21/03/13 - Structure and Ownership

In the media there are two types of ownership options: Public and private ownership. 

Am example of public ownership (state) is the BBC, it is completely funded by the tax payers and does not have a private owner. An example however of a private ownership is Rupert Murdoch who owns an interest in news corp.

Rupert Murdoch

There are many different types of state ownership around the world, in China the government controls the media, so in a sense it is state owned, this is unlike the BBC though because the BBC is run by a board of governors who have a form of independence although they are hired by the government.

A huge portion of the worlds media sources are publicly/state owned. The differences between Public and state is that public ownership is completely controlled through the public funding and are not partisan towards any set party, where as state ownership is funded by state but is directly controlled by state.

http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/me/meb/meb03/meb03a/onePage

http://www.sociology.org.uk/Media_ownership1.pdf

Private ownership is something that is either owned privately by a single person or privately by a group of people, it's where the public have no say and is fully funded by only the parties that hold ownership of the company at hand.

Private owners also have complete control what is shown and when it is shown, people say privately owned companies are more reliable than publicly owned companies, because state ownership means pleasing the public with their demands and wishes, you have more control with private ownership.

• Conglomerate companies are ones that have been combined, usually they're controlled by the parent company, which is a stockholder in the company that has the most control and carries most of the share.
• An MNC (Multinational corporation) is a corporation that is registered in more than one country and operate in said countries.
• Diversification is when they produce a product in a variety of different ways to avoid risking their companies money. They tend to invest a lot in various assets to do the same.
• Voluntary work is where a person willingly works for a company without pay, it's good to add to a CV and some voluntary jobs can lead to full paying jobs.
• Organizational is when a company has organized their products and objectives so their set objective is obtainable.
• Monopolies are a series of different companies that are privately owned by one or more people, see an example of a monopoly above where I talk about Rupert Murdoch.
• Customers are the main target for everything a company does, they are the ones that help the company keep their funding and keep profits coming in by viewing or buying products produced by the companies.
• Franchising is where a company have created a series of different ways in which to sell their products, this is basically what leads to advertising.

-LJ

21/03/13 - Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a web-series adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice'

People have been reading the 200 year old book 'Pride and Prejudice' for... well 200 years. And there have been many different adaptations of it.

But the one we're going to be focusing on is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a web-series adaptation currently consisting of 98 episodes, it will be finishing when it reaches its hundredth episode next week.

The web-series is set in 2012-2013 around a 24(25 as of monday) year old grad student studying mass communications (Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Bennet) who started to make vlogs for her thesis project. She starts it as a few weeks to explore her life and her family, until 'Mr Darcy' (Just called Darcy in this version) enters her life and acts like a complete ass, quite a lot of her videos are focused on the bad things he's done, but not as many as you would expect, they stick as close to the book as a modern version of it can go, they meet at a wedding instead of a ball and are forced to dance together because of the tradition of the girl who catches the bouquet and the boy who catches the garter must dance. And from there on it just goes down hill. Her sisters are a big part of it, except Mary and Kitty, who in this adapted version are not her sisters, Kitty is Lydia's cat and Mary is their 'emo' cousin.

It's amazingly put together and it makes it feel real, especially with it's use of transmedia, you can speak to the characters in the comments or communicate to them via twitter or tumblr or even facebook. In episode 97 throughout the whole thing there was a mic in the corner of the screen, but because of how real it feels and the fact Lizzie apparently films it all herself and her friend Charlotte edits it, all of the fans fought that because it's a vlog and you need microphones that it could be Lizzie's error, not the production teams (even though it was)

It's a brilliantly made adaptation and I cannot wait for Bernie Su and Hank Green to decide whether they're going to make another one or not.

21/03/13 - Quick-fire Review of 'RED part 1' the NCIS: LA backdoor spin-off episode

See - Is a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a show based on a book written about real life a little bit excessive?

This is less summary-like and more like a quick-fire review.

So NCIS: LA had it's back-door episode for its new spin-off show NCIS: RED on Tuesday and I was awake at 2am to make sure I was one of the european people to view it live. The episode as a whole was very good, except it had a lot less of my favorite NCIS:LA characters, but it was expected to see less of them as the episode was primarily about introducing the new show and the new characters.

It seems like the main character in the new show will be a character called Paris Summerskill. This is new because on NCIS and NCIS: LA the main characters have been males, Leroy Gibbs and G. Callen. I'm looking forward to seeing a strong main female character in charge. 

