/love Filmstudies

Screening of our 90 sec film "The Wrong Girl"

In the fall of 2014 I live in Denmark and study at the Aarhus University. I'm attending two courses; one of them is Film- og tv-analyse in Danish and the other Visual Media Production 2 in English. The courses are awesome and exactly what I wanted to study here.




 Back home in Helsinki I took all the film courses at the university, but the courses were only about film history, film analysis and film theory. In Aarhus I have the chance to do some practical work within film; to actually make my own short films. It's an opportunity I am very grateful for, since I wasn't sure I could ever try making my own short films. I mean, without doing them on my own or going to a film school.

Making of "The Wrong Girl"

Now I have the chance to do this on university level, getting instructions and try out the equipment, and later on decide if that is something I want to pursue.


I have learned so much about the process of making my own short films, everything from brainstorming ideas, make the storyboard to decide on actors and edit the movie. There have been times of frustration and bad ideas, but also feeling of success and satisfaction of doing something so creative and interesting. One of the best things with this exchange student-period is the chance to go these courses and get these experiences within film. That maybe sounds geeky, but I really mean it ^^

I hope my studies here in Aarhus help me find out what really interests me in film and what I possibly want to do in my future.

New home vs. real home

Being away from home is not the hardest thing I have done, but I am also not that far away from Finland. Naturally I miss my family, friends, our pets and all my homes. I also miss all the things I can't do here and places I am used to going - the movie theater Orion, the library I usually go to, all the supermarkets and foods I am used to, a proper oven (I don't have one in my kitchen here), to go to a dentist or a hair salon and be sure I can be understood, to use euros and actually know how much I am paying for things, and so forth.

But those things seem so small compared to this experience. This is so worth it - I meet many new people from Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, USA, even from Finland. I get to know a new city, have a chance to live at a new place with a different language, to get to know a new culture. And the greatest of all: I get to study something I love and meet new people who wants to or already works within media, culture and film. I also learn to take care of myself and know that I'll do fine.

One of the hardest things when moving here was to turn my relationship into a long distance relationship.

A loving relationship full of closeness and much time spent together, that is now mostly taken care of through Skype, texts and letters. But I knew the risk, and the first weeks were the hardest. And now it has been over a month, which doesn't sound too long.

But I have to be honest; sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. In the end I still believe it's worth it, and 4-5 months abroad is not too long. And it certainly doesn't end our relationship, only makes it stronger ^^ Even though I was unsure in the beginning. I don't only learn new things in this new country, I also learn new things about everything I left back home.

Joku liikkui lähelläni koski poskeain Tutun käden tunsin ihollain

Aarhus and Brabrand in my heart

My bag containing my comforting friend.

I can't believe I have been here over a month.

I arrived here later on a Sunday, after a Saturday at work, being home around 3 a.m. On Sunday I didn't do much else then sleep, pack, get ready for my flight, check that I had everything I needed and say goodbye to my family and boyfriend at the airport. Which wasn't the easiest thing to do.


The I made the trip from Helsinki - Copenhagen - Aarhus, and then arrived to my new home at Skjoldhøjkollegiet, in Brabrand, Aarhus. A place that many people call a "ghetto"...

My room ^_^

Sure, the "kollegie" is about 25 minutes from the centre of Aarhus, but I like it, and I have no problems living here for 5-6 months. Maybe I would get a place from downtown if I lived here for a longer time, but that could easily be more expensive. And now I have a chance to live at a kollegie, since back home I would probably live in an apartment in the middle of Helsinki. And I found a great dentist in Brabrand, which is a relief. And yes, I got a toothache the first week I was here, just my luck?

