Welcome! // Student questionnaire

Name:

Lars Ohrvik-Stott

GCSE Results: 

• English Language-A*
• English Literature-A*
• Media Studies-A
• Religious Studies-A
• Mathematics-A
• ICT-A
• Science(B)-A
• Science(additional)-B
• French-B
• History-B

Hobbies:

My extremely wide, interesting and varied list of hobbies encompasses everything from sleeping to staring at the baseball for a couple of hours to

But seriously a typical Lars day can include:

• Watching a film
• Making a film
• Listening to music
• Going for a run
• Playing tennis
• Playing Ps2
• Wasting time at a record store
• Buying records at a record store
• Listening to records I got at the record store
• Wasting time on Youtube
• Speaking low-level norwegian
• Eating instant noodles
• Drinking coffee
• Being social
• Other stuff

Fun, right?

MEDIA INTERESTS: (the fun part)

Print media:

The guardian, which my parents buy, is usually dished out early saturday morning alongside the coffee and bacon, so when I'm around I am treated to liberally minded journalism from the main section and pop culture in 'The Guide' , though I usually stick to 'the guide' (which has articles on music film etc.) more than  the main section. 

I also read 2 Magazines "Vice" (free at the record store) and "Clash" (paid subscription). I read Vice because its free and it has the kind of independent journalism that is lacking from most printed media in circulation right now. It offers a view on the world that you would not usually get and that's why I think it is worth reading. I also read "Clash" which is a music publication mainly covering the underground and independent music scene but also Fashion and film. I read "clash" because it offers the closest i can find to my particular taste in music and film (NME is too mainstream, Artrocker and Mixmag are too Niche) in terms of music journalism in one package.

Music industry:

I listen to many different genres of music, from Hip-Hop to J-Pop but mainly my favourite genre's are Indie or Dance and most, if not all, of the music I listen to contains elements of at least 1 if not both of those genre's.

The internet is my main vessel for discovering/listening to music and I am a regular user of the music streaming service "Spotify". In addition to using Spotify I also regularly read and watch sites and channels such as 'Theneedledrop' on Youtube and Pitchfork.com as well as buying physical releases and merch from sites such as recordstore.co.uk and direct from the record labels themselves. Apart from the internet I discover, listen to and buy music the old fashioned way at various record stores around Norwich (Soundclash on st. benedicts street is my favourite) which I prefer.

As I prefer Physical releases over digital ones (Better sound quality, more genuine experience etc.) I believe that paying for digital releases (apart from when it is the only method of getting a release) is null, especially when piracy is often so simple. However I also believe that if you really enjoy an album, you should go out and buy it in vinyl, out of respect to the artist, though the fact of the matter is that the music industry revolves more around ticket sales than music sales, which barely even make money for labels any more.

Losing my edge

Video games:

My favourite "video game" 'Silent Hill 2' is a Psychological survival horror game released on the Ps2 and Xbox in 2001. It follows the journey of James Sunderland as he travels to the resort town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife, only to find the town mysteriously empty and full of disturbing creatures. The pinnacle of the genre, which focuses on atmosphere and subtle scares to unsettle and terrorize the player rather than cheap jump-scares and shocks.

 

Many video games, as with film and TV, suffer from pretty poor attitudes towards both women and solutions to violence, teaching that women should be sexualised and passive and the best solution to violence is more gratuitous violence against non-white people/ Nazi's (because its okay to kill Nazi's, they're evil because they erm... kill people). and many video games glamorise and desensitize people to on screen violence by removing them from the consequences. Blockbuster games like call of duty and battlefield present players situations where squeaky clean american marines who can do no wrong, kill others without guilt, re-spawn instantly and any foreigners are treacherous or psychopathic (white people are immune to this). games like 'Bioshock' which questions scientific ethics and social responsibility to 'Spec Ops: the line' (loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of darkness') which explores the horrors of war, the cost of imperialism and military intervention and desensitization via Militainment.

New technology:

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, so I prefer a lot of the older, analogue mediums when it comes to my tastes, records over mp3, cinema over streaming, film over .jpg and so on, although I see the advantages of digital formats (cheaper, more portable, easier accessibility) and use them a fair amount too. I think that new technologies have made it much easier to be a fan of anything as almost everything that has been made in the last 30 years has found its way onto the web, whether legally or not, and then some.

This has in some ways, made the media industry a lot more varied and creative, with almost anyone being able to create films, music etc. but has also flooded every market. With music, for example, although it is widely varied, it is also almost impossible to trudge through the sea of novelty dubstep remixes and Justin Bieber covers that now cakes our ears.

