"Right listen!! I went out last night, okay?..." "Hahaha! What happened?!" "I don't actually know..."
Today me and Megan got the train through to Edinburgh, with no idea what to expect out of the day. We were a little worse for wear, with me falling asleep on the train, and Megan nursing a little hangover!
"Puff, puff! Guyyyys, wait for me!!"
Once we arrived in Edinburgh, we met Louise in the City Art Centre and left to visit some vintage shops. Dragging us up what felt like a thousand steps (deary me, I really need to exercise!) we arrived at on the Royal Mile. We were then shown the Missoni Hotel, randomly, by Louise which was amazing!! If only I had money...! Afterwards we stopped off at Totty Rocks, our first vintage shop of the day and although we didn't talk to any members of staff there about their business, we browsed the shop, full of quirky designs, making the little voice inside my head scream, "I want to take you home!"
"Oooh, God! I'm scared of heights!"
Next we visited Godiva, a little vintage boutique in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, which was full of the shop's own independant designers' designs and various vintage collections. We then met one of Godiva's own designers, Rowan McIntosh who answered some of our questions and talked about her designs for her label "Rowan Joy", in her basement studio below the store. We found out that she collects materials from charity shops and old clothes donated to the store that they won't sell and re-uses them to make her own designs. She also was making her own designs for a market that she was selling at down in England. We found out that Godiva also does a "Made to Measure" service, where a customer would provide the material and consilt Rowan about styles and so on, and Rowan would make the design for them for a cost. After a browse around the shop and making a few purchases, we asked the manager, Fleur McIntosh, how she sourced most of her vintage collections for the store. We found out that she has several ranges made by several independant designers, ranging from Scottish designers, Art College Graduates, and even designers from England too, Rowan being one of the designers for the store. But there are other collections that she has collected herself out of interest and from donations from families of Grandparents who have passed away. It was really interesting to ask her these questions to find out how the business worked.
"Gah! I left my vintage scarves in Sainsburys!"
We then visited our last vintage store of the day, called Herman Brown, which was a lovely little shop, focusing more on Vintage collections rather than quirky, kitsch designs made for the store, such as in Godiva and Totty Rocks. Louise and Megan asked the woman some questions there, while I ran back out to Sainsburys to get the scarves I bought, which I left there. When I returned, I browsed around the store finding a gorgeous lace dress for my Prom, but unfortunately it was not my size, which was heartbreaking! After purchasing, once again, and trying to persuade Megan to buy something too, we left in search of a coffee shop.
"Oh my God! Was he NAKED?!"
We found a little Tea Room called Tea Tree Tea, which was a lovely little place, with the two funniest, crazy men there, and we had a little intern meeting there. With Megan and I being slightly disturbed and distracted after seeing the man lift his apron to wip his hands, revealing nude coloured shorts, hence the nakedness-thinking!
"See that big clock? Do you think if it fell on you, would you die?"
After our meeting me and Megan headed back to the train station, where a lot of randomness ensued! Note to self: GET A HEARING AID!!! haha!
Overall today, I thought today was a great experience to see and understand how different businesses in the fashion industry work and a great chance to see what went on 'behind the scenes', as it were. This would prove to be very useful for me in the future, as the University course that I will be studying next year will include studying about how the industry works, so this had given me a great headstart, and a lot of experience!
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Barrow-In-Furness Blog!
As I was unable to make the first day of being in Barrow, I travelled down to England on the Saturday morning, to a veryy, very early start, leaving the house at 7.30... I mean, who invented that time of the morning?!
I travelled down with Emily Butler, and we arrived at 1.30pm in Barrow-in-Furness. With no time to stop off at our hotel , we travelled straight to The Forum for Brian Gilbert's Directing Masterclass. I helped out by welcoming and handing out leaflets, and surveys to the audience on their way to the auditorium. Then the rest of the interns and I all stayed to watch. We learned about ways to improve acting skills by the director flavouring the performance through advising the actors and giving them several techniques that they could use. This was shown with the acting that was incorporated into the class. We later watched excerpts of "Wilde", one of Gilbert's films and he explained how he got the film to that specific standard. At the Masterclass there was a great variety of age range there, from approximately 13 year old, to around aged 50+, so it definitely appealed to a wide audience. I thought it was interesting, but I didn't think Gilbert was particularly engaging with his audience, and didn't interact much either, which made the Masterclass quite slow paced.
With 30 minutes to find a place for dinner and eat, Rachel, Megan and I ran to the Apollo Cinema where we were to watch a screening of Neil Marshall's short film and "Doomsday", which was absolutely amazing! We enjoyed it a lot, and the SFX was amazing too. But me being myself, had to do at least something cringe-worthy during the day, shouting out about the main actress definitely being Sandra Bullock (Cue Megan, and the guys behind me sniggering and my mistakes). Yeah, maybe you just had to be there!
