Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Television Evaluation
What I Did
Each member of the team played a significant part in making our one minute TV package a success, and none more so than myself. As a group, we agreed before hand that I would be one of the people to do a piece to camera. The topic of our television package was about Christmas shopping, but we felt as a group that we should take an original angle on our piece, as the majority of other groups concentrated solely on the recession.
As I was doing a piece to camera, I was required to write a script, so the angle I took was from a student’s perspective. This meant discussing the lack of shops for young people in Farnham and the possible construction of trendy high street retailer’s, such as River Island, in East Street. The rest of the group thought that this was a very good angle to take, and therefore became the general topic of our mini project. It did take a few times to shoot, but in the end I managed to complete my piece to camera, and I was fairly happy with the end result.
When Jack was in the radio studio completing his voiceover I went and sat with him in a kind of “sub editor” role to check if anything needed to be changed. I suggested making a few minor alterations to the script, but to be honest what he had written was excellent, so I was only a bit-part player.
What We Could Have Done Better
Despite the fact that I think our end product was excellent, there are some things I would have changed. Firstly, I did originally film my piece without a script and I completed it in one take without any mistakes. However, an “ignorant” passer by walked straight in front of the camera while we were filming, ruining the whole piece. This was a shame, as I felt I performed very well on this occasion.
I definitely think that I could have performed better on my “final” piece to camera. I didn’t feel or look as comfortable trying to remember my script, so that is something that I definitely have to work on for next time.
I feel I contributed slightly to the editing side of things, but I feel that I could have given a lot more. I put forward a couple of ideas, but a lot of the time me and Jack were busy sorting out other bits and pieces, such as voice overs. This meant Emily and Grady had to do most of the editing, which I give them great credit for.
What I Did
Each member of the team played a significant part in making our one minute TV package a success, and none more so than myself. As a group, we agreed before hand that I would be one of the people to do a piece to camera. The topic of our television package was about Christmas shopping, but we felt as a group that we should take an original angle on our piece, as the majority of other groups concentrated solely on the recession.
As I was doing a piece to camera, I was required to write a script, so the angle I took was from a student’s perspective. This meant discussing the lack of shops for young people in Farnham and the possible construction of trendy high street retailer’s, such as River Island, in East Street. The rest of the group thought that this was a very good angle to take, and therefore became the general topic of our mini project. It did take a few times to shoot, but in the end I managed to complete my piece to camera, and I was fairly happy with the end result.
When Jack was in the radio studio completing his voiceover I went and sat with him in a kind of “sub editor” role to check if anything needed to be changed. I suggested making a few minor alterations to the script, but to be honest what he had written was excellent, so I was only a bit-part player.
What We Could Have Done Better
Despite the fact that I think our end product was excellent, there are some things I would have changed. Firstly, I did originally film my piece without a script and I completed it in one take without any mistakes. However, an “ignorant” passer by walked straight in front of the camera while we were filming, ruining the whole piece. This was a shame, as I felt I performed very well on this occasion.
I definitely think that I could have performed better on my “final” piece to camera. I didn’t feel or look as comfortable trying to remember my script, so that is something that I definitely have to work on for next time.
I feel I contributed slightly to the editing side of things, but I feel that I could have given a lot more. I put forward a couple of ideas, but a lot of the time me and Jack were busy sorting out other bits and pieces, such as voice overs. This meant Emily and Grady had to do most of the editing, which I give them great credit for.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Radio Evaluation
For this unit, I was assigned the task of teaming up with some of my fellow peers and creating two pieces of audio that would be suitable for broadcasting on the radio. The first piece of audio that myself and my team recorded was a vox pop (Voice of the Public: getting the public's opinions on a particular issue) on Remembrance Day, and the second was to unearth two local news stories each and record them in the radio studio. As well as myself, my group consisted of Sam, Dan and Jamie.
What I Did
As I mentioned above, the first piece of audio that we were required to record was the vox pop about Remembrance Day. This meant going out onto the streets of Farnham to understand the thoughts of the general public. But before my team and me could begin our vox pop, we had to think of a question that would set a spark off in people and get them talking passionately about the subject.
I would say that I contributed heavily in finding "the question" that we were going to ask the public. I felt that, as we are young people ourselves, we should ask the older generation if they thought that the younger generation today still had the same respect for Remembrance Day as youngsters in yesteryear did. Obviously, we had to play around with the wording of the question, but we all agreed that this would be a successful approach to take.
When out on the street, we each had to ask one person the question using the recording equipment provided. When it finally came to me recording my vox pop everything went according to plan. The recording equipment picked up everything my interviewee said perfectly and I also received a really good answer to my question.
