So I know a lot of people think it’s lame but I am unashamed to say that I am obsessed with the TV show ‘Revenge’. When the show was first released in 2011 I wasn’t even aware of it and it wasn’t until later on when season 2 was already out, that I learnt of the show and watched from the beginning. But that’s the best way to do it right? Smash out two seasons of something in one weekend. The show is now in it’s fourth season and ever since I first began watching I haven’t stopped, waiting anxiously every week for a new episode (that I stream online, because who wants to watch it on TV when the episodes are aired like 10 episodes behind air time in the US) and then again at the end of the season. The wait is especially anxious with Revenge because of the huge cliff hangers it leaves at the end of each episode and even season… I mean come on you’d think that they could do you a favour and at least not leave you in such anticipation at the end of a season. But that’s how it is with TV shows isn’t it. They reel you in with the drama and then leave things very suspenseful to keep you coming back for more. It is all in the way they script and especially edit the TV shows. The way they cut from scene to scene, the huge role the music and sound effects play, the gaps they leave and then when the bombshell hits. I live for that, and I must say that Revenge does a mighty fine job of all of this. Anyhow, I better leave you to it so I can go watch my next episode of Revenge….

This week’s focus has been on editing which is quite practical as project brief 2’s theme is predominantly based around editing. In today’s tutorial we looked at basic cuts and ways you can go from one shot to the next. As well as this we looked at different ways you can edit audio to make it look less ‘jumpy’ from one shot to the next. I feel as though this will help me for project brief 2 as well as other projects in the future. Although I gained basic editing skills during my final years of high school in Film and TV from various films we made, including music videos and short films, I hope to further my editing as well as filming skills during this second self portrait task and during the rest of the course.

This weeks reading, Chapter 3 of Blood in the Gutter by Scott McCloud, intrigued me in a way that the past weeks readings have not… Maybe because none of the others really had. I was quite interested in the issue that the reading began it’s focus around, which is what I think grasped my attention. It launched with a little boy who believed that the whole world was just a show put on for him. This concept reminded me of the movie The Truman Show where Jim Carey plays the main character whom is the star of a TV show. However, Carey’s character is unaware he is even featured in a TV show and believes it is all just his own life. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all seen it; if not, watch it, it’s a great movie. The reading continues on to discuss how daily activities such as jobs and even interests may not even exist “outside of what my five senses report to me”. This is such a crazy, wonderful and dreamlike theory to think about and it really is something you could use to describe Media. Does media really exist? What is media? Hmm….