Christmas Temping...

I can't believe I'm over halfway through my Boot's Christmas job.  It's kept me busy every weekend, what with stock movement, stacking shelves and running for 'on line orders'.  Till work is a blur sometimes with the huge amount of Christmas shoppers, but the day passes quickly.  I've met some lovely people, both customers and staff and can honestly say I will miss working at Boots when my contract ends :(.

Every shift brings a challenge, most people are patient with me when I juggle cards, money, vouchers and 'Boot's points' at the till, quite a lot laugh when I can't seem to get the knack of separating, never mind opening, the plastic shopping bags... :)  I'm confident I've got the hang of most things, which is great because now I have more time to help and chat with customers.





Children with their parents are my favourites, it's really cute how excited the kids get when passing me mum's money and card.




Best of all their eyes light up when I give them the shopping bag (making sure it's not too heavy of course - some of these kids can barely see over the counter) and then they reward me with a big smile :).

I also like helping elderly customers choose Christmas presents for their grandchildren.  They appreciate the product advice I give them - based on my own experiences. Feels good knowing I'm helping people.

Running for 'Bloom'.

I recently received an e-mail from Rob, 'Sic-Infit' films, requesting all the crew and cast get together in January 2014 to discuss our new film - 'Bloom', plus run through any thoughts and ideas.  I'm looking forward to meeting up with everyone again and being introduced to new members of the team.  I'm also getting excited about filming 'Bloom' as it's quite a dark, mysterious story, so I anticipate a challenge and hard work ahead.

Rob, our producer/director has already sent out 'call sheets' for filming in January - he likes to keep everyone informed so we can organise our own work schedules.  After the 'get together' as film 'Runner' I'm expecting to put in a lot of research, use my initiative and imagination when finding appropriate props and costumes. The film location is easy enough as the story is set inside a house, which I think Rob has already organised :).

Here is one of Rob's call sheets - looks like we are all going to be busy over the January weekend...

AS Media Blog = 'Example' for new students

I was talking to a fellow Media student from our college AS year today, she told me that my old AS Media blog is posted on the college 'Learning Box' website as example' material for the new students.

I must admit I was really pleased and a little flattered when hearing this, especially when she told me she regularly views my old blog and finds it helpful when making her own :).

Making our zombie film trailer

After many months of preparation, arguing, and discussion, my Media group (myself, Aimee B and Amy J) and I are finally cracking on with filming our zombie trailer :). This group work, plus individual blog and magazine cover is for our A2 Media Studies unit 3.

With Christmas fast approaching by the time college is over it's dark outside.  We needed to film some daylight scenes, so yesterday our Media teacher kindly let us film during lesson time.

Here we are in the children's playground in a nearby park.  I wanted to film an eerie and empty scene, with swings moving on their own.  The idea is to make our film trailer audience realise something is wrong - where are the children, why is everywhere empty, what's happened ????

Gemma, our film trailer protagonist, came into college today and during our lunch break I styled her hair and gave her some cuts and bruises - not real ones -  I like Gemma :)...

Amiee and Amy prepared our film equipment and some of the props.

Here we are shooting some early trailer' scenes in our college library and wash room.

This was the best part of today... we decided to shoot a scene in subway tunnel - it was quite a spooky atmosphere and sound echoed.  Here we have Gemma in front of the camera and I'm the creepy looking figure right in the background - here was my chance to act like a zombie :).

Here I've suddenly appeared (in zombie mode) behind Gemma, where she turns round quickly, see's me and screams - however as you can see things didn't go to plan in this shot :)...

More of our filming exploits can be found in this following link A2 Media Blog.

Employment.

"Please no photo's, I'm tired..."

Completed my first working weekend yesterday :).  I'm now employed by my local 'Boots' as a temporary Christmas worker. 'Boots the Chemist'. I was really scared my first morning, but everyone was nice and the manageress showed me all around the store and helped me with some training.  After lunch I started work on the checkout - I'm getting the hang of things and my confidence is already improving when helping and talking to customers.







Later on in the day I was left alone to help replenish shelf stock - didn't realise 'Soap & Glory' had so many beauty products!  I'm starting to think that working for Boots with all the lovely perfumes and make-up etc will mean I'll be spending my wages before I've even earn't them ...

Thought I'd add some free advertsing...

I don't have to go back into work until next Saturday, phew... although my manageress said my hours will steadily increase when it gets nearer to Christmas and I'm on my college holidays.

Further A2 Fine Art and Graphics journal pages

I've had to crack on and complete my Fine Art and Graphics journal pages because now we have to move on to our final project development.

A2 unit 3 Fine Art journal pages.

Inspired by 'City Life'...

City themed collage.

Collage created with items collected during college London trip.

Had to include collages representing Manchester! :)

Altered photograph images of Manchester, using stitching, bleaching, burning, scratching, sticky tape and cloth transfer techniques.

 A2 unit 3 Graphics journal pages.

 Inspired by events that took place during my college trip to London.

Travelling down to Euston.

London underground experience.

London college trip to the 'British Board of Film Classifications' centre.

We enjoyed a cultural evening watching the musical 'The Lion King' at the Lyceum Theatre.

Zombified!!!!!!

Practised applying zombie make-up tonight for my Media Studies film trailer.  Scared my mum to death when she saw me :), don't know what's up with her...?

More of my Zombified photos are on my current A2 Media Blog.