A stop motion Christmas

I'll set the scene...

I'm on my own in the house and just finished another two pages of my essay, the Christmas tree is up and the blinking lights keep glaring on the TV as I watch watch a generally bad TV show based in Chelsea or some town in England. I've finished the bag of cheesy doritos so what else is there to do rather then make a festive stop motion film?

The concept is:

All the pretty Christmas decorations are put on the tree except for the small tatty angel left at the bottom of the Christmas decorations bag. The small tatty angel climbs out the bag and makes her way up the tree, stopping once to munch on a Christmas tree chocolate. She continues on until she makes her way up the tree when she finally reaches the top and pushes the larger angel off her throne while the small tatty angel takes her place at the top of the tree.

Behind the scenes:

This was the scene when the little angel is crawling out of the bag - which took a really long time to do!

This is the tatty angel with all the fishing wire attached to it

This is the head angel who will be kicked off her pedestal

Here's one of the other angels placed at the tree around the top

and here we see the tree!

One Minute Documentary

Stretch

Finally. First individual project for my first term at university is done! Now all I need to do is finish one essay, start another and start a script... but that's all in due time.
We had to do a one minute self portrait (which was not a welcomed subject believe me - the whole point I took a film course was so I could remain BEHIND the camera!) and although it started a bit slow I think it's actually looking pretty decent and I don't want to pass out from cringing at the end of it either!

Also want to thank Passionate Imperfection from sound cloud for providing the music! People check this user our because they have some really cool music and they also made it really easy for me to use what they made. I used the track 'this-is-no-dream'...

So check out the video and I always welcome constructive feedback! 

iSessions Editing Job!!

A Job!!

A few weeks ago when I applied for a small one time job to be the editor for some band promos for the iPaper (Part of the guardian newspaper)
It actually proved to be much harder than I originally thought, especially when one of the people who was meant to be editing with you doesn't take on some of the work load (for whatever reason) and you have to do her work in the same deadline you were given origionally! But I loved the challenge...

sooooo much editing

I had to pull an all nighter to get it in, but it was all so worth it when I saw it live on the website and saw my name at the end credits!

"Editor - Alex Adams"

CHeck out the videos and vote on your favourite videos from Royal Holloway (cause we obviously the best!) ;)

Charlie Jackson iPaper session

Jake Mills Band - iPaper sessions

Will Foreman iPaper Session

I edited these!!!

Stretch - Rough cut

This is the latest version in the 1 minute documentary, I guess i tried to add more emotion by creating more 'realism', by showing footage of me recieving treatment and showing more graphs of my back and things to make it seem more, 'wow this actually happened' kind of thing.

Im think I'm close to finishing now, I still need to do colour corrector and all that jazz but footage and editing wise... definatley not far off now!

Knee Boarding!

Today I did that thing when you try something new! I went to JBSki with the surf society at my university and it was amazing!! I loved it! I managed to get to one corner before my lack of strength sent me straight into the FREEZING cold water. The wires you see pull everyone around (and pulls you face first into the water if you let it)

If anyone gets the chance to go here JUST DO IT! They spend maybe like 2 - 3 minutes telling you what to do, the rest you just find out for yourself and get on with your own thing. Luckily there were decent wake boarders who could easily avoid me when I fell in!

I wanna go every week now! Next week... I will make that turn!

http://www.jbski.com/home/4579281110

Mockingjay part one Premiere!

These are the pictures I took from the London Premiere - This was such a good day! 

I WAS SO ANNOYED BY THIS SHOT!! I was about to get a shot of Jennifer
Lawrence when someone shoved their photo of katniss RIGHT IN THE WAY!
Is this ironic? 

Documentary - Rough cut and feedback

One Minute Documentary - Stretch

This is the first rough draft of the one minute documentary for my media course at university,

I gave it in yesterday for feedback from the group and from one of my tutors and she said the main thing I had to fix was sound and to put more emotion into the sequence. 

