Whiplash

“There are no two words more harmful in the English language than ‘good job’’… but Whiplash certainly depicts greater adjectives. This film drama about a young, talented, impressionable drummer, Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) in a cutthroat music conservatory, illustrates the blood, sweat and tears of attempting to achieve greatness when an intimidating music conductor, Terrance Fletcher (J.K Simmons) makes it all that much harder.

This film is directed by up-and-coming, Damien Chazelle, who built the story from his own past experiences, and the nightmares that he was still reliving about his own malevolent music teacher. The film starts with a focus upon portraying the emotional rollercoaster but quickly becomes shot like a thriller getting almost uncomfortably up close and personal, that you quite literally see the physical toll (blood and sweat) of drumming. The shooting style imitates that of a 70s paranoia movie (like Chinatown or Psycho), taking influences from the infamous musical West Side Story but also silent films; such as moments through the film where it is purely cinema, just the juxtaposition of long frames/image to the jazz sound.

The pivotal duo of the protagonist (Andrew Neiman) and antagonist (Terrance Fletcher) and their almost weirdly twisted love story relationship is central throughout the film, from the ups and downs, to the love-hate.

The dedicated student, Andrew, has the skill and the drive to be the next prodigy, however it is the added anxiety and exhaustion affixed by Fletch, which has the possibility to derail his personal life (if not everything else). Terrance Fletcher however, can be described as our anti-hero of sorts, he thrives on intimidation; his purposely single-minded focus of blind ambition to realize a musician’s potential can have costly collateral damage. But what cost is too great?

The masterful job of casting and directing is completely evident through these wondrous performances. The fact that Chazelle manages to turn a potentially permissive drum solo into a heart racing enthralling performance, that despite some melancholic undertones, you will end watching this film with a swing in your step, the indelible jazz songs spinning around in your head and the eagerness to bang on a drum set, as this is a film you will want to tell everyone about.

Alan Kitching x Monotype

It doesn't seem too often that Nottingham welcome a big name exhibition, never mind at a University. But this month that has all changed! Nottingham Trent University welcomes famous British graphic designer Alan Kitching to exhibit his work (in collaboration with Monotype) and although it may be small; the views are wonderfully adroit.

This exhibition celebrates the collaboration between two typographic forces: Alan Kitching, a leading practitioner in letterpress, typography and design; and Monotype, global trailblazers in type and home to some of the world’s most popular typefaces.

Summer Work Reflection

The deadlines have been met and my work is completed (for now). First Year is over! It's astonishing how undeniably quick this year has gone by, but now it's time for summer back at home!

Over these next months I plan to spend plenty of time with family and friends and enjoy some splendid holidays, but also have productive weeks interning for StyleCompare (an online platform which enables you to browse thousands of fashion items all in one place), J.H Benson &co (a premium shoe company specialising in the finest of male footwear) and Fizzy (a german magazine raving about all the latest things fashion and music). Moreover, I ensure to keep practicing my adobe software skills, such as indesign, keep my blog updated, along with creating new blogs with a finer niche and practicing my photography skills. 

Be sure to check back here for my lowdown on how it all went!

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Summer is almost coming to a close, but here's what I got up to over my time off...

My first work experience was a copy writing internship for StyleCompare. This role predominantly  entailed me writing short punchy biographical paragraphs on new brands/companies arriving on the website (but from the comfort of my own home). Considering I had never had any practice in writing copy before, the beginning proved quite challenging, and forced to be constantly reciting the 'rules of copy' in my head. As I was also working remotely, it was nice in the way I could work when I wanted, yet it meant I was constantly (quite literally) checking my email for feedback, and if something wasn't right, not being in the same office elongated the correction process tremendously.  However, it was rather interesting to find out plenty of research on brands that I perhaps knew little about beforehand and it also vastly improved my vocabulary and writing/copy writing techniques.

My next internship experience was with J.H Benson & Co, which is a Liverpool based company in the city centre, where my role was to be in control of their online presence and social media accounts. I would take plenty of pictures of some of the staff in the new brands of shoes, styled correctly of course with specifically coloured and material of socks and a certain length of pants/jeans. The images would all use to the same photo filter (for Instagram) so that their feed had consistency, and the caption would contain a few hashtags in order to gain attention and draw people into the account, to then be interested enough to check out the store for themselves. I found this role very fun, it was interesting to see what photos would work and what may not as much, and it also gave me further insight into how to promote one's brand online and also about the many many brands of mens leather shoes that exist!