The show was quick to explain why its team is called RED. In Georgia they have a home base for all of the teams and each one is color coded, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Except this show will be following the RED team. Although the home base of operations is in Georgia they are a nomad team, they have two semi-trucks which join together each episode to create their home, and if the trucks cannot be drove to the destinations they are flown in. I'm assuming in a very very big navy plane. 

There are 5 people that live in the trucks, Agent Claire (No last name yet), Agent P Summerskill and Agent Danny (No last name yet), then there is the support, Dave (No last name yet), who is also Claire's partner and works in the field and Kai Ashe who is their technical support and as of yet does not work in the field, but this may change when the actual show pilots.

Paris Summerskill is a character that 'works alone' this is explained because her last partner got shot but he did survive, we don't find her exact reason out just yet but I assume it will be told soon. Roy, her partner that got shot, got bought into NCIS: RED when Danny was hurt in the field, as the team was a man down they needed to bring somebody in, Hetty (The leader of NCIS: LA OSP team) bought in Roy, as he and Paris worked well together. Hetty is aware of their pasts together and apparently wants Roy or Paris to redeem themselves. 

Their reunion didn't go so well as all Paris did was punch Roy in the face before walking away.

I do like these characters very much and I'm already happy with what the show is about and where it is going. I'm looking forward to next Tuesday where I will be awake just as late to view it.

Reviews VS Summary classification on my posts.

My 'Reviews' are written more like summaries because I like to write about what is happening and my thoughts on when it happens, I don't like to leave things out, Those are completely editable and in the future I might go back and add more thoughts into it, it's written like that so I have a guideline of where and what to add.

This post may be deleted in the future.

13/03/2013 - Review of 1x01 of Rookie Blue.

Rookie Blue is a cop procedural that I enjoy. I have seen all the episodes to date and I'm eagerly awaiting the new season like many others. What makes this show so appealing to it's semi-large audience you ask? It's pretty simple. Sex.

If you have ever watched the TV show 'Grey's Anatomy' you will know that it starts with sex and that's basically the only steady plot line that runs through it unscathed  Rookie Blue and Grey's Anatomy are very much the same, except one is full of sex crazed doctors-in-training who are sleeping with people they should be sleeping with and the other is full of sex crazed rookie cops who are also sleeping with people they shouldn't be sleeping with.

The episode starts off in a bar, pretty cliche if you aks me, but then again, everything is cliche. There is a cop car outside and many officers handcuffing people and slamming them down onto the bar. They're getting arrested.

Wrong, they just graduated and are now becoming Rookies and this is a sort of cop haze. Get out of the handcuffs any way you know how, winner gets free drinks, losers pay. So now all 5 rookies are desperately trying to get out of the cuffs. Well except for the peroxide blonde, she's looking around before she spots her brother who has an extra key, she cheats using that to get out. Except it's not cheating because she used a way she knew would get her out. They all seem in good spirits at that point, but when it cuts to the next scene the rest of the rookies (Minus blondie) are drinking and telling McNally that she got robbed of winning, she immediately says that she wasn't because blondie just did what she knew would work.

There's some drunken bar chat before it cuts to the opening screen, an establishing shot of Toronto with 'rookie blue' written over it. Telling you where it is set and the show name.

Then we see each rookie arriving. Peroxide blondie marches in with her bag, Strong guy (Diaz) is in his car praying, and Traci (McNally's best friend) is rising up in a red sports car and kisses a detective, first rule break of the show. Skinny guy (Dov) arrives on a bike and parks up. The only one we don't see arrive in a vehicle is Andy McNally, the one doing the voice over (another similarity to Grey's Anatomy's Meredith Grey, the main character doing a voice over at the beginning). We see her running in. 

"Serve, Protect, and don't screw up."

Great slogan, love it. We next see the Rookies get paired with their training officers, none of which seem to really like their charges except for McNally's officer - Oliver. We follow her  in her squad car as they accept a '15:19' call in.

We next see just a few scenes of a woman complaining about people fighting. Gun shots. Oliver is quick to radio in and he goes into the house with a nervous McNally who is jumpy. She's a scared new cop who's first job is gun shots. 

Traci and her training officer arrive as back-up.

Oliver and McNally go into the apartment and there is a girl laying on the ground, no apparent gun shot wound. McNally begins to preform Mouth-to-mouth on her against her officers rules, knowing that she could catch something.

