Filing up my diary...

Booked in for a couple of days in October half term at the Bloxham Centre in Rugby.
Really excited to see how it all goes and get involved helping out!

Also helping out at Cockburn College in Leeds with Elvina in the 2nd year. We're heading over there on the 19th October to help out with workshops themed around the The Big Draw week. We'll be working with Year 11 children, which will be a new age group for me, so I'm a little aprehensive but excited all the same!

Also me and Claire are going along to a lecture in Huddersfield on the 11th October, it's also repeated in Sheffield/Leeds over the next month or so:

An Arrangement of Knowledge: Contemporary Art Practice and Mental Health

A lecture tour by Paul Digby

"Artist Paul Digby will outline the mental health sector, including diagnosis, medication, therapies and arts projects. He discusses how this has influenced his practice through projects at Rampton and High Royds Hospitals and his work with mental health service users. He also discusses the influences of Artists Marcel Duchamp and Jean Dubbufet (founder of Art Brut), and Psychiatrists R.D. Laing, and Eric Berne
The lecture provides time for discussion and debate. It is informative and people will leave with a good over view of the mental health sector and how this influences art practice.
Paul Digby is an artist based in Leeds. He graduated from Norwich School of Art in 1997 and recent exhibitions include, the Thackray Museum (2010) and SIAD Sheffield (2010)."

If this proves useful and relevant me and Claire also said it might be worth paying Paul a visit or getting in contact with him following the lecture, quite handy as he's based in Leeds!

The Future?

Nicola posted this on Facebook, imediately caught my attention....


Started looking at Art Therapy courses/jobs, and typical qualifications needed. Masters in Art Psychotherapy would be the first hurdle if I was to look into something like this. Here's the spec for the course at Goldsmiths in London. (took a deep breath at the £££... if I was sure on it though, it'd all be worth it!)

http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-art-psychotherapy/

Return to Cockburn

Just had a call from Kelly earlier inviting me back to the school before the Summer holidays kick in. Also might be able to get a bit of money from their left over budget, which will be my first official paid work in a creative position! So excited!

Kelly said it'll involved a few shorter sessions with just students from Cockburn, but still based around animation workshops. Perhaps a session spent making something, then shooting, then editing. The college only has Final Cut on one computer, but there's a Mac Suite with iMovie available, it's not ideal, but it'll be good to introduce the basic idea of editing and it's a really easy program to use. The age range will vary as well, but details are yet to be confirmed. Woo, looking forward to this so much! :)

Card Designs

I want to prepare myself for Summer...
I have plans to make cards/hand made gifts and pretty things to sell- I know of more shops back home than up North, but I'm also looking at locations around Leeds and Yorkshire... Hepton Bridge, which is just outside of Leeds is a prime example. Discovered this after Steph mentioned she visited one of the galleries and thought of me when she saw some of the work for sale there.
I want to go over next week, and will pop into the Heart Gallery and ask if they would be interested in selling any of my work, or if they know anywhere that might sell it. They seem like a good place to start, as they describe themselves as, 'a unique contemporary jewellery and craft gallery featuring an eclectic mix of ever-changing work by around ninety emerging and established designers and makers, with quality and originality guaranteed.'
There's some really lovely stuff on their blog as well, take a look! http://heartgalleryblog.wordpress.com/

Friend from back home, works at Narborough Hall, possibly mentioned it on here last year when doing my Major Project. I wasn't confident enough to go in and ask about my work to be sold there, but definitely feeling it now. There's some absolutely adorable, cute and incredible hand made things to be found here, full of wedding, new home, new baby and general gifts and nifty things in here.

I want to start building up something I could work on and run as a part time thing in the back ground, something that I can be proud that I'm designing, making and can call my own. The more I think about it, the more excited I get, so I really want to get cracking on it and sell sell sell! It would be really useful if I can access the print rooms at college or Vernon Street, then I could pop back up to Leeds for a few days and bang out some printed things,
A couple of ideas sketched out so far.....

But first off, need to wrap up this project though and get my animations underway.