Skjoldhøjkollegiet is nice. The rooms are big enough, the people are very friendly, there is a small shop 1,5 minutes from my room, we have our own bar here and the environment is really nice. I really don't mind living here. I believe this is the biggest kollegie in Aarhus, with over 220 staircases (or buildings, whatever you call them) with apartments or just single rooms. I live in an apartment, with my own room, and the bathroom and kitchen I share with a girl from Italy - Martina. She is so nice, and very social ;)

My sweetest Luna 

I have talked to some people living here, many of them international students, who live here for 6 months or a year. But I have also met people who have been living here a few years, some even four or six years.

One of them is a neighbour from Denmark, who has a cat! And we started talking to each other thanks to that cat ^_^ The cat is only a few months old, called Luna (I think), and she is very playful and happy. She has a bell around her neck, and I always know when she is coming, thanks to that bell.

The grey one, very beautiful.
I hope the cat is okay, even though I
don't know who the owner is.

Thanks to the cats I feel a bit more like home. We have always had an animal or two in my family, so they are comforting. I haven't seen Luna for a week or so, but there is another cat visiting pretty often. That one is grey, way bigger cat too, but just as cuddly as Luna. I don't know who owns the grey one, if anyone, but it seems to be in good health. Sometimes the cat just wants to sleep in my chair, but after a few hours it disappears into the night..

Det er et meget godt liv i Aarhus!

View from the Aarhus Book Tower

Det er de første måned i Denmark, og jeg er meget glad at være her! Which probably means that "this is my first month in Denmark, and I am very happy to be here!"

I have never lived in a city with this many students - over 40 000 students and over 1000 new international students this fall. I studied for 3 years before I even thought of going abroad, and suddenly I am here, one of the 1000 international students in Aarhus University in the fall of 2014. 

This is the first time I have been living abroad for more than a month, and that was just for my first Interrail in 2011. Now I am actually living in another country, and that will look good on my cv ;)

The Aarhus Rådhus - very modern 

The first month here was confusing and exciting, with many new things, places and people to get familiar with. But then again - I haven't moved that far away, just to another Nordic country with many familiar ways and routines. What is new to me is being around new people, getting to know a new city and university, and also to get to know the Danish language. Which is not that hard for me - I have had some courses in Danish back home, and have watched some Danish series before I moved here. After I month I understand way more than I did before, which I am very pleased with ^^

Let's have some Hoegaarden 0,5l for like 6 euros?
So cheap - so good.

This is just a first post, there's more to come this week. Was supposed to do that many weeks ago, but you know how the times just flies by...

Time - where does it fly?

Here I am, after two years!

Happy news: I have almost my Bachelor's degree! Although some problems came up, and for those reasons I am back, writing for this blog. But it is nothing to be stressed over, I will see this issue as a challenge! And it is nice to update this blog.

I do not feel as comfortable writing here as I did two years back. After the course I took I haven't really been working with my English, which is really a pity. I loved being able to express myself without being this unsure. But then again, I have been practicing my Danish and Swedish, and I think it is going well. I am going to Denmark this fall, so I am not practicing my Danish only for fun ;)

The course in English I took at the University was really helpful, and now I see how much my English has changed. I wonder if I could practice my English by reading more books in this language, or should I take another course? It is amazing how languages affect each other. Feels like I am loosing a bit of my Finnish while studying and listening to Danish, and my English is not what it was two years ago.

Anyhow, times flies by so fast. I could have sworn that I took this course like 6 months or maybe one year back. But two whole years? What have I done during that time?

Well, I have been studying, mostly Film Studies, and working. I have two jobs right now! Not as much for the money, as for the experience. And I just can't say no to new challenges ^_^


But that will soon be history, since I will be starting my Master's in Aarhus in three months. Scary, exciting, fun. I am ready for new challenges!


Just as soon as I get this Bachelor's degree.. Next time I will be sure to check through my courses!

Best regards,

Anni

Final lesson!

I didn't even realize it was the last lesson before it came up during that Thursday. But here we are, after all the tasks and lessons we have had. There has been much to do at times, so it felt weird to suddenly have the end of the course. I have really liked the lectures since they have been different every time and I have enjoyed the discussions.