Afterwards there was an interview with the director Neil Marshall with Emily and Emma stayed behind to watch, while me, Megan and Rachel were brought to a "Networking Party" at the Custom House. I think I need to mention only one name: Russell Peet!! Explains it all really! And we learned one thing while we were there - (and I know Megan's written this is her blog, but it ought to be mentioned twice!) not to drink on the Job! Plenty of dancing, smuggling drinks, and Russell trying to win us over with glasses of wine ensued, before he eventually settled for dancing with my scarf on his head and falling into the lap of his 'boss', the woman who funded his project! Oops!
The following morning consisted of quickly packing, washing and running out the car, our quick breakfast courtesy of Morrisons, who Louise would be thankful for because I think we started to get on her nerves in the morning, after being locked in the corridors with a slightly hungover Russell...
The group separated into three, and me and Megan worked together to sort out paperwork and application forms for the festival and putting them onto electronic copies.
Then, out of the busy blur, the end of the work experience arrived. So much happened during my time in Barrow, but for the short time that I was there I really enjoyed myself, finding that I wanted to stay for even longer! I gave us interns a great taster of what it is like to work at, rather than plan or to attend a festival, and gave us an insight into how busy everything is behind the scenes. I would definitely like to do something like this again, whether it is with the interns and our mentors, or just in the future as it offered us great work experience. If we did something like this again, I would love be part of the organisation of the festival beforehand, as well as working at it, as it would be so exciting to see the festival working out over the week, or the weekend.
Jenni Kelman.
Events Management Intern.
I travelled down with Emily Butler, and we arrived at 1.30pm in Barrow-in-Furness. With no time to stop off at our hotel , we travelled straight to The Forum for Brian Gilbert's Directing Masterclass. I helped out by welcoming and handing out leaflets, and surveys to the audience on their way to the auditorium. Then the rest of the interns and I all stayed to watch. We learned about ways to improve acting skills by the director flavouring the performance through advising the actors and giving them several techniques that they could use. This was shown with the acting that was incorporated into the class. We later watched excerpts of "Wilde", one of Gilbert's films and he explained how he got the film to that specific standard. At the Masterclass there was a great variety of age range there, from approximately 13 year old, to around aged 50+, so it definitely appealed to a wide audience. I thought it was interesting, but I didn't think Gilbert was particularly engaging with his audience, and didn't interact much either, which made the Masterclass quite slow paced.
With 30 minutes to find a place for dinner and eat, Rachel, Megan and I ran to the Apollo Cinema where we were to watch a screening of Neil Marshall's short film and "Doomsday", which was absolutely amazing! We enjoyed it a lot, and the SFX was amazing too. But me being myself, had to do at least something cringe-worthy during the day, shouting out about the main actress definitely being Sandra Bullock (Cue Megan, and the guys behind me sniggering and my mistakes). Yeah, maybe you just had to be there!
Afterwards there was an interview with the director Neil Marshall with Emily and Emma stayed behind to watch, while me, Megan and Rachel were brought to a "Networking Party" at the Custom House. I think I need to mention only one name: Russell Peet!! Explains it all really! And we learned one thing while we were there - (and I know Megan's written this is her blog, but it ought to be mentioned twice!) not to drink on the Job! Plenty of dancing, smuggling drinks, and Russell trying to win us over with glasses of wine ensued, before he eventually settled for dancing with my scarf on his head and falling into the lap of his 'boss', the woman who funded his project! Oops!
The following morning consisted of quickly packing, washing and running out the car, our quick breakfast courtesy of Morrisons, who Louise would be thankful for because I think we started to get on her nerves in the morning, after being locked in the corridors with a slightly hungover Russell...
The group separated into three, and me and Megan worked together to sort out paperwork and application forms for the festival and putting them onto electronic copies.
Then, out of the busy blur, the end of the work experience arrived. So much happened during my time in Barrow, but for the short time that I was there I really enjoyed myself, finding that I wanted to stay for even longer! I gave us interns a great taster of what it is like to work at, rather than plan or to attend a festival, and gave us an insight into how busy everything is behind the scenes. I would definitely like to do something like this again, whether it is with the interns and our mentors, or just in the future as it offered us great work experience. If we did something like this again, I would love be part of the organisation of the festival beforehand, as well as working at it, as it would be so exciting to see the festival working out over the week, or the weekend.
Jenni Kelman.
Events Management Intern.
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