3rd Week in a Coach

One last weekend stint before the end of Spring. Rebecca and I boarded the Bournemouth to Newbury coach for the 3rd week in a row to head to Bristol to celebrate Jenny's Birthday which we did in style. After some light drinking we headed to a club and danced into the wee hours of the morning. We just got back home now and are ready for a very chill week back by the coast.

2nd Year drawing to a Close

Busted a mini all nighter last night in order to hit my last essay deadline of second year. As soon as I hit the 'submit' button an overwhelming sense of freedom struck me and I went to bed happy and woke up to a pretty productive day.

Tidied the whole kitchen while listening to an album I've not listened to before, 'American Football' was actually so good I actually wanted there to be more washing up just so I could finish listening. I then settled into watching 'Nightcrawler' which was excellent, a really refreshing watch where Jake Gyllenhaal knocked it out of the park. An entertaining and introspective looking into the media's love for violence.

Lastly I attended the Nerve Media award ceremony where Rebecca was nominated for taking over the position for the head of online editing. And she smashed it, walking him with a certificate and the promise of a really productive year to come for her. When she walked up to receive her award I felt immensely proud if her, she has worked her socks off for the magazine and it was great to see that so many people appreciated her efforts and hard work.

Sounds of Chairs

My first ever lesson in the uni's foley studio was amazingly cool. We got a chance to do some voice recording in a professional space and a sound-proof chamber. The entire thing is like a big old sci-fi room and it's a little eerie in there as there is hardly any natural room tone, but that also makes it a very personal workspace. Later on we did the classic thing where we loaded up a scene from a film and attempted to re-create the audio ourselves. I got to sit in a squeaky chair and make up the natural noises the furniture would make when sat on and moved, timing it best I could to the actors motions.

Hot out the sound room I went to the big social BBQ for TV students. I made my classic salad and bought over a few chairs so this entitled me to a burger or two. Chowing down with some friends as the sun went down was a really cool thing to do, everyone gets on so well together as well so it was just a joy to kick back now that our year has nearly ended.

Homecoming Roast

One of the best things about being home is the cooking. Rebecca even commented on how good the house smelt when Dad prepped roast beef, and it was delicious. We both have been starved for roasts since going to uni so this homecoming was very flavoursome. Coming back to Rebecca's house we stumbled upon a guy trying out his Conchita Wurst outfit. He totally nailed the beard! The dress, not so much.

I went to Comic Con

Dreams and good vibes are born in Comic Con I discovered. Just so many stalls, cosplayers and merchandise everywhere, it was difficult to not be sucked in by the beautiful nerdiness of it all.

I was helping out Wildseed with some promotional stuff today so I grabbed a bunch of fliers and did my best to exhaust the pile. Gordon the winged cat was the centre of attention for our stand as people were forced into doing a double take when they first see him. I then offered if they wanted a photo with him and slipped in a leaflet to the generally smiling public. People love crap taxidermy it seems. I made a good little bond with Gordon over the course of today, especially after he sat on my lap for the entire way home. I realised at this point while hindered of people got a photo with him. I remedied this in a glorious fashion.

Eurovision 2015

What an intense Eurovision! It was a bit touch and go for my personal favourite act, Sweden but they just about clawed it. Super glad I journeyed to Bristol to share the Eurovision party with Mark, Lucy and co. Had a grand old time cracking out some euro-banter with them and even Louis over messenger.

I know that Track!

Walked out of our peer assessment with some top marks and immediately hit the edit suite for another crack at our location drama. Now that I have less tunnel-vision over it I came to like it a bit more than I remember, and we managed to find a really perfect bit of music for one of our actiony sequences; and it was exactly the same bit of music playing in the fight scene from our very own short film Sunny Side Up. I had a little chuckle when I remembered that tidbit.

Long old day again though, certainly didn't expect to spend my Friday in a cramped room but hey-ho. Eurovision tomorrow so it'll all be worth it.

Pub Per-chance?

Found myself socially boozing again tonight after finishing up a few 'loose ends' lectures this year. While we had a bit of an edit to work on, a spur of the moment decision lead us to having 'just one drink' with some coursemates. 5 Hours later we had zero work done on the edit but time was very well spent just kicking back with uni people. Sure there are a few deadlines left to go, but if we rushed straight away to an edit suite we would have missed out on a really lovely social evening. The people on my course are excellent and I always think its a shame that we don't spend more time together as a big cohort. Thankfully someone has organized a group pic-nic for us next week so good things are coming.

Lit Review Ticked Off

Handing in my Lit Review was a bitter-sweet feeling. I was glad to get it done with but I know that there are a few more deadlines around the corner, there is still a lot of work to be done before the end of the academic year. That said, I did go out and celebrate the essay hand-in with my future housemates. We went to two pubs and talked about films for what seemed like the whole night, these are certainly pre-curseors of things to come.

