Mr Nathanial started the talk about how he came to be CEO, and described how he started in the music business managing Jordan/Katie Price amongst other lesser known people, and eventually turned to football management due to a higher interest in that department. He strongly made the point that he is not just a football agent, and told us that he ‘wanted to do other things’ in the ‘bespoke management company NVA’, to which he sings a lot of praise for.

‘NVA deals with a small amount of clients and this allows us to give dedicated personal service’ he claims, something that companies with large client bases simply cannot do. His ‘multifuctional, out of the box’ company is unique and gives a service other companies are not able to do, and this, he believes, is why he and the NVA are so successful in the modern world. He summed this up in a golden quote that I saw almost everyone writing down word for word; ‘You’ve got to be entrepreneurial and have to try tocreate something yourself. It’s about focus, knowing what you want and focusing on it. Never sit down and wait for an opportunity to come to you, you have to go out there and get it.’

He also spoke about how ‘honesty is the best policy’ and ‘holding your head high’ when asked about celebrity scandals, something seen commonly in footballers careers, which I found to be interesting due to this question having journalistic and media interest. While I have no interest in football or ever pursuing his kind of career, I did enjoy the conversation and left knowing I had learned something new.

Obviously in reality this is simply not true, however amazing that would be. Reality is quite similar to ours, except with far more lunatics in the government than we are allowed. Films however, are unexpected and completely not what I was expecting. Films are dark, seedy affairs or romantic alternative shows, such as women beaters and lesbians filled with blood and guts and insane amounts of swearing. We don’t get that much profanity on Jeremy Kyle, but in these films it’s a common practice to fill every sentence with at least three expletives. It all surprised me, but I enjoyed it. I’d definitely watch more next year.

There’s something quite fun about entering a room to watch a film and being warned about gore, swearing and shocking images. It appeals to the child in me, and probably will do to any other viewer who likes an action packed film. Made in 2008 in South Korea, Breathless follows the basic storyline as many East Asian films tended to do, by focusing on a person and his dark journey through life. This time around, Sang Hun (Yank Ik June) is taken through a seedy life of violence, demolition and malice as we follow his life as a debt collector. Huns job is to threaten and injure people who owe his boss money, and due to his childhood, he has a dark view on life.

His mother and sister were killed when he was young, and he blames his father for this, and for this reason Hun grew up as a destructive and violent man who solved any problem through anger and hatred. This is typical of many films of its genre, though with emotional acting and a chilling reality to the situation, Breathless initiates a brilliant start to the plot and sets the story up nicely. The twist that follows is unexpected, as Hun spits on a girl who tells him to wipe it off. Shockingly, he knocks her out with one punch, but even more shockingly for his character, he waits for her to recover and gets her a drink. Films still give a shock to see a woman injured, much more a punch to the face, and this is no exception to that rule.

Yeon Hee, the face that connected with the fist, is a high school student who becomes friends with Sang Hun, and the plot disolves into a confusing ride about family problems, character history and a feeling of closeness and similarity between the two people. It’s easily possible to lose sight of what’s going on at this point, but the basics are that Yeon Hee is being beaten by her father, and with Huns obvious hatred for fathers, he becomes close to her and tries to protect her. While the two are key characters in the film, romance and mushy love never really comes into play, which is a welcome relief due to how amazingly dark and seedy the film began and for it to end so soon would be a shame.

Sadly, the rest of the film becomes a lengthy drawn out blood and guts fight scene, followed by a closing which seemed to just inexplicably happen really quickly. With too much blood and far too much swearing, the rest of the films values seem lost on the audience and instead we are treated to a tonne of fighting. On the whole, the fighting is good, but the scenes needed to be interspersed with actual plot and some sort of emotion, and this is where Breathless falls down quite hard. The ending seems entirely rushed and pointless, and it bores and dissapoints as the end of an otherwise great idea for a film.

So breathless does leave you breathless. At the start, because it’s genuinely shocking, and at the end, because you’ve probably died of boredom.

Saving Aimee, a well known UK band even took the time to read this very blog and email me a comment about it which is now displayed on the side of the blog. Term three has been hectic so I’ve neglected this for a while, but it’s brilliant work and one which I really enjoy doing.

Also, despite having emailed the Coventry Telegraph, and my local paper the Hinckley Times, I’ve had just one response and no offer for any free work from them, so my work is limited to just the Source for now. Maybe next year I’ll try the Buzz.

Term one involved a giant regurgitation of what I had learned at A and even AS level Media, followed by some disastrous group work which meant nothing, and an essay with an incomprehensible title. I hate group work with a passion, mostly due to being a stubborn perfectionist, which is probably the worst kind of person to work with. People, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to spend six days a week making plan after plan of what is going to happen, followed by ten more days of making it happen. This is entirely unrealistic when we have weekly set tasks, and it irks me when a simple task that could take two hours becomes a mammoth plan that takes fifty hours, looks rubbish, and sets us behind for the next few tasks. Couple that with people not turning up, people believing they are the boss because they are loudest, or stubborn people who refuse to believe that their frankly useless plan isn’t any good, I hate group work. I’d prefer to do all the group work by myself, get the job done, and enjoy the marks as they come flying in.

