Awake with Anticipation.

So I feel like blogging, in the last hour of this day, listening to Strobe by Deadmau5. I haven't written in a while and felt like its time to catch up.

So Its been hectic, the past few months, filming the major (loved every second), winging other less interesting assignments last minute, and now eager to get the next three weeks out of the way with relative ease, hah. If only.

I have to make a website in Flash, which is scaring the bejesus out of me currently, as I have no idea or motivation to begin.

Its also 21 days until im 21. Ironic that. Scary though, now literally nothing can stop me, I will officially be an adult, no getting around that anymore. Damn.

Other than that, I'm beginning to think about the third year, and the time after that. This time next year, I shall probably become an insomniac worrying if ill have the strength and courage to chase my dream for real, in the big mean ol' world. With people like my old house mate though, I feel I have a shot. Enthusiasm and persistence is the key, we're constantly told, putting those two into practise is another thing. The daunting reality that i'll probably be working in tesco for 80% of my life for the year 2011/12 is very depressing. I vaguely remember my gap year, and how I progressively felt more and more intellectually lacking. I feel that now as it is, and I'm in education. God. Time to change that then.

I have also made the acknowledgement that I am a bit addicted to facebook, checking it every ten minutes. This is not healthy or practical at all, so for my third year, I will be getting my password changed, and will refrain from using it until all my work is completed. and read fucking books instead. I disgust myself with how much time I waste on that bloody site. So I'm going to say fuck you to facebook for a year, and read books, make films, and watch films, and maybe blog a bit to vent...

I bet it'll be like tv, won't even miss it.

A productive day is in order tomorrow, I have had a weekend break and I feel refreshed and ready to nail the second year, I just pray ill reach the 60.

On a lighter note...apparently Britney wrote Telephone...I'm unsure whether to believe this or not. I'm slightly dissapointed, I love that song. lol.

Peace out kids, I'll be back when my summer of reading, working, and practising with a camera begins... XXX

OZ

So I've become a little obsessed with one of my favourite Childhood films recently, a b-movie from the 80's, Return To Oz.
So much so I have considered re-writing a modernised version of it, but then decided it would be one. too depressing and two. not very original. I also managed to get hold of a decent copy of the soundtrack, which is currently on amazon for around £50, which was ace. Its so moving and creepy at times, I adore it.
One of my favourite scenes is at the start of the film where Dorothy finds the Oz key on the ground with the chickens. She gets really excited and tries to show Aunt Em but shes not interested. I always wished I could find a key somewhere like that when I was little. So then I have the brainwave to get a tattoo of it around my ankle, much like Belina the Chicken wears at the end of the film around her neck, on a green ribbon. A symbol of escapism that is always there for me.

I went to the tattoo shop in weymouth, but then wanted around £70 for it, and that was without the anklet. Which was absurd, so I found out the guy that did my last tattoos has recently moved to Street and I went and got it done by his very new apprentice Kye (who was astonishingly good considering hes been tattooing for just three months!) And he offered to do it for a much more reasonable £45. So I went ahead, not really taking into consideration the foot is one of the most painful places to have one. The pain was excrutiating at times but I persevered, I'd come this far. It took around 40 mins to complete, lots of clenching and shaking but I was very impressed with the work, and luckily he had gotten the key the right way around so the symbol at the top of the key spelled "OZ".
I'm well pleased with it, and content with the fact I'm probably the only person that will see it for now, but I can't wait to run along the sand with it in the summer and receive (I hope) lots of suprized comments!

Heres a pic, hope you like it!

My name is Salmon, Like the fish, First name Suzie.

So after a year and a half of finding out about this gorgeous story, I finally sat down to 'The Lovely Bones', based on the book by Alice Sebold. I was told about this in my first year, and me and my housemates were excitedly anticipating its release for some time, only having to wait even longer for it to come out. I decided to read the book before the film, something i rarely manage to do, but this time i surprised myself, and stormed through it in a record time (for me!) I couldn't put it down, and the intrigue after reading the first couple of pages, in which the story had been laid out, i wondered what more was included in the story. I'd love to read it a second time to refresh my memory.

I have been a great fan of Peter Jackson since The Lord Of The Rings which i fell in love with in my early teens, and is still unbeaten by any film in my personal opinion. I knew that where Jackson stood now, and the team he had behind him, he would create a beautiful interpretation of this film; and he didn't dissapoint. The visuals of the memories, the metaphors and visions of her heaven were stunning, and subtle at the same time. You really felt for Suzie while she was in the 'inbetween' which is what the story was all about. Lots of tear-jerking points throughout the film, and of course i knew the end twist would get me bad, out of pure happiness for her.

