I also realise that none of my reviews and brief write ups have any pictures or videos. I am working on this!! I have forgotten my Flickr and Youtube password-y things, so as soon as I have that sorted, lovely pics and such galore for your eyes to feast on will be up on here.
So, I am all finished for college... I hope! I've done all the work and all is handed in so.....
Also I am moving house tomorrow!!
So... yeah.... in a bit....
Thursday 19 June 2008
Two More Reviews... equals Ten!
Weezer – The Red Album
This is Weezer’s sixth studio album. After Maladroit and then Make Believe, both of which I think we’re good, I was eager to hear this one. A lot of people weren’t happy with Maladroit and Make Believe, but from what I’ve seen written on Weezer’s fan sites and forums, they’re pretty much never happy… the same with a lot of other bands I like – the ‘hardcore fans’ don’t like change – and need to get out more…. Anyway I digress…
I just want to say – this album, in my opinion, is awesome. The riffs are heavy, the lyrics are good, the structure of the songs are surprising and pleasing and overall, this is a brilliant album and one which most of the time gives a two fingered salute to the record companies. I say this as, apparently, Rivers had already written most of the album – and a lot were very diverse – when the record company said that it would be difficult to sell. Cue Rivers writing a load of poppy/rock/infectious songs – some with funny tongue in cheek lyrics – which eventually made the album as it, is now. The diverse songs have also been included in the deluxe edition. This is a very good album for the summer. The first track ‘Troublemaker’ is the perfect summer anthem almost, with tongue in cheek lyrics. The second track ‘The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn) is an almost 6 minute long Weezer version of Bohemian Rhapsody! It has so many different styles of music crammed into the 6 minutes. The other 9 songs are equally brilliant and include the single ‘Pork and Beans’ which Rivers wrote as the song which gives the two fingered salute to the looks/fame/celebrity obsessed media/society of today. The album also sees the band switch instruments and have other members, aside from Rivers, sing lead on them. This is a good departure from the previous albums, which saw Rivers sing lead on all of them. If you liked the Blue album, you’ll like this.
I have seen the comments from ‘hardcore fans’ on forums and other sites… and pretty much the same – they’re never happy… maybe this album is too happy for them, too light-hearted or too good for them? Well, I guess if you want more ‘depth and emotion’, go listen to Dashboard Confessional and have a good cry about how you don’t like the new Weezer album. If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, then stop listening to it.
Cloverfield
A group of people throw a leaving party for a good friend. Everyone is having a good time until they hear rumblings and the walls shake. Assuming it’s an earthquake – or some kind of bombing/attack – they, like you do, go up to the rooftop to see what is going on. On arriving they see mayhem – explosions, buildings falling and shots/bombs being fired – all narrowingly missing them – oooh tense(!). Screaming and shouting as they make their way to the ground floor and outside, they see more buildings fall and then suddenly something hurtling towards them – turns out it’s the Statue Of Liberty’s head – and it crashes onto the street before them – unbelievable(!)
The whole film is shot with handheld cameras, to give it that realistic/oh my god it’s really happening/Blair Witch/could give you motion sickness feel to the film.
The rest of the film follows a group trying to get to safety, with one of the leads going to find his ‘true love’ – a girl he has liked since he was little and he was the one that was moving away, but with the whole terror happening, has to go and find her, save her, profess his love, etc.
This film felt like JJ Abrams (the guy that created Lost – which is probably helped draw attention to this film) got a lot of money and decided to make a big action movie, that seemed real (hand held camera effects) with aliens (oops gave it away if you haven’t seen it) and big explosions, but not be bothered to explain any of it – as how it starts, why and what really happens. Good effects and yeah, there were some exciting bits, but bad storyline.
This is Weezer’s sixth studio album. After Maladroit and then Make Believe, both of which I think we’re good, I was eager to hear this one. A lot of people weren’t happy with Maladroit and Make Believe, but from what I’ve seen written on Weezer’s fan sites and forums, they’re pretty much never happy… the same with a lot of other bands I like – the ‘hardcore fans’ don’t like change – and need to get out more…. Anyway I digress…
I just want to say – this album, in my opinion, is awesome. The riffs are heavy, the lyrics are good, the structure of the songs are surprising and pleasing and overall, this is a brilliant album and one which most of the time gives a two fingered salute to the record companies. I say this as, apparently, Rivers had already written most of the album – and a lot were very diverse – when the record company said that it would be difficult to sell. Cue Rivers writing a load of poppy/rock/infectious songs – some with funny tongue in cheek lyrics – which eventually made the album as it, is now. The diverse songs have also been included in the deluxe edition. This is a very good album for the summer. The first track ‘Troublemaker’ is the perfect summer anthem almost, with tongue in cheek lyrics. The second track ‘The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On A Shaker Hymn) is an almost 6 minute long Weezer version of Bohemian Rhapsody! It has so many different styles of music crammed into the 6 minutes. The other 9 songs are equally brilliant and include the single ‘Pork and Beans’ which Rivers wrote as the song which gives the two fingered salute to the looks/fame/celebrity obsessed media/society of today. The album also sees the band switch instruments and have other members, aside from Rivers, sing lead on them. This is a good departure from the previous albums, which saw Rivers sing lead on all of them. If you liked the Blue album, you’ll like this.
I have seen the comments from ‘hardcore fans’ on forums and other sites… and pretty much the same – they’re never happy… maybe this album is too happy for them, too light-hearted or too good for them? Well, I guess if you want more ‘depth and emotion’, go listen to Dashboard Confessional and have a good cry about how you don’t like the new Weezer album. If you like it, you like it. If you don’t, then stop listening to it.
Cloverfield
A group of people throw a leaving party for a good friend. Everyone is having a good time until they hear rumblings and the walls shake. Assuming it’s an earthquake – or some kind of bombing/attack – they, like you do, go up to the rooftop to see what is going on. On arriving they see mayhem – explosions, buildings falling and shots/bombs being fired – all narrowingly missing them – oooh tense(!). Screaming and shouting as they make their way to the ground floor and outside, they see more buildings fall and then suddenly something hurtling towards them – turns out it’s the Statue Of Liberty’s head – and it crashes onto the street before them – unbelievable(!)
The whole film is shot with handheld cameras, to give it that realistic/oh my god it’s really happening/Blair Witch/could give you motion sickness feel to the film.
The rest of the film follows a group trying to get to safety, with one of the leads going to find his ‘true love’ – a girl he has liked since he was little and he was the one that was moving away, but with the whole terror happening, has to go and find her, save her, profess his love, etc.
This film felt like JJ Abrams (the guy that created Lost – which is probably helped draw attention to this film) got a lot of money and decided to make a big action movie, that seemed real (hand held camera effects) with aliens (oops gave it away if you haven’t seen it) and big explosions, but not be bothered to explain any of it – as how it starts, why and what really happens. Good effects and yeah, there were some exciting bits, but bad storyline.
Wednesday 18 June 2008
Last brief of year one.... HOLIDAYS
Holiday Brief:
What I Did In My Holidays.
This was our last brief to round off our first year. It was, what the tutors said, something fun for us to do for our last project and could be interpreted in any way we liked and presented in any way we liked providing that we use the skills that we have learned during the past year in different applications. We also had to use at least two of the applications together. So the final product could be anything - an animation, film, website, interactive CD ROM or a poster - something involving print/graphic design. I thought that since the previous projects have all been video editing/flash/website related that I would experiment with producing something in print - something that we hadn't actually done before.
The first thing that came into my head when this brief was given to us was Hong Kong. That is where I will be going on my holiday abroad this year, and even though it isn't until late October, as soon as I thought of it, ideas started flowing. Initially I wanted to produce a poster about Hong Kong - something that would be seen in a brochure- and so set about starting to research Hong Kong, brainstorming and looking through pictures.
Through researching and as more ideas started to flow, it became apparent that I was moving away from the 'how to advertise Hong Kong' and realised that what I was looking at was what Hong Kong meant to me.
I stuck with the idea of a poster and went ahead with trying to represent what goes through my mind when I think of Hong Kong - what the place means to me. First - it reminds me of family - as aside from my parents and brother here in the UK the rest of my family reside in Hong Kong. The other factor was all these images that come into my head due to the fact that I am trying to remember past trips/holidays there to see family and to see the sites and where my parents grew up.
