This year had so many ups and downs for me, at the ripe age of 29 I’ve finally started university, learned to drive, happy at work, but the one thing that I’ve felt like I never had was enough time and money to actually get through the year. A lot of my problems came from having to pay out of pocket for the year, which I am happy to say I’ve done, but managing work, and trying to get through the amount of course work provided by the course really was a challenge and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t take it’s toll, fortunately It’s over for a few months, I’ll go away, recharge and prepare myself technically, mentally and physically for what’s to come next year.
The lecturers were so good, honestly Rachael, Aodhán, Mike, Alec, Carmen and Sarah were great and were really understanding of my perspective, because I had been locked out of blackboard twice this year, which had me panicking, but resulted in a more satisfying conclusion to the year having overcome it. Mike’s knowledge in blender was imperative to my success with the academic year, from the snowman, to rigging, his ability to make some of the more complicated process in blender simple and understandable we amazing. Sarah, Carmen and Aodhán all had their own way of explaining technical aspects of film and each one was as interesting as the rest, I wouldn’t say I understood it all, but it was still fascinating to listen to, and read over the materials while doing all of their assignments. The one thing that Aodhán said that I don’t think I’ll forget was “Always use reference”.
As for the work itself, I enjoyed each project more and more, but this last one was just so fun to do, we had so many ideas, and the way we went about locking down the ideas, the characters, budgeting the amount of time we each had to make it as close as we could to the brief, making the environments, the rigs etc. There’s just so much we did, together in the this project that I can only hope the next one is as fun.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed my year here, and hope that next year can only be better, if it’s anything like this year, expect the same report.