Middle East Film and Comic Con 2014

Hello everyone!

This was my first ever Comic Con and so I was extremely excited to go to MEFCC, especially because I was going on a Media pass. The Con was held at World Trade Centre this year, and ran from the 3^rd of April to the 5^th. 

The World Trade Centre was packed with people in cosplay. People were dressed as everything from Samurais to elephants. I wasn't able to go to the Cosplay competition but walking around the Con was just a reminder that there are dedicated fans, even in the Middle East!

Heres a picture of me with some guys in crazy Transformers cosplay: 

There were tons of artists, regional and international, and they were all selling their artwork, clothing and collectables. One of my personal favourites was a stall called Think Up. They featured a bunch of artists that had different types of artwork. There was one girl who had drawn superheroes and villains with flower crowns and another girl who was drawing portraits of her customers for only 20AED. It was crazy to see so many people who had such remarkable talent, from drawing and painting to sculpting, designing clothes and writing. I met one 15-year-old boy who had made some incredible pieces of art using watercolours and had also written his very own comic called Desert Flame. 

I purchased a few posters of Doctor Who, Sherlock and a pop art painting of Bane. One of my favourite things that I bought was a small badge of a naked baby wearing a guthra (Arab headpiece) swinging on a wrecking ball from a stall called HG – Hijab Girl Unveiled that was run by an awesome woman from Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately I missed out on some really cool Doctor Who shirts, but hopefully I will be able to find them online somewhere.

Here are pictures of the posters I bought:

I was lucky enough to sit in on the press conference on Friday morning, and got to see some amazing celebrities such as Sylvester McCoy, Giancarlo Esposito, Max Landis and Michael Jai White in the flesh. Not only was I able to do that, I also sat front row at both Giancarlo and Sylvester’s Q&A sessions. Giancarlo was so passionate about everything he was talking about and his answers were really inspiring and Sylvester was hilarious because he was walking around the room and he kept making jokes about Doctor Who and the Hobbit. 

Late Saturday evening, I was lucky enough to interview Max Landis in the Celebrity green room, alongside my peers that were also on Media passes. That was definitely the highlight of the weekend because Max had some interesting ideas about different conventions of superhero movies and it was really cool to have an hour-long chat with the writer of Chronicle and upcoming Frankenstein. After interviewing Max, we were lucky enough to take pictures and have a conversation with Giancarlo Esposito and Sylvester McCoy in the Green Room.

Here is our group from EISM with Giancarlo Esposito and Sylvester McCoy:

Middle East Film and Comic Con was an incredible experience because I got to meet some astounding artists and celebrities and I am definitely looking forward to going next year and, fingers crossed my Film teacher will take me on a Media pass again!

Talk to you next time!

Iqra J

Final Collage - Wonders of the World

This is my final collage: 

Adobe Photoshop - Planning

I have accumulated a few pictures for my Adobe Photoshop collage. My topic is the"Seven Wonders of The World". I will start to create my collage as soon as I have collected good pictures of each wonder. 

In case you don't know, the seven wonders of the world are:

Great Pyramid of Giza

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Statue of Zeus at Olympia

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Colossus of Rhodes

Lighthouse of Alexandria

Keep in mind that these are the classic wonders of the world. 

Reflection - Adobe Photoshop

Hey there,
this is my reflection on the areas of interaction of Adobe Photoshop.

The area of interaction I am using is the environment. My collage is a variation of different pictures of landscapes and scenery's. These obviously relate to the environment because they are the Earth's natural features. I chose this topic in particular because I personally love looking at these beautiful scenery's and also because I love to travel and I definitely want to go to some of these places in the future.

I think although Photoshop is slightly difficult to use at first, once you get the hang of it, it is fantastic. There are many different features that can transform pictures from simple to eye-catching. I would say my favourite one so far is the magnetic lasso tool because it makes selecting a certain part of a picture really easy. I am also loving the blur tool because you can use it to blur the background of a picture and leave one part clear so it stands out and becomes the "centre of attention".

Until next time.

QOTP: Peace begins with a smile.- Mother Teresa

Learning About Photoshop CS5

1. Move Tool (V)

2. Rectangular Marquee Tool (M)

3. Lasso Tool (L)

4. Quick Selection Tool (W)

5. Slice Tool (C)

6. Eyedropper Tool (I)

7. Spot Healing Brush Tool (J)

8. Brush Tool (B)

9. Clone Stamp Tool (S)

10. History Brush Tool (Y)

1. You can use this tool to move things. It is usually used to move a layer around after it has been placed. Hold the [shift] key to limit the movements to vertical/horizontal.

2. Use this tool to make selections in a rectangular shape. Holding the [shift] key whilst dragging your selection restricts the shape to a perfect square and holding the [alt] key while dragging sets the center of the rectangle to where you started.

3. Use this to draw selections in whatever shape you would like. To close the selection, just double-click.

4. Using the quick selection tool is very quick and simple. You are able to add and create backgrounds easily and enhance your images in any way you want.

5. This tool is mostly used when building website, or splitting up one image into smaller pieces.

6. This tool allows you to change the foreground colour. Holding [alt] key will change your background colour. This is a mildly advanced tool.

7. You can use this tool to repair scratches and specs on images. It works very similarly to the brush tool. Hold the [alt] key and select the nicer area of your image. Let go of the key and paint over the bad area. It copies the information from the first area to the second.

8. This was one of the first tools and is what Photoshop is based off. It paints your image in whatever colour you have selected and whatever size you have selected. There are many advanced options to it.

9. This tool is very similar to the Spot Healing Brush Tool. You use it the exact same way, except this tool doesn't blend. It just directly copies the information from the first selected area to the second.

10. This tool works like the Brush Tool except the information that it paints with is from the original state of your image. You have to go on Windows>History, and select your History state and then the tool will paint with that information.

I LOVE ICT

Final Reflection

So, we were assessed by Sanaiya and Humza and have our comments, feedback and marks back...
15.5 out of 23. I guess its not bad, but we could have done better, right?

"Iqra, Kayla and Hiba did a really good job but they didn't have a brochure in order to get higher marks."
------ Their comments/feedback.

They are right, we could have gained higher marks if we had actually completed and printed off our brochure but oh well, maybe next time.

How to Improve - I think we could have made our project better if we had correctly met the deadlines for each section (made a timeline, like the sheet suggests). We could have also had one blog that presented every final piece of work, I think that would have made it a lot easier for us to see what we were missing. To improve our brochure, we could have added more colour and advertised our shoe with relevant but still interesting information to attract the readers.

What I Learnt - I think its important that even though we didn't achieve full marks in this project, we still learnt alot. Personally, I learnt how to make a brochure using Microsoft PowerPoint and I also learnt some advertising techniques that will help sell the product. These two things that I have learnt throughout this project will definitely be handy in different things I may come across in life.


Anyways, till next time -  Iqra :)

QOTD: "He who has a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'." - Friedrich Nietzsche