Term three (Term two was Journalism) involves largely the same idea, except we’re doing fun tasks. We have five weeks, five projects, and an irrelevant essay to end it all. This is working a little better, though planning and drafting is painstakingly long, and realism and time management is not a key strongpoint with the group. To better myself in Media, I’m going to have to stop being so stubborn about being a perfectionist, and realise my views aren’t always the groups views, and I’ll have to adjust to them. I’m working on that, but it’s not easy for me.

Journalism is, on the whole, exactly the kind of work I’ve wanted to be doing at university. Term one involved being taught how to write a story, and then being thrown out the doors to go and find one. This is exactly how I wanted Journalism to be. I worried that from day one we would be given a random newspaper and told to write what we felt was good or bad about it, and spit out a load of garbage about analysing somebody elses work. Thankfully, we’ve been doing the work, and the work has been near limitless as to what we can write about, so I feel completely in my element. I passed term one, though I feel I could have done better.

Term two, for me, came with many problems. This is mostly described in Reflections – Accommodation, and this hampered my ability to do much in term 2 to any kind of standard. The coursework project I missed the deadline completely, and this means a definite retake in August. The broadcast project I loved, and despite not being confident about my voice I was assured it went well, albeit a problem with paperwork and CD burning which cost me many marks. A timed exam of our knowledge on law certainly helped me realise what journalists could and could not do, and this I passed.

Term three has no Journalism work, it’s entirely Media driven, so to conclude my year of Journalism, I’ve loved it. I wish I had not run across all the problems I did, and I’m definitely going to rectify these problems, sort out my retakes,and enter year two in the hope of being the best journalist I can.

This was the worst choice I have so far made at university.

Rooms are hotel standard at best; the small internet cable plug in the wall is the only item in the room made after 2000, and most other items are getting on for being antiques or museum artefacts. I can live with this, it’s a blank canvas for my own creative styles, and as such it’s now filled with a plethora of random student objects, canvases and art. So far so good. The problem I found was the lies in the brochure. ‘Each block will have a kitchenette’ translated into a tiny room per twelve people with a microwave (now stolen twice) and a fridge (unguarded, constantly stolen from, never used since term one). ‘Our many communal rooms’ also translated into two rooms with seats and a TV. One placed wonderfully on the lower ground, is freezing cold and has one TV that seemingly only plays Sky Sports News, and a TV lounge on the fifth floor that is locked as soon as the sky gets dark, due to the walls being paper thin and any kind of sound being instantly silenced by the mufflers that are the incredibly picky security guards.

Which leads to the next point, security. We were assured security would be there to stop thieves, thugs and other problems from entering our home. This, sadly, is not true. Since August, I myself have walked into my room to find three guys wishing to ‘knock me out and rip my piercings from my face’ simply because I live near to a girl. I’ve watched a middle aged man walk into my room because he was ‘maintainance’, claim he was lost and walk back out to try to open other doors. Security, it seems, only seem to stop people such as friends who wish to get changed before going out with us, girlfriends and boyfriends, or other such terrorist acts they see fit. Equally, problems have occurred with problematic neighbors, a sure thing when living with 700 other random people. One guy admitted to taking Ketamine, and was crawling the floors removing lightbulbs. He recieved no warning. Another guy was throwing water bombs and eggs out of windows, quite blatantly. This resulted in my door being near kicked down, my girlfriend being demanded to leave, and questioning on it simply because my window was the only window nearby which was open. Their ‘sources’ then went on to name two other doors, one of whom had been out all day, the other being entirely unoccupied. With letters of complaint and on the spot warnings for activities such as having a door open (A sign of wishing to socialise, since we have no social room), owning a guitar which is not used, playing with a laser pen, putting up a joke poster, knocking something over, or smoking, security only seem to be here to keep us in, not anyone else out.

With endless drama, no security and no social rooms, this building has been the key problem in why my first year has been bordering on disastrous. From random meetings about nothing one day before an exam, to drugged up and mentally unstable people living on my doorstep, it’s an impossible place to work, concentrate, or enjoy anything.
Oh, and the lifts don’t work and the walls are falling apart, brilliantly played Coventry University.

My Parents – My Mum had never been to university, but then it wasn’t as common for women to do so back in ye olden days. However, she lived by a simple rule with me, which was basically ‘Do what I like, just don’t get hurt’, which was probably only decided because I was useless at accepting orders so at least when I didn’t have them, I was still safe. My Dad had been to university, and he described the difference it made on his life, and while we have vastly different opinions and approaches to things, I could tell that it would be in my best interests to listen to him and to work hard for what I can achieve. We’ll see after three years if I’ve done them proud, but they motivated me to do anything at all.