With these two factors in mind, I planned to produce two posters, both representing what Hong Kong means to me, but I wanted to show two different styles. The first that I produced was one that showed everything that came into my mind when I think of the place. I used the colour red which is what the flag colour is and because in chinese tradition, red is a lucky colour. I also chose to feature pictures of transport and tourist landmarks in the poster as I remember visiting them from my last trip there. I used Illustrator to produce lines that were in a radial formation and pasted this into photoshop (to combine two applications). I put a picture of me at the bottom and the radial lines behind me and the pictures in a college effect on-top - the radial effect interprets what comes out of my mind when I think of the place. The second poster, I went with a different style. I have recently been getting into painting so I came up with the idea of re-creating a painted poster using illustrator and photoshop. When I think of Hong Kong, I think of family, so that was the main idea for the second piece. I placed pictures of my family into illustrator and using the pen tool traced their faces and features. I pasted this into photoshop where I used the brush tool to colour them in. The outcome was a watercolour effect which I was very pleased with.
I enjoyed this brief as it allowed me to further develop my skills in photoshop and illustrator, something we hadn't done before as it was very web based and to do with video editing more. This also helped to develop furthermore my art skills.
What I Did In My Holidays.
This was our last brief to round off our first year. It was, what the tutors said, something fun for us to do for our last project and could be interpreted in any way we liked and presented in any way we liked providing that we use the skills that we have learned during the past year in different applications. We also had to use at least two of the applications together. So the final product could be anything - an animation, film, website, interactive CD ROM or a poster - something involving print/graphic design. I thought that since the previous projects have all been video editing/flash/website related that I would experiment with producing something in print - something that we hadn't actually done before.
The first thing that came into my head when this brief was given to us was Hong Kong. That is where I will be going on my holiday abroad this year, and even though it isn't until late October, as soon as I thought of it, ideas started flowing. Initially I wanted to produce a poster about Hong Kong - something that would be seen in a brochure- and so set about starting to research Hong Kong, brainstorming and looking through pictures.
Through researching and as more ideas started to flow, it became apparent that I was moving away from the 'how to advertise Hong Kong' and realised that what I was looking at was what Hong Kong meant to me.
I stuck with the idea of a poster and went ahead with trying to represent what goes through my mind when I think of Hong Kong - what the place means to me. First - it reminds me of family - as aside from my parents and brother here in the UK the rest of my family reside in Hong Kong. The other factor was all these images that come into my head due to the fact that I am trying to remember past trips/holidays there to see family and to see the sites and where my parents grew up.
With these two factors in mind, I planned to produce two posters, both representing what Hong Kong means to me, but I wanted to show two different styles. The first that I produced was one that showed everything that came into my mind when I think of the place. I used the colour red which is what the flag colour is and because in chinese tradition, red is a lucky colour. I also chose to feature pictures of transport and tourist landmarks in the poster as I remember visiting them from my last trip there. I used Illustrator to produce lines that were in a radial formation and pasted this into photoshop (to combine two applications). I put a picture of me at the bottom and the radial lines behind me and the pictures in a college effect on-top - the radial effect interprets what comes out of my mind when I think of the place. The second poster, I went with a different style. I have recently been getting into painting so I came up with the idea of re-creating a painted poster using illustrator and photoshop. When I think of Hong Kong, I think of family, so that was the main idea for the second piece. I placed pictures of my family into illustrator and using the pen tool traced their faces and features. I pasted this into photoshop where I used the brush tool to colour them in. The outcome was a watercolour effect which I was very pleased with.
I enjoyed this brief as it allowed me to further develop my skills in photoshop and illustrator, something we hadn't done before as it was very web based and to do with video editing more. This also helped to develop furthermore my art skills.
Even more Reviews!!....
Here are some more reviews that I have found... but only posted up now... woops....
Sunday 11th May 2008
Give It A Name Festival – Sheffield Hallam Arena
Any gig claiming to be a festival, but all indoors, is a strange one for me… well, in my opinion, all festivals should be outdoors…. But anyway I digress…
I had booked tickets for this gig earlier in the year, mainly to Alkaline Trio (which for the price of a ticket is a bit silly) but they hardly tour over here anymore and anyway I digress again. This is not usually a gig that I would go to with great enthusiasm, mainly because it turns out to be a complete ‘Emo-fest’ – plenty of bands pleasing the emo/scene kids – don’t know what they are? Google it, I’m sure there will be some explanation there.
I turn up with my friend/housemate/drummer and I’m right! We’re both there to see Alkaline Trio as we had not seen them since two years earlier and they had a much anticipated album out soon. We’re greeted by scores of kids in brightly coloured get ups and faces covered in hair. We had planned to give the festival a chance, turn up early and check out the early bands, as after all some might be good. But greeted by the sight of kids modelling the latest Top Shop fashions, we decided to go the nearby cinema instead to kill some time – see next review!
Cut to later – an hour before Alkaline Trio – the stadium doesn’t looked packed at all as we had assumed it was sold out. The stage was to our right – as we had managed to get some pretty decent near the front seating tickets – and was split into two. The far side was a smaller stage showcasing up and coming bands and the side nearest to us was a larger stage for the bigger acts, and the set times for each band alternated between the two stages. We had a main band to watch, and then one on the smaller stage before Alkaline Trio on the main stage again. The kids went crazy for pretty much every band that came on – half of which I had no idea who they were – and the sound overall was ok.
Alkaline Trio came onto an excited reception from the crowd. The set was pretty good! There was a good selection of songs from old albums and a chance to showcase some new songs off the new album. Overall I thought it was good, however thought that the sound for their set was too drums and bass heavy. I could hardly hear the guitar on some of the songs and there was a bit of trouble with the microphones at the beginning of the set leading to some of the first half being vocal-less. Infact the drummer Derek Grant had the best mic set up! He was heard clearly as was lead singer Matt Skiba. The headliners for the evening were Paramore, a female fronted pop/rock/punk band from Tennesse, who came on to the biggest reception from the crowd. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this band sure had the energy and front woman Hayley Williams has a very good voice! Their live set was actually pretty good and the songs were tight. In all the set times and change overs were performed really well. On stage you could see all the bands supporting each other – many watched from the sides as bands played, and some even joined in randomly. The atmosphere was good onstage and you could see the bands really enjoying themselves. As for the audience, well, most were too concerned with eye-ing each other up/checking out who looked better/hiding behind their hair. With this in full view as the house lights came up at the end, my friend and I made a sharp exit, but yeah, good gig overall.
Sunday 11th May 2008
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Arriving early at the Give It A Name Festival, and seeing scores of Topshop kids, my friend and I decided to venture to the nearby cinema to waste some time. Upon arrival the only film starting soon was Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so we went for it, popcorn combos in hand. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is from the same people, such as Judd Apatow (who produced this film), that brought us 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. I loved 40 Year Old Virgin, which starred Steve Carell, so was looking forward to watching this.
The film is about a man called Peter Bretter who was going out with well-known sexy TV star Sarah Marshall. I say ‘was’ because she breaks up with him in the first 10 minutes of the film! And thus a story about how Peter gets over her is shown. He decides to go on a holiday to Hawaii to forget about it all and ‘recover’ only to arrive and discover that not only is Sarah there also, but staying at the same hotel as him… with her new rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow – played by our very own Russell Brand. Along the way he spends more time with a girl who works there called Rachael (played by Mila Kunis) and she shows him how to basically have a good time again. Staying at the hotel on his own he also gets to become friends with other members of staff – all brilliant supporting characters. Jason Segal, who also plays Peter Bretter, wrote the script. The rest of the cast include Kristen Bell from Heroes, Mila Kunis from Family Guy and other Judd Apatow film regulars – Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Bill Hader. I thought this film was very funny! The script is excellent and the editing makes it even better. I loved the way that there wasn’t one ‘hero’ and one ‘villain’ in the story. The characters showed how difficult and complex relationships can be and showed that they can all be likeable and have faults at same time. The supporting cast were the best, with Paul Rudd on fine form – having been excellent in 40 Year Old Virgin and Anchorman – continuing his streak as a good character actor. This film has some good one-liners, excellent supporting cast who all had quirks of their own, and is good for both ladies and gents. I thought it would be more of a chick flick at first – something which I actually hate – but this film turned out to be on par, if not better, than 40 Year Old Virgin. Go watch this film if you like Anchorman and 40 Year Old Virgin!
Sunday 11th May 2008
Give It A Name Festival – Sheffield Hallam Arena
Any gig claiming to be a festival, but all indoors, is a strange one for me… well, in my opinion, all festivals should be outdoors…. But anyway I digress…
I had booked tickets for this gig earlier in the year, mainly to Alkaline Trio (which for the price of a ticket is a bit silly) but they hardly tour over here anymore and anyway I digress again. This is not usually a gig that I would go to with great enthusiasm, mainly because it turns out to be a complete ‘Emo-fest’ – plenty of bands pleasing the emo/scene kids – don’t know what they are? Google it, I’m sure there will be some explanation there.
