in my article. On a positive note, I think the magazine spread article is very good as I am still writing in a casual style and my writing style is consistent and continuous throughout my Candid Feminist online blog so that my target audience can still relate from my blog article and now to my magazine spread article.
Moreover, another positive feedback I have to give myself is that is that I had managed to talk about a lot of the negative stereotypes of women in films however, I should have talked about other different genres of films that too portray negative gender role stereotypes rather than mostly focusing on horror films stereotypes. What I will do tomorrow is attempt to receive some feedback from my adviser on my first draft of my magazine spread article and once I receive critical feedback and advice on how I could improve my article to begin writing my second draft of my article and perfecting it so tomorrow, I can also begin editing and producing my magazine spread.
Tomorrow, I will also need to conduct my shoot for my magazine spread and I will need to prepare all props I need so that my photoshoot goes accordingly and smoothly.
22/05/2017
I had received feedback on my first draft from my adviser and from hearing back her person positive and critical feedback on my work, I had begun taking the feedback in and improving my work. Because I did not manage to add any facts or statistics to my first draft and I had only written about my person opinions and thoughts on sexism in horror films in particular, I conducted some further research on any case studies that have been conducted about sex and violence in horror films and also the treatment and portrayal of female and male characters.
Adding facts that have been concluded by researchers and concluded statistics on my magazine spread article has made my article much better because adding these types of information will allow my target audience to learn facts that they may have not known before and these facts are quite eye opening so they will allow my target audience to also think carefully about the facts that have been stated in my magazine spread article.
Moreover, I had also compared the treatment of female characters compared to male characters and I think mentioning how treatment towards female characters are more violent and humiliating and this is an issue that I had addressed to my audience as my target audience may be fond of horror films and not notice the sexism that is being subliminally portrayed on the film screen. Another topic that I had to address in my second draft for my target audience to self evaluate is the topic of sex with female characters and male characters: I want my audience to think about how horror films sexualise women and the portray women as sexual objects as some may not notice the true intentions of how horror films are infamous for having nude scenes where women are showing their breasts and bare nude bodies. I personally want my target audience to connect the dots between horror films and pornography as both have the same themes of sex and violence towards women and some people in the world may not even notice the links between the two although two are very different when it comes to their story and narratives and things in the media such as film and videos have a huge influence and impact on society especially the younger ones such as teenagers where they are vulnerable to being influenced easily.
I think the second draft of my magazine spread article is completely fine and I am very content with what I have written overall as I had gotten my message across in the end and I had mentioned all the topics that I needed to discuss on my magazine spread article. Writing my second draft did not take me long at all and it was not as time consuming as I had expected as I had expected to take longer as I thought I would not know what else I could write however, it was more better than expected which I am happy about.
Not only have I managed to complete my magazine spread article but as the deadline is today, I had thought to myself that I must begin producing my online magazine spread as soon as possible. In creating my online magazine spread, I had decided to use the photo editing platform, Adobe Photoshop and begun editing my magazine spread to appear and look very similar to my online Candid Feminist blog when it comes to the themes and colour schemes. I had found it quite easy in the process of completing my first page of my magazine spread as I could easily use the eyedropper Tool on Photoshop to achieve the same colours that I had used in my Candid Feminist blog however, what I found difficult was attempting to find the same fonts as I did not take note on what fonts I used for my online blog therefore, I had to result to trying to find a a font that looks very similar to the fonts used in my online blog. However, overall, I think that managing to complete the first page of my magazine article was very productive as I had managed to begin producing my magazine spread outcome to be published on my blog when complete.
Even though the deadline is today, I do wish that I had managed to complete my promotional video and editing the footage into the morphing and warping transition effect as that would have been nice to publish on my Candid Feminist blog.
12/05/2017
I had begun researching and watching tutorials on YouTube on how to morph faces together on Adobe After Effects and the tutorials I have found were quite helpful but they had only taught me how to morph and use the Liquifying tool only on photos rather than moving videos. I have attempted to do the morphing with photos only as I think that it would help me and allow me to have a better understanding on how to use the Liquifying tool as this tool is used when editing both photos and videos on After Effects to achieve the warping effect.
