So on our proper first day of university life, we started simply with ‘What is Media’ and what does it mean to us. What sounds simple actually turned out to be quite complicated because obviously its going to mean something different to everyone. For example my answer was ‘Media is the products made in the relationship between producer and consumer’ where as other peoples answers varied between ‘mass communication’ and ‘content made by organisations for the general public’ and as we found out, we were all right basically. The standard-ish definition is “‘Linguistically, ‘media’ is the plural of medium. A medium refers at base to one thing between two others. Our usage reflects a conception of a medium of communication as being a conduit through which messages are channelled.’ (Long and Wall, 2012: 3).” So take from that what you will.

Shortly after discussing Media and what it is, we talked broadly about different types of media and what we experience just on out way to class that morning. So things like Netflix, Spotify, Twitter and roadside adverts all came to our attention and made us think about how surrounded we actually are by any and all forms of media content.

For our more practical task Ellie asked us to walk 10 minutes in any one direction away from uni and document all the different forms of media that we came across. The images I’ve attached show only a few of the examples that we came across on our way through Digbeth and to the Custard Factory.

After going through what everyone in the group came across, we moved onto going through composition with a YouTuber called Darius J. Britt, a filmmaker who posts tutorials and how-to-guides on his YouTube Channel D4 Darius. The video we watched can be accessed by this link. We then did another practical task where we partnered up and went out to try some of the different shot types and composition that we learned; head-space, rule of thirds, tracking, frame within a frame, central framing and leading room/space.

This first session was a great introduction to the course, mixing practical and theory that kept us engaged and while not learning anything mind-blowing, it served as a good indication of what is to come. “What did I get from the first session?” is a question posed to us by Robin a day later and the answer isn’t specifically about media or my course. The answer is that it confirmed for me that I’m in the right place, doing the right thing.

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