This final lesson was about posters. I was really happy with mine, already last week I found it all done. We had kind of an art exhibition when we placed our posters up on a wall and looked at each others posters. The discussions were not that productive but writing some comments on every poster was actually fun. There were all kinds of posters in various sizes, colors and most of all the topics were different. Some had glued some piece of information on a big piece of paper, some had printed out a smaller poster like me. There were posters about Hitler, meditation, the grotesque and so on. They were al nice to look at but my favorite was one about buddhism (nice pictures and layout), one about the Hitler myth (nice arrows and clear structure) and last but not least one about the grotesque (fun layout and interesting topic). I was happy with the comments my poster received, and the negative respons I got had to do with the font, which I actually agree with. I was focused on what to write and how it looked like, not how it would be seen from a distance. Although the printing of the poster didn't go all well I was happy with the project and it was more fun than I first thought. In the beginning I couldn't picture my poster at all and didn't understand how I would get it done, but once I started it turned out well. Even though I didn't understand the requirements of the size, I still don't get how I could have printed a A2 poster, I was happy how everything turned out.

The final lesson ended really fast and we had a good time. Before I knew it the time was up and we wouldn't have the lectures anymore. It is still hard to understand since the time has flied by unbelievably fast, but I guess I should get used to the feeling of my second year in university coming to an end and a whole summer to look forward to.

-Anni

Last lesson in April - 26.4

This was the last lesson before the very last lesson of the course, so there was not much left. We had still our posters and essays to finish. This was actually a really nice lesson with some discussions in groups, a class presentation and an exercise with a short story.

First of all we heard a presentation by Santeri, who talked about stand-up comedy and his favourite of them all. The presentation was nice as usual and the Prezi was clear. The topic was fun since we have had quite many presentations about Finnish grammar or language or history. This was a presentation focused on hobbies and it worked. The video was fun to watch although it was animated and not even by the artist himself, just a fan. The animation was good, I don't deny that, but maybe it would have felt more authentic to see the artist himself.

Next we got our essays back, the second draft, that we gave in last lesson with some ideas and thoughts written at the end of the essay. I really liked the idea of writing some thoughts and handing it in, just so we would get it back. It is nice to get some response to my own writing and especially when we don't get that in our courses in literature. I wrote about some doubts I had and questions around my phrasing. This lesson we could just sit and read through the answers the teacher gave us and ask some more questions. This kind of process really helps the writing and gives us a feeling of control.

Next we were supposed to talk about our posters "and how they are developing". I had actually pretty much finished mine since I worked on it for about two hours on a Tuesday and my aim was to finish it. My only problem when making the poster was the printing and the size - one library I visited had A3 papers but no color-printing. I then turned to Aleksandria where there were no A3 paper, but surely there was a color-printing mahcine. Just my luck. I found out that one was allowed to print in bigger size than A4, but only if you buy the paper yourself. Then I went through two bookshops before I found a A3 in Stockmann. During the class my poster got some nice comments, but just one I was afraid of: "The size could be bigger". After some failures I decided to just print in A3 and add one sentence. So my poster was pretty much done the first time. This lesson we didn't focus on posters more than this, the last lesson would concentrate on them much more.

The last thing before the time was 13:45 was for us to read a short story "The God's Script" by an author named Borges. This was one of my favourite exercises since it was about literature and the opinions we had about the story. I thought that we were supposed to talk in groups, so I didn't write as much about the story that I could have. In general the exercise was nice and I wonder if we are going to get some comments about the things we wrote and what the comments are based on. After this it was time to go home and say hi to my roomies cat.