From editing with photos and following the tutorial I have watched step by step, I had found it quite easy to follow through as the one that was giving the tutorial on YouTube had made it easier for his viewers to follow. However, I had found it difficult attempting to edit some parts of the features of the models in the photos as the photos I had chosen are not similar to the ones that were used in the tutorial as an example. Due to this, I had to edit the photo myself and experimenting on the Liquifying tool to see how I can achieve a cleaner look on the hair of the models in my photos. I think being able to experiment for myself without knowing how to particularly do this or having a tutorial teach me to do something specifically, it has helped me gain a better understanding on attaining the face morphing effect.
Altogether today, I had to edit the same two photos three times as I had gone through quite a lot of problems: The first problem I had gone through was that I had managed to complete editing the morphing effect on two photos however, when I was attempting to export the video, After Effects would not allow me to export for an unknown specific reason and that the files that were within the videos were corrupt therefore, After Effects would not allow me at all to export. Irritatingly, I knew that I had to redo the editing all over again but this time, I had decided to choose different photos rather than the same photos so that I avoid the previous situation from occurring again. Managing to edit everything I had done, I think the way I had edited the two photos together had turned out better than the one I previously edited as the transition of the two faces are much smoother than the last however, this time around, it was more challenging to edit the hair again as the hair's of the two models in the photos were not similarly positioned hence why it was difficult for me to edit. Although I personally think this was a good attempt in getting the face morphing effect, I wanted to try and edit again so that I can get an even better experimental outcome and try really hard in editing the hair as that was the only feature I needed to improve on and this is my next target for the next day.
Although today was not production for my final outcome, being about to do some experimental editing and investigating on how to do specific effects was very helpful in the process of producing my final outcome as experimenting is useful since it will give me information and experience on making a good final outcome.
Moreover, I must also conduct a shoot with females as soon as possible as I need to film and gather the footage and audio that I will use for my promotional video. although I had originally planned to conduct this shoot today, I did not manage to book the room and green screen the day before hence why I could not use the room on the day however, learning from this mistake, I had booked today to use the room on the 15th May at 12pm so that I may do my film shoot.
25/05/2017
I wanted to receive more feedback on what I have submitted for the deadline yesterday and I wanted the feedback to be critical so that I can make changes in my work to achieve the distinction I aim aiming to get as my grade for this Final Major Project. I had gotten feedback from both my supervisor and another teacher as the more the merrier in my case and the feedback I had gotten was quite positive as I am working towards a distinction in almost all of my tabs on my Wix site however, the only tab that needs working on is my production page as I need to produce more outcomes or complete the outcomes I am making at the moment to publish on my online Candid Feminist blog.
As the critical feedback included me having to change the layout of my whole online blog and to make a layout of mine rather than using a theme layout that Wix has provided, I had decided to make my own layout from scratch by creating my quirky looking buttons and theme. I had come up with the idea of my layout and it is not like an ordinary blog layout but a quirky and odd layout. I had concluded that changing my layout from a typical and cliche layout of a blog to an unconventional layout will allow my final blog outcome to become more stronger it's creativeness. I had also thought about how I will be making and producing these buttons and I had concluded that I will be using Adobe Photoshop as this photo editing platform is the most I am familiar with and I have the most knowledge on this platform compared to Adobe Illustrator which I am not too familiar with.
I had thought of more ideas today too and I wanted to follow a very comic looking theme with bright colours such as red, blue and yellow moreover using toned colours such as black and white. I think that this idea is very creative and unique as I do not think that much blogs especially mainstream blogs have this kind of blog layout where the buttons are in a polaroid boarder but also have bright colours. My use of bright colours are to visually target audience and this is a good strategy for allowing my target audience to be more interested in looking at my blog as they will be interested what the blog will consist of. I am really pleased that I had been suggested to change my blog layout, although I have worked hard in creating the peachy pink layout and publishing my work so that it is suitable for the layout however, I think that making small or huge changes in my work will help me improve my work to be worth a higher grade but also, it will help me come up with more creative ideas along the process of creating my new online blog layout and theme. What I will need to do now is begin drawing a rough sketch of how the new layout will appear and also plan out how the buttons will look like in their appearance so that I will get a clear idea of how the homepage of my online blog will appear.
