NYC DAY 1
This will be a short blog series about the media experience I had in New York City. I was on a uni excursion with some of my student peers from Thomas More. We took place in a 9-day immersive media trip to explore the differences between Belgian and American media. I say we, there was my girlfriend and about 30 other students from Thomas More for my degree course in International Media and Entertainment Business.
We were extremely lucky, the trip took place two weeks before the national lockdowns in Belgium and right before the city of New York exploded with Covid-19 infections in early March. During our visit to NYC, there were only three cases.
The first day, Saturday, Feb 1 2020, we began our grand adventure from Antwerp to New York City. The media interactive trip was organised by The morning started with the first leg of our journey down to Brussels delayed by a cancelled train, this is all too common in Belgium. I hate that the train system is unreliable, but it’s the same for everyone I guess so we all just deal with it here.
Entertainment media on flight was really nice, I love that the newer planes have Touch screen french media alongside Hollywood films. French films galore.
I noticed less Bollywood and Asian films in the roster compared to Emirates, Qantas or Etihad.
The interactive flight path map was great on the plane. I spent over an hour whizing around the planet using the google earth style flight system.
Finally I got around to watching a classic film, not just the latest B grade action flicks. I watched The Great Dictator, the famous Charlie Chaplain film. Despite the age of the film, I really enjoyed being transported back in time. The speech at the end still is still so powerful and relevant in 2020.
We also watched the amazing, funny tense thriller Parasite film. Four days later the movie took home four Oscars.
While I’m writing about the media experience, I have to mention the amazingly terrible movies playing at US customs when we arrived. There was at least a two hour line to get out of the airport, so we got to see the films that loooked like 90’s films, or they were intentionally made to look dated.
Either way, we were most definitely not allowed to film in that space, so sadly I have nothing to show for these.