Tropical World

Tropical World,
Roundhay Park,
Leeds,
West Yorkshire.

I remember going to tropical world as a little kid and remember it being really hot and like a diferent country. I was pleasantly suprised to see that the feeling ahd not changed, it was fantastic. I loved it. There is a wide variety of different sections to see in the museum including the Butterfly House, Amazon Tank, Australasia House, Creature Corner, Amazon/South American House and the DesertHouse.

The butterfly house was great, there was a range of animals to see and not just butterflies themselves. There is between 30 and 40 varieties of butterfly on the hosue. I found out that some of the specimens are bred here from pupae, which is also displayed. I saw a lot of butterflies, one of the most memrable parts of the visit was seeing the biggest butterfly ever, it came flying right across my face and I was extremely scared as it was as big as my face.It was red adn black, very beautiful. Other features in the butterfly house were small bridges and ponds where more of the fish collection, Egyptian Firemouths, Pangasius Sutchi (which usually grow to 3 – 4 inches but here can be seen up to 2 feet long) and Giant Gourami (Osphronemus Goramy) dart about playfully. There was also Koi Carp, 5 spot Cyclids, Talapias, Mud Turtles, Soft Belly Turtles, Collared Teals, Cinnamon Teals and Leafcutter Ants.

I particularly enjpyed the little terrapins becuse they all stuck together like a family. Unfortunately I saw a man lift one of them out of the pond and put it on a wall next to it. I didnt think that this was appropriate adnwas cruel to the animals, one fo the workers came and told him not to touch the animals.

The Australasia house was very hot with the trpoical leaves and citrus plants, it was really nice. There was waterfalls and it all sounded so tropical and I found the environment very relaxing. I found out that this actual part of tropical world had been used as a set for film and television, even for a pop group video! I found this very exciting.

The animals I most wanted to see were the lizards, I really like the colours of lizards and the shape. These lived in the creature corner area of tropical world with the spiny mice, tortoises, boss monitor and the water dragon.
I found the desert house the funniest area because of some very interestingly shaped cacti I saw, it was a very hot room hence the name desert. I saw parrots flying round which was funny because they were high up in the sky and you couldnt see them but only hear them.


Overall I really enjoyed my trip to Tropical World and found some of the animals inspiratonal to aspects of work I am currently working on.

The Freud Museum

I visited the Freud museum unsure about what I was going to find. I knew hardly anything about Sigmund and his daughter Anna Freud except that his house (The Freud Museum) was the place where psychoanalysis was born.
Sigmund was a refugee from the Nazis and came to England. Sigmund refused to leave his Jewish psychoanalytical community in Germany, until Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938.
Sigmund only lived in this house for a year, he moved in on 27th September 1938 and stayed ther until his death on 23rd September 1939 at the age of 83. His daughter Anna continued to live there until 1982 when she died, that is when her wish to turn the house into a museum was granted and opened to the public in July 1986.
The museum holds a range of objects including the library, their personal papers and photograph albums, it also holds Sigmunds collection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Oriental antiquities. The most well known object which I saw was the couch on which psychoanalysis was apparently born. The museum has two floors and a conservatory.
The ground floor is made up of a dining room, entrance hall and a study and library. The conservatory is the museum shop. The dining room contains painted Austrian furniture which belonged to Anna Freud and originally came from her country cottage back in Austria. There are also paintings of some of the places where Sigmund spent holidays. The study for me was the most interesting of rooms as it was preserved exactly as it was when Sigmund died. It contains the the reknowned couch on which his patients lay. He would ask them to say everything which came to mind without thinking or selecting specific information to tell Sigmund. I personally found this a scary thought, I woulnt particularly like somebody to know exactly what my thoughts were. The study also had the antiquities I mentioned earlier. The library in the study was full of books, obviously but they included a range of subjects inluding: art, literature, archaeology, philosophy and history as well as psychology, medicine and psychoanalysis. Everything was barriered so we couldnt have a close look at the objects.
The first floor had an exhibition room, video room and the Anna Freud room. The Anna Freud room was my favourite room as it showed personal aspects of her character which I thought was quite interesting. I discovered that Anna was a keen weaver and knitting enthusiast. There was a loom from her bedroom and her own analytic couch within the room.
The strangest part of my visit to the museum was when I went into the video room and watched a homemade film of how the Freud family moved from Vienna to London, it included a clip of Sigmund on his birthday with a cigar in his mouth. He himself suffered from cancer of the palate for the last 16 years of his life. The weird part was when the man who gave us an introduction to the museum asked us a question in which none of us understood clearly, it was about thoughts or something. I was scared he was going to ask me about the whole psychology of the rooms and objects shown in the museum because I wouldn't of known the answer. When nobody in the room answered his question he got really angry and walked out of the room, saying he was going to pull off his fingernails and come back in and show us. I was slightly worried about this thought and decided to leave as quickly as I could after the video had ended.
The experience has made me think about reading one of the many books Sigmund has written, the one interesting me is about the interpretation of dreams.