Moreover, I should also begin creating the buttons on Photoshop straight after I have planned out what the buttons will look like.
26/05/2017
I had begun drawing a sketch of what my online blog layout will seem like and I had also begun thinking about what some of the buttons on my home page will look like and I had given myself a visual imagination of their appearance which I am pleased about as I did not want to come into college and not have a clear idea of what I will be creating on Adobe Photoshop which would then result to me wasting my production and technical time creating products on thinking about what I will be making and that is something I do not want to happen as being given more time to improve my Wix site and my final outcomes, I want to use my time as effectively as I can as time is very precious during this Final Major Product. Therefore, as I have come up with some ideas for my homepage buttons for my online blog site, I had begun creating three buttons on Adobe Photoshop and made my ideas transform into digital products. After I had created them, I must say that I am very content with they have turned out and I did not expect them to turn out so good and I would even say that they turned out and look much better than I had mentally pictured in my head.
What went really well with creating these buttons for my blog homepage is the style and theme of my buttons, I would definitely consider the style to be quirky and quite odd yet it is still colourful and appealing to the eyes of my target audience especially. Moreover, what went really well is although there are quite a lot of colours going on such as blue, red and yellow, they all match well along withe the shades of black, grey and white, the look of the buttons are still minimalistic and simple which I am really loving about my work. Moreover, I was really proud of creating my own personal theme to my products and follow them consistently and thoroughly on my work, for example, a theme that I had followed in creating these buttons are adding a shadow in the typography to add a realistic Three Dimensional effect to the text and I think concluding to the decision of adding a 3D effect has made the buttons I have made more peculiar to the eye.
I am also very happy with how productive I have been today, considering the fact that I have made the decision to restart my whole online blog again including the layout and the theme which is quite a daunting decision to come to considering the fact that I have exceeded the deadline however, I am really glad that there is still time to improve my work as I am reminding and reassuring myself to use this time efficiently to produce as much buttons for my new homepage and for my new blog. Another great thing that had occurred today was managing to find insertions and other works to influence my work from researching as this had truly helped me in the process of making these homepage buttons. I had used movie posters as part of my inspirations and influences as I have based my project on feminism and sexism in the film industry and some of the articles I have written are about movies/films hence why it was fitting for my research movie posters and use their aesthetic as my inspirations for my work.
However, although I am very content with the work I have produced, I had come across quite a few problems today whilst I have been trying to produce the buttons for my new online blog site, for example, attempting to find the specific font that I am looking for to use, I had found it very difficult looking the for same font that "The Shining" had used for their movie poster as I wanted to use the same font for my typography however, I had to search for a very long time and I had also visited many websites before finding a website where I could download the font that is quick and easy to download.
As I have produced as much as I could today, I should continue thinking about what the other buttons that will be on my homepage should look like and try to come up with ideas during the weekend so that on Tuesday when I come back to college to produce the rest of my buttons on Photoshop, it will be an easy process for me to create them. Moreover, during the weekend, I will aim to take photographs of females and women as I am planning on creating a page called "Why I Am A Badass" where I will upload polaroid photos of girls and caption the polaroid with their responses and answers to my question "What makes you a badass?" and I think making this gallery page is a good way for my target audience to feel welcomed in my online blog and to see how females feel about their selves and I want this page to have an empowering and uplifting atmosphere towards my target audience who are viewing my online blog therefore, I will need to book equipment before the weekend begins.
Another objective I will target for myself is to think about what my other article should be based on and also what photographs I will need to take for that article. I decided to make another article as another outcome for my online blog because I personally think that I am very strong when it comes to writing and I have a passion for writing therefore, I can portray my writing skills and my photography skills yet again in another outcome for my online blog.
30/05/2017
The last time I had written a blog diary entry, I had aimed myself to complete some objectives during the weekend, for example, I had told myself to take out some equipment to take photographs of some girls for my "Why I Am A Badass" page and I had managed to complete that task however, I was not too content with the photographs that I had taken.