Cockburn College of Arts

The plan of the day - brief children about the poem and the story behind 'Flannan Isle', encourage them to think of and then make an animation, showing their idea of the real events to the mystery.
Children were then given time to come up with some ideas, sketch out storyboards then start making sets and characters. Also started to talk with them and bring in ideas of how to use the camera - come up with close ups/long shots to emphasise the way the story can be told.

To begin with, I found it quite difficult to know how to encourage ideas or get people motivated, although considering circumstances, there were only a couple of children from each school, so not knowing anyone could make them a little more shy and nervous, so sometimes they didn't seem so involved.. As the day went on though it definitely became less awkward, with some really good ideas being generated, some great characters and sets being made, and behind the whole theme of the day, it was really evident that some of these kids are truly gifted and talented! Some of the drawings, and the care being taken to build and make things really demonstrated that these children have a talent, and the whole day felt like such a rewarding opportunity to let them shine at what they do best.

When it came to editing in the afternoon we encountered a few problems with software & downloading images, but of the couple of pairs that started to work on their animations, it was really great to see things starting to come together. Unfortunately the day was cut short due to the other schools having to leave, but we just about summed it all up and gave a brief idea of how the finished animations would be.
There was a final quick presentation with the other groups that were taking part in the day, (drama, dance and music), giving a taster of what they'd been up to in their workshops. Again, it was really great seeing children doing something they evidently enjoy and working hard at something, creating such a rewarding feeling.

After the presentation I had few words with Bill and Kelly; Bill said if any workshops come up and if I'd like to help out I could do in the future, and he'd keep in touch. Also I forwarded him my blog,vimeo and youtube addresses so he can check out the kind of work I've been doing myself. I had an email back from him today saying that he loved the diversity of my work and had some really great things going on. It's really great to hear such positive feedback from a professional, particularly someone who's working in a field that I've set my sights on!
Kelly also suggested if I'd be interested in coming back I could come help out in some of the classes running a similar form of animation workshop but over a few sessions rather than a full day, so she said she'd be in touch.

Overall, I had such a great day, I've learnt a lot with regards to watching how Bill and Kelly addressed and managed the class, how to communicate with younger people and trying to encourage ideas and ways of working without telling them what to do. The day has left me wanting to get involved even more and work with young people again and I've come away with even more opportunities and more doors open, so it's been a real success!

Contacts! Yay!

Just had a phonecall from my family friend from home about working on workshops over the Summer. Coincidentally she's meeting with the county's head of creative workshops to discuss the program for the summer. She's asked me to forward a CV or a quick letter to say what I can do and what I'm interested in - as she can promote my personality, hard working skills and enthusiasm, (her kind words not mine!), and I can give an overview of my qualifications.
YAY things starting to click together :) I'm looking forward to building up my CV and feeling more confident in myself and as a practitioner.

Also, I've been contacted by Bill Beaumont, the animator running tomorrow's workshop. He was really friendly and just wanted a chat to find out what I've done in the past or any animation/workshops I've had experience of. He's given me a quick overview of what his plans are for tomorrows workshop, sounds really great! The music workshop going on are looking at the Wilfrid Wilson Gibson poem, Flannan Isle. Bill's suggested looking at the tale of the 3 lighthouse keepers that went missing, and get the children to think about coming out with stories of what could have happened to the 3 missing men, and then spend the day making sets/characters, filming and editing the pieces... A lot to do in a 5 hour day, but it should be a good fun-filled day! I'm really looking forward to it! :)

Some advice and help! :)

After feeling really frustrated that I don't know who to ask for help on the technical stuff, I was going over some old animtions and came across the stop motion piece by Eleanor Stewart, graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Visual Communications.

Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.
As a fellow VisCom'er I thought she might be a good person to ask if she's had support or not with animating, and if so what's the best thing to do when doing a stop-motion... any advice on planning/lighting/frames per second & timing of things etc....

She emailed back pretty much straight away and gave me loads of info, so so grateful!! Thank you Eleanor!!!
* Aardman Animations book by Peter Lord, called Cracking Animations ... Great for basic info on timing, lighting and movements
* Make sure all equipment is firmly secured - tables/camera/tripods/lights.. use tape,blue tack, anything!
* Storyboard everything down to the last frame - plan it out at 12 fps, it's time consuming, but makes the filming much easier and much more slick
* If you're using music, recommended to find the music first so that you can break the music down and animate to it - change in tempo/key changes/sound effects etc.
* Ask photography department for advice on backdrop/lighting/settings
* Good method of lighting is one light pointing at subject, and another bouncing off white card or wall

Fighting a Losing Battle?

