It wasn't a typical Thursday for Sarah and Gina, like we thought it would be. Instead we ended up being stuck on our bus on the motorway for two hours... in a blizzard! It was beautiful to see, and didn't even feel like we were still in Scotland, but it caused us to miss college completely considering we are only in from 9am to 11am. It was an adventure in some respect as it was a very different climate to what we are used to back home... a very freezing and long one but still an adventure. On a much better note Donall (our GTI media teacher) will be here later on today and we're both looking forward to seeing him, it's been far too long.
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It was another day on set of The Village documentary and my crew and I headed out to Cumbernauld village to find people to interview for it. We managed to get two local business owners that had no problem having a camera in their face for a few minutes. I do feel that going out on location and vox popping is definitely becoming easier for me, especially with having to ask complete strangers could we interview them, which is great for developing confidence. I also got the chance to use a fig rig, which we don't have back home, and it helped me get more and more used to working with cameras, especially since I want to study cinematography, so that was great.
My communication skills have definitely improved since I got here. With doing so much in college and also out in the public, and working with the people i'm around, it has allowed me to be more aware of the importance of communication as a tool and how it can be used effectively. I have not only learned a lot from college but also from the people there, and how they are similar yet different from us 'Galwegians', which is a good thing. I am going to find it very hard when I go back to Galway to get used to not hearing a Scottish accent from every corner of the city! Today we were shown more about using AfterEffects, a special effects program that we do not use at home. We made opening titles for the short film we are making and we did a tutorial designed to make it easier for us to understand the program. We learned lots of new skills that we can put on our C.V. and became much more familiar with programs we had never used which was great.
Today we worked on the short films again. My group filmed intros in the lecture hall, setting up lights, recording sound and documenting the events. We then went out on location to a church car park to film more of the short film and interviews with the crew. Later that day we were thought how to edit these clips on Premiere Pro, a software program that we do not use at home. All in all it was a good day.
Gina As our very last Sunday in Glasgow came upon us, we were summoned from our extremely comfortable beds to have a photo taken by Paul, our new accompanying person- a teacher from GTI. The beauty girls headed off to Edinburgh for the day, Gina headed off to Gregg's, and the hairdressing girls and myself decided to finally go try out 'DEESERTS'. It was delicious, I would definitely recommend anyone to try it to truly understand. After we finished eating, we headed off to do some shopping, then got back to the hotel soon after. The hairdressing girls had planned to go to the cinema but at last minute wanted to have a movie night in, so we did that instead. It was a night full of chocolate, Pringles, yoghurts, and laughing until we couldn't breathe. A night well spent!
Paul arrived today, at last.. We met up with him at three o' clock to have a little catch up chat, and then he allowed us to disperse and go enjoy ourselves. Gina and I decided to go and explore more of the city, as we hadn't been doing that a lot. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, Forbidden Planet, Urban Outfitters and all these other places I have never been before. A lot of walking was involved as we just kept going and going until we were somewhere we didn't recognise, which definitely happened a number of times. We also realised that we had passed the odd place here and there before. We have one week left and still have to do much more exploring, before it's too late. Wish us luck..We're going need it as Glasgow is a big city.
My group and myself had finished with our filming and it was time to begin the editing process, which is usually the thing I really enjoy doing. As we were not using Final Cut Pro here, it's quite different. We are trying to get to grips with Premiere Pro, which is what they use here. My classmate was working on the program while I watched. I am very used to using Final Cut Pro back home so I do hope I get to learn the in's and out's of Premiere before I leave Glasgow. Both programs allow you to edit footage of films but are a little different in layout and tools so it will take a while to get our heads around it, but hopefully with a little time I will master it...Here's to me wishing to become a 'pro' at Premiere Pro!
Today we continued on with more Wordpress work. We continued updating the site with the new elements that we worked on over the past few days. We both really enjoy using the website and are very comfortable with the process at this stage. Work finished at 11am for us, so we had plenty of time to explore afterwards.
We got back to Glasgow and went to look for a place to eat, and what a surprise, it was more Italian food. If you weren't already aware, Glasgow has a lot of Italian restaurants, it's basically overpopulation at this rate. But nonetheless the place we found, Verona, was beautiful, it had a strangely romantic feel, but we still loved it though. On Tuesday we learned how to make film logos with AfterEffects. This was good because we do not use this at home and this is something I have wanted to learn for some time. It was explained to us very well and was easier than I expected. Today we worked on the documentaries we were assigned. We attemped to film some vox pops outside the college but due to sound issues (bouncy castle, jack hammer) we were unable to complete them. Just before lunch we were taken in the minibus to the Celtic stadium. This was very enjoyable. It is very big. Much bigger than anything in Galway. We were escorted around the grounds by David Hay, who works for the college and who played for Celtic in the 60s and managed the team in the 80s. Yesterday we decided that we would have a lazy day because of the full on week that we had since arriving. So that's what we did. We stayed in the room all day, and caught up on sleep and ate a lot! Gina went for a swim while I just continued to be lazy... Guilty as charged!
It was back to shooting our short films again today, as we once again went out on location to do some filming. I carried on working with my group from Friday, which I was happy with and because they're just so much craic (as the Ireland folk say). Just after we arrived in the woods where we were planning to film, we got a call from Alan asking where I was! It sounded like he thought the four lads had kidnapped me or something. Filming went ahead anyways and it all turned out great, just like last week. So my group and I were very happy with that. Gina also worked with her group (the same from last week) on their short film and too of them had to go and shoot in a nearby woods also. She also had a great time. After college we arrived back to the hotel and found out that our new accompanying adult Claire was down at reception ready to meet us, so we went down to introduce ourselves and have a lil chat with her. She bought us all drinks (Cokes and Fantas of course, while Gina went for the alcoholic option) and asked us about how we're getting on with our placement. Once we were finished with Claire, Gina and myself went out on the town to go look for somewhere to eat. We ended up choosing a cute little place down near the bus station called Atholl Arms, which is actually a really lovely place to sit back and relax, you can even get have some 'jalapeno drinks' if you're brave enough, you know, whatever takes your fancy. We then got back to the hotel and hopped into bed, Gina began watching Train spotting, but I fell asleep about an hour into the film. No Train spotting for me. |
Media 2016/17Gina De Lappe Map of Glasgow |