Blog of MattCheetham

Recently in media we have been studying shot composition which consists of various shot types such as deep focus, focus pull and other types.

We have been studying life on mars for this task and have learned a lot from the various notes we have made on the program. After studying various styles we had a go at making our own short scene, which happened to be a police interview.

I’ve had some serious issues in embedding the video below so im hoping that you can see it below, it will auto play and may have finished by the time you read this so refresh to watch: Just click the black object once to see controls and click play

The video turned out pretty well but we found that the camera cuts of a couple of seconds from the end of the video when we end the shot which led to the people been called “Jake Bar”(ber) and “Georgia Ox”(ley), but all is well because we know for next time now to leave the camera rolling for a few more seconds to give us that leeway.

We filmed a police interview as you can see which was (semi) serious in my eyes. We tried our best in the time we had and it turned out pretty well, we used the classic frustration of the lawyers when evidence is presented and the hand slamming on the desk was pretty effective.

The clip represents the police as very formal and the lawyers as very defensive whereas the proposed criminal seems more arrogant and relaxed about the situation.

The target audience for this production is teens all the way through to middle aged people. I think the target audience is so wide for this type of scene because policing is a interesting subject for most ages and is a current and very noticeable issue in the world.

In all we have had a good time making this small scene and look forward to future productions, we learned that we need to keep the camera rolling for a few more seconds at the end of scenes and we have learned how to keep to the 180 degrees rule.

I think i can sum this weekend up as pretty much a birthday weekend. A long birthday weekend at that. The real fun started at midnight on Saturday night while i was working. I suspected something was going on when i was made to stay in the room where the wedding reception (now full of drunken dancing guests) was happening.

Karen took over the microphone and announced to the whole room that it was now my birthday and proceeded to get everybody to sing happy birthday. Now its in situations like this where i really don’t know what to do with myself, i had a load of drunken people singing at me, and i was stood on my own. I was handed a card from all of the staff and a box of heroes to aid my embarrassment.

I managed to nab a radio off of callum from somewhere too which made my day even more as i always want a radio like most of the staff but never have one. We finished off the rooms and then the takeaway arrived which was paid for by Karen as part of the suprise. It was sort of a joint, my birthday and becky leaving doo for staff which was kinda awesome.

Sunday

Sunday was my actual birthday, it consisted of lazing around in the morning, getting a cake from my nanan and having my driving lessons paid for.

Then Grace Jen Tom Chris and Nicole came over.

And we slobbed out in my room for bit and generally made a mess (which.. is still sort of there to be honest)
There was generally a lot of throwing paper about and stuff and wrestling around on the bed and stuff but its all good. They stayed until it was time for my driving lesson.

The Driving Lesson

The lesson went really well, it was 2 hours long and we covered the basics of getting ready to drive, starting and stopping. Going all the way to 3rd gear and back, pulling over, turning round on a road (tricky) and then i drove round the main once which was awesome. Im really looking forward to my next lesson this week. Hopefully its going to include a lot more driving and possibly less manouvers. Although i know its all stuff i’ve got to learn!

Damons

For the final treat on behalf of my amazing friends we headed down to Damons in Sheffield for a meal. Initially i wasnt meant to know that we were going to Damons but thanks to Grace she let slip whilest drawing and i found out (Grace im only kidding, i had a pretty good idea anyways <3). I’ve never been Damons and i’ve got to say its absolutely fantastic.

I had the best time ever, we do set a good example for teens like nicole pointed out and the waiter was really helpful in taking a picture of us all together (Left a nice tip, well not me, the guys). The food was fantastic and i had a nice coctail to finish off with. Then to my suprise, i had happy birthday sang to me by everyone as they brought me out a fantastic birthday cake that nicole had made for me (which i am yet to have a piece of).

I want to take the chance to say thankyou so much to Grace, Jen, Nicole, Tom and Chris for making my birthday so special. I really don’t know where i’d be without you guys, you mean the world to me and i don’t ever want to lose you!

Thankyou!

x

I think i should update with the happenings of recently.

I’ve done a lot of hours work in the last week, too much. I worked until 4am one night and its made me fall behind with school work which im just starting to catch up on now. Hopefully that will all be back on track soon.

I ended up feeling kind of down due to the work and school load but all social/work balance has been restored with a day out with the guys on Sunday. We went to see The strangers which was actually rather awesome. It made me and grace cringe and curl up many times at the jumpy parts and i think everyone pretty much crushed someone else’s hand/arm.

Oh and we went past the apple store on the way home in Meadowhall and was intrigued to see this array of apps on the window!

On the way home nicole spoke of swimming and dancing in the same sentence which caused us all the burst into fits of laughter for several minutes. Tom dubbed the 400m foxtrot. The bus ride only got more entertaining when one of the drunken chavs decided it was time to get off the bus.

I was sat with tom just infront of the stairs where i could see in the reflection everything behind me.
The lad got to the top of the stairs, shouted “ROLLY POLLY!!” and proceeded to actually perform a rather odd rolly polly down the bus stairs. Now ive seen funny things but turning round and seeing him land at the bottom in a heap was the funniest moment ever possibly. He sure woke up today with a lot of bruises from those stairs!