After spending a good 2 and a half hours catching up with everything lost on my camera before, I managed to get up to date and do a little bit more - but still in reality I've lost out on a full day of working on this for the mess that's happened today. Just losing confidence on everything about this now, still, I'm fighting on and seeing if I can manage to scrape something together.
I've been home for an hour now and trying out how things look so far with the photos I've got (now saved on my mac) and I'm not sure how it's all going to come together - I'm going to have to save some of the photos in sections as some parts I've captured need slowing down more than others, meaning I should be able to tweak it and hopefully get a good consistency throughout.
Here's a sample of how things are looking so far, this is just one photo after another played back with a time stretch on AfterEffects of 400%, a lot of it's still really fast, but you get the idea.

There's so many bits wrong with it - like where the camera jolts about when I tried to smoothly tilt it up, (around 9 seconds in), I think the text flows on too fast - but I can't do anything about that as I haven't taken enough photos on it.

I think I'm finding it most difficult because there's only me in the room running between the wall and tape and back around the lights to the camera to take the shot, and back to move the tape at the wall, and back to the camera (so far 200+ photos taken, so that gives an idea of time spent on this so far..) I enjoy it when it's looking promising and working, I love the whole process of this coming along and working out - but when you sit down at your laptop hours and hours later and play it all back and you feel like it looks like a pile of crap, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth.
I wish I had more support technically on how to go about doing all this - I can find tutorials on youtube for the software aspects, I can ask tutors and other students on the ideas or concepts behind everything - but I feel like I'm lacking support on how to actually animate in the first place. Like roughly how many shots should I do per second to make action flow nicely - especially when I want to introduce a change in zoom or camera angles to successfully show the movement of the camera?
It's little bits and pieces I come across when I'm working away on the animation, I feel like I'm just finding everything out the hard and really really long winded way, and not really doing myself any favours.

Well, now I've got that off my chest.. I'm emailing my CV over to NFTS asap to hopefully get to assist on some of their students' upcoming animation projects. This might help me actually seeing something happen on a first hand level - and seeing someone working on a live project who's on an actual animation course might help me out a lot more. I'm thinking of checking out other animation courses so that I can send my CV off to them too and get a wider experience of animation styles and techniques.

Animation Workshop at a School

After the recent workshop with Nick this couldn't have come at a better time!
I've managed to get into a school in Beeston for the day, working with 14, year 8, gifted and talented children from 7 schools across Leeds, coming together for the day to make a short stop-motion animation.
Turns out there's now an animator running the workshop, but the school are more than happy for an extra pair of hands around to help out, which is a bonus for me! This means I can take a step back and see how the workshops are run on a first hand level, get a feel for the responsibility, delivery and the way things run on a full-day short workshop.
I'm looking forward to the experience of working with young children as well, start building up that CV!
:) All smiles today!
(Although the thought of being AT the school for a 7.30am start terrifies me slightly... can't remember the last time I saw that time of day!)

Community Education Workshop

I went along to the session this morning that Nick ran all about community and education workshops. The only experience I've had of running workshops was the Oncology Ward sessions that I ran with Hannah for the Send & Receive brief. Although they went fairly well, I still felt fairly out of my comfort zone, so any heads up on how to run a workshop I thought would be a great benefit.
And as it turns out it was an amazing help! I really enjoyed this morning, I feel like it's been a bit of an eye opener and maybe helped nudge me a step towards a possible direction I could take following my degree.

Initial discussion was around 'learning', and what it means to learn...
a process of active engagement with experience, listening to people, gaining an understanding of something, a constant (sometimes unconscious) element - we're always learning in someway or another; not just in classroom environment but throughout day-to-day life, making sense of the world, deepening of skills/knowledge/understanding/ideas/feelings and awareness.
...Effective learning leads to change, development & increases a desire to learn more.

We then went over 2 other key terms that come about in education and society, and tried to understand what they actually mean, and ideas that can come about them;
Social Exclusion
Is what can happen when people or areas sugger problems, such as unemployment/poor skills/low income/poor housing/high crime environment/bad health/poverty/family breakdowns.

