Amy, my sister, demanded that I updated my blog. The last couple of weekends have slipped through my fingers, so apologies for the delay.
So what have I been up to? Well, I’m glad you asked. We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty in classes now for the most part – plugging away at the monster that is Maya 8.5. A SecondLife project we’re working on for the ABC is coming along slowly, mostly due to the, how shall we say, less-than-adequate modelling, texturing, navigating, etc. Actually everything about SecondLife is less-than-adequate. To quote Mungo (fellow Digi Media student) “…it’s like modelling clay, in the rain, with stumps for hands”. Well put.
We’re also starting to attach to some projects that the masters students are working on – some television commercials at the moment for ‘lipsmackers’. Mostly we’ll be doing animation/compositing/etc under the supervision of the MA students, so it should be good.
Last Friday I went to a lecture by the creative director Alex Maclean of ‘airside‘ fame (if you know the band Lemon Jelly, you’d know the work of airside – Matt, I’m looking at you). Very cool work, very inspiring.
Saturday was of course Mardi Gras in Sydney, but due to a stopover at a pub in Newtown (as demonstrated by Mel and Roger above), we never actually made it to the city in time. But a few of us went to Hugh’s place for a house warming (Hugh is a director from Adelaide) which was pretty awesome. It was this old place in Paddington, built on and renovated over what must have been something like 80 years. Lit up with a few dozen tea-lights, and it looked awesome (so, props to Bec). It was also an interesting party because everyone was talking about film all night, and some more musically talented people played away at the piano. Nicely done.
Sunday morning Roger (other AFTRS guy who lives in the village) and I got up early having read that there were going to be free bacon and eggs in the village. Having over-indulged the night before, this was a welcome concept. So imagine our disappointment when it turns out that it was postponed until next week, having sacrificed hours of sleep. So we had to go and buy bacon and eggs to get our fix. It was worth it. But enough about food.
Sunday night had one of the biggest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen descend on us. I’m talking thunderstorm that would throw down bolts of lightning every 5 to 10 seconds for a couple of hours. And here I am without a decent line of sight for photography. Damn! Similar storms tonight, too; torrential downpours, people getting struck by lightning, 110 km/h winds. Crazy Sydney weather.
That’s all for now. A more interesting post next week, I promise. No, really… In the mean-time, feel free to leave comments in the comments section below…