When it came to editing the vox pop sound bite, we decided that we would edit it collectively as a group. This way, everyone had their say on what should be changed and I think that we came away with a very good piece of audio as everybody bought different ideas to the table.
For our second piece of audio, I picked two stories that I felt were different, but would still gage the interest of the public. The two stories that I picked were about the arrest of a man from Maidstone who had committed four serious crimes in Surrey and Kingstonian football club being knocked out of the FA Trophy. I believe these two stories fitted in well with the context of our radio broadcast, and because all of us had prepared our stories in advance everything ran smoothly.
What Could The Group Have Done Better
I can honestly say that I do not think there was anything major that either myself or the rest of my team could have done any better than we did. The only thing I think that I could improve on next time would be to do some more editing. I did contribute some key ideas with regards to the final edit of our pieces of audio, but I do feel that I could have mucked in a little bit more.
But all in all, I do feel that my contribution to the team was a key factor as to why our pieces of audio were successful. I also feel that myself and the rest of my team worked extremely well together and that everything we did was very productive.
What I Did
As I mentioned above, the first piece of audio that we were required to record was the vox pop about Remembrance Day. This meant going out onto the streets of Farnham to understand the thoughts of the general public. But before my team and me could begin our vox pop, we had to think of a question that would set a spark off in people and get them talking passionately about the subject.
I would say that I contributed heavily in finding "the question" that we were going to ask the public. I felt that, as we are young people ourselves, we should ask the older generation if they thought that the younger generation today still had the same respect for Remembrance Day as youngsters in yesteryear did. Obviously, we had to play around with the wording of the question, but we all agreed that this would be a successful approach to take.
When out on the street, we each had to ask one person the question using the recording equipment provided. When it finally came to me recording my vox pop everything went according to plan. The recording equipment picked up everything my interviewee said perfectly and I also received a really good answer to my question.
When it came to editing the vox pop sound bite, we decided that we would edit it collectively as a group. This way, everyone had their say on what should be changed and I think that we came away with a very good piece of audio as everybody bought different ideas to the table.
For our second piece of audio, I picked two stories that I felt were different, but would still gage the interest of the public. The two stories that I picked were about the arrest of a man from Maidstone who had committed four serious crimes in Surrey and Kingstonian football club being knocked out of the FA Trophy. I believe these two stories fitted in well with the context of our radio broadcast, and because all of us had prepared our stories in advance everything ran smoothly.
What Could The Group Have Done Better
I can honestly say that I do not think there was anything major that either myself or the rest of my team could have done any better than we did. The only thing I think that I could improve on next time would be to do some more editing. I did contribute some key ideas with regards to the final edit of our pieces of audio, but I do feel that I could have mucked in a little bit more.
But all in all, I do feel that my contribution to the team was a key factor as to why our pieces of audio were successful. I also feel that myself and the rest of my team worked extremely well together and that everything we did was very productive.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Why I became a football fan
Like many others, I was bitten by the football bug at a young age, six to be exact. My dad would go to watch his beloved Chelsea play home and away most Saturday’s during the eighties, and unlike today the blues would usually lose every week to teams such as Shrewsbury (oh how times have changed). I was first taken to the Bridge by my dad in the nineties, where I was able to see magical players such as Zola, Vialli and Gullit turn Chelsea from a distinctly average team, into the most attractive side in the country. Despite the various honours that Chelsea have won in recent years, including back to back league titles, the period between 1997-2003 is where I hold my fondest memories. The brand of football and the players that we had at the club captivated me, and as a result made me fall in love with the game. However, there was one moment, or one game rather, that even when I think about it now gives me goose bumps.
The 1999/2000 season was a monumental year in the history of Chelsea Football Club. The blues had reached the promise land of the Champions League for the first time in 95 years of existence, and many thought that we would crash and burn. However Gianluca Vialli’s men proved the pessimists wrong, overcoming the likes of AC Milan, Galatasary, Feyenoord and Marseille among others on their way to the quarter finals. However, Chelsea were facing none other than Spanish giants FC Barcelona in the quarter finals, a challenge that no one envied.
It was the 5th April 2000, and it was a fairly crisp night in South West London. Prior to setting off for the Bridge to see the biggest game in Chelsea’s history; me, my dad and my elder brother David went to the pub to meet some of my dad’s mates. But instead of sinking a nice pint of Strongbow like I would today, I had to settle for a cold glass of coke instead. I remember standing outside the pub, feeling the ice cold coke tingle my dry lips and looking up at the fiery red sky and thinking that tonight would be a special night. Many people at Stamford Bridge that night, including myself, were just happy to have got this far in the competition and we did not expect to get a result, after all Barcelona boasted the attacking talents of Luis Figo, Rivaldo and Patrick Kluivert. But happily, our pessimism did not come to fruition.
