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Task1: What I discovered in quarantine by Aaron Charles

For the first task of this page, I’m suppose to answer the question, “What have I discovered during the corona virus pandemic?” and after thinking about how to go about answering this, I came to the conclusion that for me, it was less about what I discovered and more about what I re-discovered.

For instance, when I had to clear out the spare room, there were a bunch of old books that needed to be sorted out. Within some of those old books were a lot of crosswords puzzles, some of which had pages that hadn’t been finished yet. So naturally i did a few and wound up finishing the book, and threw it away since it was keeping up space. I enjoyed it so much, that i downloaded a crossword app on my phone and play it from time to time.

Furthermore, there were a bunch of Maya Angelou books we had to sort out as well. Some of them are in the loft, a few were sold to eBay many moons ago and the rest I managed to liberate and are now occupying a corner of my room. I read a few chapters of her book “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” but it didn’t keep my attention for very long.

I remember a situation happened, where a family friend was in the neighborhood. He rang the door bell and obviously I didn’t let him in (social distancing and what not), though we did talk outside the door for a bit. And before he left, he convinced me to have a turn on his bike; I thought it was a bit strange to take him up on his offer ‘cause again, social distancing, but I figured that it would be fun. As I rode his geared bike up the road and started feeling the burn in my legs, I remembered how much I used to love taking my bike around the park and peddling 'round my area for hours.

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Paul Hampartsoumian’s Top 5 Artists by Aaron Charles

This man has been doing photography for 20+ years, initially to fill time during his A levels and eventually become a professional freelance photographer. Though Paul generally takes pictures of a wide variety of UK acts and beyond; he’s mostly known for taking pictures of Hip Hop moguls, publishing his first set of images to the UK magazine, Hip-Hop Connection. With that being said, here is a list of Paul Hampartsoumian’s Top 5 Artists.

Busta Rhymes

Considered to be underrated by Mr. Hampartsoumian, the first entry in this list goes to Busta Rhymes. Some of Paul’s favourite pieces that he’s taken in his career (from Busta Bust jumping over him while he still had his locks to a moment involving Princess Diana) are situations involving the gigantic speed rapper. Additionally, from first hand experience taking photos of Busta Rhymes, Paul admires his stage presence and the energy he exudes, as well as alot of his back to back hits, from ‘Gotta All in Check’ to ‘Give Me Some More’ to ‘Make It Clap’ to the ‘Touch It Remix’ and the ‘Look At Me Now’ verse.

Jay-Z

From people that are mega fans of Hip-hop/rap and even to many that aren’t too fond of the genre, Jay-Z is known far and wide as on of the greatest artist hip hop has ever produced. Being a similar age him, Paul admires the fact that as Jay-Z progresses in his career, so to does his subject matter (something that most of his contemporaries rarely do), noting that the topics he mentions in 4:44 are vastly different from his Blueprint albums. To put icing on the cake, Paul got the chance to take photos of him and his wife at the Royal Albert Hall!

Lupe Fiasco

Despite being a comparatively newer artist to the other rappers on his list, Paul gravitates towards his conscious lyrics. His rhyme schemes and clever punchlines, compliments the social messages in his music.

Chuck D (from Public Enemy)

Similar to Lupe Fiasco, Paul likes that the Public Enemy front man had a social message within their music and likes the fact that they had something important to say. He does point out however that as a duo, Chuck D was the more serious one, while Flavor Flav had more levity and humour.

Gang Starr

DJ Premier (one of the greatest producers to hit the deck) and the late great Guru, made up the duo known as Gang Starr, the final entry in Paul’s list of Top 5. There’s even a moment in Paul’s life where Guru actually showed up to his birthday, and still had an itch to get on the mic.

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Lessons Learnt From 3 Previous Alumni by Aaron Charles

Our group of Creativity Works members got the chance to have a zoom call with 3 people from the media world, Fayida (A YouTuber and Freelance journalist), Jordaan (An Assistant Producer) and Fred (Digital Creative Producer). These 3 people were previous members of the course that us as Season 10 members are on and together, they gave us tid bits of advice on how they navigated through the industry.

[Note: ALL THREE IMAGES ARE SCREENSHOTS FROM THE ZOOM CALL WE HAD]

FAYIDA JAILLER

Having a side hustle is one of the many pieces of wisdom that Fay gave us was having another job to keep yourself financially stable. To this end, she became a zero hours contract receptionist while maintaining her Youtube Channel in order to say afloat during the pandemic.

