Week One: Induction Task

Apologies for not posting in a few days, my induction task was in dire need of attention for today. I worked on it all weekend and most of last night, printing, cutting, sticking it down and drawing. My printer also ran out of ink after only two or three pages so I had to use the Uni printers for the rest of it (and there was a lot) which came to about £6 worth of printer credit plus the £2.50 you get to begin with. Fortunately it was all finished last night however, and ready for presenting this morning!

I wasn't too nervous when the rest of Group B were showing us their sketchbooks and talking about it, but as soon as it was my turn, the butterflies came along and I'm sure I was shaking slightly (I hope nobody noticed!). Fortunately, my lecturer Matthew Gravelle liked my work and the range of interests and fantasy work. The purpose was to come up with a defining image to represent yourself though, and it was quickly apparent that this would be difficult.

The image you come up with is for our next brief, which is where you take the logo for the course and meta-morph it into your image and then back to the logo in the space of ten seconds. This will require 250 drawings if animating on "ones" (exactly 24 drawings in a second), or 125 frames when animating on "twos" (only 12 drawings in a second). Most will opt for 125 frames as this halves the workload and we only have three weeks to complete it.

I spoke to Matthew about what my animation could be, and he suggested going for an abstract representation of myself as it's something I'm curious but also terrified about, so it will get me out of my comfort zone. While this will be a good exercise for me, I have no idea what to do and will have to do a lot of research and tests this weekend.

Other than that, there has been no extra homework and lessons are going well! My other animator friends, Rob, Vicky and I were experimenting with a line test program called Ernest and we animated our hands scrunching up paper and drawing an eye with huge lashes opening and closing which was cool.

And seeing as I haven't updated in a while, the party the other day was a bit odd as there was hardly anyone from Animation first year there and the computer games lot were on the Gamecube (not Rock Band *sad*) playing Mario Kart and Wario party so it wasn't that great. Rob, Zara and Bryony came at the end so I got to speak with them. Rob suggested a gaming session on the Xbox back at his that evening, so Alex, Dale and I went to his with his friend Paul and we had a great evening on Halo 3 and ODST. Dominoes Pizza was ordered in as well so it was a pretty awesome night after the so-so party.

I've finally had the chance to watch some more films in my spare time and broaden my horizons etc. So far I've seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (very weird), Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (pretty cool), Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (still hilarious), Twin Town (grim but very entertaining) and tonight I'll be watching the animated film, Belleville Rendez-Vous (I believe it's French) with Alex as a treat for finishing my sketchbook. =)

Other than that, I've done my first washing machine cycle and have been enjoying Uni immensely!
Missing everyone back home! Until next time, bye-bye!
Love Gemma