Many people talk about the electric atmosphere that Anfield generates on the big European nights, but the noise our fans generated at Stamford Bridge that night was something special. Neither before or since have I heard such a ferocious caldron of noise in one place. Our Catalonian counterparts started fairly brightly though, world player of the year winner Rivaldo twice being denied by the agile Ed De Goey. However, it was our brilliant little Italian, Gianfranco Zola, who sprinkled some magic dust on this simmering European tie. After Luis Figo scythed down Celestine Babayaro outside the box, Zola curled a delightful shot into the top corner sending me and the other 35,000 Chelsea fans delirious. But there was more to come. The magnificent Zola and our midfield enforcer Didier Deschemps both provided the ammunition for our Norwegian striker, Tore Andre Flo, to fire twice past the hapless Ruud Hesp. Chelsea were 3-0 up against the mighty Barcelona before half time, nobody could believe it. The Chelsea fans were in dreamland, and the atmosphere in the second half was akin to a carnival. Barcelona did pull a goal back late on through Luis Figo, giving them a crucial away goal to take back to the Nou camp. But in truth, no Chelsea fan cared one little bit. We had embarrassed Barcelona, making them look distinctly average for large periods of the game.
The second leg a fortnight later at the Nou Camp did end in victory for Barcelona. The Blues were all of five minutes away from reaching the Champions League semi finals after Flo put Chelsea 4-3 in front on aggregate (2-1 down in the game itself), but a Dani header rescued the Catalonian giants and sent the game into extra time. But after Babayaro was sent off in the early stages of extra time, the blues stood little chance of progressing, eventually crashing to a 5-1 defeat.
Barcelona’s quality did shine through at the Nou Camp, but nevertheless, I was proud to be a Chelsea fan because of what happened in the first leg and the efforts that our players put into the match. That incredible night at Stamford Bridge is a moment in time that I still cherish to this day, and it typifies why I love football.
The 1999/2000 season was a monumental year in the history of Chelsea Football Club. The blues had reached the promise land of the Champions League for the first time in 95 years of existence, and many thought that we would crash and burn. However Gianluca Vialli’s men proved the pessimists wrong, overcoming the likes of AC Milan, Galatasary, Feyenoord and Marseille among others on their way to the quarter finals. However, Chelsea were facing none other than Spanish giants FC Barcelona in the quarter finals, a challenge that no one envied.
It was the 5th April 2000, and it was a fairly crisp night in South West London. Prior to setting off for the Bridge to see the biggest game in Chelsea’s history; me, my dad and my elder brother David went to the pub to meet some of my dad’s mates. But instead of sinking a nice pint of Strongbow like I would today, I had to settle for a cold glass of coke instead. I remember standing outside the pub, feeling the ice cold coke tingle my dry lips and looking up at the fiery red sky and thinking that tonight would be a special night. Many people at Stamford Bridge that night, including myself, were just happy to have got this far in the competition and we did not expect to get a result, after all Barcelona boasted the attacking talents of Luis Figo, Rivaldo and Patrick Kluivert. But happily, our pessimism did not come to fruition.
Many people talk about the electric atmosphere that Anfield generates on the big European nights, but the noise our fans generated at Stamford Bridge that night was something special. Neither before or since have I heard such a ferocious caldron of noise in one place. Our Catalonian counterparts started fairly brightly though, world player of the year winner Rivaldo twice being denied by the agile Ed De Goey. However, it was our brilliant little Italian, Gianfranco Zola, who sprinkled some magic dust on this simmering European tie. After Luis Figo scythed down Celestine Babayaro outside the box, Zola curled a delightful shot into the top corner sending me and the other 35,000 Chelsea fans delirious. But there was more to come. The magnificent Zola and our midfield enforcer Didier Deschemps both provided the ammunition for our Norwegian striker, Tore Andre Flo, to fire twice past the hapless Ruud Hesp. Chelsea were 3-0 up against the mighty Barcelona before half time, nobody could believe it. The Chelsea fans were in dreamland, and the atmosphere in the second half was akin to a carnival. Barcelona did pull a goal back late on through Luis Figo, giving them a crucial away goal to take back to the Nou camp. But in truth, no Chelsea fan cared one little bit. We had embarrassed Barcelona, making them look distinctly average for large periods of the game.
The second leg a fortnight later at the Nou Camp did end in victory for Barcelona. The Blues were all of five minutes away from reaching the Champions League semi finals after Flo put Chelsea 4-3 in front on aggregate (2-1 down in the game itself), but a Dani header rescued the Catalonian giants and sent the game into extra time. But after Babayaro was sent off in the early stages of extra time, the blues stood little chance of progressing, eventually crashing to a 5-1 defeat.