I turn up with my friend/housemate/drummer and I’m right! We’re both there to see Alkaline Trio as we had not seen them since two years earlier and they had a much anticipated album out soon. We’re greeted by scores of kids in brightly coloured get ups and faces covered in hair. We had planned to give the festival a chance, turn up early and check out the early bands, as after all some might be good. But greeted by the sight of kids modelling the latest Top Shop fashions, we decided to go the nearby cinema instead to kill some time – see next review!
Cut to later – an hour before Alkaline Trio – the stadium doesn’t looked packed at all as we had assumed it was sold out. The stage was to our right – as we had managed to get some pretty decent near the front seating tickets – and was split into two. The far side was a smaller stage showcasing up and coming bands and the side nearest to us was a larger stage for the bigger acts, and the set times for each band alternated between the two stages. We had a main band to watch, and then one on the smaller stage before Alkaline Trio on the main stage again. The kids went crazy for pretty much every band that came on – half of which I had no idea who they were – and the sound overall was ok.
Alkaline Trio came onto an excited reception from the crowd. The set was pretty good! There was a good selection of songs from old albums and a chance to showcase some new songs off the new album. Overall I thought it was good, however thought that the sound for their set was too drums and bass heavy. I could hardly hear the guitar on some of the songs and there was a bit of trouble with the microphones at the beginning of the set leading to some of the first half being vocal-less. Infact the drummer Derek Grant had the best mic set up! He was heard clearly as was lead singer Matt Skiba. The headliners for the evening were Paramore, a female fronted pop/rock/punk band from Tennesse, who came on to the biggest reception from the crowd. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this band sure had the energy and front woman Hayley Williams has a very good voice! Their live set was actually pretty good and the songs were tight. In all the set times and change overs were performed really well. On stage you could see all the bands supporting each other – many watched from the sides as bands played, and some even joined in randomly. The atmosphere was good onstage and you could see the bands really enjoying themselves. As for the audience, well, most were too concerned with eye-ing each other up/checking out who looked better/hiding behind their hair. With this in full view as the house lights came up at the end, my friend and I made a sharp exit, but yeah, good gig overall.
Sunday 11th May 2008
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Arriving early at the Give It A Name Festival, and seeing scores of Topshop kids, my friend and I decided to venture to the nearby cinema to waste some time. Upon arrival the only film starting soon was Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so we went for it, popcorn combos in hand. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is from the same people, such as Judd Apatow (who produced this film), that brought us 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. I loved 40 Year Old Virgin, which starred Steve Carell, so was looking forward to watching this.
The film is about a man called Peter Bretter who was going out with well-known sexy TV star Sarah Marshall. I say ‘was’ because she breaks up with him in the first 10 minutes of the film! And thus a story about how Peter gets over her is shown. He decides to go on a holiday to Hawaii to forget about it all and ‘recover’ only to arrive and discover that not only is Sarah there also, but staying at the same hotel as him… with her new rock star boyfriend Aldous Snow – played by our very own Russell Brand. Along the way he spends more time with a girl who works there called Rachael (played by Mila Kunis) and she shows him how to basically have a good time again. Staying at the hotel on his own he also gets to become friends with other members of staff – all brilliant supporting characters. Jason Segal, who also plays Peter Bretter, wrote the script. The rest of the cast include Kristen Bell from Heroes, Mila Kunis from Family Guy and other Judd Apatow film regulars – Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Bill Hader. I thought this film was very funny! The script is excellent and the editing makes it even better. I loved the way that there wasn’t one ‘hero’ and one ‘villain’ in the story. The characters showed how difficult and complex relationships can be and showed that they can all be likeable and have faults at same time. The supporting cast were the best, with Paul Rudd on fine form – having been excellent in 40 Year Old Virgin and Anchorman – continuing his streak as a good character actor. This film has some good one-liners, excellent supporting cast who all had quirks of their own, and is good for both ladies and gents. I thought it would be more of a chick flick at first – something which I actually hate – but this film turned out to be on par, if not better, than 40 Year Old Virgin. Go watch this film if you like Anchorman and 40 Year Old Virgin!
More Reviews....
Saturday 19th April 2008
MOSI – Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds 4 – The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies
Arriving at the Museum of Science and Industry and seeing the queue at the box office, I knew that the interest for this exhibition had reached everyone. This is the exhibition that showcases bodies that have been under the Plastination method.
“Plastination is the process of extracting all bodily fluids and soluble fat from specimens and replacing them with vacuum forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastometers, such as rubber, silicon and epoxy. The specimen is then cured with light, heat or certain gases, which give it rigidity and permanence.”
On entering the exhibition, you are greeted with glass cases, each with body parts in them and a short description of each. Also on your right as you enter you are greeted with a full size plastinate human body in a glass case. Seeing it isn’t an issue until about half a second later when you think ‘that…. is a real human body… stripped to its’ muscle and bone….’.
The exhibition was very well thought out, and very informative. It starts out at the top of the body and works down. The exhibition begins with a look at the head and all the bone structure there – such as the smallest bones in the human body that are in the ear. You also see brain tissue and slides of the structure of the brain. Moving through the body, the exhibition also has some amazing displays of real bodies in some amazing positions – such as the Swimmer – and from this you can see exactly which muscles are at work and basically how the body would work together to help propel the body along. There is also another body that has been cut up/sliced and then displayed with all these sections apart. Other amazing displays is of a body which has been stripped of tissue/muscles and bone and all that is shown is the intricacies of the nerve system in the body – the detail is amazing. Near the end of the exhibition, there is a full size male Gorilla – displayed, stood, in an upright position – both frightening – the size of the creature – and amazing.
I was very impressed with this exhibition and think it really has to be seen to believed!
Saturday 19th April 2008
Sapporo Teppanyaki Restaurant – Sushi and Noodle Bar
Coming to this restaurant after I had been to MOSI to see plastinacized human bodies, you’d think I wouldn’t be hungry!! But, I found I wasn’t as squeamish as I’d thought I’d be (see previous post/review) plus the setting and atmosphere of this restaurant took me away from all that. The restaurant, on first impressions, has a very ‘trendy bar’ feel to it as soon as you walk in. But then around the corner you see the tables set out around the hot plates/place where the chefs cook, right in front of you in a nice restaurant feel. Being intolerant/allergic to alcohol (there goes one of my ‘student duties’ to drink myself stupid unfulfilled) I went for a tasty non-alcoholic cocktail called ‘Sapporo Punch’ that was very fruity and tasty. My other half also decided to join me on this and ordered a ‘Blushing Geisha’, which arrived in a glass which could, if you judged people by their drinks, was way camper/girlie than mine!
Anyways onto the food and service. The service was awesome. The staff were all polite and very friendly and we were seated very comfortably with 16 other people around the two hot plates. As we were seated the two chefs for our table had already started to cook the other diners. I ordered a salmon sushi starter and the other half went for chicken rolls. For main courses, I went for King Prawn with noodles and the other half went for Sirloin Steak and noodles. As soon as we had ordered, the chefs started their show. They each had a big metal fork and big metal spatula, which they juggled in the air and spun on their fingers and hit the hot plates – all like a big percussion juggling show. One of them then started to spin eggs on the hot plate and swiftly and effortlessly scooped up into the air with their spatula and caught them in their shirt pockets and the final one into their hat. Heating up the hot plate was even more impressive. They turned off the lights that surrounded our table and on each hot plate poured liquor onto it while lighting it – cheesy 80’s hair metal pyrotechnics this was not!
Along with slicing/flipping fried egg from one side of the hot plate into a bowl on the other side and flipping potato slices into diners mouths (yes I am not joking… I caught mine first time!) and also not forgetting to mention, the amazing food, this place is definitely the place to go with loved ones or friends, if you all fancy a nice meal with a difference! Sorry this ending was a bit abrupt, but seriously I could go on and on about this place.. but I recommend you go and experience it for yourself! A show and great food in one, what more could you ask for? ☺
MOSI – Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds 4 – The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies
Arriving at the Museum of Science and Industry and seeing the queue at the box office, I knew that the interest for this exhibition had reached everyone. This is the exhibition that showcases bodies that have been under the Plastination method.