Next are some filler scenes between Dov and blondie (I cant for the life of me remember her name even though I like the show). PW (police woman) is required to do a search on a woman, although the woman is transgender. So Dov is called in, the drivers licence says Male so Dov is left to check, much to his dismay.

Ironically, concerning the class we had earlier, the line 'Fake it 'till you make it' was just used.

Traci and McNally are sent to find the suspect. McNally finds the suspect and another man but cant stop him because she doesn't know how. She chases them, almost getting hit by a detectives car.

McNally is jumpy as she searches the alley. She finds the suspect and captures him as he says 'you don't want to do this' as she lays charges on him. He says he's 'On the job'. Andy proudly escorts both men back.

My first time watching this I really hated this part, she seemed to really jump the gun and it wasn't what I expected out of her, she's the main character and it felt like she was making a huge mistake.

Back at the scene my suspicions were proves correct as her training officer seemed annoyed at her, and upon seeing the men in the back he sarcastically said 'Amazing'. My suspicions about him being a cop so far were panning out. Seriously I would be a better cop than every tv show cop ever. They're just not observant enough.

The acting on this show is very good, they keep in character so well and keep the accents (some of the actors do not have the drawl) and I really like actors who can do that, perfect mind and they're the best, they can pretty much go after any role if they master accents and that's what makes me appreciate these scenes.

Traci begins to try and question a little boy she found at the scene, she points out how he obviously doesn't live in the run down druggy apartment complex as he is wearing high end clothing and shoes.

More filler stuff, didn't really pay much more attention until I knew that I needed to. And because I've seen this 3 times I know when to tune in.

Woman says she saw a guy in an orange shirt before the gun shot. Doesn't seem important.

Guy confirmed to be a cop, Sam Swarek. He is outed in front of his source, and he's really annoyed that 8 months of undercover work is now ruined because of McNally.

We're only half way through.

Swarek begin to beat the hell out of his locker, kicking and hitting it as McNally walks into the male's locker room, she watches him and yells 'is that working for you?'. They fight as Swarek begins to get dressed in front of her, neither of them seem to really care about this fact. It's no until he takes off his jeans that she leaves as he's going to shower.

McNally gets more info from Swarek and she asks her training officer to take her back to the scene because of the info, Oliver laughs and agree's, he believes Swarek gave her fake info to get back at her for busting him.

Traci is now with Joel (the boy she found) and his father, she exposes his drug addiction. The father didn't mean to leave his son there, he kept trying to go back apparently. Traci and her training officer don't really believe it.

McNally officially meets the detective that almost ran her down, they flirt. She chastises herself for such a bad line as she goes to search another building. This didn't really surprise me, it seemed like it was going to happen, which also means it's the anti-canon pairing, the one that fights against the fan wanted one, which at this point I had guessed was McNally and Swarek.

McNally cuts her hand on some glass as the guy who was previously noted as having an orange shirt points a gun at her, he found the gun apparently.

Oliver cant contact McNally.

McNally is not unlocking her cuts subtly, turns out the start of this episode comes in handy. McNally gets out of the cuffs and points her gun at the orange shirt guy, begging him not to make her kill him on her first day. He agrees.

She arrests him, making a correct arrest. She doesn't look happy this time she looks frightened as if she's about to cry.

Oliver looks proud of her for capturing the guy and retrieving the murder weapon. There's more filler stuff near the end of the episode, Oliver says how he used to work with a man called McNally, Andy's father. She confirms it's definitely him.

McNally approaches Swarek at the bar and tries to apologize, but he doesn't accept it, saying she ruined his chances to catch a guy as he was 2 weeks away from his target.

The rookie group happily at the bar laughing, drinking and talking, Swarek look to Andy as the bar scene ends.

We see Traci counting down into her phone from 27 and entering her house, she has a son.

The episode ends back at the bar with McNally speaking to her father. It's a sweet scene and he gives her his old badge, to keep in the family.

I really enjoy the show rookie blue and I thought that this was a very good Pilot episode as it introduced every single character in individual ways and set up a love triangle and a love affair, it appeal to those who love the show Grey's Anatomy (Like me), It's nicely edited, could be better, the continuity was as best as it could get as far as I saw, but this was only one episode. Rookie Blue is an interesting show and I give it a 4 out of 5 stars, it loses one star for being yet another procedural crime drama and for mimicking the premise of Grey's anatomy.