- 'normal' society ... inside or out of that?
- the 'margins' and the 'core' <-- how do you define them? (worth suggesting you can experience both at the same time)
Diversity
complex composition of society, made up of individuals/groups of multiple identities. Relating to ethnicity/faith/gender/sexual orientation/intellectual & physical ability/ health status/educational & social background.
---> Think of what can be meant by the term 'diverse audiences' - meaning different things in different contexts... The different barriers... could labelling people cause more of an issue? How do you establish priotities between different diverse groups? If we talk about 'barriers', is this causing or solving a problem?
Nick went through some case studies to outline these different ideas and also give us some starting points to branch out and start thinking about how different issues could effect a workshop in the future.

For the second half of the session, we talked through the key points of going about planning, delivering, 'celebrating' and evaluating a workshop.

Planning
* Know your audience - see them before you start, then the workshop becomes less of an issue of what you want to do, and more of what they've chosen to do; creates more motivation and hopefully more participation.
* Know what outcomes you want/what you want to achieve - experiences/process/final things for an exhibition?
* Make sure everyone involved knows what's going on, set their responsibilities.
* If meeting young people, and the workshop is at a new site, make sure you visit them on their own grounds first.
* Practicalities - down to the amount of plug sockets you need, be specific so you're not in trouble on the first day!
* Health & Safety - Risk Assessments - Legal Frameworks (incl. CRB checks, confidentiality, written permissions, ethics)
* Evaluations - plan early how & when this will be done; how you're going to document/collect evidence.

Delivery
* Introduction - be friendly, informal, icebreakers?, meet and greet, act as a role model (esp. if with children/young people) - join in and encourage!
* Behaviour - your behaviour & the groups' - set ground rules so there's a basic framework, think about your body language & the way you're talking and acting.
* Balance between process & product - people have to enjoy what they're doing!
* Constantly evaluate - everyone learns differently; you can adjust for different people to make them feel more comfortable
* Build in time to collect evidence
* Don't panic about absence - it's rarely a reflection on you

Celebration
* What you're working towards - the achievements... but also encouragement along the way - at the end of each session/week? Sharing each others' work, build in a time for this? (circle time!) recognise others' enjoyment/attitudes. Outline ethics - be honest if what your group are doing is actually helping you, it might encourage them more!
* Get a broader constituancy involved - parents/helpers/workers...
* Formal achievements - Arts Awards

Evaluation
* Use in various ways - share with relevant people -(this may mean type of evidence varies - needs to be planned!)
* Important for funding for future projects; to prove that this was a success and can be done again in the future.

Some useful links!
http://www.tate.org.uk/youngtate/

http://www.engage.org/home/index.aspx


So...... after the session, my plans now are to get in touch with people, see if I can organise some times I can go along to sessions and help out or even just shaddow some workers for a few days. I started browsing the Young Tate website, and through some Twitter followers also came across 'Frilly', an organisation based in the West Midlands, who deliver community art projects, training schemes and can help out artists to put their skills to the community projects around. I'll get in touch with them and see if there's anything over the Summer I could participate in....http://www.wearefrilly.com/

Also a family friend back home is a Youth Worker involved with a lot of the local community projects. When I was younger she always wanted me to come along to any sessions and join in, so I'll give her a shout and see if there's any chance I could help out on sessions or maybe even run some art workshops and gain some experience in working with different groups of young people.

In Other News!

Light Night

I sent off my application in time for the deadline, here's the details I filled in.... My ideas are a continuation of the recent D&AD brief I was looking at with Paul early on in this project. I've had an email back from James who's in charge of the organisation of the Leeds Light Night, acknowledging my application and letting me know he'll be in touch soon.
(click to enlarge)

NFTS

I mentioned I emailed the Animation department around Easter time about any students who might want a hand with any upcoming projects, so that I can gain some experience of the industry/other people's work. I've just heard back from one of the tutors saying that students are now kicking off on final projects and will need a hand, so I'm forwarding on a CV and some work and hopefully I can hear some more positive news back soon as well! :)

Aritivism Exhibition!