Great Title, or Greatest Title?

Absolutely blazed my lit review today. Spent all day on it and you know what, I'm actually quite pleased with it. Reading 18 separate sources was a big pain in the rear, especially considering how scarce academic writings on food porn are, but in the end I finished up with a lot of discussion points when it comes to actually writing this beast. Formatted everything and got ready to burn it onto a CD, double checked the marking criteria and realised it still needed a title. 'Damn' I thought, I could have easily spent hours pontificating on the perfect name for my disseration, although I was a little tired, my brain was still in an academic mood. Ultimatly I settled on:

Food Porn: Defining a Cultural Phenomenon and it's standing in Television Advertising.

Maybe it sounds too sure of itself but frankly I would read that!

Golden Rule of TV

One of our TV lecturers favourite things to tell new classes is that the golden rule in working in a TV studio is to 'Never Assume.' I discovered the importance of that rule today.

Today was my dedicated essay day once again, I was due to head down to the library and power through a solid chunk of my work load. I woke up to a rather ominous text from my girlfriend asking if she could come over really early in the morning because she was ill. When she waled through the door she burst into tears and told me she had a really nasty ear infection which meant she didn't get a great bit of sleep last night; this made her very emotional and she clearly needed someone to cry on for a little bit. I'm not going to say this put a spanner in the works of my essay as comforting my girlfriend was genuinely the right thing to do and she was exceptionally grateful that I took a bit of my time to calm her down this morning.

Next came a phonecall from her housemate who informed me that one of their group members was hit by a car this morning and they needed a replacement in the TV studio. While I knew this would take a substantial chunk out of my essay working time, helping them out was undoubtedly the right thing to do. Hell, I even got some work done, while helping them so that was a nice bonus.

However, about halfway through the day the machine I was doing the studio recordings with decided to record the footage with abysmal audio quality for seemingly no reason whatsoever. This made me feel awful because I didn't check over the footage after we recorded some of the takes and I may have been able to nip it in the bud had I noticed sooner. The technician agreed though that it wasn't anyone's fault but the system's but I still feel like I could have done something more. 'Never Assume' echoed in my mind.

So while I anticipated for a big essay work day, in reality I spent most of the daytime helping out my course-mates. No regrets there whatsoever as I knew that they would have done the same for me plus I managed to get about half my work done this evening which is a huge plus.

A Wedding in Belgium

Attended my first ever foreign wedding over the weekend. Mark did the crazy drive there and back for us so we could celebrate 'Belgian Steve's' special day and it really was a hell of a day. We arrived bright and early for the ceremony in the town hall where there were many tears from the bride and groom. Faces of joy turned into faces of terror once we got ahold of the rice which we lobbed without mercy at the newlyweds. After that though, we had a chance to chill out at a B&B and suck up some good food, including Belgian fries, and take a trip to our favourite supermarket for souvenirs.

Then it was time to head on down to the reception where cake and the free bar reigned supreme. I started quite heavy on a Duval and chased it with a glass of red wine but that kept me merry and pumped for all the dancing I did with total strangers until the small hours of the morning. I even got to do my signature 'Mahna-Mahna' dance from the Muppets for Steve once again. For about 110 seconds, all eyes were on me as I made a royal arse of myself for the sake of making people happy, basically my everyday life really.

It was a really excellent little getaway and it just felt cool to be celebrating the union of some good friends of ours. Here's hoping that there are many more celebrations to come!   

How do they Wed in Belgium?

As much as I hate ironing, I will certainly tolerate it if it means looking sharp for a Wedding. Rebecca and I , along with Mark and Lucy will be driving down to Eeklo once again to celebrate the wedding of a man we affectionately refer to as 'Belgiun Steve.' Good beer and food is basically guaranteed for this event, plus I get to bust out my mix CD for the drive there. Tomorrow should be excellent fun!

Poorly Rebecca

Thought I would try to get some serious boyfriend points this morning. Rebecca has been quite poorly lately so I wanted to make her a really good breakfast to perk her back up. So I went down to the Lidl bakery to get some fresh bread rolls and rustled up some bacon and sausages for us. The roll was almost too small for all the meat I piled into it. While delivering the bap I was met with jealous looks from her housemates but a face of pure joy from Rebecca.

I hope she gets well soon as we are due to go back to Belgium for a wedding in the next few days. I'm just trying to keep her happy and well fed in the meantime.

Long Edit Sesh Take 2

Goodness its been a long 48 hours. We had an edit hand in early this morning and seeing how our cut was nowhere near a showing state we really needed to kick it into full gear. I was behind the editing monitor for the vast majority of yesterday and technically this morning too. I faintly remember putting my headphones on for our audio mix, as soon as I was done it was 3am!