Watch the promo for the episode here:

LJ

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442065/

13/03/2013 - General information on the show 'Once Upon A Time'

So a new TV show that debuted last year under the title of 'Once upon a Time' is now growing more and more popular. In the first season of OUAT it had a very low budget per episode and almost every fairytale set was green screened, now with the growing success of the show, the effects are slowly getting better.

During this second season Once Upon A Time is now a top  grossing show in the US and is rivalling another show 'Castle' for the 6th spot.

I guess I should probably tell you what the show is about.

Once upon A Time is a TV show where all the fairytale characters you knew (or think you knew) get cursed to live in frozen time in the real world - our world, without memories of who they really are - until Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter turns 28 and saves them all. Now that sounds nice and girly, but it's really not, it's full of dark plots and there is a lot of mutilation of the characters, how Snow was a thief before she met charming, how Red Riding Hood is actually the wolf and her granny is the bad-ass hunter, how Rumplestilitskin runs everything and is 'the dark one', it's full of murder and lies and they try to make a 10 year boy think he's mental, an evil queen who is the mayor of the town, killing anybody who tries to leave or locking them up in an insane asylum.

It's labeled as a 'Family Show' but with all the sex and violence being introduced it's really not staying that way. 

Season 2 and the curse is broken, Snow White, also known as Mary Margaret and her husband Prince Charming, also known as David Nolan, come to terms with learning that the baby they sent away 28 years ago is almost their own age and has a son with none other than The Dark One's son who is a thief and framed her for a watch robbery landing her in prison to have her child because Pinocchio convinces him it's the right way to go.

Mary Margaret and Emma (her 28 year old daughter the 'saviour') are now stuck back in fairytale land and have made allies with Sleeping Beauty and Mulan after accidentally killing Prince Phillip. yadda yadda time goes on, they try to get home to charming and Henry (emma's son) and team up with the sexual innuendo-revengle-fuled Captain Hook who has the hots for Emma, they climb the beanstalk together and almost kill a giant but instead Emma befriends the giant and trapped Captain Hook, fearing he will betray them. Not knowing doing that will cause him to later tear out Aurora's heart (Sleeping Beauty) much to the dismay of Mulan (who we're 70% sure is in love with Aurora)

Anyway a lot of stuff happens and BAM they're home in Storybrooke Maine. Regina (the evil queen that cast the curse) is in hiding as everybody wants to murder her, and she herself is framed for the murder of Jimminy Cricket by her shapeshifting mother. Jimminy Cricket however is not dead. Cora'd.

The family tree on the show is even more messed up. Here's a diagram (not made by me):

'Regina is Gold’s daughter, and Neal is Gold’s son, then Regina is Neal’s sister and Henry would be Regina’s nephew, biologically. Regina is also Snow’s stepmother, and Henry’s adoptive mother, so that would make Henry Snow’s adoptive brother. As Snow’s brother, Henry would be the uncle to any of Snow’s children. AKA, Emma. He is his own mother’s uncle. He is also Emma’s son and therefore his own great uncle. You should start drinking now because it only gets worse. 

Furthermore, Henry is Emma’s son. Henry’s adoptive sister is Snow (through Regina having been the parent of both) which makes Snow Emma’s child, alongside her “brother” Henry. Emma is her mother’s mother. And Charming would be her son-in-law. Making Emma her own grandmother. And Henry Emma’s great grandson.

If Emma is Henry’s great grandmother, any mother he has (not just herself) would be considered Emma’s granddaughter. Regina is Henry’s adoptive mother and therefore is Emma’s granddaughter. Snow is also Regina’s stepchild, making Snow Emma’s great granddaughter. And Emma is quickly realized to be her own great great grandmother. Not to mention that Emma is now Henry’s great great great grandmother.

Also, with Regina being Henry’s aunt (being his father’s sister) AND his adoptive mother, he is his own cousin. Regina is her nephew’s mother. And having been Snow’s mother as well she is Henry’s great grandmother. Making her brother (Henry’s father) her grandson. At this point the OUaT writers are cackling madly while stirring their cauldron.' -Tumlr user mitigatedwrath

Here's a more complicated tree including all characters:

So yeah, I'm unsure what this blog turned into but I'll elaborate more soon.

Promo's for the show:

LJ

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843230/

13/03/2013 - Is a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a show based on a book written about real life a bit excessive?

So there's a new addition to the NCIS franchise on CBS - NCIS: RED. It sounds very interesting to me and I already plan to watch it, but do you think this would be a good move for them? Two of CBS' shows are right now the most high ranking shows on american television screens, and they happen to be NCIS and NCIS: LA. So is this new show a good move for them?

