Future?

Providing I get accepted into either ACM or Drumtech after college, I hope to go there and study drums at Higher Diploma level and then after depending on how I feel do the degree, or more likely go out into the big wide world and do session drum work. In the best case scenario I get into a good band while studying then try and make a living/career out of that...If all goes to plan.  

At the moment its just a matter of putting up with college and getting through the year (which i'm sure Adrian my course tutor will be happy to read this) and coming out with some good grades!

Documentary: I Can't Stop Stealing

So i've just watched this documentary following the story of 3 shoplifters and how they got into it and how their 'habit' made them continue. I found it quite interesting in how each individual told their honest story about shoplifting which at first I thought would be just a bunch of lowlifes doing it because they had no GSCEs and what not. Actually the people were genuine (if thats the word to use) and were not necessarily bad people. One of them came from a rich background which shocked me but it was a way for him to put his mind away from his fathers death.

This brings me to my next point in that for once it wasn't exactly a biased documentary; something that the Americans are good at. Like I said it showed how each of the shoplifters got into it and their life around shoplifting. Even though they stole, they wouldn't have stolen from any friends or family and when listening to the stories you sort of have sympathy for them...Probably just me though.

Another point in how the documentary captures you is how they describe shoplifters shoplift using techniques explained by peoples job it is to stop the these thief's with footage showing random shoplifters in action. This gives a variety of stories within the documentary that dip in and out of each story so you are always left wondering whats going to happen. There are also explanations of how shoplifters approaches to stealing goods which I found interesting....

The documentary is led by a narrater to guide you through the stories reinforcing what is shown on screen. Music is also used to keep the pace and were always relevant to the documentary listening to the lyrics of them. The music positioning was used quite a lot for transition purposes between stories and make it easier for the viewer to know that there has been a change to another story.

The style of camera work used was roughly in this general structure which most documentaries use:

- Transitions between stories - Mid Shots, long shots, wide shots for establishing purposes. The editing between the shots paced more during these transitions to keep interest for the next story.

 - General interviewing and storytelling - Mid shots and some close ups when in their house or building etc.

- Intimate story telling - Close ups in order to capture emotions were mainly used for this.

The length of the documentary was just under an hour, and I think there was a lot crammed into the time that made it interesting and kept viewers watching e.g. Me

The Archers

After listening to one of The Archers shows and linking knowledge from Alan Beck's article, the first thing I noticed was 'background field' which is the baseline of Ferrington's three aspects of soundscape from the article being 'Background field', 'Contextual sound', and 'Foreground sound'. I also heard some contextual sounds of sheep in the foreground that drew a picture of where this scene was located, which Ferrington called 'Signposting'.

Signposting he described was the prompt sound you hear at the beginning of the scene which could either be foreground sounds, or dialogue from the characters indicating the location. In this case of The Archers they mainly dialogue is used to break into the scene scenario.

Another thing I noticed when initially listening was the way they used distance away from the microphone to create the illusion in your head that its a 3D space rather then having the same sort of volume uniform throughout the show. In music this this is called dynamics which links in the same way to this. According to the article the way that production do this is to have a set in which the actors can roam around to create this sense of space. However most of the time at least one of the characters sounds as if they are miked 'up front' basically meaning having the microphone pretty much next to their mouth which I guess having the other character 'roaming' creates the sense of space and distance.

I personally don't listen to any sort of radio drama or audiobook but I could hear how well constructed the soundscape was. Everything sort of blended that made me create my own interpretation of the scene almost like a book which I guess is why people enjoy them. My personal likings are visuals, and I would much rather get the direct idea of the director/producer is trying to tell me.

RAF Magazine

This is a look at another magazine called RAF which is the official RAF magazine. The main image goes with the theme of this issue with the RAF photographic competition, with this image being one of the entries filling up the whole page.

The main focus of the image being the helicopter is placed at the centre of the page with the fairly minimal amount of text around it at the borders of the page that creates less distraction from the bold image. The sizes of the text get smaller in order of importance down the page showing what the publisher wants the audience to see first with the main title 'RAF' being large, bold text. The other headlines down the page are smaller than the previous with yellow that is a colour theme throughout all of their issues, with smaller sub text below so they get the reader to read the headline first. Another sub image is placed to the left of the page to accompany the headline above.

A further headline is placed in the header of the page which is common with a lot of magazine covers likely to be there for point of sales reasons in case the magazine is placed behind another showing at least one of the headlines to attract attention.

Rhythm Magazine Cover Design

Fig. 1

Rhythm is a magazine aimed at drummers that contains drummer interviews, equipment reviews and much more drum related content. This specific issue is the celebration of their 25th Anniversary publishing the magazine and shows clear layout and colour changes making it stand out from previous issues (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

To start with the colours of the large title have been changed to silver to mark the occasion with the large '25th Anniversary' graphic centred on the page being the main focus point and to show its going to be special to whats inside. The contrast of silver and black make it striking and clear to the theme of the issue, that would also stand out to existing readers as to its difference from the normal issues being its key selling point on this issue that even made me buy it.

The fact that images and the usual text around the page have been removed from the normal design of brightness and businesses to accommodate the graphic, make it even more special and clear with its monochromatic look enforcing what the magazine are trying to say, and hopefully draw in new customers.

However, with the loss or drum kit images that sell what the magazine is about the title 'The UK's Best-Selling Drum Magazine' keep the aim of what the magazine is about still there.