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MEDIA MATTERS

Hannah Woodford, Year 13 —

Last Friday, some keen Year 12 and Year 13 Media Studies students made their way down to the University of Otago for a Media Day.

The University had kindly dedicated an entire day for students who are considering studying anything within the realm of Film, Media and Communications, to explore some topics and attend some lectures. In my personal experience, the lectures that I attended were very entertaining and insightful.

The first lecture my group went to was one about selfies. On the surface selfies seem like a pretty shallow part of everyday life, however, in this lecture we discovered that there is much more depth to selfies than we think. Jumping into this activity with a bunch of people you don’t know was a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but everybody was really nice and made the activity fun.

Secondly, we had a lecture about social media. We talked about the implications of social media platforms, and related this back to movies and TV shows, such as ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘Black Mirror’. The lecturer had some very strong opinions about the real world and how we act on social media, and this ultimately made everybody question the true intentions behind social media.

After a lunch break on campus, we got back to our groups and went to some more lectures.

Third was a gender talk which was very interesting. We discussed topics associated with femininity, masculinity, fluidity, and how society has influenced these constructs. It was super intriguing to hear every perspective of people in my group, and the lecture forced a discussion between the group.

And last but not least, we had a film production practical activity. This was my personal favourite, as we got to explore many different avenues to do with film production. In our groups we had to remake a scene of ‘Casablanca’, using actors, cameras, lighting and directorial editing. It was so much fun remaking this, and each of us got a turn at controlling an aspect of cinematography within our little scene.

All in all, this was a fantastic opportunity that I am glad to have had fulfilled. Spending the day on campus and getting a taste of what University is like has opened my eyes to many possibilities, and I would strongly encourage anyone to take this opportunity.