Communication has been made much easier by technology, with mobile phones replacing older obsolete ways of talking to people and using what's around them. in addition to this, social networks such as twitter and facebook have also made sharing your thoughts with anyone who will listen that much easier. on a wider scale, forums and sites like Youtube and 4chan have enabled a form of mass communication that allowed movements such the occupy protest's and the Anti-SOPA campaign to thrive and organize themselves, where as before such large scale movements would have been hard to organise without leadership.

Television:

I don't watch much TV so when I do, I make sure its really special, I dont really have a favourite TV channel as a result of this but if I had to name one it would be channel 4, because they take the most risks when it comes to commissioning and showing shows. risk-taking is important to letting TV develop, and I can see that channel 4, who have no public service broadcasting requirements, take this to heart.

my favourite genre of TV is drama, but comedy is also pretty good. I like drama as a genre because it generally has the most range when it comes to emotions and themes. the hallmark of a truly good drama is when a whole range of emotions are displayed, as you would find a whole range of emotions in real life. when you are making a serious drama, using humour is important in empowering the darker moments and stopping it from becoming full on depressing and vice versa. It is hard to mix the 2 emotions without it being jarring and awkward so when it happens, you can tell you're onto something special. 

3 particular TV series which I feel nail the Drama genre on the whole are Twin peaks, Skins and Breaking Bad. Twin Peaks is a surreal crime drama by Auteur director David Lynch (one of the best) revolving around the investigation of the murder of a high school prom queen. Its mix of Intrigue, soap opera romance and surreal-as-heck humour, supported by fantastic performances by Kyle Maclachlan as Agent Dale Cooper and Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne, result in one of the best examples of camp, yet clever mystery drama with a hugely varied and interesting cast of characters. Twin Peaks, which popularised the idea of TV Drama as an event or as a serious medium, is still hugely popular today and has a deservedly huge cult following and pop culture presence. Also David Bowie

Breaking Bad, Produced by American cable channel AMC is a modern day classic, with its super modern narrative and wildly flawed anti-hero, Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer and turns to cooking meth to support his family. the genius of the show is that you can never truly tell what is going to happen next, and when it does, its too awesome to complain about (end of season 4 anyone?). The Main character's change from hero to villain is an original narrative change that propels the series forward, bolstered by fantastic, sharp, quotable dialogue and casting perfection. Breaking Bad simply makes everything else on TV look pale in comparison, it literally gets nothing wrong. 

Lastly, Skins, a teen drama produced and shown on E4 written and created by the father and son team of Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain, revolving around a group of teenagers as they go through Sixth form and life. The show was atypical in that its cast was changed every 2 series to ensure that its youthfulness was preserved, and covered many controversial topics such as mental health, homosexuality, teenage sexuality and death. standing out with distinct and individual characters, skins, at least for the first 2 series, brilliantly showed what it was/is like for teenagers in britain (with some artistic license) and like I mentioned before, a huge range of emotions, handling the issues of youth with maturity and tact. the soundtrack was renowned for its quality and skins even managed to bag a few appearances by bands such as Crystal Castles, obviously, music is a pretty big part of youth identity so the soundtrack really helped hit home the feel of the show. it pretty much went bad after the second series and completely divebombed after series 4, as the show fell to the stereotypes and cliches that by avoiding, made the show great, but the legacy of the first 2 series perfection lives on.

Feature Film:

I don't really have a favourite film genre but my taste could generally classified as drama, Horror and Anime. Anime's have distinctive look separate from american animation and cover a wide range of themes from drama to Sci-fi, in addition to my interest in Japanese culture, which is were anime originates from. Drama, like in TV has the potential to do so much as a genre and is one of the most popular and varied film genre's so that's why many of the film's I love are drama's. Horrors are by definition confrontational, which I like, and really good horror films that actually manage to scare or disturb you give you some strange kind of primal buzz you simply don't find in other genre's so I tend to watch lots of them)

Drive (directed By Nicolas Winding Refn) combines the crime thriller with Romantic drama to beautiful and brutal effect, telling the story of a getaway Driver who is forced to fight to protect the life of himself and the neighbour he has fallen in love with after a job goes wrong. Ryan gosling gives a particularly strong performance as the loner known simply as 'the driver' (with a lot of particularly intense staring) and the hazy cinematography is just beautiful, complimenting perfectly the soundtrack of luscious, heartbreaking synth-pop. The heart of its power lies in the way it lulls the audience into a false sense of security before dropping into real nasty ultra-violence (a scene involving the main characters foot and another man's face is notorious). A love letter to the 21st century city of Los angeles, this film was lapped up by critics upon release and remains one of the most acclaimed films of the last 10 years.

