Creative Media Diploma

Tuesday 7th September 2010.
Today I arrived at school and made my way down to the music block where my first lesson (the diploma) started. When I was there I was introduced to a new student called Jack who attends Temple Moor High School. He also chose to do the diploma but was the only student from his school to do it, so in that respect I think he is very brave because I wouldn't have the guts to do it. Then we split into 2 groups and the first group showed Jack around the Silkstone building of our school. While they where gone we helped Mr Truscott unpack some ukulele's take off the tags and start tuning them. Soon the group arrived and it was our turn to take Jack around the DeLacy building and sports block. We had a flip video camera to record our tour of the school. Once we had finished we went back to the classroom and learnt how to play some notes on the ukulele's, (once they were tuned). Then we went to period 2 where we were in the computer suite with Mr Romer. In this class we had to find out about Leeds and the events that take place in Leeds. We had to copy our information e.g. Venue, Address, Date, Genre ect... and place them on a table previously made for us. The Genre's were things like, art, drama, music, DJ, film, exhibition, fashion and many more. The types of events we recorded were music festivals, theatre productions, fashion shows, radio stations and any more we could find. After this and after form time and break it was period 3 and we then went over to the PE classroom to have a double lesson with Miss Woffinden. In these lessons we were put into pairs, in my case a three and listen to the other person/s in your group as they spoke about themselves in turn and you had to make notes as they were speaking about what they said. We took it in turns to speak and we spoke about our life, how we enjoyed creative media, what made us choose this, background information, your parents views on your choice and anything else that related to this topic. We then re-read the information we had noted down, back to our partner/s to make sure our notes were right and that we hadn't missed anything out. Once we were finished with this, we gathered round a table and discussed how we got on with that exercise. We wrote down whether we found this easy or hard. I volunteered that I found some bits quite hard when you still had lots of time left but nothing else to say or no more questions to ask. A few people felt this way as well. Seb volunteered that he feels it's quite easy when you know the person quite well, you know what they are like and you feel comfortable with them more than you would a random stranger. I agree with this and I think I spoke more freely and open because I am good friends with my partners, where as in a real life situation I think I would be a little bit cagey and not as honest due to nerves. Obviously I would compose myself but I reckon you still would be able to tell a difference. We then wrote the heading: Evaluating Interviewing. Underneath this I made 4 subheadings with space to write notes underneath. These subheadings were: Questions, Listening, Speaking and Recording. Under these we wrote things we could do to improve or what we found easy. The content of the text was things like; Ask open questions, Make notes, Improvising ect... and the pros and cons to these. I learnt to be yourself when being interviewed or interviewing others. By this time it was period 4 and we were with Miss Woffindon again but in the drama studio instead. Before going to the drama studio we were told to go "on location" with our partner/s. This meant we could go anywhere in the school and make up our interview, discuss how we were going to set it our ect... Once we were finished with this we went back to the classroom to perform our interviews. We watched Seb and Imogen's Performance first, then Frankie and Oliver's, then Abi and Jack's. Each performance was really good each in their own way. Each group adapted the interview differently and this reflected their personalities. We ran out of time to do Emily and Tom's and to do Mine, Francesca and Courtney's. As I was watching I noticed how different people react to different situations. For example I saw that Imogen struggled with nerves a bit (why I do not no because she is fantastic and has loads of experiences with much bigger and nerve racking audiences) because she was twiddling her fingers and playing with her trousers. Likewise with Seb, Oliver and jack as they stuttered a tad. This experience has helped me tremendously. After this we went to lunch. It was now period 5, the last lesson of the day, we were with Mr Romer again in the computer suite finishing off what we started in period 2. Once we had finished we went back to our "on location" site to film our interviews with the flip video camera. All in all I had a fantastic day and Tuesdays are now my favorite day! The time just flew by.