Fans will know that NCIS is currently in it's 10th season where as NCIS: LA is currently in it's fourth. JAG ended in 2005 during it's 10th season so many people think this addition of NCIS: RED is a safety blanket for the suspected soon to be ending NCIS.

NCIS: RED is scheduled to have it's first pilot episode as a backdoor episode onto NCIS: LA, much like NCIS: LA had their backdoor double-pilot in NCIS (Legend pt 1 & 2) and NCIS had it's backdoor double-pilot in JAG (Meltdown and Ice Queen). So far we've only got news that the NCIS: RED backdoor will only be one episode, which disappoints me.

The Backdoor pilots are tester episodes, to see if the characters work etc, which in my opinion is an amazing move. It gives the audience a chance to meet the characters and leave positive or negative feedback.

Like for instance in JAG when we met the NCIS team, they were basically the same except for one character, Vivian Blackadder, who was disliked by the audience and cut, being replaced by Kate Todd (played by Sasha Alexander) who then stayed on in the role for two years before deciding she wanted to explore more and left the show (In a painfully tragic way), her character was then replaced by a Mossad liaison Ziva David (played by Cote De Pablo).

And when NCIS: LA had their backdoor pilot in NCIS, they had an entirely different base in a warehouse and a different leader, Lara Macy, who was once again disliked by the public and was cut, she said to have retired from NCIS and on the show NCIS (not LA) they found her charred bones on a bonfire due to a cartel; her character was replaced by Henrietta Lange, an incredibly short ninja like character played by oscar winning Linda Hunt. The base of operations was moved to a run down (on the outside) villa building, completely secret from the outside world (as NCIS: LAs team is an Operations of special projects - or OSP - meaning they live their lives undercover). and they have a separate boat house for interrogations. 

So, I'm looking forward to this, but I'm already attached to the roles they have cast as they have some amazing actors in place, John Corbett, Kim Raver, Edwin Hodge, Scott Grimes, Miguel Ferrer and Gillian Alexy, and the shows synopsis makes it sound so much different from the previous shows; and with them becoming repetitive we could do with a fresh start.

What's your opinions?  Is a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a Spin-off of a show based on a book written about real life a bit excessive? Or do you think CBS has done a good thing by expanding their already thriving franchise?

Watch the promo for NCIS: LA 4x18 titled 'RED' which introduces the new team:

LJ
JAG: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112022/?ref_=sr_2
NCIS: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364845/?ref_=sr_1
NCIS: LA: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1378167/?ref_=sr_1
NCIS: RED: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2699068/?ref_=sr_1

12/03/13 - Review of 1x01 of The Following.

So I have been hearing a lot of chatter on blog websites and out there in the real world about a new TV show called 'The Following' - What I had begin to hear made it sound like any other crime procedural show out there, and I figured after a few weeks the chatter would die down and it would fade into the rest of them, I was wrong.

Today I walked in on my sister and my mom watching an episode, I didn't stay for long because I had decided a few days ago that I was going to start the show, so I didn't want to be spoiled. I saw some of the shots and immediately though 'Well, that's different'. Because it was really carefully done, you see these crime shows such as CSI and NCIS and they're all pretty average. Me being a fan of almost every crime procedural can vouch for that, they have a reoccurring plotline of terrorism and murder and all of the episodes seem to merge into one, because it's simple, get a case and manage to solve it in time for dinner. 

With The Following it's so very different, sure he caught the guy in the episode but it didn't end there, this man has a cult, a following, and that is what this series is going to revolve around.

The synopsis of the show is very bland and it doesn't really interest you at first, because instead of a series synopsis it sounds like an episode synopsis, and that's what I though it was.

'A brilliant and charismatic, yet psychotic serial killer communicates with other active serial killers and activates a cult of believers following his every command.'

So the starting kinda threw me a little, it started with a prison, and all of the guards were saying 'Bye' or 'See you tomorrow' to this guard at his locker. (I say all, there was about 2) Him hiding his face, said bye back to them and left, successfully exiting the building in a car, even the gate man said bye to him (guys can you make an effort to look at the face?) He's obviously a sketchy character.

Next we see the 2 guards walking down the prison halls suddenly questioning the lack of other guards around them, as guards in TV shows do, they brush it off and head to the guard station. They begin to joke and open the door, BAM 5 dead guards (That's where they were) I wonder who could have done it? Maybe sketchy guy who they assumed was a guard they knew and clearly liked.

