Week 6 of classes

Lat week I got part of my project done. I did an essay on the genre of horror. I really enjoyed doin this essay beacuse i like horror films so I had fun looking up horror films from the past and learning about when horror began. The first horroe film was only two minutes long and was made in 1896 titled `Le Manoir Du Diable´. Earlier horror films were usually set in old mansions or castles and were about the supernatural. More modern day horror films are associated with collge students. Horror films play on people worst fears. the atmosphere in them is created by dark shadows, scarey music and heavy breathing. The next part of my project is to design a poster for a horror film. I think that this will be lots of fun.

In film comedy this week we watched a movie called `Duck Soup´ (1933) by the four Marx brothers. This film was surprising for its time and was a failure at first because people didn´t understand it. But now it is a huge classic and future directors were influenced by it. It changed the way film makers approached comedy. Actors could now express comedy through what they said and not just by their actions. This film also made fun of musicals. I enjoyed this film at the beginning and thought it was funny but after a while it became anoying and I couldn´t wait for it to be over. The main character acted more like a stand up comic which got a bit irritating after a while but his jokes were still funny. There were two characters in the film who were spies and they REALLY annoyed me. They were funny at the start but this wore off very soon and they became anoying. They acted like children at times and were very stupid. One of them didn´t talk and used props to communicate. He was like a character from a silent film. I was happy though that there was sound in the film as you can only watch so many silent films. Here is a link showing the two spies. You might find them funny or annoying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-NqUsKFnRU

For history of design this week not very many of the class showed up. I think it was because it was lashing rain outside and people decided to stay in bed. We braved the rain though and made it in, event hough we got absolutely soaked on the way. Its not suposed to rain in Spain (so I thought). Anyway, because no one really showed up the lecturer jus talked to us about the fallas festival. She gave us a sheet of paper and we had to write down our experience of it and whether we enjoyed it or not. Then afterwards we all discussed our own experiences with it. I didn´t have a particulary good experience as you can see from my previous blog post but it was interesting to hear about what other people did and how they enjoyed it. That was it for the class really beacuse she didn´t want to go on with more work without most people missing.

Later that day our effective presentation class was also cancelled because no one showed up. I think there was about five of us there out of 20 so the lecturer also didn´t want to move on with work. Our second effective presentations class went ahead though on friday. We were split into groups of two and given a sheet with a small amount of information on it and we had to make a presentation out of it. I feel like I learned a lot from this. The lecturer took notes as we all presented.I was told afterwards that i didn´t make eye contact and was reading off the sheet the whole time. This was because we didn´t have much time to learn off the material but I did´n´t think it would be noticed that much so I know now that eye contact is very important and I need to work on that for the next time. The lecturer told us that we will do lots of exercises like thins to help us prepare for our final presentation at the end of the year. I think this is a great way of learning because he can point out to us what we do wrong so we don´t make that mistake when it matters. I was also way more nervous doing this then I thought I would be so hopefully practising in front of the class will stop me from being nervous on the day. 

At the start of the week we also did a no technology day for our social context of technology module at home. I really thought I´d die without my phone but as it turns out I´m still alive. I enjoyed this day as a ONCE off. It was interesting to see how I coped without my phone and internet. For the whole day I did feel like something was missing but I did enjoy spending the day actually talking with my friends instead of sitting in silence watching television. But I hope to never have to go another day without technology. No electricity is bad enough without taking other forms of technology off me.