“Plastination is the process of extracting all bodily fluids and soluble fat from specimens and replacing them with vacuum forced impregnation with reactive resins and elastometers, such as rubber, silicon and epoxy. The specimen is then cured with light, heat or certain gases, which give it rigidity and permanence.”
On entering the exhibition, you are greeted with glass cases, each with body parts in them and a short description of each. Also on your right as you enter you are greeted with a full size plastinate human body in a glass case. Seeing it isn’t an issue until about half a second later when you think ‘that…. is a real human body… stripped to its’ muscle and bone….’.
The exhibition was very well thought out, and very informative. It starts out at the top of the body and works down. The exhibition begins with a look at the head and all the bone structure there – such as the smallest bones in the human body that are in the ear. You also see brain tissue and slides of the structure of the brain. Moving through the body, the exhibition also has some amazing displays of real bodies in some amazing positions – such as the Swimmer – and from this you can see exactly which muscles are at work and basically how the body would work together to help propel the body along. There is also another body that has been cut up/sliced and then displayed with all these sections apart. Other amazing displays is of a body which has been stripped of tissue/muscles and bone and all that is shown is the intricacies of the nerve system in the body – the detail is amazing. Near the end of the exhibition, there is a full size male Gorilla – displayed, stood, in an upright position – both frightening – the size of the creature – and amazing.
I was very impressed with this exhibition and think it really has to be seen to believed!
Saturday 19th April 2008
Sapporo Teppanyaki Restaurant – Sushi and Noodle Bar
Coming to this restaurant after I had been to MOSI to see plastinacized human bodies, you’d think I wouldn’t be hungry!! But, I found I wasn’t as squeamish as I’d thought I’d be (see previous post/review) plus the setting and atmosphere of this restaurant took me away from all that. The restaurant, on first impressions, has a very ‘trendy bar’ feel to it as soon as you walk in. But then around the corner you see the tables set out around the hot plates/place where the chefs cook, right in front of you in a nice restaurant feel. Being intolerant/allergic to alcohol (there goes one of my ‘student duties’ to drink myself stupid unfulfilled) I went for a tasty non-alcoholic cocktail called ‘Sapporo Punch’ that was very fruity and tasty. My other half also decided to join me on this and ordered a ‘Blushing Geisha’, which arrived in a glass which could, if you judged people by their drinks, was way camper/girlie than mine!
Anyways onto the food and service. The service was awesome. The staff were all polite and very friendly and we were seated very comfortably with 16 other people around the two hot plates. As we were seated the two chefs for our table had already started to cook the other diners. I ordered a salmon sushi starter and the other half went for chicken rolls. For main courses, I went for King Prawn with noodles and the other half went for Sirloin Steak and noodles. As soon as we had ordered, the chefs started their show. They each had a big metal fork and big metal spatula, which they juggled in the air and spun on their fingers and hit the hot plates – all like a big percussion juggling show. One of them then started to spin eggs on the hot plate and swiftly and effortlessly scooped up into the air with their spatula and caught them in their shirt pockets and the final one into their hat. Heating up the hot plate was even more impressive. They turned off the lights that surrounded our table and on each hot plate poured liquor onto it while lighting it – cheesy 80’s hair metal pyrotechnics this was not!
Along with slicing/flipping fried egg from one side of the hot plate into a bowl on the other side and flipping potato slices into diners mouths (yes I am not joking… I caught mine first time!) and also not forgetting to mention, the amazing food, this place is definitely the place to go with loved ones or friends, if you all fancy a nice meal with a difference! Sorry this ending was a bit abrupt, but seriously I could go on and on about this place.. but I recommend you go and experience it for yourself! A show and great food in one, what more could you ask for? ☺
Doritos Brief
Doritos Brief:
You Make It, We Play It
This was a competition for UK entrants with the guidelines and rules being our brief. How this fitted in exactly with the unit is lost somewhere, but we were told it did, so on we pressed. For this brief we were to produce an advert for Doritos. It had to be exactly 29 seconds long, fun, exciting and whatever we wanted it to be, as long as no violence, swearing or nudity obviously. Started by brainstorming and then researching. Mainly looked at the shape of a dorito and tried to apply it - such as, as a pyramid or other objects. Since, at the time, my housemates were playing a lot of different video games, I wanted to go with a video game idea. This was the first thing that came into my head and one which I developed. I came up with basing it on a timeline of video games and eventually progressed onto the idea of starting with 'Pong', one of the first popular video games (where a ball was bounced from side to side from 'bats' - like hockey game) and wanted to substitute the ball for a dorito. Researching more into video games and timelines I wanted the next 'scene' to be a Space Invaders mock up - replacing the spaceship at the bottom with a dorito spaceship. This research went on until I had a full 29 seconds worth of material including games such as - Asteroids, with the spaceship as a dorito, Tetris, with all the shapes as doritos, R-Type, again the dorito as the spaceship with a Salsa jar shaped baddie and the end game was Wipeout, again a dorito instead of the spaceship.
I decided to produce this as an animation, and, despite finding it difficult in the last brief, decided to use Flash. I chose Flash for a more 'smoother' finish, as I could use the tools to produce all the characters and scene settings. I also thought, as this time it isn't a website, I wouldn't have to produce buttons and therefore not use actionscript. I thought I would challenge myself again, as even though I found the website brief hard, it didn't mean that I would never use Flash again, so off I went.
In the end, I believe that the idea I had was good, but I didn't execute it well. I finished the project on time and got everything that I wanted in it, but I think I could've put more effort into making it look better. For the music I just remixed one of my own songs into something more cartoon-y/game-like. I still find using Flash difficult but will keep working on it to better myself with this application. Overall I think the outcome was ok - not impressive - but at least I got to put all my original ideas in.
You Make It, We Play It
This was a competition for UK entrants with the guidelines and rules being our brief. How this fitted in exactly with the unit is lost somewhere, but we were told it did, so on we pressed. For this brief we were to produce an advert for Doritos. It had to be exactly 29 seconds long, fun, exciting and whatever we wanted it to be, as long as no violence, swearing or nudity obviously. Started by brainstorming and then researching. Mainly looked at the shape of a dorito and tried to apply it - such as, as a pyramid or other objects. Since, at the time, my housemates were playing a lot of different video games, I wanted to go with a video game idea. This was the first thing that came into my head and one which I developed. I came up with basing it on a timeline of video games and eventually progressed onto the idea of starting with 'Pong', one of the first popular video games (where a ball was bounced from side to side from 'bats' - like hockey game) and wanted to substitute the ball for a dorito. Researching more into video games and timelines I wanted the next 'scene' to be a Space Invaders mock up - replacing the spaceship at the bottom with a dorito spaceship. This research went on until I had a full 29 seconds worth of material including games such as - Asteroids, with the spaceship as a dorito, Tetris, with all the shapes as doritos, R-Type, again the dorito as the spaceship with a Salsa jar shaped baddie and the end game was Wipeout, again a dorito instead of the spaceship.
I decided to produce this as an animation, and, despite finding it difficult in the last brief, decided to use Flash. I chose Flash for a more 'smoother' finish, as I could use the tools to produce all the characters and scene settings. I also thought, as this time it isn't a website, I wouldn't have to produce buttons and therefore not use actionscript. I thought I would challenge myself again, as even though I found the website brief hard, it didn't mean that I would never use Flash again, so off I went.
In the end, I believe that the idea I had was good, but I didn't execute it well. I finished the project on time and got everything that I wanted in it, but I think I could've put more effort into making it look better. For the music I just remixed one of my own songs into something more cartoon-y/game-like. I still find using Flash difficult but will keep working on it to better myself with this application. Overall I think the outcome was ok - not impressive - but at least I got to put all my original ideas in.
Review
Saturday 5th April 2008
Urbis – How Manga Took Over The World Exhibition.
Having spent the previous weeks researching for the ‘Artist’ Flash brief on Hayao Miyazaki – Studio Ghibli Director/Animator – I was looking forward to visiting this Urbis Exhibition. I was looking forward to learning more about Manga – I have always liked what I have seen, but didn’t really know in-depth about it – and also, I was hoping the exhibition would give me some more inspiration to put towards my project as I read that there would be a Studio Ghibli section.
On arrival, looking up to the first floor where the exhibition was, I was greeted with the bright colours and eye-catching typography and characters that we associate with Manga.
