CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

MARKETING TECHNIQUES

HARD-SELL: Hard-sell is a technique used in advertisements or campaigns which tries to sell a product in a short-term using a direct or forceful language.

        

SOFT-SELL: Soft-sell is the opposite technique of hard-sell, also used in advertisements or campaings which uses a more friendly or casual language, to make the costumers buy the product without pressure. 

MY WORLD

IF I STAY

Hello again! Today in this My world section I’m going to talk about a movie I saw yesterday: If I stay.

This movie is based on a book with the same name, which I read some months ago. The story is about Mia, a seventeen year old-girl who suffers a car accident involving all her family. While she’s in coma, she has and out-of-body experience and she sees all her family and friends in the hospital. Then, she realizes that the decision to live or to die it’s up to her, so while she relives some of her best memories, she tries to decide if she wants to wake up and live a life way more difficult than she ever thought or if she wants to give up and die. 

I really liked the book, because even though it’s very sad, the sad scenes are mixed with happy memories, and I liked that contrast. That’s why I think the movie was a good adaptation, because they kept the essence of the book by combining the parts in the hospital with the memories. A thing that also made me think it was a good adaptation was that Mia is narrating the movie, and I think this makes the movie approach more to the book.

But, although I loved the movie, like every single book adaptation, it has differences with the book. Here are some of the differences that I noticed:

 [THIS MAY CONTAIN SOME LITTLE SPOILERS]

- The first difference that I noticed was Kim, Mia’s best friend. In the book she was so different, she was described as a little girl with black hair and who was always wearing a braid, and in the movie she’s got light brown and loose hair. I know it’s not a very big difference, but a thing that I love in adaptations is that the characters stick with the description of the book, and in this case it wasn’t like this, the opposite of Adam, Mia’s boyfriend, who was exactly like I imagined him.

- Mia is a really good cellist, and she gets the opportunity to audition for Juilliard, a prestigious music school. So, another difference was that in the movie before the Juilliard audition, Adam prints a big picture of the ceiling of the hall where Mia is going to audition and he sticks it in Mia’s bedroom ceiling, saying to her that if she sees it every day, the day of the audition she won’t be that nervous. This did not appear in the book, but I think it’s a very cute detail and I like it in the movie.

- Some things that I missed in the movie are the ‘’concert’’ that Adam’s friends give in the hospital to distract the security guard so Adam can get in the room to see Mia, and Kim’s mother, a very emotional woman who cries for everything. These two things brought a little bit of humour in the hospital scenes, and they made me smile, so it was a pity that they weren’t in the movie.

- The last difference I’m going to comment is the ending. I’m not going to say anything about it because I don’t want to give big spoilers, but although it was quite different from the book, it was as beautiful and emotional and it l made me cry so much, just like the book.  

TRAILER

MY WORLD

TV SHOWS

Hi! Welcome to another post about My world. This time I decided to talk about TV shows, so I’m going to talk about 3 of my favourite TV shows.

The first one is PRETTY LITTLE LIARS. The show is about a group of five friends, who are having a sleepover and, in the middle of the night one of them, Alison, a cruel and manipulative girl, disappears. The show actually starts a year after Alison’s disappearance, when they found her dead body. During this year the rest of the group has been separated, but after this the girls get together again to investigate who is the one blackmailing them with things that only Alison knew and who signs every message with –A.

I really like this show because it has a lot of mystery, and I love the way –A blackmails them, in very original ways, especially in the first seasons.

The next show is CASTLE. The main character of the show is Richard Castle, a famous mystery and detective books writer. One day, there is a murder very similar to one of the murders that he wrote on a book, so a police detective, Kate Beckett, searches him to investigate the crime. He helps her to find the killer, and from that point he decides that he wants to help the police to solve every crime. As he is friends with the mayor of the city, he gets the opportunity to go with Beckett everywhere to solve different murders.

