Last But Not Least

31st July 2013

I’ve finally completed the People & Place course and I’m really happy with the outcome of all the assignments, it remains to be seen if the assessors will like it as much in November.

The one thing about this course is that it has determined my direction from here on for the rest of my BA studies.  I’ve been really grabbed by the possibilities that exist for Documentary, and Social Documentary particularly.  There’s so many different subjects within the genre to cover, and whilst I do like the Social Documentary side at the moment, I do see that there will need to be periods where I’ll need to have a break and find something lighter to  work at.

The final assignment has led me down paths I never thought I’d tread, combining audio with images, it makes so much sense, but it wasn’t the easiest of combinations to make work.  I really needed to use free software to make this work, as the alternative which is so much better, costs money, and I decided that as this assignment was an experiment with this idea, it wasn’t worth spending a lot of cash until such time as my tutor and the assessors thought it worthwhile pursuing.

I tried so many different pieces of software in an attempt to get a hi-res image at full-screen size with audio running simultaneously.  The free software options unfortunately don’t cater for the hi-res image option needed as a photographer, whereas the purchased variety of video software options do.  The full cost of the storage upgrade and the software needed to make the hi-res video work in WordPress will amount to about $90.00, not an insignificant sum, and the storage upgrade is only applicable to the blog its associated with, not transferable to a new one.  As this was the last assignment, and then the blog effectively goes dormant, I thought it would be a waste, whereas adding it to the next blog is a different kettle of fish, provided I get the thumbs up for the idea.

So, if anyone wants to follow me on to Gesture & Meaning, you’ll find the blog here.