Bit of a strange one to review, right? I just thought that there are so many softwares similar to this on the market that it is the smaller details that make or break a product like this. I was given this programme last Christmas, with a new laptop because I became very interested in media and video editing and had been struggling on an old windows programme to edit holiday videos for ages.
To begin with, you need to know exactly what you are doing to use this programme. I would not recommend it to any beginners because the features have specific names and settings that can be hard to find and control. Luckily I had been doing some video editing at school with a teacher so knew vaguely what I was doing when I started. This, however, did not stop me from searching numerous tutorial videos on youtube to look for basic functions such as how to 'cut' a piece of video clip and how to add transparency to an overlay.
Once you learnt the basic layout and functions, this programme is fantastic! To an extent you can move the windows and buttons around so that you can have everything where you want it and all features are easy to find. Simple controls make video editing a quick and thought-free process but to make a slightly more technical video the buttons are there.
I still haven't discovered everything you can do on Sony Vegas as it's capabilities are so vast and endless however the features that I have discovered are clever and extremely adaptable to whatever one may want.
A critiscism is that some of the functions tend to be hard to find, and take a lot of clicks into different folders in order to see. Additionally some of the icons are confusing and misleading, to this day it still takes numerous wrong clicks in order to do the simple task of importing new media.
All in all, I think this is an extremely clever and useful program which creates beautiful and creative films of many different styles, my repertoire ventures from our home video to my mini-series of 'Louisa in Reverse' clips! (see here). However, this is not a program for beginners, I would recommend a program such as 'Windows Movie Maker' for these people to start with!
Monday, 11 February 2013
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
A very fond impression of 'The Big Bang Theory'
So I watched my first episode of this before I went to America, because we would be going to the Warner Bros studio and seeing the set where it was filmed. I had also heard my friends talking about it a lot, comparing it to the same league as 'Friends'.... Now for any programme, that is an honourable rate, as 'Friends' is pretty much a world-wide programme that most people have seen and love.
It's quite hard to sum up what is currently 5 series of a sitcom, but the general story is set around Sheldon Cooper, a 20-something-year-old physicist with a huge IQ but a minuscule amount of social skills, which provides the mishaps that make us laugh so much in many hilarious sketches. He lives with his roommate, Leonard and has two other close friends, Howard and Raj, with Penny, the 'normal' girl across the hallway. Together, this gang of 5 muddle their way through life in California and the ups and downs of romance, friendship, work and 'nerdom'!
I was skeptical about whether 'The Big Bang Theory' would live up to my expectations after all the hype I had heard, however I now find myself deleting 'Friends' episodes on our sky planner to make room for new 'The Big Bang Theory' episodes, and if you know me, you will understand that this is a big deal!!! My whole family loves it, and although we are now at the stage where we have watched every episode (*cough* perhaps more than once), I was given the whole box set for Christmas, and countless numbers of our evenings are spent sprawled in front of the TV, watching back-to-back episodes. The thing that makes this programme so fantastic is the fact that each character has been written so cleverly and intricately, making their characteristics and mannerisms extreme versions of what we see in some of our friends - the 'nerdy' one, the 'women crazy' one, the 'shy, unlucky one', and this makes the characters extremely relateable. The humour is fantastic, although it is sometimes based around 'scieney' or 'nerdy' topics, the jokes have been well-enough written to ensure that they are received well. Each episode is funny, well-written and clever making it appeal to all sorts of people. Even my parents love to watch it and find some scenes unbearably funny!
Whoever you are reading this, I urge you to watch just one episode of 'The Big Bang Theory' or even just click here, here or here.... and also here
It's quite hard to sum up what is currently 5 series of a sitcom, but the general story is set around Sheldon Cooper, a 20-something-year-old physicist with a huge IQ but a minuscule amount of social skills, which provides the mishaps that make us laugh so much in many hilarious sketches. He lives with his roommate, Leonard and has two other close friends, Howard and Raj, with Penny, the 'normal' girl across the hallway. Together, this gang of 5 muddle their way through life in California and the ups and downs of romance, friendship, work and 'nerdom'!I was skeptical about whether 'The Big Bang Theory' would live up to my expectations after all the hype I had heard, however I now find myself deleting 'Friends' episodes on our sky planner to make room for new 'The Big Bang Theory' episodes, and if you know me, you will understand that this is a big deal!!! My whole family loves it, and although we are now at the stage where we have watched every episode (*cough* perhaps more than once), I was given the whole box set for Christmas, and countless numbers of our evenings are spent sprawled in front of the TV, watching back-to-back episodes. The thing that makes this programme so fantastic is the fact that each character has been written so cleverly and intricately, making their characteristics and mannerisms extreme versions of what we see in some of our friends - the 'nerdy' one, the 'women crazy' one, the 'shy, unlucky one', and this makes the characters extremely relateable. The humour is fantastic, although it is sometimes based around 'scieney' or 'nerdy' topics, the jokes have been well-enough written to ensure that they are received well. Each episode is funny, well-written and clever making it appeal to all sorts of people. Even my parents love to watch it and find some scenes unbearably funny!