What I like about this show is that you can find almost everything in it. There is mystery, because they have to discover who the killer is in different crimes; there is action, because they have to arrest the criminals; there are humour parts, mainly because of Castle’s personality and because of two of the police detectives, Ryan and Espósito; and there is also romance, because of the relationship between Castle and Beckett, which gets more personal in every episode.

The last show is ORPHAN BLACK. The show starts when Sarah, an orphan, sees how a woman exactly like her kills herself jumping under a train. She steals her identity to get the money that she needs, but after this she finds herself involved in lots of problems, such as discovering that there are more women like her, which are all clones. After discovering this, with the help of some of the clones, she tries to investigate where they come from and, at the same time, they try to escape and discover who is trying to eliminate the clones.

For me, the best thing of this show is, certainly, the main actress Tatiana Maslany. As the show is about clones, she has to play a lot of characters which are very different. For example, she has to play the main character, Sarah Manning which is a British woman kind of careless; Alison Hendrix, the typical housewife with two kids; Helena, a Ukrainian crazy woman, etc. And she plays them perfectly, changing the accents to British, to American or to Ukrainian, changing the way of talking or moving, etc. And also, there are some scenes in which the only characters that appear are clones, so she has to record the same scene twice: first playing one of the characters and then playing the other.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR STORY

1. What is the story of tell-tale heart about?
The story of the tell-tale heart is about a mad man who kills an old man because he gets annoyed by his eye. The mad man thinks that the old man's eye is evil and it's gonna hurt him. After killing him, he puts his body under the floor of his house. The police go to his house, asking if something has happened because they heard a scream. The mad man tells them that everything it's OK, but while he's talking with the police he starts hearing a sound. He believes that it's the heartbeat sound of the old man, which is underground, although it's actually his own heartbeat. He thinks that the police is also hearing the sound, and the more he hears the heartbeat the more nervous he gets, so he finally confesses the crime to the police. 

2. Who wrote the tell-heart and invented the first macabre stories?
Edgar Allan Poe wrote the tell-heart and he was the one who invented the first macabre stories.

3. What was the first P.H.S?
The first P.H.S. was ''The tell-tale heart''.

4. When was it first published?
It was first published in the 1843.

5. What other story types did the author also invent?
Edgar Allan Poe also invented the modern detective story and he was pioneer of science fiction. 

MY WORLD

This is the first My world  and I really didn’t know what to talk about, so I finally decided to talk about Music Awards.

This came to my mind weeks ago, when the MTV Europe Music Awards were held. I’m not used to watch this awards, and this time it wasn’t different, but the day after I like to check who won the different awards, and so I did this time.

I’m not going to judge the awards, because let’s be honest, I have no idea of music, but I’m going to give my opinion about awards in general.

Every time there are more awards which are held all around the world, and in my opinion, every time these awards are becoming more unfair. Now a days, with the internet it’s really easy to vote, so in a lot of awards, the people have a chance to decide who must win. In some awards the results are all decision of the fans, and in others the results consist of the people’s opinion and the opinion of experts, but in almost all the awards the people has something to decide. And here’s where the unfair thing starts. There are different categories of awards, such as Best Singer, Best Actor, Best Song, Best Movie or Best Fans, but with the people’s votes, every award becomes a Best Fan award. The winners are the ones with more fans, regardless if they deserve the award or not.

So I think that it’s okay that some awards give the power to decide who wins to the fans, such like People’s Choice Awards, which as its name says it was originally about the people voting, but there should be more awards where the decision is totally up to experts, so they reward for real talent, not only for the amount of fans.

MY FAVOURITE HORROR MOVIE

JULIA'S EYES

PLOT

The main character of the movie is Julia, a woman who is suffering sort of a sight problem which makes her lose her sight slowly, just like her twin sister, who at the beggining of the movie is found dead in her house. It seems to be a sucide but Julia knows that someone was after her sister and he or she might have killed her.