Going into the exhibition and looking around, it quickly became apparent that this was more of a basic overall look into Manga. The ‘Cute Manga’ section, which supposedly had a Studio Ghibli section, didn’t really go into depth about it. There was some artwork, which showcased the cute side of Manga and also a glass case, which showcased the products that have become popular in the west, mainly little collectables, bags and Hello Kitty things. Looking further around it seemed the same had been applied all over. While I was disappointed overall there were some pieces of artwork that impressed me (mainly the Star Wars characters done in Manga-style which was a huge mural on the all, and the use of Manga today, for example, in the current Vodafone adverts you see on the billboards).
Overall I felt that the exhibition was catered mainly for the novices to Manga – which I thought I was, but even for me I found it too basic. However there were a few nice touches here and there and also with the exhibition running until September, they are going to put on films during the summer, something that I am definitely looking forward to; especially as some are going to be Studio Ghibli films and there are one or two that I haven’t seen and would love to see on the big screen.
Urbis – How Manga Took Over The World Exhibition.
Having spent the previous weeks researching for the ‘Artist’ Flash brief on Hayao Miyazaki – Studio Ghibli Director/Animator – I was looking forward to visiting this Urbis Exhibition. I was looking forward to learning more about Manga – I have always liked what I have seen, but didn’t really know in-depth about it – and also, I was hoping the exhibition would give me some more inspiration to put towards my project as I read that there would be a Studio Ghibli section.
On arrival, looking up to the first floor where the exhibition was, I was greeted with the bright colours and eye-catching typography and characters that we associate with Manga.
Going into the exhibition and looking around, it quickly became apparent that this was more of a basic overall look into Manga. The ‘Cute Manga’ section, which supposedly had a Studio Ghibli section, didn’t really go into depth about it. There was some artwork, which showcased the cute side of Manga and also a glass case, which showcased the products that have become popular in the west, mainly little collectables, bags and Hello Kitty things. Looking further around it seemed the same had been applied all over. While I was disappointed overall there were some pieces of artwork that impressed me (mainly the Star Wars characters done in Manga-style which was a huge mural on the all, and the use of Manga today, for example, in the current Vodafone adverts you see on the billboards).
Overall I felt that the exhibition was catered mainly for the novices to Manga – which I thought I was, but even for me I found it too basic. However there were a few nice touches here and there and also with the exhibition running until September, they are going to put on films during the summer, something that I am definitely looking forward to; especially as some are going to be Studio Ghibli films and there are one or two that I haven’t seen and would love to see on the big screen.
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Flash Website
I haven't posted in a while due to being mega mega busy - with college work, band stuff (members coming and going) and house hunting and soon, moving!
The next few posts will basically be an update of what I have done since the Title Sequence brief including some lovely reviews that I have done as I have gone along and only now can be bothered to post up on here... ooops.
So I shall start here. The next brief after the Title Sequence was a Flash Website.
The Brief was entitled 'Artist' and basically we had to choose a person who we could produce a website about. The Artist preferably had to have a good catalogue of work to talk about and display and the person had to be someone interesting - obviously.
I chose the anime director Hayao Miyazaki. His work with Studio Ghibli and also as one of its' co-founders, had always interested me and I wanted to find more about him. I found him to be the perfect choice for me. Plus I love his films!
We had a few lessons on Flash, which was the application we were to use for this brief. All in all, during the lessons I understood completely... but when it came to applying it myself... completely lost!
For the website, we had to think about content, usability, interface and navigation. The right amount of information has to be shown and everything has to be easy to navigate around. For my research I looked at other Flash websites, noting down how many pages they had, how easy it was to use them, the look of them and how much I found out from them. After this I began researching into Hayao Miyazaki - his background in animation, his catalogue of work, his influences, the awards he has won and what he is up to at present were factors I paid close attention to. I had to think: if I was new to this person and wanted to find out more about him, what would I ask first/what would I want to know about?
After researching in depth Hayao, I set about thinking about the layout of my website and what information should and shouldn't be included.
Overall I went for a nature theme - in research I found out that Hayao loved nature, had lots of plants in his studio and it features heavily in his films. The layout was a white background with a tree to the right hand side. On the tree were the buttons for the menu - shown as planks of wood attached to the tree and each with a button name like home, biography, gallery, etc. Information for each page was displayed in the middle within a cream coloured box. I went for very neutral/natural colours. To add abit of activity to it, I animated leaves falling to the ground as part of the background. I produced a very simple looking site - which I hope met the guideline of being easy to use. I think overall the lack of knowledge and understanding of Flash led me to produce something under the standard and I was disappointed with the end result. On another hand I felt I tried my best and at there were times where I was inputting the correct information into Flash only for it to not work and felt that my site was full of bugs. I found actionscript frustrating to use as although I followed my notes I had made in class - where they had worked in class - it didn't work when it came to doing it myself.
Along with finding it frustrating and things not working when I wanted them to, I ran over my deadline time and ended up handing it in unfinished.
Needless to say I didn't really enjoy this project. I found it frustrating that the things I was taught in class, where they had worked aswell, didn't work when I came to work on it myself. It has put me off website design abit, but overall feel it has been a good challenge.... it has also further confirmed that I much prefer video editing and post production.
The next few posts will basically be an update of what I have done since the Title Sequence brief including some lovely reviews that I have done as I have gone along and only now can be bothered to post up on here... ooops.
So I shall start here. The next brief after the Title Sequence was a Flash Website.
The Brief was entitled 'Artist' and basically we had to choose a person who we could produce a website about. The Artist preferably had to have a good catalogue of work to talk about and display and the person had to be someone interesting - obviously.
I chose the anime director Hayao Miyazaki. His work with Studio Ghibli and also as one of its' co-founders, had always interested me and I wanted to find more about him. I found him to be the perfect choice for me. Plus I love his films!
We had a few lessons on Flash, which was the application we were to use for this brief. All in all, during the lessons I understood completely... but when it came to applying it myself... completely lost!
For the website, we had to think about content, usability, interface and navigation. The right amount of information has to be shown and everything has to be easy to navigate around. For my research I looked at other Flash websites, noting down how many pages they had, how easy it was to use them, the look of them and how much I found out from them. After this I began researching into Hayao Miyazaki - his background in animation, his catalogue of work, his influences, the awards he has won and what he is up to at present were factors I paid close attention to. I had to think: if I was new to this person and wanted to find out more about him, what would I ask first/what would I want to know about?
After researching in depth Hayao, I set about thinking about the layout of my website and what information should and shouldn't be included.
Overall I went for a nature theme - in research I found out that Hayao loved nature, had lots of plants in his studio and it features heavily in his films. The layout was a white background with a tree to the right hand side. On the tree were the buttons for the menu - shown as planks of wood attached to the tree and each with a button name like home, biography, gallery, etc. Information for each page was displayed in the middle within a cream coloured box. I went for very neutral/natural colours. To add abit of activity to it, I animated leaves falling to the ground as part of the background. I produced a very simple looking site - which I hope met the guideline of being easy to use. I think overall the lack of knowledge and understanding of Flash led me to produce something under the standard and I was disappointed with the end result. On another hand I felt I tried my best and at there were times where I was inputting the correct information into Flash only for it to not work and felt that my site was full of bugs. I found actionscript frustrating to use as although I followed my notes I had made in class - where they had worked in class - it didn't work when it came to doing it myself.
Along with finding it frustrating and things not working when I wanted them to, I ran over my deadline time and ended up handing it in unfinished.
Needless to say I didn't really enjoy this project. I found it frustrating that the things I was taught in class, where they had worked aswell, didn't work when I came to work on it myself. It has put me off website design abit, but overall feel it has been a good challenge.... it has also further confirmed that I much prefer video editing and post production.
Sunday 3 February 2008
Project: Title Sequence
So, my second brief required me to produce a title sequence for a programme from a list. I chose The Culture Show.
The Culture Show is a weekly magazine show that is on every Saturday at 7pm and it's content has features about what is happening in the world of art, music, fashion, film and performing arts. The current Culture Show title isn't very visually exciting - I have done a review of it, please see the post below.
I began research by looking at title sequence designers and came across Kyle Cooper who produced excellent sequences for films such as Se7en, Mimic and Spiderman (which was also one of the choices on the brief). At this stage I also tried to do a brainstorm... something I'm still not very good at.... so I looked at the definitions of culture and society on the internet, hoping to gather some inspiration or clues.
Next thing I did was to breakdown and evaluate the current title sequence - something that didn't take long as I found it to be quite a 'non-fancy' sequence (again, see previous post).
In the research stage I also went around Manchester and took alot of pictures of visual art and things that are appearing in our cities that have evolved into what our culture is today.