I'll admit, I was holding bak on the whole 'emotion' side of things because I have this thing when I dont want people to think i'm doing this because I want a pity party or something like that... And I always instantly presume that's what they're thinking. 

But yesterday when we were all showing what we had done people were showing clips of depression and self harm and I didn't judge the person (so why would anyone else?) 

So now i'm over that I need to find a way to create that lets people know about how I was in a wheelchair and contrast that to my recovery - the tutor said I was making my time in the wheelchair seem light hearts which it really wasn't :P

As for sound, I was going to add more diegetic sounds and lower the volume of the track so it isn't the only thing you hear.

But over all I am really pleased with the first draft!

I also want to do something with the footage at the end but not sure yet! Any feedback commments would be appreciated! 

1 minute documentary

Today we were given our first assignments as an individual! I have to make a minute documentary on something about me....
Im feeling alright after we were given the task because of everything I did at Suffolk One to do with documentary :)

This was a mind map I made when I was going through some ideas...
I dont really want to do anything too heavy by going down the routes of the wheelchair or my brother - that in't really me anymore any way!
I think Im gonna go down the book route - I like the idea of doing something simple but with the opportunity to get creative with the editing :)

The only thing im worried about is the length... 1 minute is not a lot :/


Just had another idea!
What about instead of a book like my fiction - I go through a book like a diary or a journal? Seeing different events and how they lead to different ones...
I'd like to do that with flashbacks though so it may not be ideal for the one minute documentary - It would be good though because I do rely on my day to day diary. I guess it also shows a lot about me... who i meet with the most, where i go, how much time i'd spend working and of course the amount of lists i make!

This is what lead me to the idea...

I watched the video in the link above, this is what lead me to the diary idea.
It was because the girls was telling us about her life and although I wanted to do something similar - I didn't want to do it that much in your face... not to mention I would hate doing a voice over. But another way I can show people a slice of life, I'd also like to do it because I cant imagine many people having the same idea.

Dystopian Dreamland - Short Film

This is a short film I made for my Photography exam, my teachers 'didn't get it'... I can see why of course, it is a bit abstract but basically I wanted it to show (what I see as) the basic stages of the worlds growth and evolution:

• The beggining
• War
• Human developement

But I also wanted to show how the evolution of the human race begins to restrict the natural world...

University!

Well. Its finally happened! A Levels are done and now its on to the degree!

Royal Holloway is pretty impressive!





Im doing the Film, Television and digital production course - its gonna be an intense four years of film making and theory! But im looking forward to it SO much!
After a summer of working nearly everyday, I cant wait to get started on this course!
Also cant wait to start filling this blog with my latest projects!

Infectious - Short Film/Documentary

Infectious

Its no secret that my family face some severe mental health problems, mainly my brother. He suffers from schizophrenia and transient psychosis, this has been the case for the last nine years. During the making fo this short film/documentary his illness had gotten much more intense when he refused to take medication and decided to face the problem through my camera which helped me to deal with everything happening around me as a coping method and turn everything into a form of art rather than real life.

However, after I made the documentary it also helped everyone to understand my brother better and a few months after he started calming down from taking his medication he also watched it and was able to see himself in another way and I think had an overall positive affect on him. 

The making of this has had a lot of impact on a lot of areas of my life and I think it could be one of the best films i'll make! 

Unless you've lived with this kind of mental health its near impossible to imagine or even to describe what the careers have to go through and the illness of the individual often ends up tearing the family apart - but this film helped me and mum to remember that its the illness that makes my brother act like that, not himself and we cant hold him against it for something he cant control.

Mr Harris

War Shoot

These are some of the first outcomes of the war shoot I did with toy soldiers, some of the lighting in these shots came out so great! 

Pathway

"Playing House"

For my A2 photography documentary project, I used photos from a documentary I did on my brother to further reflect living with the strain of mental health in a form of a dolls house.