JORDAAN SHELLY

“Persist and use all the resources at your disposal“. This is something that helped Jordaan out alot in her role as an assistant producer because when she tried to get Lord Suga, onto her show and he declined, instead of accepting his initial no, Jordaan asked for alternative methods to make an appearance, such as using skype, or changing the time slot or using a pre-recording to air.

FRED BHAT

A piece of advice that he got from his grandma was the following, “It is just as important to know what you don’t want to do, as much as what you do want to do”. While he was getting to know his way around the Discovery network, he would always ask questions to things that he didn’t know (such as what was a PO), and even when he felt like asking too many questions was bordering on pestering, Fred would write down the things he was unsure of, research them when he got home and occasionally ask his dad.

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@aaroncharles

im so obsessed with this gif its unreal

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Tribe Countdown

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STATIC FM Podcast by Aaron, Amanda, Cookie, Bertrand, Rosh, Jos,Neome

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Press Release: “Part of The Bigger Picture” by Inspire Media (Aaron, Karmeta, Steph & Mujamel)

Wednesday 13th May 2020 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UPCOMING YOUNG BLACK AUTHOR PUBLISHES FIRST BOOK, A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES DETAILING THE LIVES AND STRUGGLES OF A COMMUNITY LIVING ON AN ESTATE IN SOUTH LONDON, IN HOPES TO GIVE VOICES TO THOSE WHO ARE OFTEN OVERLOOKED.

Upcoming author Xavier Pencille releases his first book, “Part of the Bigger Picture” which explores social identity within a working class society. This release is via his own production company “TSTAC” (Two Sides to a Coin). He aims for this to be part of a movement to bring attention to the vulnerable and misinterpreted members of society, providing a platform for their voices to be heard. 

The short stories look at those within an often-mistaken community, reviewing the narrative that surrounds these individuals, especially young black people, by bringing awareness to experiences that have shaped them, their ambitions and the obstacles they face. 

Xavier says: “There is a lot of gentrification going on and a lot of stories are being lost and overlooked, especially those belonging to people who tend to be perceived as ‘smaller characters’ in society. I wanted to shine a light on them and show that there is a bigger picture, their voices need to be heard too“.

Earlier this year in March 2020, Xavier hosted a book launch with the support of “New Beacon Books”, specialists in African and Caribbean literature. [Please find hi-res images attached].

NOTES TO EDITORS About New Beacon Books New Beacon Books is a specialist bookstore located in North London. Founded in 1966, they have been showcasing poetry, literature, non –fiction, history and children’s books from Africa, Caribbean, Asia, African American, Europe, South America and Britain - cultures and communities of people that are otherwise overlooked by mainstream publishers. For further information, visit their website at: https://www.newbeaconbooks.com/ Instagram: @newbeaconbooks

About Xavier Pencille Xavier is an up and coming author whose stories are a reflection of the circumstances of his upbringing. He’s a 26 year old single dad, raising a little boy who he hopes will avoid the struggles and hardships that he had to endure during his childhood and adolescence. He has been working on this book for the past 3 years, while simultaneously raising his son and working a retail job to provide for his family. Instagram: @pendeauthor

CONTACTS

For further information about the book, events or for any media requests:

Senior Publicity Managers: aaron@inspiremedia.com |  karmeta@inspiremedia.com Xavier’s Manager: steph@inspiremedia.com New Beacon Books Publicist: mujamel@inspiremedia.com

By Aaron, Karmeta, Steph & Mujamel

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#TheGoodInWhereILive by Aaron Charles

I was walking around my area in the borough of Lewisham, enjoying the afternoon sunshine, when I decided to walk through the park. I was quite surprised to see a piece of paper stuck to the park map. Looking closer at it I found out that it’s actually a poem praising the NHS. The reason I chose this picture is because it shows how much people in my area actually care about how hard the public sector are working to keep us safe.

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5 fandoms that are totally overrated! by Aaron Charles

I want to share with you all these 5 fandoms that I’ve at some point in time, tried to get into but lost interest for various reasons and can’t be asked to get involved with them. Now that’s not to say that people can’t like what’s in this list and if you enjoy these franchises, then more power to you, we can talk about why you like them so much. Here’s the 5 things that most people like that I find meh.