From this point Julia starts investigating to know what really happened to her sister, while she is slowly losing her sight. Even though Julia is almost blind, she notices that someone is chasing and trying to hurt her. The person who is after her doesn’t get to hurt her, but he or she gets to kill her husband.

She gets an eye operation to recover her sight and she has to spend two weeks with a bandage on his eyes to see if the operation has worked. During these two weeks she feels she is in danger, and she gets very confident with Iván, the nurse who takes care of her. But after this two weeks, she realizes that he is not who she thinks he was and she has to escape from him before he kills her.

WHY DID WE LIKE IT?

Julia’s eyes it’s not really a horror movie, but it has a lot of suspense and it keeps you in tension. The thing we liked the most about the movie is that as Julia can’t see because of her sight problem, in some parts the camera doesn’t show you the faces of certain people so you actually feel like Julia, only hearing the voices.

The part we liked the most is when after the two weeks Julia can see again and she discovers who is really the nurse that was taking care of her, and to be safe she has to pretend that the operation didn’t work and she can’t see. 

COMIC RELIEF

1. What is the comic relief?
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in the middle of serious or tragic elements in a drama. 

2. Why is it often used in horror films?
It is often used in horror films to relieve the tension after a dramatic, tragic or tense moment. 

3. Do you remember laughing in horror films? Can you think of an example?
Yes, I remember laughing in more than one horror film because I was watching them with friends, and they were commenting the film saying funny things, I guess because that relieves the tension, similar to a comic relieve. For example in The Exorcist film, we laugh in several moments although we were all scary.

SUSPENSE

1. Who is the director of this movie Psycho?
The director of this movie is Alfred Hitchcock.

2. What type of characters did he often use in horror films?
In horror movies he often used psychopaths and sociopaths who seem to be beyond morality.

3. What technique did he use with the camera?
He used the technique of a subjective camera, shooting from the killer's point of view, to reveal a character's vision.

THE GOTHIC NOVEL

- Who invented the G.N.?
It was invented by Horace Walpole.

- What was the first G.N.?
The first gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole.

- When was it first published?
The Castle of Otranto was first published in 1764.

- Which basic elements of horror didn't you include on your list?
We didn't include the stories setting in a castle, the ones with an ancient prophecy, we included the dreams and nightmares, but we didn't say anything about visions, portents and omens, the overwrought emotions, the women in distress or threatened by a powerful, impulsive or tyrannical male.
We talked about different sounds,but we didn't mention the clanking chains sound, we didn't talk about the characters trapped in rooms and the crazed laughter.

IS YOUR DREAM POSSIBLE?

In  my bucket list I wrote several dreams that I would like to fulfil, but I think the dream I would like to fulfil the most is to travel around the world. I want to visit lots of places and learn new cultures, and I think this is a possible dream.
Of course, travelling is expensive and you also need time, but in my opinion it's a thing that if I really want to do, I'm going to find the way to do it. One part of travelling depends on money and time, but a big part depends on me, and I think that what I have to do is to take advantage of every opportunity to visit somewhere new and broaden my horizons.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

My results in the test were that the dominant intelligence in me is the Intrapersonal Intelligence and after this one the Linguistic, the Visual/Spatial and the Kinaesthetic in the same place. The two intelligences in what I'm least smart is at Musical and Logical Intelligences. I agree with some parts of the results, but I think other parts are wrong.

I agree with the Intrapersonal intelligence, in which got the higher result in the test. I agree with it because in my opinion, I know myself quite well, and I normally spent some time thinking and reflecting.

Unlike the previous one, I don't agree in everythig with the second results. I agree with the part of Linguistic, because I think I'm good at things like writing, grammar, languages and I really enjoy reading. I also agree with the Visual/Spatial part, because I'm quite good at drawing and at handmade creative things. In the part where I don't agree is in the Kinaesthetic intelligence part, because I'm not very athletic and sport it's not my favourite thing. Also I'm a quite calm person, so I think this intelligence should be in the lower position.

