Twats.

Posted in Fuckers on May 10, 2008 by Craig Rickard

I’ve just noticed some fuckers are trying to Spam my ‘Blog’…

I have just one question for you fuckers… why the fuck?

AGH!

Posted in Better late than... on May 10, 2008 by Craig Rickard

Catch up Time…

 

Hello, yes, I am aware how sickening it’s going to be to read this rather twatty ‘blog’ entry as I wank-fistedly try and cram as much information about the past several months into one post. PDP is due soon and this ‘blog’ is supposed to contain the majority of the reference sources; so far I’ve mainly used this place to bitch, whine and call people twats so bear with me if it’s just a little bit half-assed…

 

  1. Essays, after a poor showing with my first piece of work, a wonderful 57 (twat) I have managed to climb to the lofty heights of a 72! Still waiting for the third and final piece but we shall see. Why such a jump you may ask? Well… you see for the essay in which I got a first I did something pretty fucking spectacular… I got off my stupid arse and read some books. You see the 57 was in my first term and after 5 years out of education my head wasn’t in the game.

 

  1. Group work, oh what a joy to behold. In my opinion 99% of the population of the world (and possibly the Universe, depending on your beliefs) are morons, because of this I’ve dreaded the two pieces of group work I’ve had to be involved in, yet so far they have both gone staggeringly well. The six-minute film was fun, and everyone surprised me by working their asses off and the new piece of group work (Three Minute Wonder) has been both interesting and insightful, though as a scriptwriter I can’t help but feel slightly redundant at times.

 

  1. Scripts, Improving from 57-68 in just one project, waiting for the mark back on the third but am little worried as it might of come off as pretentious or perhaps ‘Confusing and Annoying’ as I’ve seen on a couple marking sheets now… I guess it’s just the way I roll…(like a twat).

 

  1. PDP and the ‘Blog’… Well I’m working on it… PDP has been sitting half finished for quite sometime now… Other things seem to get in the way, like swearing and smoking… It’ll be done…

 

  1. Maybe I’m overstepping having 5 points but it’s quite a nice rounded number so point five is going to be that… I’ve been a little nicer to people, less of a bastard… not much less but I’ve tried.

 

So there you go, ‘blogged’ as I believe the kids say, if they don’t then I guess I’ve just invented a new word… but I doubt it… my new terms resolution… keep this ‘blog’ in a better condition, less swearing and less of the … if I can’t think of anything to say.

 

Whatever poor bastard is reading this for marking my PDP I would just like to say, I am truly sorry and your shoes look delightful.   

Group Work and Why I am a Jackass…

Posted in Group Work on March 6, 2008 by Craig Rickard

It’s not going to come as a surprise to anyone that I am saying this but I am a jackass. Now I don’t mean this in a pathetic self-demeaning sort of way, it’s just a fact of life and anyone who knows me will nod in agreement; however, here’s the thing, I like it that way.

I don’t like feeling too close to people; I don’t trust people to do anything (there are a few exceptions, but not many.) so being a jackass helps keep the balance. I like the fact that most people are driven away from me as a person I feel it keeps a degree of professionalism in my day to day life, I relish in opportunities to belittle and patronise anyone and everyone it’s just who I am.

Well… now I am on the group work module, probably the best time to try and address the balance a little, maybe. Being a misanthropic soul it’s very difficult to talk to people as people, the organisational side of things is fine, getting the work done is fine but for the first time in forever I’m in a situation where I need to trust others and, well, treat them with some respect. Easier said than done.

I’m doing well so far; the group have held together Ok and I haven’t been awful to anyone as of yet! I have at least pretended to trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt but God damn it all it’s hard. Though I have been blessed with the group I have been put with.

I suppose a little change never hurt anyone and maybe I should consider other’s feelings more… but it would be easier if people weren’t so fucking stupid.