So thats the latest, i shall be updating when interesting stuff happens.

Take care x

Even though this is my personal blog I have decided that rather than set up a second blog i will just use this blog but tag my posts with “media”. Having a Web blog is a requirement of the course i am taking so this is the first related post.

We’re currently studying British drama, and more specifically the camera angles and camera movements included within those programs. We have been watching Skins, Lost in Austen and Shameless. We have studied a few episodes of each of these programs and i have learnt a lot about the different camera movements and there names.

Well i dont know what i need to write on here to be honest so this will be my first blog post until i know what i should do!

Oh and you can Click here to view all media tagged posts (Mainly for Miss Fletchers reference incase she cant read my writing!)

So while im still able to use my extremely muscular arms lets talk about my local gym.
I’ve never done weights, ive never done any REAL excercise to be honest but as my workplace offers a free gym membership i thought i’d give it a go. I got my membership sorted weeks ago but i kept putting off actually going to the gym. My cousin was meant to be going down with me but he backed out the first time because of work and then hasnt been in touch since.

I made the dive today and got my mum to drive me down there. I walked in and kindly asked about a quick show round which was granted and the girl behind the desk showed me about the two gyms. Aparently a lot of members dont realise there are two gyms which was helpfull as ive opted to use the second gym which seems a little quieter to be honest.

Half of the machines look pretty wierd but they really are ace. They ask you your height and/or weight and automatically adjust themselves. You can set how many times you want to do things and with what weight. The treadmills, bike machines etc. have a tv/radio built into them so you can keep up with your programs while you train, its awesome.

I had a quick go on everything and i can honestly say im not that scared about going anymore. I used to be worried because i thought everyone would look at me and be like “pfft” but everyones there for there own reasons and you just get on with it. Im pretty happy going on my own but i wouldnt mind a gym buddy!

I met several people i know including Sam’s mum who had a quick chat with me about what she does there and stuff. Like i said in my twitter post. I never knew all these people went to the gym, everyone seems to go but doesnt ever mention it!

Overall the gym is ace and im going to try going as much as i can, hopefully i can still move in the morning so ill go again tommorow. Hopefully i can stop being so weak now =D. Oh and the rowing machine is my favourite machine =]

Moment of the day: Jen walking into the door because it opened the other way, even after 5 years of going through it

Quote of the day:
Instructor: “You’ve done weights before yeah?”
Me: “err no..”
Instructor: “ahh right… Lets just stick with these machines over here shall we?”
(its just the way she said it!)

Today was the day of the staff BBQ at work. We had a huge (25ft?) Adult bouncy castle which made the whole thing a lot more fun. Pints and bottles were £1.50 from the bar and soft drinks were 75p which is awesome considering your talking £4ish for a pint where i work.

The night started pretty slow with people slowly arriving and as im 16 (woo my birthday is on the 28th!) im not allowed any alcohol, so i sat drinking coke. Seeing everyone out of their work clothes was unusual but cool at the same time.

Getting on the bouncy castle was the fun bit, everyone began tackling each other to the floor, we also discovered that if enough people leant against the wall we all ended up in a pile in the center unable to move or get back out again. I can say i’ve had enough peoples crotches in my face (and mine in theirs) through no fault of our own to say that were all pretty comfortable with each other now. After all that rolling about with each other, i can honestly say theres nobody i dont get along with or speak too now!

In other news, a boy who lives about 5-10 minutes away from my house climbed a pylon, got electrocuted, and sadly died. The boy has not yet been named but im sure ill find out who it is sooner or later. Im honestly sick of people dying. You can read the news article here.

Oh and quote of the day goes to katie. “Sorry, i needed two boys this time” . One boy just isn’t enough anymore! . For some reason her boyfriend alone wasn’t enough to help her up and she needed me too.

Until next time

Peace out x

So its the big day for the LHC where we were supposedly going to die. I’ve watched a lot of the media coverage for the LHC and concluded well before 8am today that we weren’t going to die. I took great pleasure in making Grace constantly worry that she was going to die which she was NOT amused about. The fact is, the LHC only got powered up today, there hasnt been a collision because its not working properly (or so i heard) and the full speed collision wont happen until october 21st.

Im actually getting sick of hearing all the little kids round school going “OMG..OMG.. have you heard??? WERE GOING TO DIEEE!!!”.. most of them dont know that the test occured at 8am this morning, so they were pretty screwed if we had of all died. Ill update about the LHC on the 21st when the world still exists, so shut up already.

Oh and on a side note i heard there is some special Torchwood episode about the LHC which i want to see, anyone got info?

Moving on..

SPORE!

I ordered spore the day before yesterday for my PC so it should be arriving later today. It cost me £22 from game as i had nearly 4000 points on my card to use so im looking forward to playing that. To satisifty my hunger for spore i bought Spore origins for my iPhone. I’ve spent a while playing it now and while i know its not as good as the real thing im pretty impressed. I enjoy pinching and making additions to the little blob (Named blobby as im THAT creative), swimming around and eating little things that look like a pool of mutated sperm.

