He also happens to be one of the funniest teachers I have ever had, though that may be partly due to his enthusiasm, use of pop-culture references and sheer personality. You can't help but smile when your teacher says "...and yes, there will be time for a potty break." He does like to talk a bit but not as much as...
Kay, our life drawing teacher for "Drawing for Animation". She can talk, which is a good and bad thing at the same time. She is imparting important information to us, but at the same time, it doesn't leave a lot of time for drawing. I'm suddenly realising that we were quite spoiled at Southbank. It's difficult doing the drawing class since I'm can't figure out just what Kay wants, my drawing ability seems to have diminished and the techniques we're learning to draw are some what confusing.
We're told to use something called the "cloud technique", the aim is to get a 'silhouette' of your object. You do this by using a small piece of charcoal and start making small circular or square motions and "grow" the shape into your form. Somehow it's supposed to teach us about "customary" versus "aesthetic" perception.
Continuing with the drawing theme, "Drawing for Animation" contains 2 classes, one for Life and the other for Perspective. Unfortunetly, we don't do enough drawing for my liking and are encouraged to do it outside class. Which is great, if you have the time for it. The other teacher is John, who reportably, has the bad habit of taking "sickies". According to some of the 2nd/3rd year Animation students, this is a regular occurence and we should expect in three weeks. Which is annoying, since he decided to pull one this week, forcing me to come to uni since I didn't get to read the email until then.
He is a nice person though, who has been teaching at QCA for a very long time. He's also the 1st year Advisor, and apparently has a weakness towards brownies. Which brings me to the Griffith Animation Society (GAS) which is a student run organisation that hosts life drawing classes on Mondays 6-8 pm at Grey St Studio room 6.20. It's $5 for members and $10 for non members, membership fee is $15 (I think, I can't quite remember). I haven't gone to one yet, but I will sometime in the future.
I think I'm listing classes in order of preference, I'm not too sure. In Programming, I haven't learnt a great deal but so far we've been learning how to create our names. Bascially, you've got to plot co-ordinates to get the computer to do stuff... Then it gets harder..
It's difficult but rewarding. Even if I forget to attach files to my emails... Or get really frustrated and have to vent.
Last of all is Digital Production which is so far teaching us advanced photo manlipulation. Some are new things to learn and others are a repeat of what I already know. Our teacher Luke, can't run too well without coffee. Our lectures are run by Darren who seems to like using baby photos of his two girls a lot. I question the why he has a folder on his computer called "Live Girls 2009", I can only hope it's for work purposes. Edit 8/4/09 - It is for work purposes, somewhere along the line, Darren does the airbrushing and digital body reconstruction of photos for soft-porn publications.. He did have a ramble on how why you shouldn't compare yourself to those models in the magazine.. It wasn't that sucessful...
Incidently I've learnt some more about the students I'm studying with, I don't know everyone but the ones I do are pretty interesting. Recently I did a oral presentation with Anderson, who's a kind of laid back and helpful guy. He even gave me a tip of how to do a Programming Assignment. Jasmine, who I think is my partner for another upcoming assignment, likes to earsdrop on people just as much as I do. (Which you did not read on this blog, and if you did, it is part of my "human studies" training...) We recently heard part of a strange conversation from 1st year film students, involving some hapless bloke, a snake and someone's bottom....
That's it for now.
