Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) Manchester

I went to see the Bodyworks exhibition, this was really interesting, though I am quite squeamish!







Walking around you could imagine the bodies to be artificial, but then when you saw dead baby foetus's you knew it couldn't be fake. The bodies were modelled in particular ways to show which muscles were being used etc during different activities. A lot of work had gone in to this, I was really impressed and came out with loads of facts and figures. They'd even used this process on animals (Gorilla, Chicken, Duck etc). Pretty gross, but really interesting.

bbc iplayer

I love the new BBC iPlayer! I don't need TV any more I have this. The website is really easy to navigate around, and the speed of stream is pretty much instantaneous, and allows you to download too. I like the colour scheme for this website, Black and Fuschia Pink, not very BBC but does blend with their new advert (central) campaign and combines all the BBC channels.

New UK Monopoly Here and Now

This is what the old Monopoly Board used to look like:
And this is what the new one looks like:

Obviously advances in Technology have improved the board dramatically, and as much as I like the cheesy patriotic approach with our massive flag and pictures of landmarks in these cities, I think its too garish. The old version (very old version) is bland and very minimalistic but I think with the mini photographs this could have been much more suited to the family board game. No one wants to have to pull out a pair of sunglasses before they play Monopoly at Christmas!

The Guggenheim NYC

This building is famous for it shapes that "catch the light" and I read that it was based about an Shell by Frank Gehry a Canadian-American architect. Its really an amazing building, I wish I could remember it (was very young when I went to NYC).

AlexandLiane - Music Video Directors

I've been looking in to Music Videos and Directors as part of my research for my dissertation, and came across 2 directors called "AlexandLiane", they've done videos for The Scissor Sisters ("Laura"), Bloc Party ("Banquet"), Sam Sparro ("Black and Gold") and The Ting Tings new video "Shut up and let me go". I was on their website http://www.alexandliane.co.uk/ looking through their work and found an old video called "Yougottahavefreak" :


A really effective way of producing a music video on a budget, costumes, masks, and random statues make it visually interesting and fun, tying in the playful remix of George Michaels "Faith" and Missy Elliots "Get ya freak on".

"Psycho" - Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for his use of psychology in creating fear in his horror films which was revolutionary at the time (1950s/60s). In the famous "shower scene" you don't actually see the blade penetrate the womans body but you as the audience know that this is happening because your mind fills in the blanks. In my opinion this is the best kind of horror, I hate new films like "Saw 1,2,3,and 4" because they're too gory (sp?)!

Some funny trivia about this shower scene is that the "blood" is actually chocolate sauce.













And although Hitchcock never showed the gore, there is actually a point where you can see the rubber knife slip on her stomach.

Philippe Halsman - Photographer

I had seen this photograph a couple of years ago but only found out a few days ago that it was all taken in one shot and most impressively-in the 1940's. "Dali Atomicus" taken by Halsman features the famous Surrealist Painter Salvador Dali, along with 2 of his canvas's. It took 28 times to get the photograph perfect. I think surrealist photography has become incredibly easy over the years with programmes like Photoshop so its amazing to see a surrealist photograph that was taken in one shot.

Lillets "Designed for Comfort"

I chose this advert to begin with because I was really impressed with the animation style and how much information is included within less than 30 seconds. Last semester I had tried to create a 30 second advert with an animation and found that it was really difficult to put across all the information to the audience within such a short time frame. Lillets have managed to create an advert that is not only visually interesting but extremely informative about their product in a very playful way.