The Prelude to May Madness

I am sure that I have never had so much to be doing in my life before. A weekend with no plans seems like strange and rare treat these days. I am looking forward to the summer holidays! The significant factors in my life at the moment are probably finishing all my end of term coursework, running Edinburgh Marathon and the start of the NBA playoffs. Why NBA? Because my boyfriend talks about it a fair amount of the time.
For those who are not versed in the language of basketball (I only learnt this recently). The regular season has just finished so all 30 teams in the National Basketball Association (29 in the US and 1 in Canada) have just finished playing 82 games each. How many they have won out of 82 dictates how good their record is. The teams are split into the eastern and western conferences. So the teams with the top eight records in the east and the top eight records in the west go through to the playoffs. This is where each team versus another playoff team in their conference, and plays a series where they have to get the best of seven games to go through to the next round. This happens until we have an eastern and a western conference champion, who go against each other to make the world champion. At the moment we are supporting the Chicago Bulls, go Derrick Rose! MVP (Most valuable player)! MVP!

More importantly, I have been to the cinema since my last blog, but I saw ‘Your Highness’. It’s silly, and not good hearted silly like a Will Ferrell film. Some parts are quite disgusting, although it had some good and funny elements my main feeling on leaving the cinema was slight nausea. So I will not be seeing that one again but I am looking forward to Rio, when I get spare couple of hours.

Another year...

I cannot believe that it is nearly the end of the academic year again. Three years sounds like a long time when you start a degree but you are so busy that it just flies by. I have nearly finished my second year now. Only one more year of university and I will then have to face the big bad world all by myself. This is something that will be wonderful if I find employment but not so much fun if I don’t and just wish my degree was one year longer.

My latest 3D cinema expedition was to see Rango. It is one of those films that you are not sure whether you like it or not because it is so different. As with most 3D animations you expect it to be a child friendly morality tale of some sort. In fact Rango is just a western but done in beautiful 3D animation with animals as characters. So if you like a western it is very much recommended but if you want something to take your young child to, not so much.

The line-up for v festival has been announced, which is very exciting. I have never been to a big music festival before. The only festival I have been to was the Hop Farm Festival last year which I was working at. Many people have told me discouraging facts about horrible toilets, large queues and bottles of urine. However I will be reassured that my parent’s house is within walking distance so I can have a shower and a sleep there if it all gets too much.

We had an Open Day at the university this Saturday just gone; I always know this means a busy day for me. At the Greenwich campus was the best turn out I have seen so far in my experience of the university open days. I had a very large tour group all to myself and got to speak to lots of different people about the best way to make their way around the open day. I hope everybody who came got the information they wanted and saw what they wanted to see!

Extra Curricular Activities

I hope you have had a nice week or two. I have been to see the band Lifehouse, most people I mention them to don’t seem to have heard of them. They have songs on the Shrek soundtrack and their song ‘You and Me’ was the most popular wedding song of 2008. So give them a go and you might be surprised. I had never been to The Roundhouse in Camden before, it is a very nice venue with a very similar layout to the Indigo O2 except slightly larger.

I started a course in Autodesk’s Maya last week. I study Autodesk 3DS Max in university, but although that gives us the concepts common to all 3D software Maya is much more commonly used for film and TV whereas 3DS Max more for games. They don’t have time to teach you everything at university, if you have the time management skills to fit it in, it can be good to do a short course alongside. It is just a way to add extra strings to your bow and make you more employable whilst still focussing on your area of interest.

I must have a little 3D geek out, I saw Gnomeo and Juliet, which had some very nice textures that almost made it look stop motion for a couple of short moments. I particularly liked the small Montague bunnies who clicked their ears together. It is a production that went through quite a lot being shut down twice before finally being made.

Time for a mini boast, I had a bit of a coursework breakdown at the end of last year and the beginning of this one. I also said that it was very important to keep ahead of yourself and try to be ready to hand in early. For the first time it is not just do as I say, it is also do as I do. I have nearly finished my coursework a week early (and I have backed it up as well).

BAFTAs and Feeling the Burn

I have been writing a lot on the topic of cinema recently, and here I go again. I cannot help I am a animation and cinematography student on top of visiting the cinema being one of my favourite things to do. So I have finally seen the Kings Speech and it is very good, as I am sure many people are aware. I found it to be surprisingly funny, the air of light heartedness meaning that this film was not a heavy watch like it’s fellow nominee Black Swan.
I watched the whole of the BAFTA coverage the other day. I know they said The Kings Speech would win everything but it really did win every single thing it was nominated for. My special interest area was of course the animation; Toy Story 3 pipped the wonderful How to Train Your Dragon and my newest DVD Despicable Me to the post. I was pleased to see that The Eagleman Stag won the short animation prize as I had seen it as a finalist at the Canterbury Animation Festival in October (where it did not actually win anything, but it’s fellow BAFTA nominees did).

