So below are all the projects I've handed in since being in America for your convenience, enjoy! You can view them full screen by double clicking on the video, or by selecting the title of a video to open them in YouTube. And of course, if you want to know what it was like making these projects, my opinions on them, and the issues i faced when making them, you'll have to read my blog in full! Or... just click the "Academic" tag to the right of the page to view just my work posts...
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Grey- Day... Get it?I make myself laugh. Actually the weather has been nice, but today i got my grades. Which grades? Well both my Professional Practice and my finals grades. Exciting right! Professional Practice So for this i got a 2:2. Not great, but it's about on par with the rest of my grades this year. It's not that i don't care, but i really don't see grades being all that important. Especially in a less significant assignment like this. I'm more bothered about what i end up with in regards to work to show, not the grades i got for them. The feedback was very thorough and mostly negative, but i still passed so who's the winner here! Me. I especially don't mind my grade considering i had to do an assignment about showing off my work when i didn't have any. Most of my files from previous projects are back in England on my boxed up computer, and the stuff i did here was not finished when this was due. So not too bad Harry. Not too bad. Finals
Video- A Sound- B 3D- A Independent Study- A That's right, 3 A's and a B! It's clear i do much better in America than i do in England. Again i don't get that hung up on grades, but i am happy with the work i produced while being here for the most part. I don't believe it has been a waste coming here, and i definitely believe i've done and learnt much more here than if i stayed at UWE. The structure of education here keeps you on track a lot better than in Bristol, and having to go in to class twice a week, while tiring, works a lot better than once a month for some random lecture. At least in regards to production. The sheer amount of projects i've had while being here has made me feel a lot more productive, and produce not just a lot of work, but in the end some good quality work too. So that's that! If that ain't closure i don't know what is! Hybrid AnimationFinally, my final final. What a sentence. Well this was it. I know have no more work. I can finally sleep. With the end of this final i had no work left to do. How did it go? Well it went just fine. As you'll see by the video below, i was unfortunately not able to finish, but i was assured it was ok at the final showing in front of Pam and my other two classmates. They understood that i bit off a little more than i could chew, especially with all my other finals. But they like what i had done. Pam Said she'd like to see it when i finish it, as i intend to keep working on it. The other two animations were also really cool! But i feel i was on the same skill level which was nice. The last half an hour of the final ended up being us all talking to each other about graduation and me going back to England, and what i'd been up too in the States. It was a nice final, and i hugged Pam goodbye and parted ways with my fellow students with a handshake and wishes well for the future. Now i just need to wait for my grades... Digital To PhysicalSo here is my finally finished video project. I say finally because even though it only took 3 days to make in total, it felt much longer with the added day of losing everything and having to remake it all. This was showed on two macs in classroom for my final, side by side, and everyone seemed pretty impressed i think. In the end i'm pretty happy with it at least, even if it does need some final polishing up. So what you want to do is play the video on the left first, and then play the video on the right when the countdown says now. I've tried to make it the easiest way possible to sync up, but i know it can still be a little tricky. And don't forget to take into account loading time!