So i leave you with a picture, of my creature in tis early stages, it now has a spike on its head and its a bit fatter.

Until the end of the world,

Later!

x

Spore Origins Picture

So last wednesday marked the first day of my sixth form life. Sixth form college is just the next two years of a school which is the same level as going to a seperate college for those of you who are American or just dont know. I took Maths, Media Studies, IT and Physics. The original reason i took physics was because i wanted to be a games designer but after changing my career ideas i dont need it anymore.

I spent a few days considering dropping the subject but after speaking with my head of sixth form have been convinced to take it for a year to get the AS level.

In other news i’ve been trying out and making good use of my usb modem with 3. Im very impressed with it and have had HSDPA speeds the whole time i’ve been using it. Maybe its just me but it does like to take a nice chunk of my battery life away when using it so ill be taking my charger to school if im gonna be using my laptop for more than 3 hours. Oh and i went to see get smart at the cinema the other day and its amazing so i reccomend it. On the way out i took this picture at the tram stop… its made of sticky notes!

Not much more has happened recently, i was supposed to go the gym today but my cousin backed out on me as he had to work late so yeah.. thats all for now.

OH actually i just thought id mention that i went to see get smart the other day and its amazing, i took this picture at the tram stop on the way out.. its made of sticky notes!

So in light of my Tweet yesterday i thought this blog ought to be an explanation. I decided that even though id rather forget the day its not going to just go away so ill explain just what happened.

It was a 50th birthday party and there was a buffet where we were serving food. It looks a lot like school dinners for posh people and everything was running fairly smoothly until one of the Chaffing dishes Was suddenly empty so someone went to get some more food and come back with it.

Now before we go any further let me explain that when we first came out to serve i pointed out to megan that the 4th chaffing dish out was the incorrect type and shouldn’t be used but it was too late to change it as people were already coming up. Basically there’s a bottom tray which we fill with hot water then the trays of food drop on top of them. Whoever set up the room had put a very very shallow bottom piece out then filled it with a lot of water. THen when the food was brough out the tray didnt fit properly, the end closes to me was in properly and the side to the guests was sticking up.

Now like a fool i offered to take the tray out so we could put the new one in, as soon as i grabbed the side nearest to me the front end of the chaffing dish dropped into the water and as its shallow ejected red hot water straight out the front. Sods law it was the oldest most frail woman in the room standing directly in front of it and it went all over her hands, she pretty much shook a lot then fainted and was whisked out of the room and i threw some towels over to them to get the water off of her. Now people were still coming up so i couldn’t go apologise and check she was ok i had to keep serving. Now i hate been responsible for things, and the fact i couldn’t go apologise (and that at the time i was pretty darn sure i wouldn’t be doing this job much longer) i was stood there shaking and trying to control myself. I explained what happened to Becky and she tried to calm me down a bit.

Later on she came back into the room and i went straight over to apologise (and ill admit i got a bit teary..) she said it was fine and that she knew it wasnt my fault and that. Her son who was with her re-assured me not to worry and that it was just an accident. I still wasn’t convinced i wasn’t doomed but then a woman came over to me and explained that she was a nurse and shed checked her out and it was just “slight redness to the skin” and told me not to worry because she was fine. I ended up just feeling more upset every time someone talked to me so i took five mins to myself outside and returned feeling better.

Oh and then to top it off later on as i tried to walk behind to bar i tripped over a table cloth sticking out from under a table and did a sideways dive behind to bar… classy. Its ok, only my manager and the bar staff saw me who thought it was hillarious.

Becky pretty much summed it up by saying “Its just not your day is it?.. don’t worry, everyone has one of these days” I was so relieved to go home that night and sleep it off. I’m back at work again at 3 o clock today. So lets hope things go better. I feel a lot better about what happened now and to be fair, it wasn’t entirely my fault, if the right dish had been used it wouldn’t have happened at all.

In the end the old lady was up on the dance floor dancing and singing and her hands looked fine so i can only assume the water wasn’t as hot as id imagined after all.

So theres my story for yesterday.

In other news i have a 3 USB modem which ill be testing out next week. More news then!

Well its happened, I have the Nikon D40! This morning i set my alarm for 9:00am then forcefully put my dad behind the wheel of a car to take me to get my camera. The total package which is camera body + lense kit + 2GB memory card cost me £303.56 which i was quite happy about. After running various errands and completing PC repair jobs (actually im still doing one right now but oh well) i got out the camera and immediately began to play around.

This is one of the very first photo’s i took. I think it turned out pretty nice, this was taken using manual focus if i remember rightly which always seems to be the better thing to use thanks to my friend Andrew pointing out.

I think photography is something i could really get into and really really enjoy. I already have using my crappy cameras for the last year or so, so i hope this goes somewhere. Im itching to take some awesome photo’s but i just dont have anything/anyone to shoot right now. Oh and i just love the shutter noise everytime i take a picture, makes me feel so satisfied that i got the picture i wanted!

You can check out my latest photos on my Flickr account which i have just upgraded to a Pro account to help me out. I hope there are many awesome photo’s to come!