General oo!

Heheheh yes I just re-read that last post.

Had an ace lecture today with a new lecturer and got my new timetable which I may or may not colour code later.

I now have the Montagues and Capulets theme from the Romeo and Juliet ballet in my head. That's how purposefully random that lecture was.

Woo! We're working on narrative - my bestest area! Character creation and development (I am now the proud creator of a hen named Laetitia who was once human but had a tiff with her genetic engineer husband), story and plot, blah-dy blah.

I taught Lizzie Sykes something.
She was like 'how do people generate ideas?' and I was like 'ahem-ahem. well, some authors prefer to write either very early in the morning or very late at night, because that is when they are the most in touch with their subconscious. thank you, I'll be here until christmas,' and she was like 'whoa, whoa, hold the phone there, what was that?' and I was like 'yeah, you heard me'.

Well, that's how it went in my mind.

And then Jonathan told me he'd just imagined me with udders and it kind of replaced my ego-boost moment with one of those moments when you just think 'whaaat?'.

Yeah, someone else is leaving my floor now! That's two! Is it the smell of marijuana? 'Cos I'm pretty much immune to that now.
Don't get me wrong, that shit ain't ever getting into MY body.

Hmm, what else? Oh yeah, I think we're getting our new briefs tomorrow.
Yeah, that's right, BRIEFS. I'm a grown up, I can say it without laughing. I can also say the words 'shaft', 'crevasse', 'cock' and 'gash'.
They are all perfectly clean words. They are in the dictionary. Their definitions are 100% clean.

Da ting is, showcasing our work won't actually be as exciting as we expect, 'cos we've seen most of 'em online before the event. Like me and all the previous Harry Potter movies.

Hmm. Nothing else to say really.

Oh yeah!!! Man this caused me to make serious lol.
On the third floor of Weymouth House, there is an office, with a sign outside in the same format as any of the other offices. However, if you look very closely, you'll see that the name on it is 'Billy Nomates', and the contact e-mail is 'lonr@bournemouth.ac.uk')

Genius.

Anyway, with that happy thought, I will leave you so I can go and get more food and hopefully talk to my mum about how to resolve the cock-uppage of the end of term, because somehow I'm going to find myself in London.

Much Love

xxx

Oh yeah, and the IT Crowd's back on! Yay!

Hello peoples,
Nothing particularly exciting has happened in the last few days.
However, I feel it necessary to continue blogging despite, for the benefit of those riveted by the series of events that is my extremely interesting life (bahahaha).
Basically, hey guys!
I discovered how to make a really nice tomato soup to serve one in like seven minutes.

You will need:
1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes
Vegetable stock
Chilli powder
Basil (haha you thought I meant real basil. No! Like what you get in the little glass jars in ASDA!)
Ground pepper
Vegetable oil

Okies, so you dump the tinned tomatoes in a saucepan, with about half as much water as what's already in there. Stick it on the hob. Crumble in vegetable stock. Randomly chuck in chilli powder, basil and pepper to taste. Then a *drop* of vegetable oil. Seriously, not to much. Same with the chilli. I don't care if you like it spicy. Too much = GROSS.

Bring to the boil.

Eat it.

I discovered this over reading week.
Whaddayaknow? I did do something resourceful! Didn't even google it, man! I invented it!

Yes, I am drunk again. I'm more fun when I'm drunk.
Except when watching movies. I just talked very loudly through 'Knocked Up', mainly about how Seth Rogen is such a great actor and he's actually quite cute, and he's not really 'fat', he's just kind of 'chubby'. True, though, and I'd say that sober.

Yes. I don't know what all that was in aid of.

But kids - don't turn into me. I got a text message from BU PARTS telling me to be at rehearsal at noon tomorrow and I literally thought 'are you joshing??? 12? Who's up at 12?' then I realised that the majority of the nation is up at 12 and I was utterly ashamed.
Hopefully I won't be too hung over.

OO! We have a new flatmate!
Catherine on my floor, who is lovely, is dropping out of Uni! WTF??? She came into the lounge today to say bye, and I thought she was just going home for the weekend, but it turns out there's someone else turned up to take her place.
Don't get me wrong, new girl is lovely (another very attractive girl to make me feel unhappy within myself - LOL), but I had no fucking clue Catherine was leaving.
Caz = BIATCH!!!