Cut to a scene of the car the sketchy guy is in, driving away from the prison as the alarms and lights turn on, telling the world some bad stuff has gone down. This is where you get conformation he's not who they thought he was, because he just smiled and continued driving, any other guard would have thought 'what the hell?' and turned back to offer assistance.

Change scene and bam a beat up ex-fbi agent who didn't want to communicate with people, someone who subconsciously thought they were so much better than everyone else is waking up to a ringing cell phone, he of course rejects the call and turns on the TV, it's not until he see's on the news a story about an escaped serial killer that he answers the next well timed call.

Cliche warning: he's the one who put said serial killer away in the first place, and the FBI wants him back.

Cut to a shot of him filling up a water bottle with Vodka and off we go, a man who hates where he's going and still thinks he's better than the people he's going to. And up himself enough to know he'll need vodka.

Cut to a scene of a woman being protected, she's obviously the victim that lived, cut to a court case of what happened to her and viola we have a backstory to connect to this woman. Cue the gay next door neighbor rushing in to comfort the girl. I say it like that because with that angle they seemed to try to appeal to the masses, you see it on most shows now, a very diverse character selection.

Next we see 3 cops, an Asian badass woman character, a big black tough-as-nails sort and a scrawny white nerd-vibe techhy guy - now we're getting a diverse setting.

Anyway back to the main character played by Kevin Bacon, I'm unsure why but a really confined seemingly obsessive fbi kick-out character for him seemed really ironic. In the next scene he's standing somewhat awkwardly among the FBI agents listening to techhy guy list the suspects behavior and why he did the killing - WRONG. Swoops in Bacon's character to take over from techhy guy (Played by Shawn Ashmore) and basically throw everything he said back in is face, saying that the suspect killed because of Poe and he wanted his 'work' to be art. Because stabbing women multiple times is 'art' now. 

Whoomph the little meeting is over just like that and Ashmore's character is sucking up to Bacons, saying he did work on this killer for a thesis (I think it was thesis?) and that Bacon's characters book about said serial killer (oh yes, just putting a little more cliche in there, he wrote a book about the guy who escaped) really helped him through. Soon to be father like character achievement unlocked.

Then we find out what really happened to Bacons character, he was stabbed by the serial killer and now has a pacemaker, hence the reason he is no longer in the FBI, thanks for that delivery of information I was waiting for since the start.

Next we find out more, one guard wasn't at the prison but had control over the serial killers internet access. Home run on that one, go to his house, find a creepy cork board full of missing puppy posters just as Ashmore's character brings up a video of the guard with a puppy on his computer, oh I see where this is going. I turn away in hope I don't see a faked puppy murder, luckily it cut to a scene of Bacons character walking away mid-video, obviously he also knew what was going to happen as well, and finding a slaughter room, blood everywhere. Everyone walks in.

'What's that?' Ashmore's character asks.
'German Shepherd I'd guess' Bacon sassily responds about the dead dog on the table.

Oh, don't go to touch it. He goes to touch it and the dog barks and whines in pain. Well not only did I just see a dead dog, but it wasn't dead but was cut open in excruciating pain. It's a TV show but come on.

'He's been training'

Well done, I had already figured that out. They all exit the room and Ashmore's character angrily states 'I can handle dead people. You kill a dog? I GO CRAZY' Took the words right out of my mouth actually... that sounds bad scratch that. 

Anyway what happens next doesn't really matter, a few filler scenes (if I'm remembering correctly) and the introduction of a new character, the serial killers wife. She'll only talk to Bacon's character. Okay then.

Cut to a next scene of a woman saying she has info on the serial killer, another woman hands her a form and tells her to fill it in a sit down with the rest of the people. SHe's nervous and sits down then it cuts to Asian cop and Bacon's character again. (I will learn names eventually) She's telling him how the serial killers wife will only speak to him.

More filler stuff happens and he asks who all the woman waiting are. Groupies. I forgot serial killers had groupies. This particular one had over 100 prison visits, okay then. As they're walking away we cut back to the woman who was nervous. She receives a text and exhales. taker her feet out of her shoes she picks up her purse and walks to he center of the room. My mind shot straight to shoe bomb. 

Nope, wrong. She begins to take off her dress, exposing her flesh covered in writing, I cant remember what she says exactly but I know it's something important that I probably should have taken the effort to remember. she bends down, we now see she's only in panties and she pulls an ice pick out of her bag. Yeah, now it's the time to scream and notice. 

