Creative Futures week 2011

So, Creative futures week!!! This started on the 7th March this year. (2011) As far as I can tell the whole point of this week is to see what we can get up to after we finish our 3 years of university. Confusing? For me? Yes is the answer. I fully appriciate all the people coming in to tell us what they'd done over their long or short careers, how many people they have made smile, cry, fear or love. And it filled me with a glimmer of hope that I haven't felt for a long long time.


First up was the 'opening address for all students', and as you could imagine was the usual talk on creativity and career propspects, the talk that is supposed to inspire and motivate the masses (well...the ones that weren't playing on their iphones anyway). 

I listened and I enjoyed and I took it all in. What more could you ask for at 9am in the morning after a sleepless night with 2 kids.

Barry Pervis 

I've only known Maurice for the first year of my couse (6-7 months I suppose) but have never seen her so happy before. I found this a quite promising start to creative futures week. 'I'm so proud to welcome......... Barry Pervis' Said Maurice.

'Barry Pervis......... who the hell is that'? I thought.

An elderly man took the stage, bearded and grey and wise in years was my first impression. He's an animator and a puppetier as it turns out and worked on King Kong and also on Wind in the Willows. He trained as an actor at Manchester University too.

One of my earliest memories is watching Wind in the Willows at my Nanna's house on lazy summer holidays so I took this as a good and promising start. 

I liked Barry Pervis, You could say 'I liked how he rolled'. I liked his career progress, his ease with himself and the way he effortlessly comunicated with his audience. I liked how he loved Mary Poppins too. (How could anyone not)!?!?


About halfway through he said 'give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth', (an Oscar Wilde quote I think, maybe not though). I thought this to be very true and all I can say is that I liked it.
'I see animation as a liberator and a distancing device' Barry said. How true I thought again. I'm not an animator or a puppetier, what I'm trying to be is a photographer and film maker, but I still liked Barry Pervis, and I thought the clips of War Horse that he shown we're outstanding.

The one thing that let the whole thing down was not the man himself but the terrible audio quality of his films. Being no fault of his own but something to do with the University itself. There is a minimun of three years worth of students doing some form of audio technology at Glyndwr, surely someone could of sorted it out. Even Colin (a.k.a Mr Smooth) had a go.


All in all I thought Barry Pervis to be inspirational and a great opening speaker, I took on board all he said and and I'm sure I can apply it too my future education in the forthcoming years. etc etc.

First Semester

Starting Uni was a bit strange, for the first few months it felt like I should of been in work. I kept waiting for a phone call saying "where the hell are you? These letters won't deliver themselves you know!!!!". But it never happened thank god!!
I did go through a stage of thinking "what the f*ck am I doing here, surely I should be in work doing menial tasks, getting chased by dogs and trying to run away with 16kg of junk mail and leaflets on my shoulder". Thankfully it passed within a couple of weeks and I started to settle in, so here's some stuff from the beginning of my University life.

 Week 1

"Find 2 objects to draw, and fill these 27 boxes with different views of the 2 objects, close ups, different angles etc etc" said Stewart our tutor. "What" I thought. The problem here was that I haven't actually drawn anything since my high school years, and then all I could manage was to draw pictures of big cocks and boobs over my friends work. (hence the bad grades at G.C.S.E). 

I managed to draw 9 images and then resorted to taking photo's for the other 18 (happy days). here are a few of them.

 A pen (essential writing tool) and a cork. The two things I could find in my bag.

Week 2 - Photography

I was made up to get the chance to do some photography and below are a couple of photo's from each subject. Architecture, faces in the environment, a sequence of letters and textures for computer games.



 

Architucture that 
tells a story

 

Faces in the 
environment

Letters

Start at the start

So.......here we go then. It seems for the last few months I've tried to do anything but start my University blog.
"I'll just make a brew and I'll get started", "just a few more games on Call of Duty", "Just nip to pick the kids up from school first", "May as well start it in March, April, May"........so on, so forth. Wish I'd started it earlier so here we go.........just make a quick brew though........!

Photography and Film

Last year I undertook a night class in photography. Once a week, on a Tuesday evening,  I'd drag my sorry ass to college to learn how to use this alien device D-SLR thingy that cost me a small fortune (mortgage, cars, wife and kids produce a severe dent in my ever thinning wallet) and learn to use it properly. I've always enjoyed photography but only to the extent of using small digital cameras or mobile phones to capture moments, such as birthdays, holidays and the occasional drunken night out........hang on, drunken night in to state the truth. The health and well-being of my two beautiful kiddies, Jack and Evie, come miles before the need to get drunk and the talk complete waffle to an overpriced taxi driver with no regard for any of the road laws.......mmm sweet sweet drunk talk.

The camera i bought was a Cannon 300D, one of the first digital slr's I think. Nothing special, nothing flash, just a tool I needed to earn myself some qualifications after leaving school in 1995 with 10 barely pass G.C.S.E's. So for the last 16 years I've been working, doing everything from Lab Assistant to baker and from Car salesman to Postman. I didn't have a flash of inspiration, no need for a higher calling, one day just thought to myself "F**k doing this sh*te for the next 35 years!"


Anyway I passed with a B grade, which I think is my highest mark in all of my schooling years so far. The AS level course gave me a good understanding of the camera, lenses and compositional skills and I ended up with a whole half an A level.....fantastic I thought at the time, but what do I do from here? Go to Uni I suppose! 

So I did, got through on clearance with my portfolio work from my year at Yale College in Wrexham. Thanks Stewart for having the heart and time to give someone willing and determined a chance.


Below are some pics from my year at college.