Northumbria Graduate Show

I have been chosen to present my Dissertation Topic at Northumbria's Graduate show,

My Dissertation topic looked into creating special effects using a low budget, single computer to help small businesses that are looking to invest into CGI advertisement.
I received a First Class on My Topic it was a mixture of Technical paper work, production and presentation of the topic.

I was happy with how the day went, I got a lot of interest from small businesses that are looking to invest in CGI advertisement and they were asking for advice on the cheapest and most effective way to achieve it.

My presentation attracted the Mayor of Newcastle who was impressed with the production (video and pictures coming soon).

Overall it was a great day, I gave advice to help people which I always love to do
and some of the pictures taken of my presentation on the day are scattered around the Northumbria website.

Tony Blair at Northumbria's New Gym

Being a swimmer for Team Northumbria, I was asked to perform at the VIP opening for the New Northumbria Gym.

On the day there was a lot of security swarming around the Gym and it was soon known that the VIP guest speaker was to be the former prime minister Tony Blair.

I got in the pool with my swim team mates and we started swimming, we saw Tony Blair looking at us and as much as I wanted to stop and say hi I couldn't as it would have upset the "training session"

At the end of the day the former prime minster gave a speech about his future developments and then was on his way out.

Quickly I went up to him and introduced myself. I had a nice chat with the former prime minister which lead him to ask me "If you're Egyptian why have you got a glimpse of a Geordie accent?"

Finally we had a picture taken (swim team and I) by one of the press photographers,
and then the former prime minister said "Shokran" which is "Thank you" in arabic and then he left.

GEN UP - The Last week

The last week at Gen up took place at Northern Film and Media in Newcastle and Screen Yorkshire in Sheffield.

At Northern Film and Media We had seminars from indie companies with in the region talking about their experience running their own business , CV workshops.Its worth mentioning that NFM took care of us providing a really good lunch which was free and constant support.

At screen Yorkshire we had seminars from games editors and we had Colin Savage to work on team working skills both of them were useful.

After work the whole team and speakers went to a bar to say goodbye's which was a bit emotional.

the experience was invaluable and was really useful

Thank you TRC MEDIA FOR MAKING THIS POSSIBLE!!

BBC - Glasgow

On the train to Glasgow the scenery outside the windows really took me away something completely different to the sand I see when travelling back home. The sea really finished the scene nicely.

The BBC building was huge and we met a lot of people , I saw Duncan Bannatyne at a distance and I went up to him and introduced myself , later on we had a special tour around the production rooms and attended the recording of egg heads which was very interesting.

The rest of the week we had seminars and worked in different areas of the building which am not allowed to say anything about (SORRY!) but it was great fun.

Best of all during lunch breaks there was a massive screen to show the world cup matches and a fussball table which was great fun

Placement Week - Media 19 -Newcastle

Back to Newcastle for my placement week which was at Media 19 I was introduced to Belinda and given a brief of what I will be working on which was Campaign Trail UK a 3-year social media cross-platform project devised and produced by Media 19 a project dedicated for Young people (16-25) who are at a time of change and transition in their lives are designing their own public awareness campaigns and media projects about who they are, how they feel and the issues that affect their lives through Mapping their area.
Later during the day I took pictures of my journey from Media 19 to my house and took pictures that had a meaning to me and pictures that had historic value like the Grey’s Monument of Newcastle.
I worked on the Mapping project using the pictures I took from the day before to create a short movie using simple tools that youngsters can learn quickly (Movie Maker and Paint) after developing the short video which took most of the day.
Belinda and I had a meeting about how we can get the youngsters to interact with the mapping project, so I looked into trying to use Google Maps. The meeting also discussed the funding of the project and gave me an insight how the funding works which was useful.
Researched how to use Google maps effectively to serve the project’s cross platform concept looked into setting up different accounts and uploading pictures of location which youngsters might like to be involved with
Later during the day we travelled to Mima (Middlesbrough Museum of Modern Art) in Middlesbrough for a meeting with the education officer to pitch partnership of Campaign Trail UK. It was very interesting to see how media specially a project of this scope can be transferred to an art gallery.
I pitched my full project which included the short video. Google maps. The game concept using the “user journey” technique I got good feedback from Belinda and Nick which lead to them asking me to help them further with this project and its development.
Overall I am very pleased with the Placement it’s not what I was expecting, it might not of had the high end post production work that I was hopping but I experienced something more valuable that i will probably never have came across and I completely admire how Media 19 use Creative media and cross platform to solve problems within the community that really inspired me
The passion and determination that Belinda posse for this project has really pushed me to work hard and really enjoy it
Best of all Belinda gave me a thank you card which was really nice of her.

The rest of Channel 4

The rest of the Channel 4 week we had an intense workshop with Rueben about personal brand. Not so much about the design of our brand logo but how we represent ourselves as professional designers. It was a very interesting day.

The final two days consisted of chats and workshops with several important peopled at Channel 4. These included people from marketing, advertising, 4Creative, multiplatform and many other areas. My favourite chat had to be with Ed from 4Creative. The work they are producing is where I want to be. It was quite exciting to see someone several years in to the career I dream of.

a lot of the talks ended up in the “off the record” area so I would be in big trouble should i share any of the info. I will say one thing, the schedule for channel 4 is worth an absolute fortune!



Some of the great people I met that week include Matt Locke, Stuart Cosgrove, Jen Topping, Reuben Milne, James Tatum, John Williams and Ed Webster.

Channel 4 - My Cadbury Winning !!

Second day at channel 4 , we had a seminar with researchers from the channel who look at figures of how the shows are doing and how to make them better.

They gave us a quiz to test our knowledge about the TV culture in England. Funnily enough I won and am not even English

What did I win you say? a Big Cadbury Dairy milk Chocolate which I shared with the rest of the team

Channel 4 - First day

first day at channel 4 was breathtaking with the group taking picture in front of the umbrellas that shaped the logo of channel 4 till the meeting room we got into, everyone was very excited for the start. We meet a range of important people that ranged from talking about channel 4’s values to legal issues within the production and how to avoid them.
During the afternoon each member of the group had the chance to pitch an idea to help the TV series skins improve its online presence using multiplatform; everyone gave really good ideas and everyone helped each other by giving positive comments to enforce the idea.