Basically, I think this whole post is here to tell me to s.t.o.p d.r.i.n.k.i.n.g.
IT IS BAD
IT COSTS MONEY
IT MAKES YOU TALK THROUGH GOOD MOVIES
IT MAKES YOU POORLY
YOU HURT YOUR LIVER AND YOU TURN YELLOW AND DIIIIIIIIEEEEE

basically

Oh yeah, and I miss my friends so much it physically hurts.
That's not relevant to the whole drinking thing, but it's true.
Can't wait 'til xmas!
And now I'm off to make a drunken twat of myself in front of someone who's recently tried to make ends meet with me.
Takes balls to do that. Give him a big hand, guys.
For the record, I'm the dick for ballsing this up.

Luvs!


xxx

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/poll?pollIdpoll_7_7063=0&pollId=poll_7_7063&pollIdpoll_7_7063QuestionId0=1&forward=/news/barrow/battle_of_the_bands_vote/7.7063&cookieSet=true

Yes, I know you don't know these people but whosoever is following this blog, pleeeeeease click the above link and vote for 'Zoltan' in the poll on the sidebar.
They are a really good band and deserved to be signed, instead of the Barrow-in-Furness gimps.
Not that there's anything wrong with being from Barrow-in-Furness.
Yes, I am drunk, but please vote.

xx

General relief. O.My.God that's better. And fish fillets. Nom nom nom.

Right, well I have had a pretty good week so far.

Apart from one of the days...not sure exactly which one...when I made myself very ill and embarrassed myself in front of my flatmates by drinking a whole bottle of wine and a whole bottle of SoCo to myself. I did everything from getting their names mixed up to actually forgetting how to talk, really.
And the next day I basically just stayed in bed and ate nothing.
Actually, I lie.
Stayed in bed 'til about six in the evening, then remembered I had a Guys and Dolls rehearsal.
We were learning the rather energetic Hotbox dance to 'Bushel and a Peck' in heels. I literally nearly died.
And THEN I had a date.
Which was lovely.
But I wrecked that too by mentioning that I had an essay due the next day, so of course the guy was like 'Oh my God, I dragged you out here when you had work to do! I'm such a bad person! I'm taking you home.'
Which I think is code for 'Thank God.'
So yeah, that was cut short, and I spent the rest of the evening referencing and Bibliographising.
I'm pretty sure my essay is pretty crap, but I think it'll do the job for now.
If it gets a terrible mark, I'll re-sit.

But on to the good news!

#1 None of my flatmates hate me, they just think I'm funny (dunno what's worse)

#2 Made up with a close friend from home that I haven't spoken to in a few months. Well, I think we made up. I was a wee bit too enthusiastic and happened to let slip that I'd had a couple of dreams with him in over the past two days, and that this was an amazing coincidence. I did say 'with you in' not 'about you', because that would just be creepy. Because they weren't 'about him' they just had him in. Still creepy though. Hands up who thinks I've blown it. Lol.

#3 Saw the final edited version of Untitled Movie Still #11, which was our first assessed piece.
Watch it aqui http://www.vimeo.com/2274633 or at the lewisaurus's blog on tumblr. I think it rocks. Especially the lighting. I love peoples' reactions what they see the end.

#4 Bye bye essay! Thank the Lord. That was the thing that was hanging over my head like crazy. HATED IT.

#5 Just had an absolutely beasting singing lesson with Sandie Elkins. 'Maybe This Time' from Cabaret, 'Defying Gravity' from Wicked and 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again' from The Phantom of the Opera. No wonder I'm a bit wobbly on me tootsies now - it sucked the life out of me. In the best way possible.

#6 Attending choir tonight when hopefully we're going to be starting on 'One Day More' from Les Misérables. Absolute horse of a song. That's a good thing. I think Clarkson was driving a Lambo a few Top Gear series ago (probably a Lambo - usually is), and bellowed 'I'm a horse of a man!' Best Top Gear quote ever. But yeah, I've adopted it, and it now means I approve of whatever it is I apply it to.

#7 Just generally love the fact that I'm standing on the edge of a precipice with absolutely no clue what the next brief is going to be. I probably spelt precipice wrong.

#8 Watched back a few of the ruvry assessed pieces. Faves: ours (obviously), digging the special effects in B2's piece...just lol, and the general set-ups of the shots in F2's were fit.

#9 Just noticed B1's is up. I'm in it! Get in! Must go home to watch it in a bit.

#10 Had a very nice date and I'm sure there will be more to come.

#11 Can't wait to get a bit more acting in. Really hope the sitcom idea gets off the ground. That would be ultra-yum.

#12 I have some yummy fish fillets waiting for me at home. Mmm. I don't even care if my flatmates think they smell. I love smelly food.