Me Chris and Claire spent the day on Sunday mustering up the energy to finish off our basket/cases for our heads, they looked pretty good in the end! Well, kind of, we were sick of the sight of them by the end of the day I think, SO MUCH PVA GLUE!!!!

We all went along today though to check out the finished presentation of all of the heads, it looked so so random, quirky and brilliant all at the same time. Really lovely finish to a fun little project! We got to see the finished projection that Shari had put so much work into, it looked so good, really captured the essence of each individual project and portrayed the ideas of journeys and memories really really well.

Here's some photos of the exhibition in Armley Mills, at the bottom of the museum, and a couple of videos of the projection.
(Sorry crappy quality on the old phone camera!)

And here's the DVD Shari gave us all... features: the full projection screening video; a collection of interview feedback responses from the project, clips of the project running; and a slideshow of photographs from over the last couple of months.

And the videos... 2 snippets of the projection which was played up on the slanted ceiling above the area where the heads were displayed. The montage I did for Shari of photographs of my great nan and some of her family, (dating back over the last 90 years or so) is featured in the second video, about 44 seconds in!

Live Brief: Rationale Update...

Looking back at the live brief project sheet I handed in at the start of this brief, I am nowhere near where I wanted to be... I admit I struggled to handle the Enterprise, Crit Studies and Elective - and so neglected the Live Brief project quite a bit over the first 5 weeks. I've also made a point of my recent thoughts on what to do about my thoughts as an 'animator' - where I want to go and what I want to be.
As much as I keep getting myself in a huff and panicking about the work I haven't yet done, I also find I'm stepping back and realising I probably need to reassess what I want to get out of this course and the directions I should take.

For these reasons, I've summed up my ideas of what I need into a revised rationale, and here's the original blog post to compare to... http://jodiecurley.blogspot.com/2010/04/live-brief-rationale.html

I want to be comfortable and confident with what I'm doing with myself on this course, as my strong interests lay in animation, I want to produce at least one solid animation by the end of this brief that I can be proud of and be pleased that I'm on the right tracks. Or on the other hand, know that this is something I enjoy but is not what I actully anticipate in doing following my degree.
All in all, from this project, I think I need peace of mind that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm on the right tracks, and that I at least think I know what I am doing.

PPD Update

With everything going on since January, I haven't really been thinking about the PPD module at all if I'm honest. But looking back, I feel confident I have been considering my direction on the course and actively exploring my personal development and where I want to be in the near future.
I've been back through my blog posts over the last 7 months or so, and a fair wedge of them I've felt I can tag as part of the PPD module because contact or decisions I have made, and actions I have taken I feel have been an influence of my personal and/or professional development. This I'm pretty happy about!
I've been eager to get involved with animations, animators, projects anything going on in the world of animation - or at least I have tried, often failed or not made it very far, and not produced any animations as yet. This has been bothering me for a while, and as mentioned in posts around the Live Brief, I'm starting to question my role as an 'animator', whether it was a bit of a one off that I enjoyed doing, or something I still haven't had the chance to become completely involved in and fully get the advantages and joy out of. wow that sounded cliche.. but it's true!
The thing that does keep me going is the excitement and complete awe I get when I see an incredible animation.
I've been busy engaging with animators/community art/live situations..
    -I've responded to several of the VLE notices and looked for other relevant opportunities to ask for some experience or get involved, but unfortunately not been successful/heard back.
   -The community art project Artivism, that I joined a little late after Chris went along to the first few sessions. This project made me reconsider my ways of working; the group/interaction/socialising situation I experienced while on the project just felt like a great way to produce work, and at the same time you manage to get a load of other people interested in something that you're passionate about.. It just seemed to be something that is ideal for me and the things I love getting out of life.. being happy and making others happy! (again, a little cliche, but also true)