Barcelona’s quality did shine through at the Nou Camp, but nevertheless, I was proud to be a Chelsea fan because of what happened in the first leg and the efforts that our players put into the match. That incredible night at Stamford Bridge is a moment in time that I still cherish to this day, and it typifies why I love football.
A Smart Idea
When I was younger there were certain cars that I aspired to drive when I was older; a Porsche, a Bentley or even a BMW. But driving a Smart car never entered the equation. The shape of the car repulsed me, its lack of speed or power seemed mundane (your average smart car had a top speed of 90 mph and went from 0-60 in 12.8 seconds) and the mere notion of having to operate a car in such cramp and confined conditions seemed awful. However, there is no doubt that the smart car is one of the most influential and practical motor vehicles of the 21st century.
The idea of the smart car was first proposed in the 1940’s, with Swiss watchmakers Swatch behind the idea. The main objective of the smart car was to manufacture a car that was easy to park, with designers claiming that three smart cars could occupy the same parking space that one ordinary sized car would take up on its own. Unfortunately, smart were unsuccessful in securing a partner in the companies informative years, as manufacturers such as Volkswagen thought the concept of the smart car would be unprofitable. The company did eventually get off the ground, officially launching in 1994 in conjunction with Daimler-Benz.
The smart car has dramatically risen to prominence in the 21st century, but it is fair to say that smart car’s are seen more as “city” cars. Its popularity in bustling cities such as London is unprecedented, as many people who live in a city would like something small and nippy, easy to maintain and easy to park. Yes, people who may live in an affluent part of London may wish to purchase the latest model of Ferrari, but because most Londoners have easy access to public transport many people will elect to take the train or a bus to work rather than drive, therefore not needing to use a car that often. People who find themselves living in this type of situation are the main target audience for smart cars, as it would comply with their needs and suits their lifestyle. For example, a farmer living in rural England would not want to purchase a smart car, as they would just not be practical for their lifestyle.
The smart car manufacturers have also designed an electric car, called the eSmart. With all the publicity surrounding climate change and many people now wanting to go green, this is, excuse the pun, a smart move. In pollution laden cities like London, many people could be tempted to purchase an eSmart car as it will fit in with their lifestyle (as I discussed above) and will also give them the self-gratification that they are doing something to help the environment.
To conclude, I am not a fan of the smart car in terms of all of the conventional properties that a car offers i.e. the speed, how it looks and what it is like inside. However, I think that the smart car was an extraordinarily innovative idea. It offers a number of benefits to people who live in urban areas due to its practicality, and I certainly think that it is influential in terms of the amount of city dwellers that now buy a smart car. No, the smart car is not fast, visually inspiring or stylish. But it does exactly what it says on the tin, it is a “smart” car.
The idea of the smart car was first proposed in the 1940’s, with Swiss watchmakers Swatch behind the idea. The main objective of the smart car was to manufacture a car that was easy to park, with designers claiming that three smart cars could occupy the same parking space that one ordinary sized car would take up on its own. Unfortunately, smart were unsuccessful in securing a partner in the companies informative years, as manufacturers such as Volkswagen thought the concept of the smart car would be unprofitable. The company did eventually get off the ground, officially launching in 1994 in conjunction with Daimler-Benz.
The smart car has dramatically risen to prominence in the 21st century, but it is fair to say that smart car’s are seen more as “city” cars. Its popularity in bustling cities such as London is unprecedented, as many people who live in a city would like something small and nippy, easy to maintain and easy to park. Yes, people who may live in an affluent part of London may wish to purchase the latest model of Ferrari, but because most Londoners have easy access to public transport many people will elect to take the train or a bus to work rather than drive, therefore not needing to use a car that often. People who find themselves living in this type of situation are the main target audience for smart cars, as it would comply with their needs and suits their lifestyle. For example, a farmer living in rural England would not want to purchase a smart car, as they would just not be practical for their lifestyle.
The smart car manufacturers have also designed an electric car, called the eSmart. With all the publicity surrounding climate change and many people now wanting to go green, this is, excuse the pun, a smart move. In pollution laden cities like London, many people could be tempted to purchase an eSmart car as it will fit in with their lifestyle (as I discussed above) and will also give them the self-gratification that they are doing something to help the environment.
To conclude, I am not a fan of the smart car in terms of all of the conventional properties that a car offers i.e. the speed, how it looks and what it is like inside. However, I think that the smart car was an extraordinarily innovative idea. It offers a number of benefits to people who live in urban areas due to its practicality, and I certainly think that it is influential in terms of the amount of city dwellers that now buy a smart car. No, the smart car is not fast, visually inspiring or stylish. But it does exactly what it says on the tin, it is a “smart” car.
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