Michelle Meli – This woman was my A level English teacher, and probably the best teacher I’ve ever had. Before I had been sitting in a class, bludgeoned with Shakespeare and books from before time began, just told I have to find some points and pass some grades. Michelle taught us English, real writing, real interesting facts, and just a realistic way of teaching. With that, I got an A in English, largely due to her complete belief that I’d do brilliantly however much it seemed like I was having way too much fun in the lesson. She pushed me for a writing based course, and still sends me messages of praise whenever I publish something.

Ian Wynd – My Media teacher for A level. Due to medical illness of my original teacher, and us being taught nothing in the first year (Which resulted in many Us), Ian had the job of teaching us everything in the space of a few months. Not only was that a time consuming task in itself, he also took the time to talk to me as a person, offering advice which basically said ‘Go to university, at least do your best, you will do well.’ He was an inspiration for the media side of my course, not through what he taught, but how interesting and exciting he made the course.

Lauren Ainscough – I chose to add my girlfriend in this, but not to post some wishy washy ‘Oh she changed my life!’ rubbish just to score brownie points. Lauren has the maturity which far surpasses mine, and throughout the year has constantly pushed me to work that bit harder, or to concentrate and not give up when things get hard. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have left university months ago, as no matter what problems were faced (And there were many, my accomodation is a disaster), she pushed me to keep going. I want to pass this course to show she made the right choice in believing in me.

Our lecturers had decided the week was to complete the bulk of 101MC, and this included many seminars and lectures on different aspects on improving ourselves, showing our abilities, and showing us new techniques in the field of Journalism and Media. Day one certainly helped on work and tasks which I was not fully understanding, and as such, was a practical and useful day, equally displayed during the rest of the week.

Spencer, our Media based lecturer, undertook the teaching of the first lecture of the Monday morning, focusing on writing critical film reviews. As luck would have it, this was focused on in my previous A level Media course, and most of the information given was familiar at the very least. Many points were made which enlightened me a lot more on the subject, as courses are designed to be a progression from A level, and the progression I did not find too steep to keep up with. Focusing on real evidence and real relevance in the points made about films in the review was important, I learned, and this has helped me with the Asian Film Reviews to not simply write ‘This scene was a good scene because’, and to write it professionally. Jon, Journalism lecturer, had a similar critical lecture, and these tasks both benefitted and interested me, due to subconcious metaphorical thinking and interesting viewpoints on reflecting, with many points being made which I had never even begun to learn before.

As a side note, while many student blogs contain work done on Photoshop on day one, I was excused by Shelley for this task due to undertaking a Photoshop development course for my Advantage Module.

The bulk of the rest of the week contained work on under-represented groups in the media. Given the task of finding a group, be it a disability, a gender, a race, or even a style of living, I set upon picking my idea for the project. As a group, it was decided that very view groups were represented in the media except traditional stereotypes, or clean cut, well spoken individuals who were accepted in society. I researched work on Journalists in the United Kingdom, predominantly in the field of televised, broadcast journalism, and made two observations.

Firstly, disabilities were few and far between in any televised program with employed presenters. Most newsreaders, reporters, correspondants and presenters were of good health, wore suits and smart hair, and had no physical or mental disabilities of any sort. In fact, only two people could be found with any disabilities ever appearing as, and one was as a ‘shocking world first.

Cerrie Burnell, pictured HERE, is a Cbeebies childrens presenter, and was born with one arm. However, she has faced criticism (Source) due to ‘scaring children’. James Partridge, pictured and bio’d HERE, is the first disfigured presenter of the news due to an explosion burning his face as a teenager. The struggle for their jobs is described as being almost impossible, and the fact these are ‘firsts’ just show how under-represented any disability is, in this case phsyical ones. There are scores of websites and webforums which criticise the companies for using these people due to scaring viewers, being unfair for viewers to be made to view these people, and many far more disgusting comments to be posted on here.

Disgusting, I found to be the key word in this research. If I could count how many presenters I have ever seen on television in my life, it would probably amass to over a thousand. The fact that two people on mainstream English TV have ever managed to get a job is disgusting. I can understand the reality of having, for example, a blind man commentating a football match, but a woman with one arm who simply has to read stories and talk to children, has no reason to be discriminated against or overlooked. This is equally true for any loss of limbs in presenting, and any scarring or disfigurement. If somebody can hear and understand the news being read, the reader could just be a head for all it matters.

This week taught me a lot, and opened my eyes to a huge section of the media which I often have overlooked. Where I previously thought nothing of either seeing or not seeing a disabled person on television, it now makes me aware of when they are absent from programs, or how important it is for them when they do appear.