I started to have lots of ideas early on in this brief, especially when I found out that it is called a magazine programme. The word magazine really stuck with me and I came up with alot of ideas where the sequence would evolve around taking the viewer around a magazine layout and the content shown would be what is featured in the show - like it's contents page. So I researched alot of magazines - especially culture magazines like i-D and also just focusing on front covers.
As a musician I also had alot of music type ideas - namely a speaker pumping out music and also driving out the content of the show. As research went on I preferred the speaker idea more than the magazine idea. After a one to one tutorial with Alex we discussed visual ideas and we came up with a scenario where 'I ' would be producing a magazine cover and placing polaroids onto the cover to line up with text - then the polaroids would 'come to life' - and thus would give me chance to edit what I film into those polaroid templates. However she did mention that some other people had similar ideas and I must admit that put me off the idea. We had also discussed making it have a sketchbook feel with maybe some of my doodles from my sketchbook 'wrapping' its way around the polaroids/footage. I kind of liked this idea and it stuck in my head.
Going back to my research in my sketchbook I was once again more drawn to the 'speaker' idea and thought of maybe incorporating a sketchbook feel to it - I then produced a separate 'sketchbook feel' idea.
After the research stage I began to look at what my content should be. After that I went ahead and started filming.
I incorporated both the Speaker idea and the Sketchbook idea together.
I found editing really difficult, especially as we were using Motion for the first time and also because we had, had only one tutorial on it before the Christmas holidays. When I did finally start getting comfortable with using Motion and Final Cut together I found that it was very late on in the process and basically very near the deadline and so I felt that I rushed my project.
In the end I felt that what I had thought of wasn't what I had produced. The only thing that I feel ok on, is that I timed most of the footage really well to the music that I used, which was the intro to one of my band's songs. I chose it because it had a good riff and punchy drums to follow. Looking back now, I think that the song may be too 'heavy' for the sequence and feel of the show.
Explanation of sequence (which I will post up soon!!)
Starts off with a speaker emerging and then as the first beat of the music starts the speaker comes to life. In the beats that follow the title of the show is co-0rdinated with the beats - and this pretty much carries on throughout. I wanted to give the footage I used a sketchbook feel, so tinted them and on some gave them some 'tv noise' to look scratchy and used. I also put in one of my doodles too to give it that feel. The end part of it, with the footage appearing in time to the music and looking like they are 'falling into' the 'Culture Show' title in the background, I did to basically say 'all this is crammed into this show' (I know you'll all know what I'm talking about when you see it - I will post it up soon!)
Overall I think time management was a big issue with this brief. I think that the Christmas holidays threw me off track and I found it hard to get back into working. I also think that we should have had more tutorials on the software that we were told to use - my group still haven't had a tutorial on Illustrator!
Time management and learning about the software will definately be issues I address early on next brief.
The Culture Show is a weekly magazine show that is on every Saturday at 7pm and it's content has features about what is happening in the world of art, music, fashion, film and performing arts. The current Culture Show title isn't very visually exciting - I have done a review of it, please see the post below.
I began research by looking at title sequence designers and came across Kyle Cooper who produced excellent sequences for films such as Se7en, Mimic and Spiderman (which was also one of the choices on the brief). At this stage I also tried to do a brainstorm... something I'm still not very good at.... so I looked at the definitions of culture and society on the internet, hoping to gather some inspiration or clues.
Next thing I did was to breakdown and evaluate the current title sequence - something that didn't take long as I found it to be quite a 'non-fancy' sequence (again, see previous post).
In the research stage I also went around Manchester and took alot of pictures of visual art and things that are appearing in our cities that have evolved into what our culture is today.
I started to have lots of ideas early on in this brief, especially when I found out that it is called a magazine programme. The word magazine really stuck with me and I came up with alot of ideas where the sequence would evolve around taking the viewer around a magazine layout and the content shown would be what is featured in the show - like it's contents page. So I researched alot of magazines - especially culture magazines like i-D and also just focusing on front covers.
As a musician I also had alot of music type ideas - namely a speaker pumping out music and also driving out the content of the show. As research went on I preferred the speaker idea more than the magazine idea. After a one to one tutorial with Alex we discussed visual ideas and we came up with a scenario where 'I ' would be producing a magazine cover and placing polaroids onto the cover to line up with text - then the polaroids would 'come to life' - and thus would give me chance to edit what I film into those polaroid templates. However she did mention that some other people had similar ideas and I must admit that put me off the idea. We had also discussed making it have a sketchbook feel with maybe some of my doodles from my sketchbook 'wrapping' its way around the polaroids/footage. I kind of liked this idea and it stuck in my head.
Going back to my research in my sketchbook I was once again more drawn to the 'speaker' idea and thought of maybe incorporating a sketchbook feel to it - I then produced a separate 'sketchbook feel' idea.
After the research stage I began to look at what my content should be. After that I went ahead and started filming.
I incorporated both the Speaker idea and the Sketchbook idea together.
I found editing really difficult, especially as we were using Motion for the first time and also because we had, had only one tutorial on it before the Christmas holidays. When I did finally start getting comfortable with using Motion and Final Cut together I found that it was very late on in the process and basically very near the deadline and so I felt that I rushed my project.
In the end I felt that what I had thought of wasn't what I had produced. The only thing that I feel ok on, is that I timed most of the footage really well to the music that I used, which was the intro to one of my band's songs. I chose it because it had a good riff and punchy drums to follow. Looking back now, I think that the song may be too 'heavy' for the sequence and feel of the show.
Explanation of sequence (which I will post up soon!!)
Starts off with a speaker emerging and then as the first beat of the music starts the speaker comes to life. In the beats that follow the title of the show is co-0rdinated with the beats - and this pretty much carries on throughout. I wanted to give the footage I used a sketchbook feel, so tinted them and on some gave them some 'tv noise' to look scratchy and used. I also put in one of my doodles too to give it that feel. The end part of it, with the footage appearing in time to the music and looking like they are 'falling into' the 'Culture Show' title in the background, I did to basically say 'all this is crammed into this show' (I know you'll all know what I'm talking about when you see it - I will post it up soon!)
Overall I think time management was a big issue with this brief. I think that the Christmas holidays threw me off track and I found it hard to get back into working. I also think that we should have had more tutorials on the software that we were told to use - my group still haven't had a tutorial on Illustrator!
Time management and learning about the software will definately be issues I address early on next brief.
Some lovely reviews......
Here are some reviews about things I've seen or heard.... lovely......
Review: The Culture Show – Title Sequence
The current Culture Show title sequence lasts a mere nineteen seconds and is not filled with fancy motion graphics. Instead, what we see is The Culture Show title in its’ Calvert style font on the current background of diagonal black and turquoise stripes. Presented on big poster size, rectangular boards, these have been placed around a city location and filmed.
Edited in time to the music, we see the boards on walls amongst other posters, on art gallery buildings, next to theatre show advertisements, at a bus stop and on walls outside nightclubs, amongst nightclub revellers.
I think the designers went for the simplistic approach and the piece basically says; Culture is all around us everyday in everyday situations.
I wasn’t particularly impressed by this title sequence and I don’t know if they made a sequence intentionally uninteresting so that it didn’t take away focus from the actual content of the programme, or if they were trying to be clever and arty. Either way, the only thing that I remember from the sequence is the actual logo – the title on its’ striped background.
Review: Arcade Fire – Manchester Evening News Arena
Having missed their previous gig in Manchester, which, was at the better venue for bands, the Manchester Apollo, I knew that, as a big Arcade Fire fan, I didn’t want to miss out the next time around, even though, as I found out, it was at the less atmospheric, less ‘band sound’ accommodating venue of Manchester Evening News Arena.
It was Saturday the 27th October 2007 that Arcade Fire started, what would be an amazing set, with a song off their second album ‘Neon Bible’. ‘Black Mirror’ is an atmospherically dark song, constantly building in instruments and vocals to a rousing shouty chorus, and an excellent opener – well, I thought everything was excellent… but then I am a massive Arcade Fire fan!
Their set was visually stunning as well. They had their Neon Bible logo in the middle above the stage all lit up with neon lights. They also had circular screens – two either side of the neon bible – and occasionally the faces of the band members would be projected onto these as they played – camcorder style. There was a theme of red, black and blue colours too. At one point there was video footage projected each side of the stage on vertical long columns and the way it looked was like a reel of film being shown.
Watching this band in action is amazing. Apart from the string section – two violinists – the other members of the band were multi-instrumentalists; swapping instruments here and there depending on what song they were performing. And when they were playing – the energy and effort and feeling put into each song was so strong and they worked together perfectly.
