March - June 2012 a collection of online reference sites and links will be posted here.

An edited and selected compendium of interesting further reading to accompany the professional practice module will be posted here.

Class sessions

27.03.12
The morning session covered the questions that you need to know before creativity begins. these questions are common, no matter what the process is employed. we spent some time workshoping what are important questions and summarised at the end the hierachy of getting to know their answers. for example - when does the question about money arrive? you may have heard the expression whats the bottom line? (here) is a companies net profit after all top line expenses have been covered. We need to  learn to quickly evaluate a jobs worth, based upon the answers to the questions you have asked.
the questions ranged from;
what is the duration of the piece?
what is the genre/function of the piece?
what is the production length? this is different to the duration - this is when is the deadline?
is this a one off commission or a series?
the pitch?
when is the pitch deadine?
how do we pitch? are we presenting? is it a submission/treatment?

A blank board was distributed on which a quick scenario was to be created, based upon Parachute Man, and out of the Blue.
We presented the boards, and saw some developments that had a cache of interest for further development, and some that raised the spectre of cliche. the idea of reductive pitch was introduced - that some ideas were attractive as verbal - and could be developed further, and that the premise or the story arc is better than detail at this time. (we will go further with this).

The question to raise, once you have an idea of the job; its function, and its production time, is the process/format, and the budget. there is an interconnectedness to consider. do not write heavy process if there is not production time/ budget available.

we can meet again to work out a reductive formula about self worth and value.

the afternoon session - it was decided to draw a map of Europe. this is located in the corridor of the 4th floor and will be worked upon from now until the presentations after Easter. see post on maps ,

think about encorporating qr codes and interactivity into the drawing. . .
also - you are to chose a proprietry blogging site and send me a link by tuesday 03.04.12 to your page you create for this work.

I will then make a collection at the L1 Professional practice blog


20.03.12
A proportion of the class went to Monstra Animation Festival in Lisbon Portugal, and experienced first hand the style and typical regional and National films that were considered for competition. No doubt this will inform their researches into the country of their choice. it was expected that the students remaining will have pursued their searches, or started to form their findings into shape.

13.03.12
Chris Webster hosted.
John Parry was off campus with External duties at Portsmouth University.

06.03.12
First we discussed what the difference between Professional and Amateur is. We discussed what being a Student is. There is a difference between being an amateur student, and a professional student.
We do not want to lose 'studentship' and replace with professionalism, we want to add professionalism to studentship. Students should continue to take risk, experiment, explore, exploit opportunities, and attach to this a rigour and discipline and respect afforded to professionalism. We should try to achive this, rather than amateur studentship, which was felt to be slight, hobby-ist, and more prone to idleness.
You cannot learn any art or discipline without practice, just by going to the Classes alone is not enough.
A Book, by Malcolm Gladwell the outliers, 2008, describes the simple process of practice with some talent produces genius, and has worked out that it takes 10000 hours to achieve that level.
an article by Gladwell in the New Yorker, talks about Precociousness 'Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth...".

We discussed the  release of the film The Lorax in America over the weekend (see post).

after the break we each chose a European country to study and find out the following;
their animation festival scene?
the films that are produced there, is it entertainment, commercial, educational?
the education of animation of this country, examples of this/these.
how many centres are "good" in that country for animation production?
is there a flavour of style and content that can be described as National?
do the politics of the country support or inhibit animation production?




28.02.12
The conversation ranged to cover the breadth of what constitutes professional practice. to serve as an introduction, we looked at;
http://www.sitji.com/ Peter and the space between - a student film from Canada.
http://www.girlgang.net/about Girl Gang. A Bristol based adventure collective.
http://www.thinklocally.co.uk/ Think Locally, a directory collating the independent retailers of 'desirable' shopping quarters in middle England.
The Art of Music C Hubert H Parry 1893
Parry examines the universal impulse to create musical sounds, traces the origins of music in 'primitive' societies using the research of contemporary anthropologists, and surveys the rise of western music from the ancient Greeks to the Victorian age.
not forgetting the wonderful Celtic Mouth music ...

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