Mood Board

I have made a Pinterest mood board of loads of different posters and portrayals of vampire films over the ages. It was quite interesting to search for them and what came up. As soon as I typed "vampire" in, loads of close up of lips and very sexualised shots came up (including some text posts such as "forget princess, I want to be a vampire"). However, vampires today have become very comedic with TV shows like Being Human and the Netflix film What We Do In The Shadows. Why?

I was trying to put my pins in chronological order, but that kinda failed.

Dissertation Proposals

I showed my course lecturer my main concept idea yesterday of vampire films over the years and why the vampire changed, and it looks like I have the go ahead for it! Yay!

We had our Visual Culture lecturer today who we now have for some Dissertation help and the first thing he said to us about it was, don't panic.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llq4ng9zJg1qetou5.gif

We have a "Dissertation Proposal Form" due in on Friday 26th May, 12:00AM. This is a 500 word synopsis and a 15 source bibliography  about your dissertation idea, objectives and aims and plan of action. We also need to look at who our Supervisor should be (however with one of our lecturers leaving, this needs sorting out, so can't do this yet!) If the Dissertation involves talking to people, you need to fill out a morals and ethics form.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz3w22JP6V1qexbc1.gif

You also need to mention theories and why people should be interested in it. It's basically a short essay, even has footnotes! The way it should be set out is;

• Background and Rationale 
• Context [in which issue arises]
• Who will benefit
• Research Question
• Aims
• Methods [what are you doing over the holidays]
• Bibliography 

Wynyard Feedback and Colour Correction

Today, the clients for the Wynyard Hall came in to see our edits so far. I only edited (and quickly colour corrected it this morning) the restaurant one, but it was nice to see the other edits. 

Before and after colour correction!

I gave the lecturer my notebook to make notes so I couldn't make any, but I remembered most of what to do for my edit and on a whole. The corporate events edit needs to have less animals and put them in the garden edit. There's quite a few clips that need moving around, but the lecturer is going to talk to the other editor about it.

http://shaddicted.tumblr.com/post/17280235125/not-my-division-master-post-international

I did four different colour corrections on flowers to show the client. Here's a few notes on them so I don't forget what I did to each one;

'Colour correction 1'

Here I boosted the saturation up to the highest for the bright colours, and also did an S shaped curve on the black and whites.

The flowers look very bright, but maybe a bit too dark.

'Colour correction 2'

I have kept the saturation on the highest for the bright colours, but made it a bit lighter.

'Colour correction 3'

I have kept the saturation on the highest but less of an S curve which has made it less 'in your face' and toned down. The purples look a lot better with this one too.

'Colour correction 4'

Purples are the same as in 'colour correction 3' and the reds are the same as in 'colour correction 2', but saturation of reds are toned down. This is my personal favourite.

I have sent clips of all of them to the clients so they can choose their favourites. I will also know then the feel of the adverts and how to colour correct the other clips. I have also sent them the garden's manager interview as requested, and also my edit of the restaurant with adjustments from this morning. I am back in next week to finish colour correcting and exporting the other edits.

Essay Brainstorming

While writing my essay, I have noticed that I have talked about semiotics (accidentally) a lot, so I now have three chosen topics! I'm not quite sure how to split them up, do I talk about all three fairly, or do I focus on colour and gender? I have chosen the latter, however, I have ran out of things to say 2,000 words in, so I may do 1,000 on semiotics and my conclusion. Plus, my working title for the essay is "Symbolism of colour when portraying gender roles and power structures in films". At the moment, I have talked about symbolism in my piece, but no theorist as of yet. I may add a few since it is now an integral part in my essay.

Unused Sources

I have taken out quite a few books from the library, and found quite a few books online. This blog posts shows which books didn't make the cut and my reasons why. I will update this post as I write my essay and eliminate sources. 

KAPLAN, E. (1998) Women in Film Noir BFI Publishing. London

I got this book out for the chapter "Queers and Women in Film Noir" however, it is too focused on film noir and rarely says about femininity as a whole. When it does, it says more about it's effect on masculinity more.  

MULVEY, L. (2009) Visual and Other Pleasures Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan. Hampshire.

This book was mostly about patriarchy and it's effects on women. I wanted something that was about feminism and on women alone. Yes, I do need to talk about some patriarchy in the essay, but this book focuses more on the sexuality side and male desire. 

GIBSON, A.E. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Chapter 23 (p192). Colour and difference in abstract painting.

Probably referenced that wrong. I still used the collection I found this chapter in, but I decided not to use this particular chapter. It does sound quite relevant and can also be relevant to film, however, Gibson mostly talks about lack of colour. There's no mention of the different colours, just symbolism of monochrome, which is bleakness (which I could have figured out).

A Monster Calls/Rogue One Review

Today I went to see A Monster Calls and also Rogue One later on (which I sadly can't find the ticket for). 

So first up, me and a friend met up to see A Monster Calls (after persuading her to see it over Assassins Creed, which might have been a mistake). I was quite excited to see it after all the good reviews, however, I was sorely disappointed by it.

I thought the plot was very basic, there was some nice symbolism and the animation was great, but that was the only redeemable feature of the film. The humour was childish and was ultimately more of a kids film (with some dark issues such as suicide). It's a great film to bring mature kids to who are dealing with loss. 

https://brightestyoungthings.com/articles/the-byt-weekly-mini-movie-guide-now-playing-in-dc-2?platform=hootsuite

I felt like the characters were a bit unrelatable and the story line was bland, basic and boring. The only part I liked was the two second realisation that the boy had smashed up his Grandma's living room. It dragged, and I was expecting a lot more based on how great the trailer looks.

Overall a great film for kids, not so much adults. Very basic.

2/10

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After feeling like I've just wasted a cinema ticket, I went to go see Rogue One to cheer myself up. Confession, I have never seen a Star Wars film all the way through before. I have been told that you can start with Rogue One then watch in order of 3,4,5,1,2,3,7. So if I enjoy this one, I may binge watch the others. 

http://nerdist.com/first-rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-trailer-is-here/

One selling point for me was Mads Mikkelsen, so I was very pleased when he turned up right at the start of the film (had me hooked). The characters were way better developed than A Monster Calls and was like a breath of fresh air after watching it.

As much as I love Mads, my favourite was K-2SO who was so sassy and the comedic character of the group. Donnie Yen (not even going to attempt spelling the character's name) was also really badass.

Please ignore Chinese subs

http://dorksideoftheforce.com/2016/12/08/official-chinese-trailer-rogue-one-brings-us-complete-look-film-yet/

The fight scenes use up most of the film, which is as expected. It was very intense from start to end, however, ran a bit too smoothly. Yes, there were a few deaths *no spoilers* but it all went well in the end and solved everything really fast. The best fight sequence was definitely Vader at the end with his big finish. I also really like how it all tied together. 

Overall, a much more enjoyable film. Some humour, some backstory, mostly fights.

6/10