(warning: gore)

 

Akira, based on the manga of the same name, released in 1988, is a Japanese animated cyberpunk thriller, set in Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019 concerning 2 friends who stumble across a secret government experiment. the plot concerns many things, including world war 3, psychic children, class uprising and strangely, the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and is considered a die hard anime classic, receiving praise for its futuristic story and distinct, stunning visuals. somewhat strange at its time and still today, Akira led the way for many of today's science fiction and animation genre's (most notably, the cyberpunk subculture). If you can stomach it, this film is a perfect introduction to how anime and other forms of Japanese film.

Oslo, August 31st is a Norwegian film drama, directed by Joachim Trier that follows a day in the life of a recovering drug addict who travels into Oslo to go to a job interview and re-connect with his estranged friends and family. It's existential themes and the tragedy of the main character make the film depressing but, filmed around the Norwegian capital of Oslo towards the end of summer with Norwegian dialogue, still manages to be a stark representation of a man who no longer enjoys life. It is especially striking to someone who like me is familiar with the city of Oslo and recognises many of the settings seen in the film, which gets the vibe of the city exactly right.

I always try to get films whilst they're in the cinema but when I fail to do that (a lot) I end watching them on DVD or on the TV, if I'm lucky. the best cinema in Norwich is, without a doubt, cinema city, which has the nicest screens by far, the best selection of films (its the only cinema in Norwich that plays anything foreign or anything other than cash cow Hollywood blockbusters) and is probably the easiest for me to reach. For a dedicated film fan such as myself, cinema city is really good, even if you're going on your own, which I usually do, because no-one will go with me to some obscure as dicks Chilean film that costs ten quid to get into, though if I go to see something less obscure, I'll be more social.

Media production:

In my spare time, I sometimes make short films and i have been involved with the production of several productions both independently and as part of filmaking workshop's. One of the films I helped produce and acted in "The Friendly Invasion", has been shown on the screen outside the chapelfield mall and before several garage theatre productions. This film technically earnt me a bronze arts award, though i have yet to receive it. in addition to this production i have also made several short films independently, some of which are published on youtube, though they are pretty low key (they probably have about 20 views altogether) and are more practise pieces than serious works of art. I have also begun to write a music blog entitled 'musicarebad' that mainly reviews new album releases but also gives news about modern independent music, again this is less of a serious attempt at viral internet fame than a platform for me to practise my writing.

During my GCSE's, I took media and also produce several media texts, including a magazine cover, contents page and article which i produced by myself along with a Video game cover that i produced by myself. I collaborated with a small group in order to produce a short trailer for an action film, which was less than perfect, but whatever. In addition to this I wrote an essay as coursework on 'Representation of females in video games' Which got me an A grade, which i was happy with. I would like to have a career either as a film-maker or as a music journalist and I feel that Media Studies will help me to learn and practise the methods of media production used in the industry and gain some vital experience. 

conclusion:

'The best worst film ever' The Room directed by Tommy wiseau has to be the most offensively awful and hilarious film I or anyone else has ever seen. Appalingly acted, appalingly scripted and appalingly made (Tommy Wiseau who wrote, directed and starred in the film had to dub over his own lines because his delivery was so bad) the film has gained a cult following as the worst film ever made, with Rocky Horror style midnight screenings regurlarly selling out across the United States. the film has been referenced in the simpsons, surrealist sketch show Tim & Eric Awesome Show: Great Job who guest starred Tommy Wiseau and even inspired a video game.

 

A Bout De Soufflé (also known as Breathless) is a French new wave film directed by French director Jean Luc-Godard, concerning the adventure of a French fugitive as he try's to convince the young American 'Patricia' to run away  to Italy with him. It kick-started Modern cinema with its Striking, modern film-making style, with many modern techniques such as the jump cut coming from the masterpiece. Even today, it remains original, interesting and effortlessly cool as it was when it was first released.

Film is, in my opinion, the highest form of media, as it most closely replicates life, and isnt the entire point of media to replicate life? The creative freedom allowed by the medium and its varied genre's in which a lot of variety and narrative and can be laid into 2 hours or less. I feel that fiction is often the best way to confront many modern issues, as emphasis and exaggeration can be used to hit a message home more effectively than realistic depiction. If i were to attempt to communicate any message about the world around me, film would be the medium as it also has the widest appeal and emotional range.

I have chosen media studies as an option because I want to pursue a career within the media, as a film maker or as a music journalist, so media studies will help me increase my understanding of these fields and gain vital connections and experience. In addition to media studies I am also hoping to complete work experience/ volunteering at BBC Voices, before hopefully going on to study either Film production or Music journalism at university.

Edit:Less BS, more work