As well as the usual drums, guitars and violins on stage, they also played the keyboard, synth and there was also an organ and a megaphone was used in one song.
Front man Win was a strong character to watch and his wife and ‘co-front person’ Regine, had everyone singing along with her and she was fun to watch.
The highlight of the evening for me was when they played ‘Wake Up’. The first few bars with the guitar line and the drums and then having every single person in the arena sing along to the ‘ahs’ at the beginning while it was lit up, was amazing and sent chills down my spine.
Although I would’ve preferred the more intimate venue of the Apollo, or even better, the Manchester Academy, I am glad I didn’t miss this gig.
Review: Tegan and Sara – the album ‘The Con’
The name ‘Tegan and Sara’ rang a bell when I was reading an article, an interview with the front man of a band I highly regard; Jimmy Eat World. Jim Adkins was listing his top albums of 2007 and one of them was The Con by Tegan and Sara. Spurned on by this vaguely recognisable name, I began to research it and find out more… and eventually obtained a copy. Having at first seen the video for the first single off the album, ‘Back In Your Head’ on YouTube, after watching it I thought ‘Ok, it’s poppy, a little electro and quite like the band Kings Of Leon, who’s album ‘Because of the Times’ I love, so I thought I’d give the rest of the album a listen.
Starting off with the first two tracks ‘I Was Married’ and ‘Relief Next To Me’ I noticed just how well produced this album was.
As I listened on I noticed that some of the songs aren’t even over two minutes long, but what they do deliver is either a straight up, hook laden one and a half minutes or under two minutes of smooth, pure vocal harmonies on top of a simple guitar riff and moog synth with either jazz or straight rhythm drums. The other songs that are more than two minutes, build on either of these components and what I got to hear was dynamic song writing, with the quieter parts in the right places perfectly complimented by rousing, crescendo choruses and more hook laden riffs, melodies and harmonies.
Title track ‘The Con’ combines a simple vocal and guitar verse with an amazing heavy drums, synth, vocal harmony chorus. More of this formula is shown in songs like ‘Burn Your Life Down’, ‘Nineteen’ and ‘Dark Come Soon’.
Chris Walla who is a member of famous Indie band Death Cab For Cutie produced this album. This album also features the drummer from Death Cab, Jason Mcgerr, as well as bass duties fulfilled by Hunter Burgan from AFI and ex Weezer and The Rentals bassist Matt Sharp.
Tegan and Sara are twin sisters from Canada. Much emphasis is put onto the facts that not only are they sisters, but that they are both lesbians. Unfortunately, through reading some articles about them, some magazines/reviewers think that this is their major selling point, and always list this first before even starting to review their songs – a point not even worth mentioning as it should be their song writing abilities – the ability to make you feel happy in one and a half minutes to a song that you can relate to – that is their main focal point and the key to their success. The Con is the fifth studio album from the girls and an album that shows that they have staying power.
This album is one of the best that I have heard in a long time and I’ll definitely be looking at getting their previous releases. Thanks Jim!
Review: The Culture Show – Title Sequence
The current Culture Show title sequence lasts a mere nineteen seconds and is not filled with fancy motion graphics. Instead, what we see is The Culture Show title in its’ Calvert style font on the current background of diagonal black and turquoise stripes. Presented on big poster size, rectangular boards, these have been placed around a city location and filmed.
Edited in time to the music, we see the boards on walls amongst other posters, on art gallery buildings, next to theatre show advertisements, at a bus stop and on walls outside nightclubs, amongst nightclub revellers.
I think the designers went for the simplistic approach and the piece basically says; Culture is all around us everyday in everyday situations.
I wasn’t particularly impressed by this title sequence and I don’t know if they made a sequence intentionally uninteresting so that it didn’t take away focus from the actual content of the programme, or if they were trying to be clever and arty. Either way, the only thing that I remember from the sequence is the actual logo – the title on its’ striped background.
Review: Arcade Fire – Manchester Evening News Arena
Having missed their previous gig in Manchester, which, was at the better venue for bands, the Manchester Apollo, I knew that, as a big Arcade Fire fan, I didn’t want to miss out the next time around, even though, as I found out, it was at the less atmospheric, less ‘band sound’ accommodating venue of Manchester Evening News Arena.
It was Saturday the 27th October 2007 that Arcade Fire started, what would be an amazing set, with a song off their second album ‘Neon Bible’. ‘Black Mirror’ is an atmospherically dark song, constantly building in instruments and vocals to a rousing shouty chorus, and an excellent opener – well, I thought everything was excellent… but then I am a massive Arcade Fire fan!
Their set was visually stunning as well. They had their Neon Bible logo in the middle above the stage all lit up with neon lights. They also had circular screens – two either side of the neon bible – and occasionally the faces of the band members would be projected onto these as they played – camcorder style. There was a theme of red, black and blue colours too. At one point there was video footage projected each side of the stage on vertical long columns and the way it looked was like a reel of film being shown.
Watching this band in action is amazing. Apart from the string section – two violinists – the other members of the band were multi-instrumentalists; swapping instruments here and there depending on what song they were performing. And when they were playing – the energy and effort and feeling put into each song was so strong and they worked together perfectly.
As well as the usual drums, guitars and violins on stage, they also played the keyboard, synth and there was also an organ and a megaphone was used in one song.
Front man Win was a strong character to watch and his wife and ‘co-front person’ Regine, had everyone singing along with her and she was fun to watch.
The highlight of the evening for me was when they played ‘Wake Up’. The first few bars with the guitar line and the drums and then having every single person in the arena sing along to the ‘ahs’ at the beginning while it was lit up, was amazing and sent chills down my spine.
Although I would’ve preferred the more intimate venue of the Apollo, or even better, the Manchester Academy, I am glad I didn’t miss this gig.
Review: Tegan and Sara – the album ‘The Con’
The name ‘Tegan and Sara’ rang a bell when I was reading an article, an interview with the front man of a band I highly regard; Jimmy Eat World. Jim Adkins was listing his top albums of 2007 and one of them was The Con by Tegan and Sara. Spurned on by this vaguely recognisable name, I began to research it and find out more… and eventually obtained a copy. Having at first seen the video for the first single off the album, ‘Back In Your Head’ on YouTube, after watching it I thought ‘Ok, it’s poppy, a little electro and quite like the band Kings Of Leon, who’s album ‘Because of the Times’ I love, so I thought I’d give the rest of the album a listen.
Starting off with the first two tracks ‘I Was Married’ and ‘Relief Next To Me’ I noticed just how well produced this album was.
As I listened on I noticed that some of the songs aren’t even over two minutes long, but what they do deliver is either a straight up, hook laden one and a half minutes or under two minutes of smooth, pure vocal harmonies on top of a simple guitar riff and moog synth with either jazz or straight rhythm drums. The other songs that are more than two minutes, build on either of these components and what I got to hear was dynamic song writing, with the quieter parts in the right places perfectly complimented by rousing, crescendo choruses and more hook laden riffs, melodies and harmonies.
Title track ‘The Con’ combines a simple vocal and guitar verse with an amazing heavy drums, synth, vocal harmony chorus. More of this formula is shown in songs like ‘Burn Your Life Down’, ‘Nineteen’ and ‘Dark Come Soon’.
Chris Walla who is a member of famous Indie band Death Cab For Cutie produced this album. This album also features the drummer from Death Cab, Jason Mcgerr, as well as bass duties fulfilled by Hunter Burgan from AFI and ex Weezer and The Rentals bassist Matt Sharp.
Tegan and Sara are twin sisters from Canada. Much emphasis is put onto the facts that not only are they sisters, but that they are both lesbians. Unfortunately, through reading some articles about them, some magazines/reviewers think that this is their major selling point, and always list this first before even starting to review their songs – a point not even worth mentioning as it should be their song writing abilities – the ability to make you feel happy in one and a half minutes to a song that you can relate to – that is their main focal point and the key to their success. The Con is the fifth studio album from the girls and an album that shows that they have staying power.
This album is one of the best that I have heard in a long time and I’ll definitely be looking at getting their previous releases. Thanks Jim!
Saturday 2 February 2008
Everything from my old blog.......
Right guys, below are my previous blogs from my previous blog account. Why I have changed it, I won't say, both because it's boring and I can't be bothered to say why. There should be some videos there, but they aren't really that interesting.... But you haven't missed much, and what you have missed is pasted below... see, full circle....
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Porn for Media Designers.....
Hello... thought I'd check out Drawn website first thing today, and saw something beautiful.....