Whoever you are reading this, I urge you to watch just one episode of 'The Big Bang Theory' or even just click here, here or here.... and also here
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Cinema trip to see 'The Wedding Video'
Last night I saw 'The Wedding Video' at the cinema with my friends. I didn't know much about it, I had only briefly glanced at the trailer (see the trailer here) however in all honesty, I was surprised at how good the film was!Think 'The Hangover' and 'Bridemaids' and you will get a feel for what the film is like. The old 'wedding-goes-badly-wrong' film but with it's own unique feel.
The aspect I liked most was the fact that it was filmed by a non-professional, and this made some of the scenes very funny because it gave a very realistic impression of how differently people act on camera. Being interested in video-making myself, I found this particularly funny and interesting!
Despite the theme being done hundreds of times before, the story line was not as predictable or tedious as I would have expected and many of the sketches gave the audience genuine belly-laughs! (Although it has to be said, my biggest laugh came from the fact that my friend spilled popcorn all over the couple sitting in front of us, rather than a part in the film..!)
Perhaps the ending was a little cheesy for my liking, and some of the scenes dragged out a bit, but all in all it is definitely a film to recommend to anybody over the age of 13 (although it is rated 15!!!).
Short review of Inception
Okay...so I watched this rather unwillingly at a friend's house one evening. I wasn't overly keen at first because I knew it was a confusing movie and there were a lot of us watching it- I can be easily distracted at times - I knew this would confuse the plot even more for me. Having said this, I watched the film with 2 or 3 'experts' or 'fanatics' of the film. They explained everything to me as it was happening so I do have a basic idea* of the storyline.
My initial thoughts were that it was an extremely clever movie, the plot was gripping and unique, and how they portrayed this abstract idea was interesting. Having said this, a lot of the main issues in the story were not highlighted (until a friend pointed them out to me). They were said in passing conversation by the characters so it didn't really occur to me what was happening. As the film progressed, however, I found that the plot was unravelling and made the occasional "oooohhhh, I get it now" comment when a previous situation was explained!
Overall, I would rate this film 7/10 for somebody my age. I would not recommend it to anyone younger but I think someone of higher intellect would possibly enjoy it more! I might try to watch it again soon and see whether I enjoy more the second time, as I know what is going on!
Friday, 31 August 2012
Six Flags disappointment
We went to this theme park on our Summer holiday this year, expecting it to be one of the highlights. Having dropped it into a conversation with a few of my friends, I got a few exclamations from them telling me that it was the 'best theme park in the world' and was the basis of the game 'Rollercoaster typhoon'. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited and my expectations were high.
I'll hand it to the park, the rollercoasters were INCREDIBLE...the best in the world. The ride 'X2' was amazing, and I would have loved to go on it again - it was not only well designed but thrilling as well, and as you can imagine from a massive American theme park, it pulled out all of the stops in terms of 'Fear Factor'!
Now for the downside... prepare yourself- full on rant coming up!
At almost $50 a ticket, you expect to go on a lot of rides in a day. We were at the theme park from about 10.00 until about 4.00 and went on four rides. Four.
Why? Because the park is greedy. They let too many people in and didn't bother to warn us about the vast queues we would have to wait through. On our first ride, we waited 2 hours to get on. This was in the burning Californian heat in cramped conditions with no shade and no water. After the first ride, we were already exhausted but pleased because the ride, X2 was brilliant, so we persevered and queued for a second ride. This was another rollercoaster that we waited about and hour and a half for and was disappointing. We then queued 30 minutes for another ride which literally took about a minute from buckling up to getting off. By this time, we were struggling to find reasons to stay at the park.
We went to find somewhere to sit and have a drink however unfortunately, everybody else had the same idea and we ended up paying $15 and queuing for 45 minutes to get a refillable cup, and then queuing for another 45 minutes to fill it up. Within 45 seconds it was devoured. Why didn't you save your money and use a water fountain you wonder? The few water fountains that actually worked had 20 minute queues in the exposed sun, the same with every toilet facility. We found that it wasn't just us struggling with this busy, over populated park, everybody was.