My final internship was for Dizzy magazine, this was also a remote work experience, which meant I'd write pieces for their next print from my own home and send it to them via email. This position mainly entailed me to write reviews on upcoming relevant designers or musicians. This process was actually quite challenging as I found it hard at first to change my style of writing to suit their specific audience, yet it was certainly great practice.

In my spare time I also began to develop another blog specifically concentrating on photography: http://elz-world.tumblr.com and attended numerous exhibitions, such as in Liverpool and London - the What is Luxury and of course the Mcqueen exhibition 'Savage Beauty'. I felt these exhibitions and ways in which of spending my spare time were spent productively, and allowed me to gain further creative knowledge and inspiration that will no doubt come in to beneficial play for my future projects, on this course and outside of it. 

Marc Jacobs a/w campaign

Yes I know it's June but Fashion is ahead of the game... and Marc Jacobs has announced their latest faces for their new campaign! It sees a combination of famous Hollywood faces posing in heavily moody winter clothing in front of a Vreeland red backdrop.
After already arriving with this megastar at the Met Gala, it was clearly an indication that something must be brewing (and it was!), Marc Jacobs announced their first campaign star (on Instagram) was to be no other than pop-star Cher. The other eclectic celebrity line up include: Willow Smith, Debi Mazar, Red Hot Chili Peppers' frontman Anthony Kiedis and his son Everly Bear, Winona Ryder, Daisy Lowe and sister Betty.
With many of the separate images being released and advertised on Instagram over the last month, the cohesive unit can convey that advertising this season certainly has a family aesthetic (albeit an eccentric one too). From 69 year old Cher to 9 year old Betty Lowe, it certainly lends to the family vibe. Jacobs' muse for this season was the infamous Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, perhaps explaining why he chose such equally fearless spokesmodels.
Tell me what you think of this new campaign...

# Love Is The Law

So it has finally happened!... The United States has finally come to the decision that gay marriage must be legalised across all states in America as ruled by the Supreme Court last Friday. America is the 21st country to have same-sex marriage legalised, and after the news broke; thousands of gay-marriage supporters flooded the pavements in front of the Court in celebration, with their rainbow flags and banners proudly in tow.
I think this has been a long time coming, but it is definitely such an amazing moment for all same-sex couples and supporters, for as Barack Obama said: "Americans should be very proud... as small acts of courage slowly made an entire country realise that love is love".
Inevitably, the news has taken to social media where many celebrities have tweeted their happiness and gratefulness, (such as: Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Seth MacFarlane) and on Facebook users can update their current profile picture to one merged with the rainbow flag in celebration of the legalisation. #CongratsAmerica

Don't Buy The Sun #gfw

So it's that time of year again were fashion graduates can showcase their final work at the graduate fashion week. This year, like no other, saw plenty of talented designers and creatives, yet there was one in particular that caught my attention. It was Kayliegh Walmsley collection. A fashion design student from the University of East London, whose collection was, contradictorily, influenced by the Hillsborough tragedy. Although, not from Liverpool herself, her dad and her are huge Liverpool FC fans and her dad attended the Hillsborough match. She said that living in London, "not many people are aware of the tragedy and therefore she wanted to raise awareness".
The collection features 6 outfits; a combination of 80s casual dress and tracksuits, mixed with leather and sequins, which are all now being featured on Vogue's website!
The final look of her collection saw a model walk holding a flag: 'Don't buy the sun'. This obviously brought immediate shock factor, and not only grabbed the audience's attention but evidently the press' too, which personally I think is a great thing, the more awareness of what happened at Hillsborough the better.
Check out her collection pieces here...

Call Me Caitlyn

Recently there has been a lot of speculation surrounding the Olympic athlete gold medalist Bruce Jenner and stories surrounding his life. Bruce, father of Kendall and Kylie Jenner and step dad to the famous Kardashian girls, who's private lives have become an almost spectacle in the lives of ordinary people with their show 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' showing all areas of their lives, quite literally. 

A couple of weeks ago, Bruce did a candid interview on an American daytime show where he announced he had been living a lie all his life and that lie was that he's really woman; she's called Caitlyn. I think, coming out and announcing this is such a courageous thing to do, for anyone, and I think this is definitely a positive thing for the lgbt community and all young gay/transgender people. It enforces the idea that it's so important to be true to yourself and just be you and live the life you want to life, with your own rules. Yesterday, Caitlyn's first magazine cover and first public appearance as 'her' was unveiled, and it was incredible. Caitlyn was photographed as the cover star for Vanity Fair looking beautiful, powerful and fierce, and the images attracted huge amounts of attention across social media, with her Twitter account gaining 1million followers in a quicker amount of time than Barack Obama (who was holding the previous record). 

Check out some of the images here and tell me your thoughts...