They are not as strong as I wanted them to be because, first of all, I only managed to take two photographs overall during the weekend and one of those girls being me therefore, I technically only managed to take one photo of a girl and that's not as great or as productive I wanted my photoshoot to be. I think it was really difficult attempting to ask females and girls in the public to take photographs of them because some of them are very camera shy or they do not want to participate because they are busy and do not have time to take a photograph and answer my question in which is "What makes you a badass?". I didn't do a great job with trying to recruit females in the public to participate in my photoshoot probably because I was in a really public place where there are a lot of people passing by and they may feel very intimidated and frightened to be in front of a camera and a tripod in front of a lot of people and I could have improved this situation by relocating myself to a location where it is not too busy but also there are people still walking by for my to approach. I should learn from this mistake next time I conduct a photoshoot in a public area and I should put myself in the position of the public and make sure I allow them to feel completely comfortable when I am taking photos of them.
Moreover, I did not like the quality of the two photographs I had taken, although using the source of natural lighting from the sun is good at times, the photographs were still lacking lighting from specific places on their faces and the models in the photo have some shadows in their faces and half of their face looks quite dark whilst the other half has good lighting and what I wanted is for their faces to be clearly seen on both sides so that my target audience can see the models and the photo looks bright to them. Sadly, I took some photographs that were slightly too overexposed and I wanted to upload them on to my Wix Production page so that I can comment what went wrong and how I could improve the shotsI took however, I had accidentally deleted them on the DSLR camera and I feel quite agitated because they would have been nice to show my photography progress. Since I did not do a good job during the weekend, I had aimed myself to come into college during this half term holiday to conduct a shoot today, using more lighting equipment to achieve better quality photos for my online blog site.
I had managed to completed this task and I must say that I am feeling very happy with the photographs I had taken and the new skills I learned: I managed to use the gold reflectors and the LED lights for my shoot and learning how to use these equipments correctly and learning how to position them in a way to brighten the model I am photographing is really helpful especially if I will be doing more photoshoots in the future, I will have this information and knowledge imprinted in my mind for further photoshoots.
With the photos I took, I am very pleased with them because I had taken them exactly how I wanted them to be. From researching polaroid photos, they do not have a shallow depth of field hence why I decided to have a small aperture with a large f-number so that I could achieve the very same deep depth of field that polaroid photos have. I am really pleased that I had decided to come into college today so do some further work on my online blog site and also on my production page on my Wix site because this is allowing me to do many experiments and actual work and this is bringing me closer to competing my final outcome for my Final Major Project.
For tomorrow, I will be coming back into college to do more work but this time, the aim I will be targeting for myself to complete tomorrow is to begin editing the photos I had taken for my "Why I Am A Badass" page on Adobe Photoshop and to always take screenshots of my editing process and upload on my production page so I can write up how I managed to create my outcomes.
31/05/2017
Yesterday I had taken more photos of females for my polaroid photos therefore, today, I will begin editing them to make them appear like an olden polaroid photograph and I'm going to use Adobe Photoshop as my editing platform since I have been using this platform consistently throughout my project and I have gained many skills in this platform and I have the most experience editing on Photoshop.
I think editing these photos into polaroid photos was quite easy as I did not have to do anything too complex or complicated to the photos except copying and pasting the photos into a polaroid boarder I had taken online from a website and made sure that the layers of both these images were correct such as making sure that the image of my female model layer was placed on top of the polaroid boarder layer to make the whole image appear as if it is a polaroid photograph.
During the time and the process of editing these polaroid photos, I had come up with another additional idea to add into the polaroid photos to make them appear more olden and antique: My idea was to add some particle dust/noise on top of the image of the female models as from researching olden polaroid photos, I could see some particles on the photos and I had decided to recreate this olden style look on my own polaroid photos therefore, I had resulted in searching online on a few websites for an overlay of particle dust/noise I could download and use for free without paying and luckily, I feel grateful for finding a website that allows me to download a whole load of different styles of particle dusts in just one go which is a lucky find for me which means I have more options to choose from for my work. I think that this new idea of mine for my polaroid photos had made my work more better and adding tiny details such as dusts/noise make a huge difference in my work and add more realism in vintage atmosphere of my gallery which is what I am intending for my photos to appear like but also, I did not want my gallery outcome to be too simplistic. Not only did I manage to complete editing some of my polaroid photos completely but I had also had enough time to edit another homepage button for my online blog page and that was a button for my promotional video I am editing for my The Candid Feminist blog.
