The plague! And uni things.
The flatmate's boyfriend woke up sick on Monday. The doctor told him he might have swine flu. Now the flatmate's sick, and as of a couple of days ago, I'm sniffling and feeling kind of deflated. Damn you, flatmate's boyfriend.
I don't know what this is, but I took the precaution of canceling the trip to Brighton I was planning for Saturday--I was going to meet tli for her birthday, but I don't really want to give her the plague, so I called her and we decided to reschedule--and I'm going to hide in my room over the weekend. Not that I don't do that every weekend, but this weekend, I've actually got a reason. Damn. I'd've liked to go to Brighton; I really like that town. Oh well, next time. Anyway, Murphy's Law states that now that I've canceled the trip, this is going to turn out to be nothing more than a slight case of fresher's flu, and I do quite prefer fresher's flu to swine flu, so there's an upside to the whole thing.
First week of uni finished about half an hour ago, and I think I'm going to enjoy this first period until Christmas. I've got three units, Contemporary British TV, Videography and Factual Production.
CBTV is a theoretical unit about--you guessed it--contemporary British TV, how television influences society, and how every country need and come up with their own preferred formats and shows. It's a unit where I can get my meta on, which I always enjoy. It consists of a lecture and a seminar. The lecturer is the woman who taught my History of TV seminar last year. I really like her, but she's a crap lecturer, so I might end up skipping a lot of the lecture part of the unit. My seminar is being taught by a young, Irish woman with an interesting accent who seems quite competent, from what I've seen so far. The assignment will be a presentation and an essay, I think, which should be doable. Not my favorite unit this year, but I'll enjoy it.
Videography is a unit on image composition, coverage, lighting and camera work, and making your shots help with telling the story you're trying to tell. It's being taught by a young, dedicated, and rather hot Iranian tutor who seems genuinely interested in teaching us how to do good work. He's also worked in the business, rather recently, as a filmmaker and producer, which always helps, and he showed us a clip from Pulp Fiction in the first lesson, which counts in his favor. The assignment will be making a narrative three-minute-film, which will be graded on camera work and lighting and cinematography. I'll get to write a script that will actually be shot! \o/ We also have to write a 1,000-words-essay on the cinematography of a scene from one of our favorite movies--I'm thinking about using Hot Fuzz, the montage of Nicholas Angel moving to the small village in the country, because I think that's really well done, and also, it's got Simon Pegg in it and was directed by Edgar Wright and simply wins on account of these two facts. But I might change my mind about that. Anyway, this unit gets my full approval.
Factual Production is a unit about making documentaries. It's taught by the same guy who also teaches Videography, and we have to make two films for this one--a two to three minute character documentary, and a longer (7 to 10 minutes) second documentary, which we haven't really talked about yet in detail. Now, I'm not too big on documentaries, but the tutor spent the entire lesson today trying to explain to us that you can't have objectivity when you're using a camera, and we should therefore try to make our documentary a good story rather than a depiction of objective facts and figures, which means that any hypothetical effort on our part to actually make it good and interesting will be rewarded, which is always a nice thing to know.
That's uni until Christmas, then. It's quite a lot of work, but it's interesting work, so I'm not complaining. And I've only got about 10-13 hours of lessons a week, so there should be enough time to get stuff done. Hah hah, beginning-of-the-year enthusiasm. Well, I'll see how long it'll last.
I don't know what this is, but I took the precaution of canceling the trip to Brighton I was planning for Saturday--I was going to meet tli for her birthday, but I don't really want to give her the plague, so I called her and we decided to reschedule--and I'm going to hide in my room over the weekend. Not that I don't do that every weekend, but this weekend, I've actually got a reason. Damn. I'd've liked to go to Brighton; I really like that town. Oh well, next time. Anyway, Murphy's Law states that now that I've canceled the trip, this is going to turn out to be nothing more than a slight case of fresher's flu, and I do quite prefer fresher's flu to swine flu, so there's an upside to the whole thing.
First week of uni finished about half an hour ago, and I think I'm going to enjoy this first period until Christmas. I've got three units, Contemporary British TV, Videography and Factual Production.
CBTV is a theoretical unit about--you guessed it--contemporary British TV, how television influences society, and how every country need and come up with their own preferred formats and shows. It's a unit where I can get my meta on, which I always enjoy. It consists of a lecture and a seminar. The lecturer is the woman who taught my History of TV seminar last year. I really like her, but she's a crap lecturer, so I might end up skipping a lot of the lecture part of the unit. My seminar is being taught by a young, Irish woman with an interesting accent who seems quite competent, from what I've seen so far. The assignment will be a presentation and an essay, I think, which should be doable. Not my favorite unit this year, but I'll enjoy it.
Videography is a unit on image composition, coverage, lighting and camera work, and making your shots help with telling the story you're trying to tell. It's being taught by a young, dedicated, and rather hot Iranian tutor who seems genuinely interested in teaching us how to do good work. He's also worked in the business, rather recently, as a filmmaker and producer, which always helps, and he showed us a clip from Pulp Fiction in the first lesson, which counts in his favor. The assignment will be making a narrative three-minute-film, which will be graded on camera work and lighting and cinematography. I'll get to write a script that will actually be shot! \o/ We also have to write a 1,000-words-essay on the cinematography of a scene from one of our favorite movies--I'm thinking about using Hot Fuzz, the montage of Nicholas Angel moving to the small village in the country, because I think that's really well done, and also, it's got Simon Pegg in it and was directed by Edgar Wright and simply wins on account of these two facts. But I might change my mind about that. Anyway, this unit gets my full approval.
Factual Production is a unit about making documentaries. It's taught by the same guy who also teaches Videography, and we have to make two films for this one--a two to three minute character documentary, and a longer (7 to 10 minutes) second documentary, which we haven't really talked about yet in detail. Now, I'm not too big on documentaries, but the tutor spent the entire lesson today trying to explain to us that you can't have objectivity when you're using a camera, and we should therefore try to make our documentary a good story rather than a depiction of objective facts and figures, which means that any hypothetical effort on our part to actually make it good and interesting will be rewarded, which is always a nice thing to know.
That's uni until Christmas, then. It's quite a lot of work, but it's interesting work, so I'm not complaining. And I've only got about 10-13 hours of lessons a week, so there should be enough time to get stuff done. Hah hah, beginning-of-the-year enthusiasm. Well, I'll see how long it'll last.