 I end with a quote from Albert Rosenfield… “…I’ve had enough of morons and half-wits, dolts, dunces, dullards and dumbbells, and you chowderhead yokel, you blithering hayseed, you’ve had enough of me?” 

I guess a lot of people have… but their loss is my gain, the gain of silence.

The Death of the Procrastinator, or maybe just an enigma?

Posted in Procrastination on February 18, 2008 by Craig Rickard

Now… This seems a little strange… A return to the previously forgotten ‘Blog’ and a fresh update. Perhaps the procrastinator is dead, working far too hard to maintain this damn thing has led to it falling away to rot; then again, perhaps I was procrastinating by not making an update, but now it appears, as I should be getting on with my next project I am back in full procrastinating force; but then again I need to keep ‘Blogging’ so is this indeed procrastinating, or perhaps a return to form?

An enigma one feels.

Then again I do have to do this, so I can rest easy this evening that time was far from wasted and Lazarus has returned.

Lets see how long it lasts! Stay tuned (if indeed anyone is tuned) for more updates.

Little Red Riding Hood Exercise

Posted in Media Theory on January 14, 2008 by Craig Rickard

After choosing an image, that of a young man dressed in a red hooded top (commonly associated with ‘street thugs.’) We (Craig, Andrew and Joseph) set about working on an idea for a rewrite of the fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’

We started off by taking the original plot points (as best we can remember from the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’

  • Grandmother is ill and lives deep in the woods
  • Red Riding Hood has got a basket of food to take to her Grandmother
  • Red Riding Hood begins her journey through the woods
  • Harassed initially by the wolf, the wolf is trying to obtain the food
  • Red Riding Hood continues on her journey through the woods
  • Wolf continues stalking Red Riding Hood
  • Red Riding Hood is overtaken by the wolf that beats her to her Grandmother’s house.
  • The Wolf conceals/kills Grandmother and masquerades as her in the bed
  • Red Riding Hood arrives at the house and is originally fooled by the Wolf’s disguise
  • The Wolf springs his trap and attacks Red Riding Hood

After this point our interpretation of how the story ended differed from one another, so the final plot point we have is…

·        The escape or death of one or more characters.

Now we had the basic breakdown of the story we began a discourse on the connotations of the picture we had selected.

The most important being…

·        The stereotypical view of the picture would be that of a street thug as apposed to that of a sweet young girl trying to aid her ailing Grandmother.

·        No other characters from the original story appear in the image.

·        The idea of a ‘Wolf’ or ‘Beast’ character seems illogical in context to the picture. What will act as our antagonist?

·        The picture has an urban setting as apposed to being in the woods.

·        Does the picture lend itself to the idea of 360 degree content?

After noting these points we began to construct the characters for the piece.

The Wolf

 The character of the Wolf is fulfilled by the streets themselves; this includes all the different characters such as drug dealers and thugs the protagonist encounters on his journey through the streets.

Grandmother/ Grandmother’s House

The Grandmother or Grandmother’s house can be simply the character’s home he is trying to return to late at night after visiting a relative, such as a Grandmother.

Red Riding Hood

The character from the picture, a young man who is dressed in street attire.

Red Riding Hood in this case is a young man who in the past was a stereotypical street thug but has since reformed (breaking away from the stereotype we originally labelled him with).

He has already been visiting an elderly relative and as the night has drawn in the streets have become unsafe.

The streets prey on him as he walks through tempting him to revert to his old ways.

 The New List of Events. 

  • Red Riding Hood leaves the home of his Grandmother (she is worried about leaving her home due to the current state of the streets) after dropping off some food he makes his way.
  • Night has drawn in and the streets are becoming rougher and rougher.
  • Red Riding Hood begins his journey back to his home, using his streets smarts he is able to safely get half the way back.
  • He is accosted by a gang or ruffians with whom he used to socialise.
  • Red Riding Hood continues his journey by he is being followed by the ruffians.
  • The gang are able to arrive at Red Riding Hood’s house first by taking the dangerous shortcuts through town.
  • After Red Riding Hood arrives the gang are able to masquerade as his friends and gain access to his home.
  • Once in the home the gang show their true face (much like the Wolf) and attack Red Riding Hood and attempted to rob him.
  • A neighbour disturbs the gang and they flee, leaving Red Riding Hood to contemplate the world he has left behind. (The neighbour here is fulfilling the role of the ‘Woodsman’ that appears in some versions of the Red Riding Hood story.)

