Category Archives: Media

Final Project

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After lots of hard-work and dedication from everyone in the team, we managed to complete our final project, which looked at the lives of four people living and working away from home.

We covered aspects of their homesickness, and how this was exacerbated during the Covid crisis. Being away from their loved ones, plus the added burden of financial problems, took an emotional toll on them.

Working on the final project was quite an interesting experience, and one that I learned a lot from.

You can see the final project by clicking here. Be sure to see it and leave your comments below.

My thoughts on this course

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In this course, I was supposed to learn how to create a blog. As you can see from the posts in this blog – including this one – I can say with certainty that this is something I learned.

The course was very useful, and I enjoyed creating the blog posts. While preparing content for the blog, I had a chance to learn how to record audios, videos and take interviews. I also learned how to take clear photos and the right way to edit them.

One of the things that made this course so enjoyable is that it is very practical, and I can use what I learned to create a blog. I was very happy to be a part of the group that I was in, as every one of my team members was very helpful and cooperative. Working as part of a group to complete a project, taught me how to work as part of a team, and how to overcome challenges such as convincing others to consider my suggestions, sharing of ideas and tasks, and coordinating with each other to complete the delivery of the project before the due date.

Although the course was supposed to last about 3½ months, due to the pandemic and the stoppage of classes, it has taken almost 9 months. This also affected the way we were able to gather content for the blog, particularly where we had to interview people at their workplaces, as several people we approached were not able to help us due to restrictions imposed by the government to prevent the spread of the Corona virus. Of those people whom we were able to interview, we learned a lot not only about their work, but their background as well, which gave us a personal insight into their lives.

Finally, what I also learned from the course was that blogging can be a very powerful medium to share stories that can be fun, inspiring, educational, emotional, and influential. I hope you enjoyed reading my posts, and that you too have been inspired, educated, and had fun. If so, please let me know how you felt about my blog in the comments below. Perhaps I have convinced you to also make your own blog and share your stories with others!

The Local Florist

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There is a lot to keep in mind when thinking about creating a video story, especially with the current situation, as a lot of places do not allow entering their premises. And that was not even the hardest part about making this video.

I had initially thought about making a video about a pastry shop, but the owner of the shop told me that I was not allowed to enter and take a video there, as I did not have a permit.

After a lot more thinking, I finally settled on choosing a flower shop, which was not that far away from my home. The florist was very kind and understanding that the reason for being interviewed was for my college project. He immediately agreed to be interviewed and was quite happy to talk about all the things he does there.

Taking the video itself was not as hard as I had anticipated and was in fact quite the opposite. I was easily able to capture all the necessary shots for the video. However, a few of the scenes were hard to take in one position, as they required me to move along with him to record the video. There was also the sound of the fan that affected the quality of the sound during the interview.

Overall, the experience was a little nerve wracking as I am not used to talking to strangers, while videoing them during an interview. However, once I edited the video, I was happy with the end result, which you can see below. In the end, I also purchased some nice flowers for my Mom.

An insight into a local florist’s life

The inspiring prodigy

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The following video is an inspiring story of a brilliant teen, who in spite of his apparent disability, is not short of doing anything that a normal person can do.

David Aguilar from Andorra is an 18-year-old student who was born with an arm that was not fully developed. He has been obsessed with LEGO his whole life, and he managed to build for himself a prosthetic arm from LEGO.

The videography is excellent such that it captures the entire story in under three minutes, which ensures that the viewer doesn’t get bored, rather stays interested and captivated by the story. There are natural sounds included in the video (sound of LEGO bricks). The voice-over is also clear. Furthermore, to facilitate understanding what is being said, there are sub-titles in the video. The interview itself was very clear as there were no distractions.

In addition to that, they used the 5 shot/ 10 seconds method throughout the video, such as extreme close up (0:43), close up (0:41), medium shot (1:12), over the shoulder (0:00), and anything you want (2:06).
The video is very well put together from beginning to end.

There is a lot that can be learned from this story. There are people who waste their whole lifetime not doing anything worthwhile, while there are others such as David who are an inspiration as they overcome their challenges without complaining. There are many ‘normal’ people that like to complain about trivial things in the world, whereas people like David tend to make the most out of the situation that they are in. These people are an inspiration not only to those who are ‘normal’, but also others like them.

These prodigies are a boon to the society whereas the whiners are a burden on the society.

Audio Story

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A few days ago, I had the opportunity to interview a British national, Mr. Abdul Aziz, who was in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion. He hardly came back to Kuwait from the UK after finishing his first year of studies when a week later, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait had taken place.
Listen to his story about how he was caught up in the war, and how he managed to escape from the country.

Interview with Mr. Abdul Aziz

Collectors Exhibition

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The following pictures were taken from an exhibition held at Kuwait University – College of Arts, on the 17th and 18th of February 2020. It showcased people’s personal collections that have been gathered over the years. They were happy to share these with the students to show a little part of history, particularly as it is close to the National Holidays.

An entrance to the exhibition. In this picture I used vignette in order to achieve the blackened borders that leads you to look at the flags that are neatly organized.
An original newspaper dated back to 1912. Similar to the previous picture I used the medium vignette in order to give the newspaper a vintage look.
A blue and yellow macaw. Edited using Lightroom to enhance the colors using high contrast.

My experience in creating the blog

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Since the very first class I had attended during this course I realized that this will be a rather fun and interesting course as opposed to the regular theoretical subjects that we usually have, having said that this subject involves a lot of creativity and hard work in order to produce a successful and engaging blog.

Due to this being my initial blog I think it took me longer than I anticipated in order to complete it, which was four days. However, I enjoyed the experience and now motivated to continue blogging.