The Student Experience

Today in class we were given the assignment of recording an interview with a student. The main subject of this interview was to hear their student experience solar as a first year. Our groups subject was Michelle Lavender, a first year Photography student.

The process of recording this interview had its struggles for sure, but nothing too severe. Most of these struggles were messing up lines, and adjusting the audio levels cause they were too low or too high. Another important aspect that could have given us trouble but thankfully didn’t was the lighting. making sure the subject is lit properly without blowing out the subject could be tricky at times.

Once the interview was shot, we soon realized that without some B-roll the interview would become too plain and unappealing to watch. To fix this Michelle and I took some time to create some B-roll by following her around taking some photo’s. By doing this we had almost everything we needed to pull this off.

The last thing we had to do before the assembly of the interview was choosing the correct music that fit the tone of the video. We did this by looking up royalty free music one youtube’s official royalty free music library. it didn’t take long to find something that spoke to us.

Now we hit the editing stage. The workload was fairly light at this point because we had all the sources available. All we needed to do now was to plug them into sequence. At this point we were finished. We uploaded the video and let the views roll in!

Filmed and Edited By Corey Glover

“The Toy Car” My Student Experience

A couple of days ago my class was given the challenge to create a realistic photo of a care winter scene with only a toy car and so craft equipment. As usual my class and were up for the challenge.

The shoot started out fairly smoothly. From setting up the back drop to placing the trees, everything was fairly easy. That was until we had to place the toy car. This is when things got a little tricky.

We had to consider a bunch more elements than your average photo shoot. Since we were trying to make something look real out of something so fake, It did have a bit of a learning curve. For example, the distancing from the car to the trees mattered quite a bit because we wanted to blow out the background just enough to make it look realistic with out loosing too much detail.

This is where most of our time was taken up. Moving the the car around and spacing the trees out in different depths. While some of the class worked on this the other half worked on collecting behind the scenes photo and video to provide some extra content and help tell the story.

At the end of the shoot we got the photo we wanted, but this wasn’t the end of our project. After the shoot we cam back into class and proceed to edit the photo to help enhance its quality’s as well as add some effects to bring it all together. In the end this was out final product.

How Horror Films Have Changed. Not In A Good Way

I love movies. As a kid, I remember every friday night after school my parents would take me to the local cinema to watch the latest movie. When i finally became of age to watch my first horror flick which was “The Ring”, i was amazed on what i was missing out on all those years. To me i find horror movies dives deeper into the human emotion and instinct. You get scared because you feel like you’re there, in the scenario. If you can get that kind of effect out of your films, then you are on the right track.

Horror films today are a lot different then back in the 80s and 70s. Today the horror genre mostly consists of loud noises and jumpscares to engage the audience in a frightening way.

I find this to be a lazy style of storytelling because it lacks the true aspect of what makes a great horror flick. For example the movie “Halloween”, throughout the film, it does involve some jump scares but it’s complemented by added suspense showing the victim being chased in a long drawn out scene. Another example would be in the movie “The Ring”. This movie demonstrates that a weird long, drawn out movement like crawling closer and closer to the tv screen to only portal through to attack the victim adds suspense as well as creep the living hell out of the viewer.

Now a days this effect is used less and less. Being replaced by cheap jumpscares used over and over again. It seems like they have taken over this genre of film instead of adding to it. A key film that demonstrates this perfectly is “Paranormal Activity”. You could say that this film pioneered this new style of horror film, with its constant and over the top jumpscares.

Hope is not lost though. There are some films that try to carry on the old tradition of horror films. Such as the new Stephen King movie “IT”. The clever use of  the creepy Pennywise taunting the loser club from a distance with disturbing imagery, gives a chill down the audiences back that no jumpscare ever could. Its movies like these that still gives me hope for future horror films to come.

Where i see the Horror genre going is still unclear. On one hand you have countless cookiecutter horror films being pumped out with the same jump scare tactics to carry the film along. On the other hand you have these select films holding onto classic key aspects of what makes a horror film truly great. Only allowing jumpscares to be used at appropriate times rather than using it as a crutch. I can only hope that this genre does a 180 and goes back to its roots.

What do you think about my take on the Horror genre? Try and think deep about this yourself and come up with your own opinion on this topic. At the end of the day there is no right or wrong way to make a great horror film. I just think that films today are getting rid of very effective storytelling.

The Viral Video Project

In my social media class we were assigned a group project to make a “Viral Video”. The guidelines were simple. Make a Commercial 30 seconds to a minute long that is funny and creative. My group Consisted of three people Travis Boyd, Michelle Lavender, and myself Steven Marriott.

The process of making our video had its struggles. Mostly due to scheduling issues because we all had different things going on in our lives and it was had to find a time that we were all available. In the end it all turned out ok. If you’re interested in watching the video I have linked it down below.

Benjamin Von Wong

Benjamin Von Wong is a conceptual photographer, mostly using common disposable items to create the atmosphere of his photographs. The main focus of his work is to bring awareness to environmental issues such as pollution and the importance of certain creatures.

How he can take a common pieces of garbage and create a work of art shows the amount of creativity and planning goes into his composition. Also the amount of depth and realism in his lighting and composition truly makes the photo pop and brings the viewers attention to the main subject.

The impact in his photographs, sometime shocking, makes you really think deep about the issues being addressed and how true to life they are. Like in this photo here, the mermaid is shown washed up on the beach. It can be looked at many different ways, all coming to the same conclusion, she is dead from pollution. The bottles making up the ocean makes that extremely clear.

Benjamin Von Wong markets his work on sites such as, 500Px, Facebook, Instagram, and even his personal website Vonwong.com. It is important for a photographer to be on multiple social media sites. It is great platform to help expand your viewer base and inform people of upcoming projects and your latest work. Benjamin Von Wong is a great example of this.

Allstate Mayhem Blind Spot Commercial

This Allstate Mayhem Commercial is the best blend of comedy and being informative about their service. It gets right to the point with out taking too long and loosing the audiences attention. It perfectly exposes the basic aspects of a story, setting, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion.

The casting choice for the mayhem man is spot on, he presents his roll in this commercial spot on. What do you think about this commercial? Watch for yourself and see what you take from it.

The Colour Green

In class today out professor sent us on a shooting mission to photograph subjects with the colour green. This is what I came up with, I tried to capture things that have some sort of message or tells a story. See if you can see what I see.

I believe this captures the true meaning of going to school at Durham College. The professors and course material can only give you the tools to shape your future, its up to you to “Find Your Way”.

I think it’s important in this day and age that we take the time to appreciate one another. We get so wrapped up In our own lives that we forget to stop and look around to see everyone is in the same boat as you.

Ill Leave The Rest For You To Interpret

Welcome!

What To Expect From My Blog

Hello, and welcome to my site! Some content you can expect will be a lot of my Photography and Video work, as-well as my thoughts and experiences in the industry. I will upload content as frequent as I can, and I hope you enjoy what you read!

Banff, Alberta, Canada