1. HARRY POTTER

Growing up, I used to play the Harry Potter theme song on my piano and watch the Philosophers Stone on DVD, my mum even has the first 4 books on a shelf and don’t judge me for this, but I used to have a crush of Hermione, though I got over it once I wrongfully guessed that Harry would turn her into Mrs Potter.

It’s one of those things where you grow out of liking something, at least that’s how I felt about it. Even with them making those Fantastic Beast films, it was one of those things where I just shrugged it of, despite the fact that I was intrigued with the premise of hunting down lost mythical animals. To add insult to injury, the original author, J.K. Rowling constantly aggravates her fan base by retroactively changing the lore, such as the history of the Dumbledore family or the fact that the wizard school didn’t have toilets (what kind of disgusting school wouldn’t let their students & staff members take a dump?). So as someone who’s outside the fanbase, I looked at some of the changes and only had this to say: SOZ.

2. FOOTBALL

It’s always fun going to the park with your friends, using your coats and bags as goal posts, and doing cross bar challenges on an actual goal post. However, watching Crystal Palace FC score against [insert random football team here] rarely ever got me interested. I’ll watch an Arsenal or Man United match with my family if it’s on and occasionally watch Arsenal TV on YouTube to check in on them; other than that I’m more interested in watching UFC highlights than flick through Sky Sports to see 11 guys on each team kick a ball at each other, unless there was an anime about it or someone got kicked in between the legs.

3. LORD OF THE RINGS

As successful as this trilogy is, these flipping movies are just too damn long. I mean 3 hours, 3 HOURS, that double the amount of a normal film. I get that this current generation of millennial’s/gen Z types are used to binging a whole season of a TV show in half a day but at least those TV shows don’t have little men riding on a talking tree and some old man with a stick fighting a dragon (OK that last one sounded pretty cool).

I get most of what the plot is about; Frodo and his merry men travelling to a volcano where the ring of Saulron was made and destroy it, anyone that wears the ring becomes corrupted by it’s power and can turn invisible, at the cost of some phantoms coming after you to collect your soul; there’s a bunch of other plot threads that are going on with it and I finished the 1st movie (Fellowship of the Ring), though I’ll admit to this, I sometimes watch them to help me fall asleep.

4. DOCTOR WHO

There’s a reason that there’s over 13 people over the span of 40+ years that played the time travelling alien, I just can’t seem to find out why. I knew about the series during the days of David Tennant and I even vaguely remember some spin-off series with some journalist lady and another one with a robot dog.

Then there was the episode where David Tennant’s version goes RIP and gets reincarnated as the Matt Smith version and that’s when I stopped watching. Although to be fair, I wasn’t as big of a fan as most people were even when he was popping. Someone I knew showed me a clip where he reincarnates AGAIN and I thought “why the hell has he turned into some crusty old man?” (I didn’t realise at the time that the other Doctors from the 70′s & 80′s were also old me). After the crusty old man version turned into that woman from one of the early episodes of Black Mirror, I shrugged it of and though “hey, at least all the fangirls that like this show have someone to look up to that isn’t the doctors sidekick” so all’s well that ends well.

5. STAR TREK

Despite the fact that I’ve seen the JJ Abrams movies, that wasn’t enough to turn your boy into a trekkie. There’s a bunch of different versions and universes and incarnations of Star Trek that I couldn’t be asked to dip my toe into anymore than I already did. That’s why it’s easier to get into Star Wars; all you need to do is watch the trilogy movies and your basically up to speed.

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#GreaterLondoner - Community Hero by Aaron Charles

Since everyone is forced to stay in doors, people are feeling lonely and pessimistic about the state if the world. Luckily, musician Romain Malan and his violinist wife Eleanor Harrison are working together to help bring back positivity in his local community. With the global crisis effectively cancelling all his bookings, Romain has put that energy into playing  an orchestra for people and has therefore, decided to put that energy into entertaining people outside their homes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-FaCoHHoOB/

https://www.worldharmonyorchestra.com/

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FISTS & FACE MASKS: HOW IS COVID-19 EFFECTING UFC? by Aaron Charles

“Were living in unprecedented times”, “How long do we have to be stuck inside?” “I don’t mind being in quarantine but why do I have to be locked up with them?” “I’m used to being indoors so it isn’t a big deal” “I work from home anyway, so the corona virus isn’t effecting me much” “2020 is the worst year ever”. These are just a handful of the thoughts that people across the world are feeling about the corona virus (aka COVID-19, aka Wuhan Flu) and the impact that it’s having on their personal lives.