19.4 - Discussions, drafts and Dracula

For this lecture we did various stuff from discussions about essays and Hitler to exercises. We talked with the people sitting in the same table about our essays, which we were supposed to make a second draft for this week. We were not supposed to talk about the subject, just the process. For me it wasn't that hard to start the essay but to write some main points is a bit harder. Somehow I know what I want to write about but to write down the actual main points is a bit harder.
The essay is still under progress, though :)

So my subject was about the novel Dracula and after a few drafts it still feels interesting. I am happy with choosing Dracula as an subject since it is closely connected to my studies (Dracula isn't really nordic literature..), I found it kinda as an accident and the academic article I have for the essay is interesting (David Seed: The Narrative Method of Dracula).

I'm going to use Dracula in another task too: we are supposed to make some posters for the next lesson. I have not been sure about the whole task, since the poster we have been looking at has not inspired me that much. It felt messy and I had a hard time imagine what my own poster would look like. What would the subject be? Luckily we were made clear that we could do a poster based on our essay. This helped me a lot since I have pretty much all the information I need to build a poster, I was just not sure how it would be structured. How does a poster about a novel look like?

The last group discussions was one big theme this lesson. Since there were only two people having the discussions we were divided into two groups with approximately 6 persons per group. This means the groups were bigger than before and it was interesting to see whether the discussion would be different. Our group talked about Hitler and the myth around him. One of the questions was whether the same kind of propaganda could happen nowadays or not. The large group came with different kind of aspects. We talked about the media and ways to communicate and whether is it easier to form radical groups today. This led into a debate around reclusive people and loneliness as a cause to radical actions. which led to a discussion about the school-shooters that we unfortunately have had here in Finland. Somehow the discussion ended with destiny and different aspects on that. I was a bit confused with the new topic, but the topics before were interesting.

What else? We did some exercises during the lesson and they were actually fun to do, especially "Looking at the bright side"which I did with Santeri. At the end of the lesson we were reminded about the posters, which would be an challenge.

Some conclusions and reflections

It is May now and that is something I have a hard time to believe. The time has just flied by this Spring and soon it's the end of all my courses. I have been happy with my English course, even though there have been times with much work. The group discussion I held went well, my essay is okay, I'm pretty happy with my poster, the Prezi-presentation was fun and overall I think I've been active in discussions we have had in small groups. I've talked to many new people and I have always looked forward to these lectures.

In my spare time I don't speak English everday. The English I hear is when I watch movies or series, I have subtitles in English when I watch movies and series I usually watch without. Almost all the movies and series I watch are spoken in English, just to be clear. When reading novels I read in three different languages: Finnish, Swedish and English. Novels in English I don't read as much as in the other languages, but every now and then. I enjoy reading in English and don't find it that hard. Although I must confess: I don't read classics in English, especially the ones written in old English style. Albert Camus novel The Outsider is a novel I've read in English, but the language was clear, the novel wasn't that long and I read it in Finnish a bit before. When I was Inter-railing last summer with my boyfriend we stopped by a bookshop in almost every state we were in. We bought some of the cheap classics in soft-cover, usually by the "Penguin Classics". I read The Secret Garden and my boyfriend read The Prince by Machiavelli. So now when I think about it I have read some classics, but I could do that more. Especially novels like Dracula, which are long and not written in Modern English.

How about spoken English then? I sometimes talk a few sentences in English with my roomies, when telling a joke or something. So I can almost everyday see the impact of English language at home, even though we mostly speak Swedish. It's not pure Swedish, though. One of my roomies spends most of his days in front of the computer, watching different videos and series in English. So he can be really fluent in English at times. I myself am pretty comfortable in speaking in English and how my pronunciation sounds like, although when I'm nervous I stumble up on some words. But my problem is my vocabulary, which is not that wide (This last sentence contains two words that I had to look up). I can see some changes and expansions with my vocabulary the last months, but it is not that big of a change.

In overall English is an important language to me. Besides my closest languages - Finnish and Swedish - I use English often than other languages and that is why I want to work on it. I have another blog I try to write only in English and nowadays I only watch movies with English subtitles. Atleast I try, since there are some movies where I can only choose as a subtitle one of the nordic languages. Why is it like that?