The next ones are the Interpersonal and the Naturalistic intelligences, which are more or less in the same position. I agree with both of them, because I'm quite empathetic, and I like to help other people, but I'm not very extroverted and I don't like big groups and crowds (interpersonal intelligence), and  I enjoy being outside and I love animals, but I'm not very interested in the natural themes (naturalistic intelligence), so that's why this two intelligences aren't neither very high nor very low.

The last one, the one that got the lower result is the Musical intelligence. In my opinion, the results are right because although I really like music, I'm really bad at it.

THE ANIMAL IN ME

When I was doing the test I tried to be as honest as I could and the result was that my animal or the animal which I'm alike is a beaver. 

I more or less agree with the personality part, which says that the beavers are a worker animal and they are responsible. They say that a person who is similar to the beavers is an organitzate person which plans for the future practically unconsciously, and I think I'm actually this kind of person.

Even though I agree with the most of the personality aspects I can't say the same of the careeres and hobbies that they relate to the beaver. 

As careeres they put: engineer, naval officer, manager and judge, and as hobbies: gardening, woodworking, collecting and sewing.

I don't agree with this, because I don't really see myself in the future doing any of this careeres or any career similar to this ones. And the same happens with the hobbies, I would have agreed more if the hobbies were things like reading, painting, writing or hobbies similar to these, because I'm not really interested in things like gardening or woodworking.

EXTRA TASK

COMMENTING THE ''WHY I THINK THIS WORLD SHOULD END'' VIDEO

I think this video makes you realize about the world and the society we are living in. It makes you think about the way we treat the planet, because people in general don't worry about the nature or the animals, we just do the things that are better for us. 

We only worry about ourselves, and a lot of times we don't take especially care of what other people think or feel. And even though it's unavoidable to think and worry about yourself we should start caring more about the other people around us. Of course, this doesn't mean that we have to dedicate our lives to make other people happy, we should just have our own opinions and don't let other people tell us what to think and what to do, but at the same time accept that not everyone is going to think the same as we think. 

And as the man in the video says, we could start fixing that by loving ourselves and the people and things that are around us. We should start being more kind and trying to be happy and enjoy life being respectful, because I think respect is one of the most important life bases and, unfortunately, we are losing it, so we should try to don't let this happen.

MY HERO

I’m going to talk about Albert Espinosa. He is a writer, a screenwriter, a playwright and a cinema director. He’s mainly known for being the writer of a show called Polseres Vermelles, or The Red Band Society in English, which is more or less inspired by his personal life. When he was 12, he was told that he had cancer and from that point he spent all his adolescence in different hospitals. Finally he beat the cancer but he lost a leg, a lung and a part of the liver.

I admire him because he fought to beat the cancer, and even though he lost, not only things like a leg or a lung, he also lost friends that he made in the hospital that were also ill, he never gave up and he kept fighting. And apart from that, the thing that I admire the most about him is that he hasn’t only beaten the cancer, he is also helping other people to do it. He is helping people with cancer or with other illnesses to be strong and to fight. And actually, not only people with healthy problems, he is also helping people with other kind of problems or people that don’t have a big problem. He is helping them to see the bright side of the things, to be positive and to be thankful for what they have.

And that’s why I think he is a good role model and a good person to look up to. 

MY BUCKET LIST

This is a list of some of the things that I want to do before I die:

Travel at least once to every continent




Spend some months or years living in a foreign country


Go on a road trip across the USA with my friends


Spend New Year's Eve in New York


Go to a Music Festival



Attend a Colour Festival



Ride in one of the longest ziplines in the world



Speak English and French fluently

Go to a 5 seconds of summer concert and meet them



Go parasailing




Learn how to surf




Write a book




Get a small tattoo




Let go a floating lantern




Appear in a movie