Because of how new corona virus was at the time, the government had placed restrictions on mass gatherings, which include people attending sports events; something that greatly impacted the most sports, i.e. Football and cricket. However, UFC president, Dana White instead re-scheduled the next fighting event to be held ‘behind closed doors’ (the venue would later be revealed to take place in an undisclosed location in Jacksonville, Florida) and had even half-jokinly wanted to put the fights on a private island (similar to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon).

To make sure that the contestants are abiding by safety protocols, fighters had to sign an 8 to 25 page participation contract, in which they aren’t allowed to slander the current state of the sport or the safety measures that have taken place, unless they run the risk of not getting paid. heavyweight contender Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, was originally going to participate in UFC 249 against Middleweight kick boxer, Uriah Hall until Jacare and 2 of his cornermen got tested positive. They're all self isolating away from the other fighters and the UFC medical team are monitoring them from a distance. According to the insider, he was scared to fight during the pandemic but needed to compete in order to pay off his mortgage.

It is held in an empty arena with the medical care and a few of the judges wearing face masks for safety. Although watching a couple of the matches, it felt strange not seeing peoples, reactions and the background sounding void of life. Though the fights themselves were still as fierce and brutal as ever.

In spite of the unusual conditions and the many changes that had to be made to make this work, there were still some noteworthy things. Cameroonian heavyweight Francis Ngannou obliterated his opponent in less 20 seconds flat, Henry Cejudo retires from the sport after TKO’ing his adversary in the 2nd round, stating that he wants to start a family and continuing to be a fighter would be a hinderance to that. And finally, the main event, Justin Gaethje (the man that replaced Khabib Nurmagomedov for this card) and Tony Ferguson. It was a head to head against 2 warriors of the octagon, exchanging blow for blow until ultimately, Justin Gaethje claimed victory with a TKO in the 5th round, leaving Tony Ferguson defeated with wounded pride and tears of blood. As stated previously, watching some of the judges with face masks and not having a crowd reaction feels weird to watch, but that doesn’t take away from the matches and how dedicated these people are to the sport.

In conclusion, even with the national pandemic of 2020 has put public events on hiatus, UFC has somehow managed to pull through and deliver sporting entertainment to those that are yearning for some fights to take place. It’s understandable as to why the UFC event had to be in a crowd-less venue, since they didn’t want to risk infection to either the fighters or the spectators, but it’s admirable and down right impressive that Dana White managed to set up an event amongst a global pandemic!

Sources below:

https://www.insider.com/jacare-souza-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-ufc-249-fight-canceled-2020-5

https://twitter.com/i/events/1259316134920073216

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/mma/ufc-249-results-coronavirus-tony-ferguson-justin-gaethje-criticism-dana-white-a9507226.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/mma/ufc-249-results-ferguson-gaethje-highlights-fight-card-a9507111.html

https://www.mmafighting.com/2020/5/10/21253579/henry-cejudo-retirement-is-real-but-dana-white-knows-the-number-to-bring-me-back

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Aaron Charles is an Afro-Carribean man who was born & raised in South East London to a Trinidadian mother and a father from St Kitts, both of whom would eventually become teachers. In his free time, Aaron enjoys going to museums/exhibitions, watching documentaries, viewing movies, listen to music and browsing through Youtube while indulging his sweet tooth.

He took weekend classes at the BRIT to learn about photography while attending guitar lessons. Plus he continued to learn about the subject by choosing it as one of his options in A levels, as well as taking a short course in creative writing.

The reason that Aaron is on the 10 week training program for the Media Trust is because he wants to make an impact on people through story telling and knows that gaining employment in the media world will help him achieve that. To this end he’ll try his hand at anything that comes his way. Whether it’s acting, video editing, operating cameras, producing, being a sound engineer, digital marketing, writing/copywriting; he’ll try anything if it means working with people that have similar goals.

He has always been a curious person and open minded person, often wanting to find out how other people see the world and trying his hand at a a variety of different things: baking, skateboarding, photography, computing, playing on the guitar and also making doodles in his sketch book. His journey into the multimedia industry is only beginning & looks forward to exploring what it has to offer!