Despite another short night we did secure a surprisingly decent grade for it which resulted in a lot of happy faces from my peers.

Back to Hip-Hop

Strapped on my handy sound gear to wade back into the cultural realm of Hip-Hop. This time though, they came to us! Down by the beach there was a lengthy street dance battle which was insanely cool. We got a ton of footage of people doing headspins and all kinds of incredible dance moves. On top of that, we got in a smattering if top interviews, including one with one of the biggest Hip-Hop organisers in the UK. Massive result there.

Post-Election Slumber

I think I have finally recovered from the election night coverage. Granted I was only presenting for a few segments but I endeavoured to stay up for the entire thing, my body sorely regretted that decision. I just felt so tired over the past few day that I wanted to curl up into a ball and just never wake up. This action plan was somewhat problematic as I have am edit to complete by next Tuesday. The finished product still seems miles away but with a bit of elbow grease we'll be back on track.

Bournemouth Uni Election Coverage

Currently sat in at the uni, settling into the long haul for our election coverage. We are live streaming over a continuous 12 hour period and working in a similar manner to a BBC news room. The buzz and atmosphere feels really fun and professional, everyone feels like a cog in this machine and its warming to see people working together so well. That and there is a ridiculous amount of free food going all the time and I am taking full advantage of this.

Thermos Down

RIP my big thermos. It managed to fall off a table in our hallway and all the glass inside shattered. To make matters worse it I filled it up with possibly the best smelling brew of coffee I ever made, it saddened me to know that the coffee is now lying in a puddle in our garden.

Rebecca and I went along to a rehearsal for our uni's election coverage later on. We are both being presenters for the Jump TV segments of the show which is like a bit of light relief from the main show. I've also elected to make myself the coffee boy for the crew, excited to make a proper brew for the team.

When is Sunrise in May?

Early, early start for our filming crew. We wanted to get a sunrise shot over London in a time-lapse and this required us to roll out of bed at 4am in order to travel to location and set up our shots. It was a huge sacrifice of personal comfort with an admittedly shallow payoff as it was very over-cast this morning. We got a very usable light change, but we missed the sun completely. We also got chased off the riverside for supposedly filming on private property, we got all the footage we needed before then though so we played dumb and just moved on. Driving back home there were many tired faces in the car, mine included. Looking forward to an early night tonight to recover. The coming days will be fraught with some late nights so I better prepare myself for some late ones.

Hip Hop in the Park

Back to London for some filming. On the menu this week: a hip-hop documentary. We covered a free 'Park Jam' event and interviewed a handful of enthusiasts and performers. Many of which seemed quite high while we filmed them but at least they were happy to help. Celebrated with a trip to Jamie's Italian restaurant for a well deserved meal. Had a small panic moment when we thought we left some kit behind, but we found it tucked under a park bench in the middle of London. Glad no one saw it there, they might have assumed the worst.

Hamster Horrors

Rebecca nominated me to be a presenter on our uni's election coverage. Part of my duty includes making a video package for the programme. Someone came up with the idea of recreating the 'Paul the Octopus' event but with a hamster. Since I own a hamster I took up the responsibility of making a short feature with Freddie picking the winner for the election.

This also marked the first occasion I properly used a camera while at uni to film something outside of the studio. I got few cheeky focus pulls in and, along with Rebecca's help, made a pretty cool little package. Shame about the winner but we recorded it a few times and he kept going for the same one.

I am sorry to say that Freddie's new celebrity status went right to his head. I tried to pick him up earlier this evening and he did a 'not cool Mike Tyson' thing and bit down hard on me.

After prying my Fruit Ninja finger out his nashers I managed to send him flying halfway across our living room. I then got to survey my index finger and I can safely say I have never bled so much in my life. This bite went way deep. Blood was streaming down my hand and all over our sink. I have since terminated our professional relationship. I could have made him a star with my film making. But alas...

Smaller SIM

I can now say goodbye officially to my Blackberry. Taking a trip to the Vodaphone shop I was given a SIM card for my new phone and told that as my new phone gains signal, my old phone will gradually lose signal. Something faintly poetic about that parasitic transition, might still keep the Blackberry as an MP3 player however...

Rebecca and I made some really pukka salad later on. Basically it was a Chicken Caesar jobbie, but heavily modified with mozzarella and mushrooms. As an added bonus, we used chicken goujons which is like killing two birds with one stone. It's the chicken and the croutons in one!

New Phone

Good lord this phone is mythical. After holding onto my old Blackberry for nearly 4 years I am happy to announce that I feel like I have truly stepped into the future!  The instance that really cemented the buy was just after I purchased Fruit Ninja and I Mark sent an email just to say 'oh hop hoh!'

For the first time I am also doing a component blog just from my phone too. To celebrate, I would like to share my first ever selfie! Hope I can smatter in a few more snaps from now on.