A day of lecture

So today, for the first time in a long time I had the day off work long enough to attend some extra lectures in the Wednesday afternoon session. There were two lectures to attend both with varying degree of possible interest.
The first was a representative of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)
Talking about his job in classifying every film, game and tv show available, from the obscure anime's to the highly anticipated upcoming releases.
The main aim was to explain what each classification would allow, so where an 18 may allow sexual scenes but only if they are justified by context, a 15 rating can only portray sexual activity with no 'strong detail'.
Using various clips from films etc, the lecturer showed scenes from 'Batman -The Dark Knight', 'The Ketchup Effect', a strange anime whose name I forget and multiple others.
We were then asked to classify these clips to a specific rating. Each with varying degrees of violence, sex or bad language the calls for these films were tight and bought up a heated debate.
The Batman film in particular, the opening scene and another in which one character 'stabs' another with a pencil. Using the BBFC guide to classification we can deduce that the film deserves a 15 classification due to the fact that although there are scenes of violence they do not 'dwell on the infliction or pain or injury' (to quote the guide itself).

So after the first interesting lecture we moved on to the second of the day. This was the Machinima lecture with, lets face it, the inventor of Machinima (or one of its founders at least) Johnnie Ingram.
Writer of 'Machinima for Dummies', he set about helping the audience understand what Machinima is and how it works in the film industry. Although not a huge factor at the moment, Machinima is slowly becoming more renowned in the gaming world as various creators use engines from the likes of World of War craft and Halo to create short entertaining films for people to view on the internet.
Red vs Blue is one Machinima which I used to watch (heck I still do - even if Johnnie reckons its for 14 year old sweaty kids...)





I have always been a fan of editing movies and or just silly video clips of me (with a lightsaber obviously) and this introduction to Machinima mixes two areas in which I am interested. Gaming and Filming/ Film editing
Now on a games design course I chose the more interesting (to me) option for what to study however my second choice would have been media production. So Machinima caught my attention in the industry in which I wish to study and soon be a part of.

I have noticed a very common similarity between all external speakers in the industry who have been running our lectures.
To get a job in a company that you wish to be a part of, Spam.... 'Spam the hell out of them' to quote Pixelh8, A sound producer in Ipswich, he basically invented Chiptune and is currently a huge part of the music film and gaming industry.
So taking this knowledge with me I can safely say I have learnt something new for the week
Or is the saying to learn something new every day?

Ross, Out.