Camera angles for reference later on in the course.

Blatantly photoshopped ( (Media consumption over 48 hours)

Yesterday (Wednesday) i was surfing the web looking for some specific song i wanted to download, perfectly legally of course and i came across the most ridiculous advert i have ever seen!

This image was photoshopped and put onto a muscle workout advertisement. The picture was made to make taylor lautner have man boobs and a giant flabby stomach then underneath it there was bold lettering saying 'i went from this...to this in two weeks!!' displaying the picture above below the lettering. It was exactly the same except for the apparent difference in the belly and boobs, the scenery was the same, the pose was the same and his face was the same. Do people realy fall for this kind of dodgy advertising? beside the obvious fact that it is just the same image but edited, it is impossible to lose that much mass in 2 weeks. If you ever see that and choose to believe it...you are a fool!

Music channels (Media consumption over 48 hours)

Monday afternoon, after sixth form i ventured back to Emma Cleary's house as she was ill and i thought i'd pop in to see her. I also had to find somewhere to wait as my mum was picking me up and she wouldnt finish work for a couple of hours so thats actually the main reason, i just have to make sure Emma does not see this. If i come in with my face ripped off...she's seen it. anyway after an hour or so she needed to go to the doctors and i was allowed to sit back relax and watch a bit of telly in her household as Emma and her mum went to get told that Emmas 'fatal illness' that she made it out to be was in fact, a cold. As she was out i thought i may indulge myself in the music channels. naturally being channels dedicated to music i would say 80% of the advertisements shown were related to music. The other 20% were taken up by the likes of Febreze and Lenor. Also another i noticed was that almost all music videos had a half naked woman within it. The reason for this still eludes me, im not complaining though, i personally think its fantastic. im a teenage boy what do you expect? However im intrigued to know why music companies feel the need to demonstrate such sexualisation with their videos. I think the videos should be about the music and not about how scrumptious the women are within the video itself. Also why is it always women in the videos, i feel a few more half naked men within the music channels could balance out the preferances of both men and women, lady gaga i noticed has been trying to do this but more artists should be compelled to contribute in this cause. If anyone understands as to why people dressed in minimal clothing is essential for a good music video please let me know.

Misfits (media consumption over 48 hours)

As mentioned in my first blog instead of writing the blog about the dance show while it was fresh in my mind, i avoided it and watched the latest episode of Misfits instead. Misfits is a teen, comedy/fantasy drama in which a group of young adults (nicknamed the 'Asbo Five') participating in community service for petty crimes are caught in a mystical storm that gives them all supernatural abilities. Within sunday's episode i witnessed the death of one of my favourite characters, a probation worker who really could not give a rats ass about anyone else but himself. He was arrogant, self centered, rude and very lazy....he was fantastic!! i'm not sure how channel 4 plan to replace him but i hope they do a good job! Something i did notice when watching Misfits was the specific advertisements between the shows breaks. There was a numerous amount of hair product, music albums, dvd releases and cereal adverts shown which can specifically link to my age group as i love my hair, i like music, i enjoy watching dvds and who doesn't love a cracking bowl of cereal first thing in the morning? Before taking media as an A level option i would not have been able to notice the way the channels arrange the advertisements to suit the target audiences of the programs themselves. It amazes how before i could just mindlessly watch telly as flashing images passed by without me noticing a change in advert patterns or styles between the programs. However im not sure whether this is a blessing or a curse, i used to enjoy being able to just let my mind numb up and soak in all of the images shown. However now i constantly find myself relating stuff to media and stating media terms in my mind while watching different programs. I can no longer just switch my brain off.

Dance show (media consumption over 48 hours)

Blogging is a relatively new and exciting prospect to me, so instead of writing what i actually did on sunday in the last post, i thought i'd use this as an excuse to write another post...and make it look like i have done that little bit more work. Okay so sunday evening i actually went to a relatively foreign land in my life. Oakengates theater, also known as 'The Place' ( imaginative name i know). I must admit i thoroughly enjoyed it, i was there to watch the ever lovely Emma Cleary dancing with her 'crew' in a disney themed dance show. She was with a large dance school called dance connection with ages varying from 4 to 18 participating in the show. The show was 2 hours and 30 minutes long and had a large variety of different dances, needless to say my personal favourites were the teen's dances, thats not me being biased towards Emma's participation in these it is more to do with the...interesting costumes that alot of them were wearing. I must admit within past dance shows in which i have been to watch dance connection perform, I have been unable to really appreciate the dances, however within this show i was reignited with feelings of nostalgia and recognition as numbers of my old childhood favourite disney films were re-enacted through dance. Behind the dancers there was also a powerpoint playing showing clips and images from the original films that the songs/ dances were extracted from. The lion king, for instance was danced to by a number of small children aged between 4-6 years old i would say, however through their dance the foundations of the lion king were easily recognisable, with the rest of the pack looking up to the alpha male as their leader in various situations and following the alpha lions footsteps. This was shown through the way the only male dancer was placed centre stage (wearing a male lion costume) with the other dancers placed to the sides of him, they would then follow in his movements as if he was their 'leader of the pack'. On top of the dances there was a celebrity guest appearance, Katie Collins the pride of Albrighton herself, who also sang a mix together of different disney songs within one song, it was put together really well and armed with just her acoustic guitar she serenaded the whole theater. At one point during the dance show i even attempted to spark off a standing ovation, however was instantly flooded with embarrasment as i stood there clapping in the middle of the theatre, and everyone else just sat there staring at me. I have no idea how the dancers could stand having all these people watching them perform as i must admit my brief experience into that feeling was absolutely terrifying. Other than that i feel the night was truly exceptional and my congratulations go straight out to all the dancers and other performers who performed that night.

first blog entry.

I must admit i have created this post a little bit later than i first anticipated, i intended to write this as soon as i made it home on sunday night. However being as small minded as i am i was distracted by the urge to watch Misfits and then to sleep. Since then my mind has been seduced by various other forms of entertainment or simple distractions which i allowed to pull my attention away from writing this...unintentionally of course. However today is now thursday and i feel maybe its about time to write in my blog.