Painting the Horizon

*sigh* I'm in class and bored out of my mind. The printer is malfunctioning so we can't print, and people are going home because there's not much else to do since we don't have new assignments. I can't, though, because I have a workshop here in the afternoon and I'm not biking all the way home just to come back an hour later. x__x So I'm stuck here killing time by gossiping and listening one of my more techno-phobic classmates freak the fuck out over the printer (I love her, but she gets frustrated over these things oh-so-easily). Haha.

On the up side, I just got a notification that my order of Cataclysm has been shipped! Only I don't know if I should expect it to arrive tomorrow or on the 7th. (Monday is Finland's independece day, so no mail will be arriving then).

Hookay, I'm back from the entrance exams.

Didn't go so well in Turku. I got eliminated halfway through. In my defense, though, the competition out there is really tough. I went with a friend, who got to stay till the end of the exam, so I can't have been too far from achieving the same, given that we are on about the same level. I will admit, though, that I was everything but on fire out there, and maybe I could've tried a little harder.

In any case, being eliminated at Turku meant I could make it to the Kajaani exam, and even had one day to spare, so I visited karhuntaival on the way. The Kajaani exam was super easy, but there was a bit in it that may have wrecked my chances, since it was not about my skills, but rather my personality and dreams, which have helped me in when it's been about art schools, but may not look as good in a technical field. They said if you didn't get a set minimum score from that part, you could not get in.

And, the thing is... I'm starting to have doubts about Kajaani again. Assuming I'm accepted, I can either accept or decline. Yeah, I could accept, but I'm thinking of applying to Turku again in two years (because I realized just how much I want to be an animator), and if I stay in my current school, I would graduate by then. If I go to Kajaani, apply to Turku and get accepted on the second try, I will have wasted four years without a degree to show for it. And I'm still only 21, I'd have time for Kajaani later.


Part of this is just me freaking out over the possibility of having to move to a completely new place, another part is that, well, I've spent these past 6 years with artistic types. The Turku exam was full of that type, amazing and pleasant people. The Kajaani applicants, though, mostly didn't look like the type I could connect with. But then again, a lot of them have got to be huge nerds, so there might be a connection to be found on that level. And there's the fact that I've heard some negative things of the Kajaani AMK, mainly that not everyone who is interested in game development gets to specialize in it, and I'm not sure if that risk is worth taking.

Of course, I've been thinking that it might not be that bad even if I didn't get to specialize in games, buuuut... then I run into the fact that I'm abandoning a perfectly decent place of study to chase after a dream. If that dream turns out to be unattainable, what would the point be in abandoning a pleasant, if pointless place for a place that "might not be that bad"?

Aaaand the invitation to turku arrived. High five.

Guess I'm sending e-mail to Turku about my overlapping entrance exams.

ETA: Turku only has one solution to offer: pick one, skip the other. I'll send mail to Kajaani too just in case.

So!

As of today, the exhibition is up. Yay for me.

( Pictures of the works on display under the cut )

Oh man, I'm still such a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, it's barely even funny. My love was recently rekindled by the Jeremy Brett TV series, which is currently being rerun on Finnish tv, and now I've ordered a collection of every single Holmes story written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Eeeee I can't wait till it arrives. *___*

In other news, I have something like ten days to do and mail the Turku AMK preliminary assignments, two and a half weeks to finish the art pieces for my exhibition, which is going up on May 10th, two weeks to do a Swedish assignment, and a month to finish my exhibition portfolio. 8D Busy busy.

Nyt on AMK-yhteishaku laitettu ja jänskättää :D

Yesterday I turned 21. Whopee. No parties this year, because I'm not into that whole "going out to drink" thing and my apartment can't accommodate more than three or four people at once. Not that I mind. My cousin and her dog visited me, though, which was cool.

Also, my animation classes are over. Okay, so there's still tomorrow, but we're just showing our animations, not actually working on anything anymore. The stop motion animation turned out alright, the drawn one... well, we only had little less than two weeks to learn a new program and make a whole animation with some kind of plot with it, so obviously no one's animations were going to be Disney level. Or even Cartoon Network level. I'm still kind of embarrassed by the corners I had to cut and some frankly crappy bits that I just didn't have time to do any better. I think I still stand a very good chance at getting top marks for the course, though.

Oh, yes, about the program we used for the drawn animations. It's called Toon Boom, and apparently a lot of professional animators use it (well, likely a more professional version, but still). I think Family Guy is animated using Toon Boom. In any case, a lot of tools that are unique to the program and a lot of amusing quirks that make working so much harder when you're only learning the program. I can see how it makes things easier once you know how to work it, though.

Anyway, I'll probably upload my animations to YouTube and post them at some point. If I can get over my embarrasment of not rivaling professionals.

So that's the first week of animation now. This week was pure theory.

We watched some documentaries on the history of moving pictures. Turns out animation was actually around before live action moving pictures. I was aware of the existence of magic lanterns, but I'd never thought of them as a form of animation, which they are.

We reviewed filmmaking basics, such as the 180 degree rule (there's an invisible line between two interacting characters. You may only shoot the scene from one side of that line. The camera may only occupy the other side if it is moved there during a tracking shot), shot composition, lighting, and transitions.

Then we watched some animated shorts. Steamboat Willie and some Wallace and Gromit, plus a few short cartoons geared towards really small kids.

As we left the class today, we were tasked with writing storyboards for our own animations. We will all be making two: One in stop motion and the other in 2D drawing.

I saw Prince of Egypt for the first time today, and it was amazing. Great animation, poweful scenes and amazing everything.

And I was reminded again that I want to watch every high-quality animated movie ever made. BECAUSE I'M JUST THAT INTO ANIMATION. I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get into that school next year.
Okay, no, I know I'll be headed for the Kajak Game Development Lab, because I need to specialize, and if I can't do animation, I'll do video games, dammit!

Jesus, I'm so out of practise in studying for tests.


I hope tomorrow's test on modern art isn't going to be nearly as tough as I imagine it to be.

I hope it's all about the kind of stuff you just sort of know after being told/shown once. At least the lecturer said she's not going to expect us to remember years or dates.



...Yyeeeeah, back to trying to memorize as much as possible before bed.

Ps. Egon Schiele's work is freaking amazing. Why did I not run into it before this course?