#13 It's nearly Christmas!!!!! If you wake up unsure of whether it IS in fact Christmas or not, I've discovered a rather useful little web page to set your mind at ease: http://www.isitchristmas.com/

#14 Appetite is GONE! That's the best thing about multiple-day hangovers.

Hinneeway.

Hi Reece! You're following my blog! O yeah! And I'm following yours! LOLAGE.

Muchos hugs

xxx

Editing an dat

The assessed piece is looking pretty good!
Apparently, we had un pequeño problemo with the tape - basically, as James lovingly put it, it was completely fucked. We lost a whole bunch of footage, so on top of bad luck, little planning and a stressful day on location, we now had only a small amount of what we'd shot.
Luckily, the shots that were remained were workable.
Couple them with some great and very fitting music, and we had us a nice little film.
Being in the same editing suite as all the other groups is always humbling though, since you can't help glancing over shoulders and getting depressed at the absolute excellence of other peoples' work.
I think our piece has the shock factor, as it features the strong suggestion of rape.
So it could swing either way - we may get praised for being brave and pulling the thing off, OR we may be asked 'was that completely necessary'?
Also, I found out that we may not have been allowed lights, since we hadn't had the lighting workshop. But then I would be redundant, wouldn't I? And I would have missed out on burning myself.
Nah, just joshing, I absolutely LOVED doing lighting.
Essay's finished too, but it's about 500 words too long, and that's minus references and bibliography (shucks!).
Have to get it done tomorrow and handed in by Wednesday.
I think it's pretty crap, but hopefully it'll get me through. It's too late to re-do it all now.

L8rs
x

LANDAN!

Alright, chaps! I'm back from London.
Yeah, I went there. Forgot to say.
Went to see a play by Rikki Beadle-Blair, my course director from National Youth Theatre, who is a legend. He wrote, designed, directed AND acted in it along with other members of his theatre group, Team Angelica.
When I first found out it was 'Theatre in Education' (TIE), I did have a cringe moment.
I have sat through many an assembly when a bunch of preachy actors have tried to be down wid da bredren and appeal to us not to smoke...binge drink...have unprotected sex...become mass murderers...become pimps...become druggies or drug dealers...gamble...dabble in the illegal toxic waste trade...download illegal software...
But this was excellent. Seven actors, including Rikki as the teacher, playing a street-dance troupe in a college, tackling the issue of homophobia.
It seemed edgy and dangerous even with the required lack of swears, the acting was fantastic (as I have come to expect of Team Angelica) and the script was typical cynical Rikki, but in a way completely reinvented.
Comedy and angst were like peanut butter and chocolate in there. They actually worked together.
One of the best bits, though, was the hot-seating. There was some really good maintainance of character, especially from the lads who played overly-macho, unrestrainedly cruel and homophobic Isaac and his closeted gay best friend Ryan who made up for his hidden true sexuality by joining Isaac with a little too much gusto.
I would love to make a documentary on Team Angelica for one of my majors. There's so much material to delve into. I could use clips from Rikki's award-winning film 'Souljah', footage of rehearsals, interviews with Rikki, the cast, Rikki's Mum, Rikki's brother, audience members, other members of NYT that he taught...
God, it's all too exciting. Bet you anything that Rikki's way too busy to do any of that though.
Upto about 1770 words in my essay now, and just realising I don't have enough quotes.
Library trip tomorrow, methinks.
Oh, and apparently, the new film's all edited and looks amazing. Gutted I wasn't there, but hopefully I'll get to see it on Monday.

Laters!
x

B1 shootage

Fookin knackered, chuck.
That's Northern for 'I am rather fatigued, my friend'.
Got up at 7, which is an hour i only see on mondays, and set off for uni to act in group B1's assessed shoot.
It was good and simple and very visually interesting. Ours is probably the latter, but definitely not the former :(

I'm looking forward to doing a bit of directing and definitely some camera.
I didn't wreck this shoot (thank God), but I did have a bit of a straight-face problem.
Everything from talking in the background to seeing someone walk past outside would set me off :(
Guess it's just tiredness.
Off to London tomorrow to see a play by the great Rikki Beadle-Blair, who was my course director at National Youth Theatre (look this man up!)
Tube! *Shudder* Not looking forward to the journey.
Had a nice Guys and Dolls rehearsal last night - learnt part of 'Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat' - great fun, AND I ended up getting an early night. Didn't help much though.

O! O! I've been offered a part in a sitcom for Nerve TV - how fit is that?
No idea what it's about yet but it's only partially scripted, mainly improvised, and it's apparently going to be like the Boosh (we get special effects!), The Office and Extras all in one.
Lol that'd be epic.