The Wacom Cintiq 12WX graphics tablet...
waaaaaaah if only I win the lottery eh?....
Posted by Helmosneakers at 02:06 0 comments
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Tonight, Tonight.....
T'was a good day at Uni today. Started doing some research into my new brief, which is to produce a title sequence for a programme/film. I'm still undecided between The Culture Show and a News at Ten type of programme. I fear that if I do choose the news programme that I may just go all out 'The Day Today'/'Brass Eye' on it... but that's no bad thing - Chris Morris you are a genius. But The Culture Show seems a good 'un, although it seems to be the choice of the class and I'm thinking 'I wanna do something different'... but probably won't...
So yes, I have just started looking into title sequences and watching a few on good ol' Youtube. Kyle Cooper (Seven, Spiderman, Mimic, HP Printer adverts) is a Genius - master of title sequences, just like the amazing Saul Bass - see, I have done my research!
Whilst researching I came across a minty mint website - http://drawn.ca/
It's a blog/showcase for up and coming artists and many that are established but I haven't heard of. Amazing for inspiration and ideas. There is so much talent out there and this site showcases it - I discovered Meomi on it - check them out, so cute!
Also had an awesome Contextual Studies lesson with Monsieur DeVere about Surrealism - which came from Dada don't you know ;) Showed us some clips showing the different art styles we have been studying. Good lesson. Shame it was followed by me having to stand in the rain for 20 mins waiting for my bus... oh well.
Tomorrow is the Student Rep meeting, where hopefully some stuff will be sorted out for my fellow peers.....
Also I apologise for the appalling Emo background and general layout of my blog currently. I am in an experimenting phase as someone showed me how to create my own background and put it up... so sorry, hopefully all will be sorted out soon.
Safens people
p.s. Kirk is a vehicular menace.......
Posted by Helmosneakers at 15:26 0 comments
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Let's see.......
Reeto, have uploaded my animation onto Photobucket, so here it is for your viewing pleasure... or not.....
obviously I know now that you can upload videos straight onto blogger.... but I wanted to do it the long way round.... as usual.......
Posted by Helmosneakers at 14:25 0 comments
At Last.....
This past week saw me finish and present my first proper college assignment. The project was to produce a 30 second or so animation about my least favourite subject: myself (which, I know, begs the question, why the hell did I set up a blog about myself... but I have done it as part, and to support, my course, so... ner). Anyhoo, back to matters at hand, I finally presented my animation on Wednesday 21st November and got a Pass! Hurrah!
This Unit was more about the design process so I made sure my sketchbook displayed all my ideas from start to finish, and all of my drafts. I made my animation to look like a journey through my life so far, kind of a timeline if you will. I started with the Hong Kong flag (where my parents are from) and moved onto the flag of Holland (where I was born) and moved onto a path showing Manchester (where I moved to and grew up in starting from about 1984), to where I used to live and where I live now and things I like.... but all done in an arty or so way. Starting with the flags gave me chance to work the colours together and gave it a starting point. When I finally figure it out, I will post it up on here and you can all have a look and see what I mean... or just a laugh at how silly it looks! I found this brief to be enjoyable (woohoo I'm making an animation, go me!), and frustrating (getting used to the software - Photoshop and Final Cut Pro - and getting it to do what I wanted was time consuming). Also from this task I made the mistake of not managing my time better so, yes, some parts were rushed and I think it shows in my animation, but I know this is something to learn from and do better next time.
In other news I have Critical Studies work to catch up on and I have started to use my sketchbooks more, mainly for doodling, but you never know, one of those little pics may be used in the future.
This past week, again on the Wednesday, saw the band I'm in play at gig at the Retro bar in Manchester, with our good friends and awesome band Married To The Sea from Liverpool. MTTS were as usual on form, playing their indie/poppy/happy riffage to our delighted ears.
A good set from them with an excellent mix of songs and an awesome cover of Fugazi's 'Waiting Room'.
So it's not been a bad this past week, though it has come to me becoming ill - chesty cough, sore throat - bad end to a not bad week.... oh well :)
Posted by Helmosneakers at 13:27 0 comments
Monday, 29 October 2007
First Post!!
Hello people,
Here is my first post.
On here you will find my randomness, ramblings, roamings, reviews, etc.
Hope all is well!
xHx
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Porn for Media Designers.....
Hello... thought I'd check out Drawn website first thing today, and saw something beautiful.....
The Wacom Cintiq 12WX graphics tablet...
waaaaaaah if only I win the lottery eh?....
Posted by Helmosneakers at 02:06 0 comments
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Tonight, Tonight.....
T'was a good day at Uni today. Started doing some research into my new brief, which is to produce a title sequence for a programme/film. I'm still undecided between The Culture Show and a News at Ten type of programme. I fear that if I do choose the news programme that I may just go all out 'The Day Today'/'Brass Eye' on it... but that's no bad thing - Chris Morris you are a genius. But The Culture Show seems a good 'un, although it seems to be the choice of the class and I'm thinking 'I wanna do something different'... but probably won't...
So yes, I have just started looking into title sequences and watching a few on good ol' Youtube. Kyle Cooper (Seven, Spiderman, Mimic, HP Printer adverts) is a Genius - master of title sequences, just like the amazing Saul Bass - see, I have done my research!
Whilst researching I came across a minty mint website - http://drawn.ca/
It's a blog/showcase for up and coming artists and many that are established but I haven't heard of. Amazing for inspiration and ideas. There is so much talent out there and this site showcases it - I discovered Meomi on it - check them out, so cute!
Also had an awesome Contextual Studies lesson with Monsieur DeVere about Surrealism - which came from Dada don't you know ;) Showed us some clips showing the different art styles we have been studying. Good lesson. Shame it was followed by me having to stand in the rain for 20 mins waiting for my bus... oh well.
Tomorrow is the Student Rep meeting, where hopefully some stuff will be sorted out for my fellow peers.....
Also I apologise for the appalling Emo background and general layout of my blog currently. I am in an experimenting phase as someone showed me how to create my own background and put it up... so sorry, hopefully all will be sorted out soon.
Safens people
p.s. Kirk is a vehicular menace.......
Posted by Helmosneakers at 15:26 0 comments
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Let's see.......
Reeto, have uploaded my animation onto Photobucket, so here it is for your viewing pleasure... or not.....
obviously I know now that you can upload videos straight onto blogger.... but I wanted to do it the long way round.... as usual.......
Posted by Helmosneakers at 14:25 0 comments
At Last.....
This past week saw me finish and present my first proper college assignment. The project was to produce a 30 second or so animation about my least favourite subject: myself (which, I know, begs the question, why the hell did I set up a blog about myself... but I have done it as part, and to support, my course, so... ner). Anyhoo, back to matters at hand, I finally presented my animation on Wednesday 21st November and got a Pass! Hurrah!
This Unit was more about the design process so I made sure my sketchbook displayed all my ideas from start to finish, and all of my drafts. I made my animation to look like a journey through my life so far, kind of a timeline if you will. I started with the Hong Kong flag (where my parents are from) and moved onto the flag of Holland (where I was born) and moved onto a path showing Manchester (where I moved to and grew up in starting from about 1984), to where I used to live and where I live now and things I like.... but all done in an arty or so way. Starting with the flags gave me chance to work the colours together and gave it a starting point. When I finally figure it out, I will post it up on here and you can all have a look and see what I mean... or just a laugh at how silly it looks! I found this brief to be enjoyable (woohoo I'm making an animation, go me!), and frustrating (getting used to the software - Photoshop and Final Cut Pro - and getting it to do what I wanted was time consuming). Also from this task I made the mistake of not managing my time better so, yes, some parts were rushed and I think it shows in my animation, but I know this is something to learn from and do better next time.
In other news I have Critical Studies work to catch up on and I have started to use my sketchbooks more, mainly for doodling, but you never know, one of those little pics may be used in the future.
This past week, again on the Wednesday, saw the band I'm in play at gig at the Retro bar in Manchester, with our good friends and awesome band Married To The Sea from Liverpool. MTTS were as usual on form, playing their indie/poppy/happy riffage to our delighted ears.
A good set from them with an excellent mix of songs and an awesome cover of Fugazi's 'Waiting Room'.
So it's not been a bad this past week, though it has come to me becoming ill - chesty cough, sore throat - bad end to a not bad week.... oh well :)
Posted by Helmosneakers at 13:27 0 comments
Monday, 29 October 2007
First Post!!
Hello people,
Here is my first post.
On here you will find my randomness, ramblings, roamings, reviews, etc.
Hope all is well!
xHx
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