Now the new story has been created we set about making this piece have 360 degree content. This was the hardest past as the story doesn’t specifically lend itself to the idea of 360 degree content as the story doesn’t contain anything that could be considered mysterious or that an audience could interact with and solve.

An idea we came up with for the 360-degree content was that the entire piece should be presented as if it was shot by building security cameras and CCTV cameras around the streets in which it is set. Although a television piece it can also be presented on the internet…

Presented on a website with a box on the page for each camera used, the whole piece is then played out on every single camera from beginning to end, for example after Red Riding Hood leaves his Grandmother’s house we are able to view everything else that happens in front of that camera for the entire duration of the story even though it would not involve Red Riding Hood.

This idea of the perpetually running cameras could be developed so that other stories, maybe something more mysterious could be playing out at the same time as the Red Riding Hood story, thus adding exclusive content and extra hooks for the internet audience to get involved in.

To Finish

Working as a group of three to retell this classic fairy tale was initially difficult as we were unable to decided the exact story of Red Riding Hood!

After that hurdle was overcome after much thought and discussion we were able to work as an affective group to organise the ideas we had and structure them around the Red Riding Hood story.

Another issue with group work seems to be time, the availability of each member of the group seemed to be different and thus we originally struggled but by the end we were able to work together as a creative force and produce the idea presented here.

We tried to steer away from stereotyping the character of Red Riding Hood, as the picture we used presented us with a stereotypical looking character. Making this character a reformed person helped to add to the originality of the piece.

 We feel that the piece that we created could have been more original, but the 360-degree content that we added makes it more creative and unique and would give us more room to create and add further ideas if we so wished.

Procrastination.

Posted in Procrastination on October 25, 2007 by Craig Rickard

Mans’ eldest enemy.

Something I seem to be rather good at, one of the few things in fact. Writing this now is a form of procrastination; I’m sat down at my computer trying to make a start on my ‘Images’ script but yet I am ‘blogging’, as a matter of fact ‘blogging’ to no-one!

So why the hell am I doing this, I’m sure if I had some kind of fan base to please it might be a different story but really everything I’m writing is just self-indulgent wank.

I’ve made the bed (for the first time in years(not true but sounds amusing)), done the washing up, put my laundry on (even though it didn’t need to be done) opened and shut the windows several times in search of the utopian working climate, polished the brass and now am writing about it.

I guess this is ‘development’ or at the least could lead to some sort of development; but while trapped in procrastination’s beastly layer I’m only seeing the negative side of things.

I’m going to leave it here and try and do some actual work, but then again I did notice that I’m down to half a pot of sea salt so maybe a trip to the shops is in order…

?

Posted in Welcome? on October 20, 2007 by Craig Rickard

I’ve fucked this up already… I can’t delete this bastard and I don’t have anything of interest to say.

Here it is-

Posted in Welcome? on October 20, 2007 by Craig Rickard

Well, well. I’ve once again proved myself to be technologically incompetent by struggling in even the simplest of tasks, setting up a ‘Blog.

It’s already taken me fuck knows how long and I’m starting to get irritable, I didn’t realise I was quite so much of a Luddite but I guess when push comes to shove I really know how to make a complete fucking saga out of the smallest things.

I’m sure Aristotle didn’t have to put up with this shit. Then again in the 21st century he would probably spend most of his time drinking Newcastle Brown Ale and spending his feeble wage in a seedy little Ladbrooks somewhere.

Oh yes and welcome to my so-called ‘Blog.’ I wonder if this is even going to work…