Well That Didn't Go To Plan...Well... according to my notes, my sound final began at 1:50. So imagine my shock when i got to class and found everyone already set up with their makeshift instruments and already jamming. After awkwardly sitting in the corner not being acknowledged for about 10 minutes i piped up and asked a student what was going on. Apparently it started at 1, and after the embarrassment of being alone on the corner, as well as being late, i decided to just hightail it out of there. Josh was there but also didn't say anything so i figured it would be best to leave now, and send an email to him when i got to the flat explaining that i left early so not to get in the way. He replied saying quite a few students didn't even show up so he wont hold it against me. I also sent him a picture of my instrument, a Mtn Dew can ocarina, so it wasn't done in vain. Anyway i hope my last two finals don't go as bad. The Cloud & ClockMy first final was today! And it was 3D. Unfortunately, i missed my alarm and woke up super late, and while i wasn't too late to hand in, i was too late to add foley to my video. As such, all the sound effects currently on here are temporary and unfinished! But the animation is final. Enjoy! Wiping My Hope Of FinishingSo yesterday something very annoying and very inconvenient happened. I spent a solid 12 hours working in the depot on a computer, without leaving it. I spent these 12 hours animating all of the animation needed for my video class due on Thursday. Little did i know however, that on a Sunday at around 2 am, the computers wipe all their data, even if you are still using them at the time. What this meant? Well my 12 hours of nonstop work. Gone. That's 12 hours wasted. This meant that i had no video work to hand in for finals, no time to finish my independent study animation, and no time to add sound to my 3D project. So you can understand why i'm talking about this today instead of when it happened, as i was understandably upset. In the end however i was convinced by my father to bite the bullet and do it again. And so today i spent a very deja vu day of pretty much the exact same thing. And now, at 4 am in the morning, so i guess technically tomorrow, i have 3 out of 5 scenes re animated and rendered, with the other two in progress. The animation is cheap and and poorly timed, but i now have at least something to had in. An unfinished independent study project and a little lousy video project is better than a little less unfinished independent study project and no video project. I even got time to add some sound to my 3D project while i was waiting for the rendering, so there's that too. Not the smoothest Finals, but it could have been worse i suppose. Not to jinx it or anything... Our First TornadoThis morning we were awoken to the city sirens blaring. And so with a quick search on the internet it turned out to be a tornado warning. That explained the rain, as it was the most rain i've ever seen, and i live in England! Long story short after about 15 minutes the alarm went off and we never got to see the tornado. But it did come by Richmond apparently but you would never guess it from a few hours later. In true Richmond style, the rest of the day was so sunny and hot all the rain was gone by the afternoon. Busy Busy BusyWith finals coming up fast, it will be likely i won't post much in the next few days as i will be doing nothing but working on my stuff. Ordinarily i would update my progress but since there is such a small time, i will just post my finished work when it's done.
AgainSo from now on i have no classes until the finals which were mentioned in the post below. This means much more time to do the projects i need to get done. Unfortunately for me, they're not the only projects i need to do. As an exchange student there are certain projects from Bristol that i still need to do throughout the semester. One i have already completed which was critical perspective. But the hand in for professional practice is on the 8th. For this assignment, i need a 500 word report about 36 hours of work experience, a business card design, a showreel, a portfolio website (Located here: www.harrydawsonconfusedandfabulous.weebly.com) a CV and finally for whatever reason, a 10 page portfolio highlighting my work. I find the last one extremely pointless and a waste of time for numerous reasons the main one being as an animator the work i do moves. That's like... the main thing it does. So why the heck would i showcase this on paper? The least practical way of showing anything that moves. Not only that but if we have to keep our CV below two pages, what employer would have the attention span to look at 8 more pages?
Well for whatever reason i still have to do it, which piles even more work that i need to get done. Probability i will complete everything? Low. Video CritSo because i of my date mishap the other day, i couldn't book the production room on such short notice, which i meant re using my old test footage for the final piece. It did end up working out pretty well though, and i even managed to work out all the timings for the piece. Of course i didn't know for sure until today as i couldn't exactly test it without another 13 computers. First let me show you what i did. The quality is a bit... well terrible, and i apologies. I wasn't sure how to record the thing.
Now i don't know how simple it looks to you, but i can assure you it wasn't for me. For starters, i had to make 14 individual videos for this to work. In order for each screen to play what i wanted in sync, i couldn't just use the same one. The darkening of the screen, the everywhere at once, even the audio on specific screens without overlapping each other required individual timing on each video. My work space in Premier Pro was all over the place. But i must admit... It was pretty fun.
As for setting up, it took about 30 minutes. I had to log into each of the 14 computers, put each video onto each computer, set the video ready to play, set a timer to go off every 3 seconds, and then play each one 3 seconds after another to time it. That's why the beginning is cut off, because i had to start each one, run over to the camera and start recording. Unfortunately for me however, i never actually got to show anyone. Because my piece was so big, it meant using the classroom, whereas everyone else's was in the Depot. By the time we finished looking at everyone's the class was over, so i'm showing mine next class. Hopefully the computers wont have been wiped and i wont need to put each file back on again though. Because that part alone took a while. The work that we did look at was really cool. The production room was like a mini art gallery, with everyone's instillation pieces on show. A lot of them were bizarre. In a good way though! I didn't take any pictures, and it's very hard to explain what most of them were about because they were very unique, but in regards to my piece, i think i'm about on par with most people. So i'm happy about that. Suffice to say i've never handed in 14 videos at the same time before. |
IntroductionHello! My name is Harry, a 20 year old Animation Student from Bristol. Archives
June 2017
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