Off the topic of film I had a marathon training day last Saturday. As I have previously mentioned I am going to be running the Edinburgh Marathon on May 22nd for the British Heart Foundation. I spent the whole of Saturday, running, stretching and getting many pieces of good advice on everything from fundraising to injury prevention to marathon etiquette. I now have a laid out plan to organise what has been my adhoc collection of four mile jogs, cross training and badminton sessions that I have been calling my training. Finally, last but not least do not forget www.justgiving.com/Emily-Luff for some support, anything is appreciated.

Go and See

I can hardly believe I still have not seen The Kings Speech! However I did make it to Black Swan and also the new Disney film Tangled. I have lots of fun things coming up too, on Thursday I am seeing Punt and Dennis (i.e. The Now Show, Mock the Week, Outnumbered etc.), I am also seeing Russell Howard and the band Lifehouse this month so I am very excited.

Tangled is a 3D animation film by Disney but not Pixar, and is apparently going to be the last Disney ‘classic’ movie. By this I presume they mean the fairytale based kind where people sporadically burst into song. But never mind all of that, this film is brilliant, the best and by far the funniest Disney film I have ever seen. Although a lot of these films stick in our hearts, this film makes it possible to think that they stopped just because they were not sure they could do any better. I want to go and see this one again!

Black Swan is quite the departure from Tangled and if you are a wimp like me can be confusing and disturbing at times. However it is also very clever at depicting the mental breakdown that the main character undergoes because of the pressure her new role as the swan queen puts on her. However it is not too shocking as this begins relatively quickly and it appears that her mind was fragile to start with. The end has a lot of elegance although you are sad that somebody so talented cannot keep their mind together to enjoy their success.

It may seem like I do very little but watch films; obviously this is a large part of my life as my degree is in Digital Animation and Production. However I have also been getting busy with marathon training and I have to think up some fundraising ideas very soon!

Twenty Two

I have to say I am enjoying 2011 so far. Now my last coursework rush is over I am being very careful to try and stay ahead of myself. It was my birthday yesterday, I was sad on Sunday that it was my last day of being 21, my last ‘enviable’ age. On the upside being 22 is looking to be a nice time, I have lots of lovely things to keep me busy and I am still in my second year, so I don’t have to panic about jobs too much yet.

I do like to review things; recently however my television addiction has been How I Met Your Mother. I have seen a couple of episodes on television but never intended to watch it, now I got the seasons 1-5 box set in the January sale and I am enjoying it very much. It is a really good, light hearted and funny watch; guaranteed to get you in a good mood.

The other thing I have been watching is the Shrek Quadrilogy. I really like the Shrek films with their great style, animation and humour. It is a shame that their popularity somewhat dwindled after the first two films. I saw one and four in the cinema and two on DVD. I had thought I had seen number three but when I watched the DVD I found I had not seen it at all! I got the box set for Christmas and have enjoyed rewatching them all, having somewhat of a Shrek Marathon. Do not write off three and four, they may not be Toy Story 3 but they are still good.

I am going to see Black Swan tonight, a departure from my recent jolly viewings; however my cinematography teacher recommended it as we are studying lighting. Also I am fond of ballet and it is one of the highly thought of films of the moment along with The Kings Speech (which was partly filmed at our Greenwich Campus). So hopefully by next blog I will have seen them both and I will let you know what I think.

New year, new challenges

It’s a new year and that is always nice. Some things are new, some things are the same and others are looming. But it’s all good fun. I really enjoyed my Christmas holiday; I did lots of nice things. Saw friends, went out for meals, and played far more badminton than I could possibly have anticipated. I got way too many Christmas presents I feel thoroughly spoilt but also have no idea where to put them I have way too much stuff already.

I enjoyed a five day excursion to Centre Parcs, having not been there since the age of approximately seven in was a mixture of novelty and fond memories. The rapids are still fantastic, but not as fast when you are twenty one as when you are seven. The badminton courts are nice there too, I have discovered how to serve finally.

I have just had a crazy coursework time, I spent some time each day over Christmas doing it but ended up being up until half five the night before anyway. So this time I have already started things that are due in March and hope that I will be handing in early for the next lot. Do remember – a degree is a lot of hard work, even fluffy ones.

I may be a crazy person but for some reason when I watched the London Marathon last year I thought ‘I could do that!’. So I applied to be a Heart Runner, and now I am all set to run the Edinburgh Marathon for the British Heart Foundation. I have to do fundraising, so if you want to sponsor me, every little helps at www.justgiving.com/Emily-Luff. Sunday 22nd May 2011 is the big day.