I have heard some dissapointed, and let-down reviews of this film from a few friends, and so i was also annoyingly switched-on to look out for these bits and make my own opinion of it, but i think having read the book helped a lot. The reasons behind the characters actions aren't abundantly clear, but if you concentrate you can see why they act the way they do.

Other than that, i think the film flowed well, the murderer was just as sinister as in the book, and Ray wasn't overly mushy like a new Robert Pattinson. Just the right amount of lovey-dovey scenes to pay respect to the story. I loved Mark Wahlberg as the dad, and the relationships between the family were portrayed well, especially considering so much of the background explained in the story could not be shown.
I only wish some more of the events in the book could have been included, but as ever this will never be possible to achieve in a standard 2.5 hour film.

Over all, worth the wait in my opinion, i am very tempted to go and watch it in the cinema again (when it FINALLY gets to the south coast!) and i thoroughly enjoyed every painful and beautiful moment. Good Work Peter Jackson!

HG rating: 9/10 stars

"Help! I Need Somebody"

One thing I have learnt in the last weekend, is that breaking friendships at this age feels like ending a relationship. I feel angry, that I haven't been understood, and that i am expected to be in the wrong when i know im not (I admit we didnt really go the right way about confronting it but thats not to say my point is wrong.)

The last time i can remember falling out with a friend was back in school, with my very long term best friend Lauren, and that was a petty thing that was solved overnight by posting a cute pink letter through the door with an apology and a proposal of a dog walk after the simpsons.
If only things were that easy now.

I have also come to learn that mental illnesses are much out of my comprehension, I don't think i will ever fully understand the clutches it has on a victim, as I have never had the experience.

So as selfish as it sounds, through my lack of knowledge I am completely unable to feel the necessity to immerse myself into caring for a friend. Caring as in the term of the person being completely reliant on me/us as her only source of socialism, and the potential of me having to put my life on hold at this crutial point of my life.
The future plans we had together would have inevitably ended up in this situation and would have pushed us all away in the end.

So im kinda glad its all being brought up now, as hard as it is, it was going to happen sooner or later. I just hope I can still salvage some kind of friendship from this ordeal.

Wristcutters (a weird story)

So I just watched a film id been recommended by a friend in my class, who very vaguely filled me in on what it was about so i thought id give it a go.

So it starts off very nicely, Average character, cleaning his room, when bam, lets go to the sink and slit my wrists and die on the floor looking at some bum fluff....ok....ill roll with this.

So he turns up in a weird limbo world where people who have commited suicidal deaths go, and its all very grey, identical to earth but not as full of life, or colourful, or entertaining, and here its a given thing that no one smiles.

He meets (who i swear is based on the lead singer of Gogol Bordello) A Russian guitarist, who he starts riding around in a proper tin box car with to find Desiree, his former love, and the reason he 'offed' himself' (after finding out from some random dude that she also topped herself soon after him.)
They bump into a girl hitchiking on the side of the road, and Eugene (hutz) loves it and picks her up immediately. So they drive endlessly on, where they bump into Tom Waits in some cult group place, and decide to stay there, where gogol bordello guy falls in love with some weird mute woman who sings wierdly with throat noises......anyway,

so then they find out from one of the cult members, that a guy is doing an 'act' the next day, which they have to attend. But Zia (main guy) and Mikal (hitchiker girl) end up getting jiggy on the beach and sleeping on a prostitute spot ontop of needles and condoms. (...ok)

So they get to this gathering, and this guy claims he can get back to the living world and tell them all about this limbo land they can come to, so he stabs himself, and then all the 'people in charge' all dressed in white suits, come and break up the crowds and take everyone away...Mikal goes off with a white person in a tiny van and says to Zia she'll be back in 5, more like 5 days, as she ends up returning home as she was there from overdosing which counts as a 'mistake' (and somehow gogol bordello guy knew this...)

So obviously, she commits actual intentional suicide again to be legit in this place, cause she realises she loved Zia. Zia did eventually findn Desiree btw, but she was completely indoctrinated by this crazy prophet guy who stabbed himself, so shes a bit of a weirdo now (and a SHIT actress) and is out of the picture by the end of the last scene. So Zia runs around in the car looking for Mikal, who coisidently just goes through what looks like customs, back into this limo world.
Oh and also another weird point of this film theres a black hole under the passenger seat, which he decides to fall down, turns out thats the void that takes you back to earth, and he wakes up in a hospital next to a bed where Mikal is laying.

End.


thoughts?

I think it looks like something i'd make next year when I have the assets of equipment and actors like that...considering it came from a novella, I kinda wanna read it now.

There was something missing from it, which is how I felt at the end of Rebel Tribe ( the major I made last year, eventhough that was really confused for several other reasons which werent wholly my fault) in the words of rob, 'it didnt have a clear meaning/didn't really go anywhere' i disagree with the second half, but i agree something more was needed..