Smiley Caz!

Cannot WAIT to help edit our piece and start the next one and to do more acting and ooo life's so exciting!

Essay's not moving though, and it's starting to sound like people are having the same problem as me - so far, I've just highlighted the major events in the history of documentary and how it has developed rather than explaining what we can learn from it.
But I'll just keep going and try and tie it up at the end...

I think I'll start major work on it on Sunday, cos I'm back from London and have no work to do.

Though technically I have no work to do now, but I'm tiyud. Let me off.

Lots of love, see you on the other side

xxx

PS Where's the grumpiness gone?

Ah, the things life throws at us.

Oh my God, day.
That's like saying 'Oh my God, tune' (aka 'choon'), if you consider that it means 'what a tune' instead of 'this is a great tune'.
I should really have just said 'Oh my God, what a day'.
Got up at 6.50, which wouldn't have been so bad if I'd got an early, sober night the night before.
Truth of the matter is, I went to a Seth Lakeman concert at the Opera House last night (and bought a T-shirt, meaning I subsequently returned home with my future surname printed across my chest. It's possible!) and had enjoyed myself so much, I thought now would be the right time to crack open a celebratory drink to prevent the merriment ending.
A bottle of cheap red later, I found myself in my flatmate's room with him and two other lads listening to tween rock, metal and everything inbetween over YouTube, reading Zoo (???) and generally acting a little bit like a man.
It was 3.30 am.
Anyway, so this morning I got up, had a bit of a headache, managed to find my way to Flick's house - our location.

Oh My God I didn't tell you about THE PREDICAMENT.
We were all set to do a piece based on Jeff Wall's 'Insomnia', when, about a day and a half before shooting, we came into the knowledge that one of the projects last year was not only based on the same picture, it also used many of the techniques and followed a similar narrative to the one we had meticulously planned.
So it was back to the drawing board, and, through the tireless work of a few members of the group (ahem - Thom), we managed to scrabble together a concept based on a sequence of photographs by Cindy Sherman called 'Untitled Film'.

So. Today was basically a nightmare. Our ideas were sketchy and we had from about ten til 3.30 to do the whole thing.
I did lighting. It was AWETHUM. Yes, I did screw up a couple of shots for everyone, yes, I kept losing my gloves, yes I did burn myself several times, but to feel like I was doing something useful - OMGZ! Best feeling in the world.
Anyway, after drying up several times, eating comically gross food and coining the shot name 'rape cam' (as opposed to 'cock's-eye-view' from the last project), we finally scraped together enough footage and escaped in time.
We had an ace taxi driver to bring us home.

But yeah, about half an hour before the end of shooting, I turned my phone on (SLAP your wrist, Caz) and found I had 2 texts, one from my dear friend Reece, and the other from Mike of BU PARTS. Reece informed me that tomorrow at 9.30, I'll be involved in his group's project.
I love acting in other peoples' projects but always feel bad when I mess them up.
I was really excited until I read Mike's text.
I quote:
'All cast rehearsal tonight in the Allesbrook at 7pm. We're gonna sing Sit Down You're Rockin The Boat. BO-YAH! X'
Oh dear. A ten o'clock Guys and Dolls rehearsal finish, from which I will return on a high and unable to sleep.
A nine-thirty start tomorrow and dang-nabbit I don't even know where we're meeting.
Death on a stick.

On the upside, I've tidied my room, and have done half my essay.
On the downside, I need to do my washing and washing up, I'm out of SoCo and I have half an essay still to write.
And the sound guy's not single :(
And I'm hungry.
And I'm getting fat.
And I can't run anymore.
And my ribs still hurt from freshers' flu.
And my hair's greasy and I'm sweaty from standing under a blazing light holding up a gel because we had no gaffer tape.

But wait - it's all Ok 'cos I swear to GOD Seth Lakeman looked at me and winked last night.
He so winked at someone, and I was the only young person on the front row, and everyone else was being really boring.
And I was wearing a low-cut top.
Oo! Maybe we WILL get married!

Don't poop my party, I need to cheer myself up.

Anyway, buh-bye. I'll probably tell you all about B1's shoot tomorrow and how much better it was apart from me fucking it up and people not being my friend anymore :(

xxx

The beginning of a masterpiece, our first projects, and how to sabotage a third year minor

Alreet?