The A team rush back through and Bacons character says: 'hey, look at me. You don't have to do this' Nice pep talk there buddy, totally not what everybody says. She proceeded to mutter off an Egard Allen Poe quote and then stabs the ice pick through her eye. Well now she's dead.

We see her body being photographed. Ashmore's character starts a sentence that Bacon's finishes (come on guys, you're not a couple). Her body is covered Poe quotes.

More stuff happens that I don't really remember, I had to pause to get my pizza half way through this so for the second half my whole attention wasn't being given to it.

They find out the victim that lived has been taken, somehow. Oh there's a hole in the wall that connects her room to her gay neighbors apartment. I fear they are dead. We find one of the dead guards somewhere in the house. Then they go downstairs to what i thought was the basement but it turns out it's the garage. We see a males hand dripping with blood and hear a loud annoyed shout from Bacon's character telling them to turn on the lights. It's guard number 2. Okay then. The garage door opens and every other character but Bacons seems to notice the giant message written in blood 'NEVERMORE'

Another shout out to Poe.

Bacons character seems to have some sort of breakdown before going to let off some steam by throwing a chair in an alleyway in full view of the people standing at the tape, we hear his heart beating, obviously some subtle hint to him being under too much pressure for his pacemaker. We learn that the gay couple drove off about an hour ago and the cops didn't check the car because the woman was asleep. Okay then don't check the neighbors cars, assume the girl in the house is safe protected by guards, they're no threat. Americans.

Bacon's character (Okay i'm somewhat sure his name is Ryan now, maybe I'm wrong) seems to have recovered from his mini-breakdown session. He loudly points out that the men were in fact no gay and were working for the serial killer.

'But they've been living here for 3 years' damn that's dedication. Anyway he goes to look around the apartment and sees a picture of the men outside a lodge or something called 'Lighthouse' another reference to Poe. This guy was obsessed, he wrote a book about it. Anyway Bacons character tells no-one and googles it, heading off on his own.

When he arrives the place is run down. he calls out for the serial killer saying he's alone. Then he hears screaming of the victim (come on that's obviously a recording) and runs up the stairs to its location. he enters an empty room and gets hit on the back of the head. Serial killer guy comes into the light. Bacons character looks up like he's surprised that just happened.

The guy starts to talk about how Edgar Allen Poe's last piece of work was unfinished, and he connected that to his last victim living. He starts to beat Bacons character and laughs about his pacemaker limitations. I personally at this point think the girl is still alive. 

He begins to talk about how he removed his victims eyes, cutting every muscle and whatnot individually. Then he pulls a chain and the eyeless girl is hanging from her feet dead. Suddenly Bacon's character's pacemaker doesn't matter anymore and he jumps up to strangle the serial killer as he strangles out the words 'I turn myself over' or something along that lines, once again, I was eating pizza and at this point i was more 'playing with it' than eating it so i may have tuned out a little.

Anyway just before Bacons character can finish the job the BAU team (did I say they were BAU? I don't think I did, they are BAU which means the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI) burst in the room, I'm assuming they saw the picture and managed to connect the dots, well actually i'm counting on Ashmore's character figuring it out.

Anyway they arrest the guy and or extra measures he has shackles connecting his feet and hands. Because he seems like a NINJA.

He will only speak to Bacons character. Of course. He starts to talk about how he and Bacon's character will write a book together. And how all this was a prologue. Now comes the huge slap in the face. As he explains everything you see how his ex wife is going to say goodnight to her son, and you hear serial killer explains how he wants to meet his son, he also points out how Bacons character slept with his wife, okay then. 

Her son is gone. Like any mother she starts screaming his name 'JOEY' (so that's a name I remember) all over the house filled with cops, and nobody is helping her. America. Anyway we see his dog murdering friend who he trained to kill approach a young woman entering a sorority house, he's wearing his guard clothes so she assumes she's safe, he says how he needs to do a check on the sorority's security. She says yes, I would too, he's dressed as a cop.

The we shoot back to the killer blabbering on about more stuff I should have been listening to as the woman looks for her son, realizing her live-in baby sitter is gone too. We see the babysitter int he car with the drugged child on the back seat. Hey I get it he's drugged but I'm sure the killer wants his son alive, but a belt on him at least! 