Critical Diary Report- Family Guy

Family Guy was first debuted in 1999 but got cancelled in 2002. It soon became the 4th largest TV-series seller ever on DVD which incidentally made FOX show the new series in 2005. The program creator and executive producer is the Emmy award winning Seth Macfarlane.
The Griffin family consist of 6 characters all having their own humourous aspects within the show.
Peter, who is the dad. He is a bit slow at taking in information and often makes rash decisions. Lois is the sensible mother who teaches the piano during the afternoon and spends the rest of her time doing housework and looking after the family. I don’t understand how they are both a couple. 16yr old Meg is the moody teenage daughter who her family are totally embarrassed of. She is a tomboy who only wants to be noticed, her only talent is that she can make fantastic bird noises. Chris the 13yr old slacker who is just as dim as his dad and he is afraid of the evil monkey that lives in his room. Stewie the insanely clever 1 yr old is always trying to kill his mother and has set his heart on world domination. He calls his dad the fat man. His only friend is his gay teddy bear, Rupert. He himself has also shown homosexual signs. Then theres Brian the dog who likes to spend his time drinking cocktails, sunbathing and reading. Brian is Peter's best friend.

Family Guy is probably my favourite animated comedy although I am a fan of The Simpsons, Futurama, etc. It is the funniest of them all because of the randomness of it. The Simpsons have am actual plot whereas this tends to just do whatever it likes, but that’s what makes it so different and great.

My favourite episode has to be when Peter discovers he is a retard. He is playing trivial pursuit with Lois and Brian, Lois asks him the questions from the junior version for example, how do u say the word what?
He goes through a list of words including steak, small amount of peas and how until he finally says the word what. It is the funniest episode in the world. He thinks that because he is a retard he can get away with anything including going to the ladies bathroom and opening the doors and making an announcement on the microphone at a fast food restaurant saying
"testicle, I repeat testicle".
His son Chris calls his dad a retard and Peter says:
"Chris, don’t say retard, we prefer to be called little people."

The show can be quite offensive to people but that is what makes it funny to me.

Video Presention Rationale

Reporting the City

In answer to the Reporting the City brief and after completing my reportage book , I will be producing a video lasting about 3-6 minutes. The video will be edited on Final Cut Pro and will include a title page showing what the video is about and showing what part of Leeds I reported which was the East side.
I've chosen to produce a video for my final presentation because of the research I obtained when I went on the journey East. The two main focal points for me that stood out immediately were the noise and the things I observed. Personally I found that you didn't need to look at things around you to know what was happening, you could just listen and recognise sounds e.g building work. This is what inspired me to choose video as my form of medium as I believed it would be the best way of communicating this idea. Initially I was going to produce an audio CD with just the sounds on which I heard when looking at the different parts of my journey from the busy industrial city centre to the quiet suburbs at Temple Newsham. I thought that this wouldn't show my idea in enough depth.
I will be experimenting with video techniques that I have learnt from my elective, using different angles and shots. I don't want the video to be visually interesting as I want the viewer to use their hearing sense as to understand what the video is about.
The content of the video will consist of a range of shots from 6 specific destinations, each clip will last 40 seconds long. The shot will either be taken with the camera in one place pointing at the floor showing the ground, the camera pointing at the sky or the camera filming from a PPV. The shot will depend on the specific destination.

This is a weblink!

This is the link to Creative Review It keeps you up to date on the latest designs from adverts to illustration, in the big bag world. The magazine is published monthly.

Leeds

This is a picture I took in Leeds City Centre on the east side!

Stupid Penguin

Me and my flatmate Hannah have just purchased a new member to our family, it is a goldfish called 'Stupid Penguin'. It has distinguishing features including two black spots, one on its head and the other on its back. Black marks are also placed on its fin and tail.