Recent news now: production group D1 (aka Cheese on Toast Productions) have shot and aired their first project, and are already prepared for their second.
The first was a non-assessed piece involving interaction between two characters, no dialogue and only ten static shots - no zooms, pans, tracking etc.
On this shoot, I was production assistant, and a pretty poor job I did of it. I storyboarded it (which wasn't my job) and filled out the risk assessment forms, which I did hand in on time. HOWEVER, all you production managers and assistants out there, DO NOT hand in your risk assessment forms until you have secured a location.
I was stupid enough to forget to visit estates, the part of ther university which deals with the management of all different areas of the campus, until the morning of the shoot. Once there, I found that we would not be permitted to film ANYWHERE unless I handed in a signed copy of the risk assessment, which very much existed but was very much in the hands of our group's tutor, Sue Sudbury.
Sooo we were very naughty and shot anyway.
The location was the mens' toilets on the fourth floor of Weymouth House. Luckily enough we weren't discovered, although a sprinting man did voice some disappointment when he skidded to a halt outside and saw our nice little sign.
But yes, all I did the whole time was fill out some forms and not hand them in to the right place, and stand around doing sod all during the shoot. In fact I think I sat out in the corridor for a lot of it.
So, no matter how small your job seems, you can ALWAYS do more, be it to get drinks, to help hold stuff, to shout at people not to cross the room or to shut up please...
Or else everyone thinks you're a lazy arse, and you have this great sense of a lack of fulfillment.
This time, I'm on lighting - a crucial job for our next shoot. And I intend to be THE BEST lighting designer in the world.

The last project was based in an office. Two men race down a corridor into the toilets, absolutely bursting.
HOWEVER, only one urinal is in working order.
Suddenly, it's the wild west. The two men face off, squaring up to each other, flies at the ready.
Then the door creaks open. Western-mode is lost. Cheese on Toast's trademark character, a poker-faced man with strange glasses, walks in, unnoticed at first, and uses the urinal.
The two men finally notice his presence and shake their heads in despair.

Our next project gives us a lot more leeway. We can use any number of different types of shots and go off campus. It is based on a work of art - in our case a photograph entitled 'Insomnia' by Jeff Wall.
I won't release any further details yet, just in case it changes.

Ok, onto my masterpiece.
Having written a skeleton of an introduction (while drunk, which actually helped - not that I suggest you do that...), I am now about halfway through the first paragraph of my essay on the history of documentary. I've always been interested in it, so the difficulty for me is not the actual writing, but the being arsed to get going. Also, I'm REALLY bad at research. My idea is to write the bare bones and flesh it out with relevant quotes later.

And finally - the third year shoot.
I recently volunteered to act as part of a third year's minor, and work began at 6.30 yesterday.
I turned up at the production manager's house about half an hour early, knocked on the door and there was no one there. I went to Waitrose and bought a Galaxy. I came back and knocked again. No one there. I went to the corner shop and bought a cookie. I came back and knocked on again. No one there. I remembered I had his number and called him.
I was at the wrong house.
What followed was a first hand example of how an actor should NOT behave on set.
Afer trying on my awesome 70s costume (I didn't know the film was set in the 70s - lack of research on my part!) I explained I hadn't brought my script because I only had two lines and I knew them, but could I please take a look at it anyway...?
I spoke to no one except the sound guy (and that was only because I had a crush on him).
The other actors were from London and had travelled all those miles together in a Ford KA, so they were having a great time nattering together on set. I sat in the corner and ate custard creams and crisps, and had a little sleep.
I listened to my instructions, but they still had to repeat them about four times as much for me as they did for the others.
When it was my turn to be on camera, I moved like a robot and talked like a robot, albeit a very quiet one. Because I hadn't spoken to the other actor in my scene, I was very nervous around him. Plus, I hadn't told anyone I'd never acted for camera before, so I didn't recieve any tips. In fact, if I'd told them that, they might've gone for someone better.
My last few shots took about five or six takes to do, by which time we were way beyond the designated wrap time anyway. It was 1.30 AM and people were pissed off and sweaty.
In conclusion, don't work with anyone good if you're shit.

It is SO worth it to help out the third years as a runner or something. Watching them set up tracks for a dolly or try to settle things with the owner of a location or give instructions to the actors showed me what it would be like for me over the coming years. The six-and-a-half hours spent preparing and shooting was absolutely fascinating and VERY intense.
I still want to be an actor, but that shoot showed me I need to get over camera fright and general shyness and give people what they want if I'm going to get anywhere.

SO that was the not very brief lowdown. It's Saturday. I'm off to get wankered.
I'll do some more essay tomorrow. Promise.

xxx