Anyway we now see Bacon's character breaking serial killers fingers, he breaks an entire hand and starts on the next one before cops come in to stop him. AMERICA. We see the babysitter hand off the child in an empty parking lot to the 'gay' couple' and gets in the car with them and drives off, abandoning the car there.

And it ends.

So yes, it was very interesting and I liked it very much, I didn't expect a lot of what happened, especially the ending. I give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars, it could have gone with a little less american dumbness but it was great, well edited and good continuity. I enjoyed it and recommend watching it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071645/

LJ

11/03/2013 - Weekly blog entry #1

So this is my first blog entry over here on blogger. 

Weekly disclaimer: For any random person that may be viewing this page, it's a blog each of us do for college to talk about media & such things we did over the weekend. 

Over this weekend I spent a lot of my time dedicated to sorting out this blog, trying to make it neat and tidy, I have yet to make my CV page, all though the page does exist it does not yet contain my CV. 

I didn't really pay attention to media and stuff, as my weekend was spent procrastinating, it wasn't intentional, but I was ill all weekend and with the new release of a game I had been waiting for and the arrival of my comics, i really focused all my time on the less important things of life.

However, I did re-watch the movie Les Miserables during my weekend of pure procrastination, I will admit I was doing other things as well so it didn't have my undivided attention. I do love the movie though, this was my second time watching it. It's very lengthy (Have you seen the size of the book?) but I enjoy it when I watch it because it has an interesting story line and it's a nearly all round well-made movie.

This won't turn into a movie review, I'll leave that for another time.

So my blog entry isn't that long this week but I'm sure there will be a longer one another time.

LJ

09/03/2013 - Continuation of yesterday's post regarding more info on the collab

This is part of the previously mentioned Collab video me and my friends are currently working on, it's like a preview. It shows off the yellow tones we will be using and the overlay texture. This is what I made and it is 30 seconds long, the clips are from the TV show Once Upon A Time and it is focused on the first episode interactions between Snow White and her husband Prince Charming.

The coloring I created on Sony Vegas and I put a texture onto it - which was made by a user on Deviant Art. Unfortunately this was made about 3 months ago so I no longer have the texture source. 

It, like the others, needs to be watched in HD.

As I previously stated this is only a small part of a bigger collab. 

LJ

08/03/2013 - Lack Of Muse.

So I don't really know what to write for my first blog post but I know I need to write something.

When it comes to editing for me to come out with something even half decent I usually need to start with an audio track (that is if i'm going to be using an audio track, which with what I do I always need music) But the thing that comes with it is muse. I can't just listen to any old track or song and say 'Yeah that's fine'. I need to actually feel something with the song, I need to be able to listen to it and immediately go 'Ah, yes that part would work well with this and that part with this' - And I start to build up a timeline on word where I write all of the lyrics down and match a scene with a certain part. 

Now the editing that I do is nothing like what we do in class - I mainly make 'Fanvids' for TV shows and movies, which basically means I take a TV show, take the clips, find a couple of characters or just a certain episode and create a video using a song that matches. I don't usually like sharing these with people I know and few people in class have actually seen one, and unless anybody has seen them on any other social platform I doubt anybody in class would have.

Right now on youtube I have a total of 197 subscribers (not that many) and 105,952 video views... which honestly is quite a lot in my eyes. 

Now before you view the video I will warn you, it has altered coloring, and many transitions. It may seem like overkill to you but in the vidder community that is how it is done.

This is one of my lesser viewed videos, but I assumed it would be the safest. It NEEDS to be watched in High Definition otherwise it does look pixelated and I don't know about you but I hate it when they look like that. I also make collaboration videos with other vidders from the community, we're currently working on three or four right now, and we do it so we all make about 30 seconds of a song each with a different fandom (tv show, movie) and then splice it all together. An example of one of those is here, this is one we've done before, although it was not uploaded on to my main channel it was uploaded onto a side one:

The coloring on this one is INCREDIBLY dark and red, this was not on purpose, it exported out fine but as soon as it uploaded to youtube it got 10x darker, we couldn't figure out the problem, so next time we're just going to experiment with lighter colors. Yellow is our next collabs theme. In the video above I did the section from 0:00 to 1:20, then from 1:20 to 2:45 is what my friend Beth did, and then from 2:45 until the end (3:54) was what my other friend Mariana made.

The collab we're currently working on now is in editing and we're waiting on one more part from Mariana. This is what the timeline looks like. Ignore the fact it says Media Offline, it just does that when you click way from the program. 


That's all I have to say today.

LJ