I've also been thinking about what to do over the Summer, I need to get a job and earn about £200 a month minimum so that I can cover my rent/bills without destroying my overdraft again.. although I'm already pretty much there. Ideally I want to work maybe 4 days a week, I'm thinking restaurant... if i get anything relevant to my animations/community art/general creative things that interest me, then bonus! But with my free days, I really want to start building up a hoard of craft things that I can sell. Either at more craft fairs that come up, like the Handmade or Competitive Cupcakes, or hopefully some independent shops back home that I looked at as research for my Final Project last year. This will hopefully give me grounds to build up a little bit of business on the side, and the bonus of added cash in my pocket.
I was also talking to my Aunty when I was home over Easter, she always manages to give me a boost of inspiration and encouragement, and shuffles me the right way when I'm stuck! She started brainstorming with me all the little craft things that I could go about making, from cards to cushion covers, to accessories, to aprons, to decorations and other handmade gifts. If I can get enough things together, we both know enough people back home that I could throw a little handmade-crafts Summer afternoon party type thing. Like a home sale event? The whole thought of it gets me really excited, which suggests that I should get my head screwed on, set a plan out and go ahead and do it! So that's exactly what I plan to do!
If it all starts going swimmingly well, then I'd like to set up a website and in time for the Summer event, I can give out my details and hopefully start getting some orders in on what to make.
I'll also be squeezing in a trip to Glastonbury, a week in Cyprus, hopefully a weekend in Dublin to make up for the weekend I lost due to the damn volcano ash... oh and I think there's something about dissertation reading as well?
Right. I'm sure I can get on it!

Green Team Update

I managed to have a quick chat with Charlotte today about the situation on the Green Team, unfortunately she's been struggling to communicate successfully with the school and the project hasn't moved forward as much as she has hoped.
I did manage to get some copies of notes from the meetings she has been to recently though, and also a detailed brief which outlines a little more details about the project...

The brief...

Characters designed by the children on the Green Team... Charlotte set them the task of coming up with some ideas around characters to feature or influence the animation side of the documentary.

Plans from now...
As it's a little bit touch and go with what to do next, Charlotte's talked through with me what she'd like to do next if the communication is re-built. This will involve getting the interviews done so that Charlotte can start editing them and building them into the structure of the documentary; getting some animation samples done and then some feedback on the animation ideas from the Green Team; and also, working on the titles and introduction to the documentary.

We're going to be doing some rotoscoping tomorrow afternoon as I suggested this style of animation would be quite good, and we can use some of the live footage we already have as some examples to show the Team what kind of feel the animation will have. I'll post up on that if it all goes to plan!

Artivism Update

The last session was today and me and Claire went along to try to finish our head pieces off and also make our display cases. We've brought the last few bits to finish off at home on the cases, but we both managed to finish off our heads, mine's a slightly Tim Burton-esque creepy 'lady'.. if you can call it that...?!

I had a little chat with Shari about being able to contribute to the projections which will feature over the displayed heads. Each piece will be given a 30 second slot, with images inspired by the memories each person has generated whilst making the Papier-mâché heads. In my case, this started off as my family... My great nan is now in her late 90's, and after she moved into a home me and my mum collected belongings from her house. One thing that completely overwhelmed me was a huge box of old photographs, some dating back to 1912, mostly family portraits, then other photographs of my great nan as a young girl in the 1930's and 40's. Then whilst making my head, I started thinking of my younger sister and generally about themes of family.

Shari suggested I create the 30second clip dedicated to my piece, so I plan to incorporate the style Shari has previously worked in, and plans to adapt again for this project. Here's an example of a piece she completed for Light Night 2009:  http://www.floemedia.co.uk/video/slipintime.html
I'd like to take Shari's style by layering images of 1920's-40's portraits and images suggesting families and also include images of my sister and linking in my own family today. I'd like my section to be quite playful, so for sound I'm hoping to find something playful like children playing or laughter.

Here's a few examples of photos I'm thinking of...

Flickbook Neighbourhoods

This was posted up on the VLE and I thought it'd be right up my street for a live project I could become involved in...

Flickbook Neighbourhoods - Inspired by the core practice of artist Rachel Henson we are looking for 5 artists/filmmakers to create new visions of west Leeds using the Flickbook. Each artist will be given one west Leeds council ward to use as their starting point for re-imagining the physical community and or telling a story.
The finished books will be printed and duplicated and then chained in their locations during the I Love West Leeds Festival encouraging the public to stand and thumb through them.
http://www.ilovewestleeds.co.uk/flickbooks.htm

In response to this I've created an extra blog strand to display some of my work and some ideas I have around the theme of the project....

http://jodie-curley.blogspot.com/

I'll update if I hear anything back from Jane!