I like how it looked, some amazing sky shots in there, I like the concept, as its so simple and I wouldnt have thought it could work like that, but it did, i like how charming the story line was, and i liked the characters, as weird as they all were.

I also loved that Tom Waits was in it.

Over all, I like, in between a 2 and a 3 star film. would see it again, am not blown away, but intrigued.

'Frozen Britain' (or not so frozen britain)

Just got back from our Cambridge adventure, went up to interview Tobias' Friends as they work for Jagex and would have valid opinions on our documentaries subject matter. Was really awesome, they were lovely, was a long drive up though, about four hours. >_<
We then picked up Dominika and went to Tobias' Dad's horse ranch, which was very nice but COLDDDD as their central heating had broken!!! We watched The Rutles (a parody film about the beatles) and then went to bed.
We woke up this morning to extremely heavy snow, as you can see below, which is what we had to drive through for the first hour till we reached the duel carriageways and motorways!!!


We made it back though, and in good time thanks to Mr. Asman. So yeah, just thought i'd give that little update, felt more exciting than I have written here haha. We also made some funny podcasts in the service station eating burger king which is entertaining, not sure if ryan's doing anything with them though.

Now for a whole day of getting flash sorted...arghhh >_<

Update soon!

Love Manda x x x

Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas

Howdy, I've just returned to Weymouth, and decided writing my blog is the priority to unpacking my ridiculous amount of luggage.
So where to begin, I got back on sunday, when the snow began to fall,


me and becky went for a walk up to wells and found a rather odd sight...
Becky reckoned it was the 'buddha man' who walks around wells with no shoes, ever, and is banned from most of the shops because of this. Weird.

Monday morning woke up with a sore throat, never good, and I knew that a long and troublesome cough was coming for my christmas holiday.

The next event was on Wednesday, Daddy set off to London to deliver the mirrors he'd spent the last three weeks making in time for Xmas. It was freezing conditions when he left, but he said it'd be fine. He apparently got to Salisbury Plains, where it began to rain in the morning, unfortunately it was too cold for the rain to melt as it hit the ice, which inevitably created more ice, black ice. My dad said it froze as it hit the windscreen, and as he was pondering this, the van started to skid as he trundled along the long road at some 50mph.
He then hit the bank on the side of the road, and skidded along the bumpy surface for about 20 yards, the force of the speed of the van meant that when he hit a big bump in the bank, it was enough force to push the vehicle back onto the road, and slide it around the opposite way on the road. Luckilly the road was quiet with nothing coming that way, otherwise that would have been a head on crash. So he pulled into a layby and checked the damage, no wing mirror on his side, a big dent in the side, and 4 big mirrors smashed to smithereens, including an original antique one. And he came out of it with a broken finger nail, literally. The irony or the amount of mirrors broken must have broken the old wives tale as he was VERY lucky, this accident could have been far, far worse, two days before Christmas. >_< onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA29PtBQylRpCfcrNR2okLm91sBzYUWNJ9beGih-aAxJz_d8qRXnFyglNN29Mk5K8rT-Pv4pZsKMldYMUx3f59xOCF0OwmTtVZoS2v8EHKcK53h6RS2YVRtxlV7NBjEHxQxXsjOqydV24/s1600-h/100_2223.JPG">

Despite this, wednesday evening was very lovely, I organised a meal for my friends at home, which was lots of laughs and lovely presents being exchanged, from a belly dancing kit, to a sky lantern. :-D Lovely, here's a pic from this evening




So Christmas came around, I got many lovely things, including a Wii which is something I really wanted, and Wiifit so I now have no excuse for not excersizing now!
Got a raving rabbids game as well, which has a game that you can control by sitting on the wiifit board and using your bum to move! haha! Lots of fun.
And Joe got my laptop, I think he was rather excited!


Also finally got round to developing my black and white pics from summer at disneyland :-) Luckilly I got quite a few of them come out after having dad's clunky Practika camera's back opening when it liked, which is not helpful. So two of my reels were half wiped, but I managed to get one whole reel of 36 pics which I was impressed with :-) Here's my favourite pic

Saw the Grandparents, my cousin mike, my auntie ruth and uncle rob, and my cousin matt, who I rarely see, which was cool.
Was going to go to Bristol to Phil and Ed's house for New Years, but two days before decided I would be far too ill to handle partying with the boys and coughing my lungs up over them. So I decided to opt for the Laurel and Hardy, followed by Jools Holland's Hootenanny option. With which I was treated with seeing out the year with my current love, Paolo Nutini <3>_<)
And then retired to the attic for the last night.

now to unpack....oh gahd.

Good to be back in the house though :-)

LOVE HOBBIT GIRL X X X X X