Wow!

Words can’t explain my overall experience at MediaZone. It has had its up and downs. When first arriving to MediaZone I was happy, until I heard we will have very intensive training for one whole week. At that moment, I felt the pressure was on. I was a little intimidated because I didn’t know a lot of camera terminology. The only thought that was running through my mind was they are going to think American students are uneducated. In reality MediaZone was my first practical course outside of group projects.

As time passed, I began to gain more confidence about learning and being comfortable with using a camera. Do I feel like I know everything there is about a camera? No, but I feel confident that I know enough that will help me to be ahead in my classes back in the United States. Continue reading →

May 8, 2014 /

A Christmas in the Middle East

In this article I am going to share with you something that has no relation to technology or design. This winter I had the opportunity to spend my holidays in the Middle east. I saw and felt traditions and culture much different from the ones we have in Europe.

I spent my holidays in one of the fastest developing countries in the world over the last few years- Qatar. The country is located in west Asia occupying the small Qatar Peninsula. The neighbor countries of Qatar are Bahrain, Iran, United Arab Emirates.

I spent 2 weeks there. 2 weeks for which I managed or at least I tried to taste as much as I could from the Arabic world and culture. To be honest I didn’t know a lot about that country before I went there. I knew it is something like Dubai but a lot smaller. Well I was almost right about that. The city centre was like Hollywood for me. The giant buildings in American style, with all those fancy and shiny lights, and animations all over them managed to amaze me from the first day. Continue reading →

March 20, 2014 /

Leave Color Effect

Last year I had a project on a course called Theory and Practice of Cinema. The lecturer wanted us to write a script and create a short film 5 to 10 minutes. At the beginning I had difficulties finding a topic, but with the help of the lecturer I decided to make a short film about me having trouble finding ideas for the project. Obviously it was a comedy, at least I tried. The way I thought that the flow of the story was going to be, was me talking to the camera saying what were the difficulties I faced and what were the Ideas I was changing all the time because of these difficulties. I have done the script and the production and the last step was the editing. I was trying to find effects that will help me keep the interest of the viewers so they won’t get bored. Looking around YouTube I found out an effect called ‘Leave Color Effect’ (Adobe Premiere Effect). This effect allows you to choose which colour you want on your video or picture and then makes all the others black and white. Most people refer to this effect as ‘The Sin City Effect’ because of the constant use of it at the actual Hollywood movie. This effect makes you focus on one colour of your screen showing you what is important on this image/video and what not. The way I wanted this effect to work in my case was similar to the sin city movie, keeping the interest of the viewers with a cool, unusual and amazing effect that everyone will wonder how this effect was added to the film. Well, to help some of you who want to use this effect I created a tutorial with Camtasia Studio 8. Hope you like it.

Andreas Papatheodoulou – TV / Audio MZ Lab Assistant

March 6, 2014 /

DO|YOU|SEE?

We all realize that we live in a decade that is mostly influenced by the power that the mass media possess. Nowadays, this is the most usual thing, but is it real? Of course it is. As years go by, people recognize the brain washing that they get by the media, and it’s more difficult for the media to keep brain washing.

So, if it is true, how do media still manage to exist? Have they stopped telling lies and started to focus on the truth? No, that’s not true at all! Media have their own purposes and goals that they strive to achieve in order to survive. So the mass media will always keep their best interests in mind, no matter what.

Has anyone been brainwashed lately? I don’t think so. I believe we have grown up brainwashed. How can I tell if any of the information I get from any means of media is true? The media is ran by people. People have feelings, ideas, weaknesses etc. I believe, we all can agree with that. When someone has a lot of media power, and this media is watched by millions of people, do they feel responsible? Do they remain committed to their ideal objectives, or do they exploit this power in order to gain more power or money? Continue reading →

March 5, 2014 /

Proper use of a computer

Recently I went to the hospital to make some general analyses due to some dizziness and weaknesses I had. Before I went to the hospital, what came into my mind was that I most probably had problems with my iron and haemoglobin count since I had these kind of problems in previous years when I was younger. When I did the analyses, I had a conversation with my doctor, and he told me that there was no problem with the iron or haemoglobin so we tried to find out what exactly I had.

We finally reached the following conclusion, the problem was my seated position when I was using the computer – it was totally improper, so due to this fact I would like to give you some tips about the right positions when using computer. Continue reading →

February 27, 2014 / 2

COMM -117 VIDEO PRODUCTION – Love this course

The video production course is part of the “Radio and Tv” section from the “Communications” studies and it’s a practical course. In this course you will have to learn clearly 2 things: the PD170 camera and Avid, a computer programme to edit video. I believe that for students who are interested in video, cameras, those that want to be a director, camera person, editor, it is a great choice to add this course to their path. We have the first contact with the equipment and how they are working. I helped myself with this course and generally it is very interesting because we have to do video productions in groups. Usually the lecturer makes groups (4 students) so everyone has a responsibility like camera person, director A, director B and model.

As a result, in my opinion another one benefit from this course is the opportunity to work in groups and have as a small experience how the professionals work! Do not miss this course, it’s interesting and at the University of Nicosia, & the level is high!! Continue reading →

January 31, 2014 /

Fetes des Lumieres – The Lyon Lights Festival

The celebration of the Virgin Mary is held once a year in Lyon in a very magical and beautiful way. A celebration that begins on the 6^th of December and lasts for four days takes the breath away of everyone who is lucky enough to witness it. The Lyon Lights Festival, otherwise known to the French as Fête des Lumières is the combination of continuous lighting and video effects, visual arts and creative audio features that are displayed all around Lyon in a very spectacular and beautiful way. It’s as if the whole city turns into a canvas and all the buildings, historic and new, all the people, roads, bus stops, water fountains and so much more of what the city is made of becomes a continuously changing art work represented by lights. It’s almost like walking into a fairytale of lights, where giant figures of people move from one building to the other, where the unexpected can be expected. Continue reading →

December 4, 2013 /

Racism

It was Tuesday and my first day at the University of Nicosia. My first lesson was “Introduction to Communication Studies”. When we started analysing the first chapter, the lecturer started with this sentence: “A human is born to communicate, we don’t have other choice because nobody can’t afford the loneliness”.

So from this simple opinion, I started thinking “What about racism?”. Automatically I remembered a subject that we did when I was a student in high school about the Second World War. The main point that we easily understood from this remarkable chapter of world history, is that hatred generated by the German 3rd Reich was rooted in the inability to accept differences, like colour, religion, origin, people with handicaps etc. The end of this horrible situation was the deliberate death of 6 million people. Continue reading →

December 2, 2013 /

The Omcopter

The Drones are among us! In reality & fiction film!

Have you ever thought that your camera can fly? That with a remote controller you can direct your camera and take video footage from the sky?

For many years film-makers have tried to achieve the effect of shooting from an actual helicopter without using one, and most of the time this resulted in broken cameras or at least lens. Not everyone has the budget to include a giant crane or a flying machine as a technical part of his production. Nowadays there is a solution, for all this crazy attempts to be achieved natural flying movement of the camera. A German company has developed a device called the “Omcopter”. Continue reading →

November 24, 2013 /

Lab Assistants Blog