Not just early August already, but the 12th of August. How swiftly time seems to be trotting on now… it felt like July was quite a long stretch of fairly sunny days, with the comforting cushion of two more months of justified studentdom between then and the end.

Docu-partner and I are still trying to get hold of interviewees for our documentary. Currently, he’s also in France and sans internet- though really, what person wouldn’t want to spend their vacation worrying and researching about roads, traffic, shared space, accidents, and driving psychology? A sane one, possibly. It’s not been difficult to get people who are willing to be interviewed- the allure of the camera / media communication / just happy to talk about their area of expertise- but getting an exact date and time from them tends to be more complicated. Which leaves me here, spending really quite a lot of time in the department for one who doesn’t really have a lot of footage to edit yet. I generally go in quite a lot to just get myself into mental work-mode, and because I have a poor internet connection at home coughandmyroomisusuallyashamblescough. Am starting to turn up at the department later and later, but happily the security guards are not allowed to chuck anyone out until it’s after 11pm, even if I am the only person there.

Anyway, to get some general roads in London footage, I spent most of yesterday on various buses going through central London. Actually was quite good… plenty of time to spend reflecting on the times years ago when I’d never been to London, but really wanted to go to London, except my boyfriend hated London and didn’t want to go, and I didn’t see the fun in going by myself. There’s still lots to see here that I take for granted. Hoisting a video camera about the place does tend to get a person noticed, though, ranging from people asking me for advice on buying one themselves, asking loudly if I’m filming anything good, walking right into me when I stick my eye into the eyepiece to try and look busy, or taking a good hawk and loogie at whatever I happen to be filming in case a little phlegm will add some dynamic action. All captured on tape, peeps, for my reminiscing pleasure once I’ve uploaded it onto the editing Macs.

In other news, I’ve also been ill for a while, which is lousy. I’m not used to being ill. It’s some kind of cold, but with the general symptoms of two days of a stuffed-up head followed by a week of feeling physically weak and oddly mushy in the brain, like a hangover that won’t shift. (Un)fortunately, for me / others, I don’t really have anyone to complain about this to, seeing as most of us are engrossed in our projects and dissertations.

We’ve also finally heard confirmation that three of us, including fellow bloggee David, will be undertaking an internship under the Mekong River Commission in Laos!

Finally, I’ve heard on good authority that there’s going to be a massive Michael Jackson flashmob tribute in Leicester Square this Saturday at 2pm. I’ll be there with a camera to try capturing the cool madness.

Blast. I lost the footage of Imperial’s International Night, something I’d been meaning to edit and put up online for ages, but kept delaying due to forgetting / unsure of how to edit and upload / no time. What little remains, I’ll put up on Youtube as soon as I get to grips with Final Cut film editing program again. I’m really annoyed about it, though… there were some excellent performances that night, and I was glad I’d managed to capture it on tape. I was hoping to get the footage online or in DVD format sometime… Oh, dear, massive fail for me as an independent filmmaker!

I’ll blame it on procrastination, that swamp of no return. If something is put off for tomorrow, a week from now, or a month from now, when it could be done sooner, the chances of actually getting round to doing that thing diminish markedly. To any students who would like to dabble in film, make some useful CV material for themselves in media, or just want something different to do, I’d recommend you join Stoic TV or hey, sign up for the MSc in Science Media Production / Science Communication. Once you’re in, you can borrow the cameras any time, time permitting, and film any of the events that happen to happen at Imperial. There’s always that glamour about a camera, as well as it’s intrusiveness… most societies or college goings-on are happy for their events to be filmed. I wish now I had done more filming during term time- in all honesty, though, this course has been a busy one, and I’d like to think I haven’t wasted too much time that could have been spent usefully.

Still working on the project-documentary…. no updates about that yet A challenge that I think we’re all facing is how to work together with our docu-partners!

I have been trying to make myself face the question of what I’ll do once the course has finished. This is, naturally, a big question that can be only partly answered… most decisions about what the future will be like can’t really be answered, you just find out as you go along, muddling through a multitude of small choices that lead you here and there along the general pathway of your own life. I’ve been very disheartened by the bad-work-experience-placement experience, and somewhat wryly disheartened by a few of the seminars we had in June. We were both encouraged to strive for media work after the course, while being warned that it was going to be very competitive, particularly difficult given the recession, and that we may spend a lot of time doing unpaid work experience, or simply bashing out our own independent projects while being unemployed. I’ve been toying with the prospect that I won’t stay in London, that I might go abroad and work on print media projects more, or that I’ll even end up studying more while trying to produce media stuff on the side. Still, losing the footage made me think that I do like to film, photograph, write, think, produce. I should think there are worse things to do than to work at that, in any way I can, over the next year… even if I don’t do it as part of a production company. Which might be a bold sounding but irrelevant statement, mind, as most people working for companies seem to be freelance anyway, except for the top dogs.

Something I particularly value is sharing the company of other like-minded, interesting, or just friendly people on this course.

And to round off, a few Glastonbury pics…