With little tolerance left, we got into a short looking queue for a water ride. It had no indication of how long it would take but we reluctantly guessed we would be waiting for about half an hour. An hour later we were still in the queue. Completely cramped and unable to move, not only because of the heat and our severe exhaustion, but because hundreds of people were surrounding us. As we waited, people around us started to get agitated - by this time, my parents had gone to the information desk and there were 4 of our group (all teenagers) left in the queue. Okay, understatement...people were shouting and swearing at the attendants, almost causing a riot! Every time a carriage for the next lot of people came, the fast track queue would be moved onto it and the rest of the queue would remain stationary. ...theoretically stationary -a lot of people behind us were giving a lot of abuse to these 'fast track arseholes who thought they were better than us'. After another hour, we finally got on the ride. The ride was terrible. We were so tired and in such a bad mood by this time that we could not be bothered to enjoy the 3 minute up-the-rail-and-underwhelming-drop ride.
After the ride, we were all extremely fed up and the 4 of us went to find our parents. They were making a complaint at the information desk, of which we never received any feedback or compensation. We had waited so long in the final queue that we missed our plans for the evening and were late home. I know I sound like a bratty teenager saying all of this, but it is the truth. In fact, as my parents were queuing at the information desk, they spoke to another unhappy customer who was disabled. Apparently they had been sold the ticket for the park, told they would be allowed on the ride and queued up (having an hour long wait) for a ride, only to be told that their disability meant they could not go on the ride. What's more, the attendants then failed to tell them that this would be the case for every other ride.
The park is greedy and overpriced, only caring about visitors and profit, not the welfare of their guests. If you ever plan to go to Six Flags, I thoroughly recommend saving your money.
I'll hand it to the park, the rollercoasters were INCREDIBLE...the best in the world. The ride 'X2' was amazing, and I would have loved to go on it again - it was not only well designed but thrilling as well, and as you can imagine from a massive American theme park, it pulled out all of the stops in terms of 'Fear Factor'!
Now for the downside... prepare yourself- full on rant coming up!
At almost $50 a ticket, you expect to go on a lot of rides in a day. We were at the theme park from about 10.00 until about 4.00 and went on four rides. Four.
Why? Because the park is greedy. They let too many people in and didn't bother to warn us about the vast queues we would have to wait through. On our first ride, we waited 2 hours to get on. This was in the burning Californian heat in cramped conditions with no shade and no water. After the first ride, we were already exhausted but pleased because the ride, X2 was brilliant, so we persevered and queued for a second ride. This was another rollercoaster that we waited about and hour and a half for and was disappointing. We then queued 30 minutes for another ride which literally took about a minute from buckling up to getting off. By this time, we were struggling to find reasons to stay at the park.
We went to find somewhere to sit and have a drink however unfortunately, everybody else had the same idea and we ended up paying $15 and queuing for 45 minutes to get a refillable cup, and then queuing for another 45 minutes to fill it up. Within 45 seconds it was devoured. Why didn't you save your money and use a water fountain you wonder? The few water fountains that actually worked had 20 minute queues in the exposed sun, the same with every toilet facility. We found that it wasn't just us struggling with this busy, over populated park, everybody was.
With little tolerance left, we got into a short looking queue for a water ride. It had no indication of how long it would take but we reluctantly guessed we would be waiting for about half an hour. An hour later we were still in the queue. Completely cramped and unable to move, not only because of the heat and our severe exhaustion, but because hundreds of people were surrounding us. As we waited, people around us started to get agitated - by this time, my parents had gone to the information desk and there were 4 of our group (all teenagers) left in the queue. Okay, understatement...people were shouting and swearing at the attendants, almost causing a riot! Every time a carriage for the next lot of people came, the fast track queue would be moved onto it and the rest of the queue would remain stationary. ...theoretically stationary -a lot of people behind us were giving a lot of abuse to these 'fast track arseholes who thought they were better than us'. After another hour, we finally got on the ride. The ride was terrible. We were so tired and in such a bad mood by this time that we could not be bothered to enjoy the 3 minute up-the-rail-and-underwhelming-drop ride.
After the ride, we were all extremely fed up and the 4 of us went to find our parents. They were making a complaint at the information desk, of which we never received any feedback or compensation. We had waited so long in the final queue that we missed our plans for the evening and were late home. I know I sound like a bratty teenager saying all of this, but it is the truth. In fact, as my parents were queuing at the information desk, they spoke to another unhappy customer who was disabled. Apparently they had been sold the ticket for the park, told they would be allowed on the ride and queued up (having an hour long wait) for a ride, only to be told that their disability meant they could not go on the ride. What's more, the attendants then failed to tell them that this would be the case for every other ride.
The park is greedy and overpriced, only caring about visitors and profit, not the welfare of their guests. If you ever plan to go to Six Flags, I thoroughly recommend saving your money.
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