I was really inspired by the YouTube logo and the colour scheme of YouTube with red and white when I was creating my promotional video button and I think that it turned out alright but it looked far too similar to the YouTube logo with the grey shadow at the back of the white 90 degrees clockwise triangle and I came to the conclusion to get rid of the shadow to make sure it is not too similar to the actual YouTube play button. Although this had made my design more simpler, I still think simplicity is a good trait to have in my work because I personally prefer simplicity compared to complexity as I personally see beauty in simple and little things. Today has been productive yet again, just like yesterday and I can see how the homepage and the buttons of my online blog site is coming together very well and I am really loving how quirky it looks so far which is what my aims were when I first planned this new layout and theme of my online blog. It's been less than a week since I have planned this new layout and I had already achieved so much work during these past days such as taking photographs, producing the buttons from scratch and also editing the photographs I had taken on Photoshop. Managing to do all this work within just a few days is something I should be proud of and I do feel proud and I will continue to tell myself to keep working hard and pushing myself to work harder and faster to complete all the work I need to.
For tomorrow, I will attempt to think of one more outcome I can make for my online blog because I feel as if there is one more outcome missing as there is a huge space in the buttons and it does not look nice therefore, I will create one more outcome to fill the space however, I think I am leaning more towards writing another article because I enjoy writing a lot and I want to portray my writing skills on my online blog.
01/06/2017
Yesterday, I had been contemplating on what I should be making for my last outcome for my online blog site however, I was very conflicted on what I should be making and I still currently am still debating on what I should be making. I think what I will do today is begin researching more things online so that I can find some inspirations for me to gain some new ideas to make.
Since I really adore films and my project topic is based on feminism and sexism within the film industry, I begun researching films that have the theme of feminism and I looked at the google images so that I could see if I have watched any of them and I found a movie poster of the film "10 Things I Hate About You" and it was an official poster that was not infamously used to promote the film but it looked very vintage with the colour scheme of the typography and I really adored that about this particular movie poster. Not only did this movie poster inspire me with the layout of my new button but it had also inspired me to base my new outcome on writing a film review of 10 films that have the theme of feminism and state what I love about them. I think this idea is really great because I have not discussed any films that are about feminism yet but only films that have the theme of sexism towards women such as horror films therefore, I think discussing and talking about films that promote feminism is a good way for my target audience to to know more about feminism when it comes politically or socially but also on in the creative arts section like films and TV shows.
Since I have finally come to the decision of basing my final outcome within my online blog to be an article/film review of films and that being finalised, I had begun creating my button for this outcome since I have been really inspired by the movie poster of 10 Things I Hate About You and I wanted to create my ideas and produce them on Photoshop. However, with the typography today, I had decided use the app Typorama yet again to produce a text style as recently, I have been looking for my own fonts online on websites such as Dafont.com and personally positioning them myself and I wanted to do more experimenting on this cool typography app so that I have a range of different way I had created my typography that I'm using on my online blog. I really enjoy using this app especially when I am out of ideas on how I want to stylise my text, I could retreat to this app and they have a variety of different fonts and also different styles which means I have a large number of choices to choose from which I really appreciate with this app. At first, I was experimenting on the positioning of the typography however, I had ended up positioning the text in my own way as I did not like the choices of text styles I choose because they did not look complimentary together and I wanted to rearrange the positions to make it look better.
With the finishing button product, I think that this is one of my favourite buttons I have made so far because of the different colour scheme and also I really adore how the font styles are very different from each other and you can clearly see the contrast hence why they work and look very well together, in my opinion. Not that I had completed creating the button and the title banner for my film review article page, I need to begin planning and thinking about what I will be writing in my film review and also what feminist films I will be talking because I must make sure that I have seen these films so that I can discuss them in confidence. This weekend, I need to begin researching feminist films and if I have not watched any of them, then I must remind myself to watch them and take down some notes on what I really love about the visuals and the narrative of the films to help me write my film review.
