Recap: 2nd Year Student's and Pathway Choices!

This week has been information overload for me, I've been contemplating my pathway choice for months now, desperately searching for something to tilt me one way or the other... moving image, virtual environments, moving image, virtual environment, moving image, virtual environments e.c.t.

The deal is that I am passionate about both, different stages of my life have been dominated by the two at different times, for example I studied A-level film at college and watched/made film throughout my childhood, but in more recent years a big chunk of my aspirations and spare time has been dreaming about being involved in animation in someway, partly influenced by my increased interaction with games and animated films/shows.

It's a really tough decision, my life could go either way and I really want to make the right choice, I need to make a educated selection, so I'm trying to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages, another thing for me to recognize is that since I started University i have almost been daring myself to choose animation for a challenge and have found it more difficult but more interesting than the others, It's like a personal wrestling match between the two. My cousin has also made a successful career in the animation industry, so there's that as well.

So on Monday we got the the opportunity to listen and Q&A with second year students about there pathway choice, Another interesting matter I noticed was that I only took notes down from the animation speaker (that could say something in its self)

Notes:

Animation:

• Photoshop Crucial
• Do your visual essay in the medium your choosing
• Need some drawing skills
• Do more projects than just uni, enter competitions, challenge friends
• Time management and Pipelining
• Buy a powerful Desktop Computer
• Do a lot of independent research and practice
• Follow current practitioners and techniques
• A lot of hard work, up late at night, but rewarding 
• Don't have to work in groups 
• A lot of time spent in front of computer 
• Decent Pay

All in all it confirmed by thoughts that animation is going to be a hell of a lot of work, with high levels of passion and commitments required, no room for being lazy. I did note that I felt that I would be more confident going into film as its less intimidating and I have past experience in the area, also a plus was that your not on computers constantly.

In conclusion If i can get past the intimidation of VE and embrace that I will have to learn and learn, I'm positive I would find virtual environments enjoyable, I just need to decide if I've got what It takes. Will be confirming shortly.


Calum Whitehead's (Second year student) visual essay:



This has sparked a fair few ideas