Christmas Package

The following video footage is the Christmas Shopping News Package, filmed in Boots Pharmacy and the Lion and Lamb Courtyard, and edited in the studio.

Members:

Shehan Jayasinghe

Katie Williamson

Holly Moore

Anna Verdon

Eric Lafif

Farewell, Oprah

Ladies and gentlemen and general Oprah fans, if you have any tissues or handkerchiefs, whip them out. After September 2011, The Oprah Winfrey Show will be no more.

Chat show presenter Oprah Winfrey has announced on the 20th that she would be taking her show off the air in September 2011. This event will mark the 25 years she has been a talk show presenter:

"Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit - it's the perfect number, the exact right time,

We are going to knock your socks off. And until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joyful moment with you," the 55-year-old host said to her live audience.

Oprah Winfrey began her TV show in 1986 and has since been broadcast in 145 countries. The talk show was founded to allow frank and open conversation between Oprah and however decided to come to the show, attracting guests such as President Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Bob Hope, Tom Cruise, and many more.

Oprah is also famous for her Book Club, which has caused books by authors such as Janet Finch to become overnight best-sellers. She also has a radio station presented by author Dr. Maya Angelou. In addition, Oprah's support proved to be invaluable to President Obama during his election campaign.

So for anyone who felt inspired by Oprah, watched her show, or are simply sad to see her go off TV, cheer up. We've still got a ways to go.


Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8369689.stm

http://www.oprah.com/index

From the Hand of Donatello to a Physician

The V&A launches its Medieval & Renaissance galleries with some spectacular art works by the likes of Donatello. The most fantastic piece to make it into the gallery includes a "tondo the size of a plate" that was a gift for the doctor Giovanni Chellini da San Miniato who writes about it in the Ricordanze, his economic diary. Back in the Renaissance, well-to-do men would keep small journals about their finances (e.g. debits and credits, dowries, etc). Occasionally, the author would add a small commentary or two.

Chellini did the same on the 27th of August 1456, when to his surprise, the physician treated a celebrity. The celebrity in question was none other than Donatello, one of the most iconic visual artists of the Quattrocento (what the Italians called the 1400's or the Renaissance). As payment for the doctor's treatment of an unspecified illness, Donatello gave a tondo of the Virgin Mary, who is forced to bend her neck to avoid being out of the boundary of the sculpture. On either side, two angels stop her from going to the left or right.

The fact that the good doctor accepted a work of art as a form of payment comes to show that visual artists were held in greater esteem than in our modern times. In addition, Donatello created art that replaced beauty with emotional honesty, making him the first expressionist visual artist before even Van Gogh equated emotion with art.


Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/21/donatello-vanda-medieval-renaissance-galleries

http://www.answers.com/topic/tondo-art-1

http://www.lib-art.com/imgpaintingthumb/3/3/t9233-chellini-madonna-verso-donatello.jpg

Vox Populae

VoxPop originally posted by annaverdon

A series of public opinion polls on the topic of Remembrance Day (Armistice Day). The questions asked were deleted, leaving only the answers following each other in seamless succession. The question I asked was:

As Remembrance Sunday approaches, the UK is about to commemorate fallen soldiers from World War I and II. Is it not more pertinent to extend the same recognition to soldiers who are currently doing military duty in Iraq and Afghanistan?

A Head to Head With a Killer Queen

Patricia Cornwell the second highest female writer in the world after J.K. Rowling. And like Rowling, her origins are just as saddening, fuelling her creative energy and inciting her to become a writer of such high calibre.

At the age of five, she was abandoned by her father on Christmas morning. To make things even more dramatic, she clung to his leg and pleaded him not to leave. Soon after this, she was molested by a security guard, leading to her first court appearance.

For six years, she worked in a pathologist's office in Virginia, examining murder victims that were often sexually assaulted.

Those experiences shaped her into being a crime writer and led to the development of her most iconic character, Dr Scarpetta.

Source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6560751/Killer-Queen-Patricia-Cornwell-Interview.html

VoxPop

VoxPop by annaverdon

Indigènes

Indigenous peoples in the past have been portrayed in the past as savage people, unenlightened and incongruous to the rapidness of modern society and the values that go with it. People who have watched cowboy TV series and movies like "The Naked Prey" are familiar with the archetypical primitive native who puts the cowboy or the white man through hell.

Thanks to the Native American civil rights movement in the United States and the works of human rights activists around the world, indigenous peoples in Africa, Australia, and the Americas were no longer associated with scalping and massacres. Instead, film makers went to the other extreme, portraying native peoples as passive victims of globalisation and the negative effects of the last century, as seen in Marco Bechis' film Birdwatchers (Terra Vermelha).

When Freddy Treuquil, a film director from Chile's Mapuche people organised the Native Spirit Film Festival, native film makers from around the world finally had the chance to deliver their own messages to a greater audience. Ultimately, the aim of the festival is to "to rescue the forgotten memory of respect for mother Earth".

Films in this year's festival include The Tunguska Project, about a Native Candian film maker visiting the Evenk people of Siberia, and Tainá-Kan, about how the Karajá of Brazil have drawn parallels between the origin of agriculture and events in the universe. President Evo shows the reaction of the Aymara to the land redistibution programme first implemented by Bolivia's first indigenous leader.

For many Western audiences that are accustomed to fast-paced drama and action, these films will take some getting used to. But if one is patient enough to watch these movies from start to finish, one can enjoy the fundamental messages that these films offer without dismissing them as preachy documentary style features.

For instance, The Voice of the Mapuche tells audiences how persecution from society makes our bond with the environment stronger.

Despite being aware of the dangers that modernisation bring to our world, these film directors do not demonize M.E.D.Cs (More Economically Developed Countries) and the way they have let greed guide their actions. Instead, they try to remind us what we are missing by ignoring the Earth as well as reminding us that it is up to us to find more meaning in life than consumerism.

Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/08/native-spirit-film-festival

http://countrystudies.us/united-states/history-133.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/sep/18/birdwatchers-brazil-amazon-tribe

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479184/plotsummary

Visions...followed by Works

Decidedly, this is not a regular post for me. For once, I am not covering the news in the world of culture and the arts, but rather reviewing a particular website.

To begin with, the website is aimed at producing short films as a means of promoting a business through the use of videos. For instance, short films in the form of testimonials can be used in public relations to give customers an idea of the positive effect a business organisation is having on stakeholders. Likewise, short films can be used for the human resources department in order to attract potential employees.

The use of these video clips is especially important in an age where e-commerce is taking flight and more and more business organisations bring their projects online.

From the point of view of a journalism student, and by extension, an aspiring journalist, it is especially interesting to know that testimonials are shot in the same way as TV News bulletins.

For the initiation of PruHealth (the new private medical insurance business of insurance mogul Pru), UCA Farnham's Sean Walsh managed to secure the coverage needed by the company by getting interviews with BBC TV News, ITN, CNN, CNBC, SKY News, Channel Five News and BBC24.

Sources:

http://www.visionworkstv.co.uk/index2.php