Trip To Sadler's Wells

On the 23rd of December 2008 (I forgot to post this at the time), our Diploma class took a trip to Sadler's Wells!

This came with a deal, we got to see the set design for Sadler's Wells and then we'd see an actual performance of Edward Scissorhand.

Upon our arrival, we were introduced to Sarah Jane and her two work colleagues who asked us a variety of questions about Sadler's Wells and theatres in general.

We then went on a tour of the theatre which was extremely interesting. We got to learn where the name 'Sadler's Wells" came from. A man called Sadlers found a well in the theatre thus combining the two to form 'Sadler's Wells'. The water was also sold to customers and the well is still there to this very day!

We then went to the dance studio in which the actors practice their dances on. It was exactly the same size as the real stage so the performers can get everything perfect - I found this quite interesting and a very good idea!

After that, we saw the set design for the Edward Scissorhands performance. I thought it was beautiful and I especially liked the hedges shaped in animals.

We then met 3 of the people who work at Sadler's Wells, Mark Doerfel the web designer, Nadine the project manager and the finance director Mark Rhodes.

We talked for a while about all their different jobs and roles in the theatre industry which was quite interesting and we then went on to do some group work such as sorting performances into different categories prior to age, gender, ect.

I think this was a very interesting day and I'm really looking forward to going to see the real performance of Edward Scissorhands now!

Avatar 3D

On January the 23rd 2010, Cheyenne, Farah, Beth and myself all went to see Avatar in 3D.

I have actually already been to see it before with my friend, Matthew but I really loved it and decided I'd go and see it again.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I found it more emotional the second time I went to see it, my eyes were watering at certain parts of the film (Such as Grace and Eytukan's deaths), it might have something to do with Cheyenne being there and making sad remarks and being almost close to tears as well whereas no one said much during the first time I saw.

I think the graphics were absolutely amazing and definitely worth the 13-year wait that director and scrip-writer, James Cameron waited for good graphic technology to make the film. The use of motion capture worked wonders as every single animated movement looked real. The best part of the graphics to me were the forest backgrounds of Pandora, especially at night. They were just so beautiful and so well laid out that I wanted to just walk into them.

The story was amazing, a little cliche and long at some points but nevertheless, flawless with the animation. I really begun to connect with all the characters, especially the group of RDA humans (consisting of Jake, Grace, Norm, Trudy and Max) at the end who joined the Na'vi against the RDA and I was deeply upset at the deaths of Trudy and Grace. All the Na'vi were really likeable too, especially the princess, Neytiri. Vice versa for the villains, I really felt a true hatred for the two main antagonists of the film, Miles and Parker and found myself wanting to shout at them throughout the film.

My favourite part of the film was at the end with the fight against the Na'vi clans and the RDA. I thought all the fighting was flawless, especially the air fights and I loved how realistic it looked considering it was live action humans fighting against CGI graphical motion capture Na'vi.

All in all, I think this film was amazing and definitely deserves all the awards, money and fame it's quickly gaining.

Even though I've seen this film twice, I definitely wouldn't hesitate to see it again and I highly recommend this film to anyone and also think it would be a good idea to take out Diploma class to see it at some point.

Project: Day 2

The second day of the project was directly after the first (I just didn't pose it at the time).

Instead of working on the actual animation, I spent my time filling out research sheets.

Most of the day was just spent researching but it did add another 6 hours on o my final project time.

I have now done 25 1/2 of my project:
9 hours of research
3 hours to make the character reference sheets (one hour for each character)
5 1/2 hours on the animation
3 hours on the storyboard

5 hours on the exam day