Green Team

I've been attending meetings since the beginning of the year with Charlotte and Steph at a school in Harehills who are creating a documentary about their school being developed into the largest 'Green School' in the UK.
We have been working with one of the tutors and a group of students called the 'Green Team', deciding what to base the documentary on, how it's going to be put together, who will feature in it, any interviews to take place etc.
It's been difficult for us to catch up so much over the last month or so due to Easter holidays and our busy timetable and deadlines before the break, but I'm meeting up with Charlotte tomorrow to discuss what I need to start doing for my part of the project.
Charlotte invited me to join the team due to my interest in animation; she wanted a more youthful feel and approach to the documentary and asked if I would be interested.
I've thrown a few ideas in, and hopefully tomorrow I'll find out what I can start getting on with and getting involved in to get the ball rolling and pulling everything together.
This is really exciting, as once it's all finished and we have some DVD's produced of the documentary, they will be sent to schools over the country showing the changes the children have made and the way the developments have affected them and their learning environment. This means my work will hopefully be viewed by quite large audiences, and also for a great cause!

Elective

Advanced Drawing... over the last 4 days our elective has involved us transforming our drawings from 3D spaces to 2D, and back again and again. It's quite an interesting concept and has made me open my eyes a little as to how I would go about drawing things - thinking about dimensions, space and sizes. First of all we had to draw into a 3D space with black electrical tape, then taking photographs and drawings of this space reduce the ideas to a 2D state. Then from here we had to create a model of space using foam board and including printed out photos of the space & photos of our drawings from the previous stage - therefore bringing everything back into a 3D perspective.
Our final pieces were then an interpretation of the 3D model presented as a 2D experimental drawing, drawing from photographs taken of our model spaces. (confused?! .. we were!)

Here's some images of work created over the 4 days...

And this is my final piece....

If I'm honest, I was a little apprehensive about the elective when we first were given the brief, I was worried it was going to be similar or follow on from my unimpressed choice of an elective last year, (Visualisation & Illustration), but I’ve been pleasantly surprised! Admittedly at times I’ve felt a little bored and unmotivated, but I think that’s because I’m not used to being so loose in my work and to keep doing so for nearly 7 hours straight. It reminded me a lot of A-Level/Foundation Course times, it was pretty fun to go back to that freedom of doing something for no reason at all but to make something interesting on a piece of paper.

It's been great to be able to be a little experimental and play around with drawing like this, but the main thing I feel I have achieved from this elective is realising how much I enjoy doing things for a purpose... This drawing has been great in making you think about how to draw and is definitely applicable to how you work, but in all fairness, this is something I could do for fun at home on a rainy day! I am much happier knowing that my work is being done to fulfill a purpose, and hopefully a meaningful one as well.. Reminds me of the Send & Receive brief and the importance of clients and the effect you can have on people through the useful and good work that you can do.

National Film & Television School

NFTS – MA courses….
I first looked at NFTS after Matt recommended I have a look, said he went there to help out as an assistant on animations in the Summer after 2nd year. So I'm going to follow his footsteps and email to ask if they need any help on animations coming up over the next few months, hopefully seeing other people working and seeing different means of animation will give me a boost of ideas and encouragement to get on a roll with my own stuff.

I carried on looking around the website and checked out a few of the courses on offer, I would definitely consider an MA after my time in VisCom - I guess as a way to fine tune the interests I have in animation and really get stuck in and be working around other students that are doing what I do, become completely involved in animation and start moving down the career path and finding out where animation can take me. Although, I'm not sure how soon I’d want to do it? Money wise, I'd definitely need a year out of education to work and save some pennies, but also keep my interests going and working on animations in my spare time.
The one course that stood out for me was the Animation Direction, it looked ideal for me! Just a broad intro to animation styles and techniques by workshops and specialist visits, then being left to your own devices to start building up your own set of ideas and your own visual style. It was really useful as well to check out current students or graduates blogs for some inspiration as to what other amateur animators are doing. I found it quite reassuring seeing some really great but slightly sketchy work, then some of the incredible stuff they’ve finished up with – shows the system of progress through the course and the level that students have started and then finished at.