I wanted to clean up my The Candid Feminist blog outcomes layout because it was very messy as I had only pasted my articles on the page without laying it out correctly or designing it nicely therefore, I had cleaned it up by changing the font into what I want my main body text to be and I had made sure that the font was consistently used in all the pages. I had also came to the decision to use on of Wix's decorative shapes to separate the paragraphs of my articles in case if they are too long so that it adds nice complimentary details to my articles. I am starting to really love how my online is looking now that I am cleaning up my online blog and adding tiny decorations to my pages to make it look visually nice to my target audience.
05/06/2017
I had begun researching feminist films that I could possibly talk about in my film review article as I will be needing to collect 10 films that portray themes of feminism within and I had decided to only pick films that I have already watched as this would mean that I have more knowledge of the film and I am more aware of what occurs in the film. After I had chosen the 10 top films that I will be discussing in my film review article, I had begun writing my first draft however, I had found it it rather difficult writing this film review article as usually when I am writing a film review, I would talk about all the micro and macro elements of a film and what makes the film strong or weak, however, with this film article review for my online blog site, it was quite difficult not writing anything critical about the films as I am usually used to doing however, I am thankful that the films I had chosen are some of my all time favourite films and there are a lot of good attributes to say about these films and their subliminal messages.
Although it was quite difficult at first writing the film review article, when I had gotten into writing it the way I wanted it to be, it became more easier and stating my opinions and thoughts about feminism in the films and I think the way it has been written is vey engaging for my target audience as it contains humour which something that my target audience whom are teenagers and young adults may enjoy reading rather than having a serious film review article which may eventually become quite dull or boring to them. After I had completed my first draft of my film review article, I wanted to get some feedback on my work and see what else I could improve on as I was not fully content with what I had written and I also wanted some feedback and advice on how I can end my article because I am really unsure on how I can do make a great ending to my writing.
My feedback had consisted of going into more detail with the films that I am talking about as according to some, I do not talk about the film as much and I only talk about the hidden messages within the film therefore, in my second draft, I have included more information about the films and the character within the film so that my audience can have more knowledge and information. Moreover, I had been given advice on how I should end my article and I was suggested to conclude the article in why I personally like feminist films and why more A-Rate films should be produced in film industries and this will allow my film review article to end in a way where the writer in which is me, can give my final thoughts and opinions about feminist films and it can also allow my target audience to personally think about their own thoughts too. The second draft I have written is definitely more better than the first draft I have produced as now, there is more details on each of the films I have talked about and also I have given my target audience what I really like about the subliminal messages.
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My next objective now is to continue taking more photographs for my "Why I Am A Badass" page so that I could fill this page with as much polaroid photos of females and their captions as much as possible because with my gallery, I want there to be plenty of polaroids for my target audience to look at. Moreover, I should also aim to clean up my online blog so that it looks very organised and I want to make sure that my online blog is in a layout where it is easy for my target audeince to navigate theirselves on the site.
14/06/2017
For the past week, I have been cleaning up my The Candid Feminist blog and I have also been cleaning up and finishing off any work that needs to be completed on my Wix FMP site and I am really pleased with the work I have produced through out this whole FMP, I had worked really hard in coming out the ideas and although my ideas have developed and changed, I really liked the decisions I have made in the end and seeing the transition of my ideas is really nice to look at and it is something that I am incredibly proud of. I must say that although I had felt positive through my whole FMP project, I must admit that it was not easy and it was still very difficult as I did have to go through problems that I did not know yet how to overcome and I did not have any ways of solving these problems and I felt very confused however, I was glad that I had managed to think creatively and solve the problems that I had face in this project. Moreover, I am also very glad that I did not just stick to focusing on producing a moving image outcome but I had managed to produce both a digital media and moving image outcome for my online blog site and I am glad that I had diversity on just on the topic I was focusing on but my outcomes too. It has been a long journey in this FMP and evaluating these past months of doing this fMP, I would say that was absolutely educating as I had taught myself how to do many things that I did not know how to do before when it comes to moving image skills such as photography, filming and editing and I had also taught myself new skills when it comes to digital media such as editing photos on photo editing platforms like Adobe Photoshop, using reflectors during photoshoots and creating my own logos/animated photos for an online blog: I am definitely content with the skills I have attained these past months. Today will be the show for our project and I am honestly very excited because this is my final show that I will attend to show the work that we as students have produced for the past two years, from our very first projects to our last FMP project.