My last deadline’s 10am tomorrow (technically, today) and I’ve run a bit dry, so I’m taking a break/procrastinating.
You know what I’m really looking forward to? Feedback. Not my feedback, as long as I pass I’m fine. The uni’s feedback. I think I have quite a bit to say. That is, if we’re given feedback sheets, like we’re meant to. (Also, I’ve just discovered ctrl-I works with this. Cool =D)
Lets see, lets see…
We have a certain tutor that turns up generally 15-30 minutes late, announces that she is in dire need of tea, and leaves for another half hour. For this particular tutor, lunch takes between 2 hours and one whole day, considering often she doesn’t come back. All fine and dandy when the class has disappeared. Not all fine and dandy when she’s told someone “Wait here until after lunch so we can discuss your work” when we could be doing better things, like getting said work done.
Said tutor refuses to give an specific detail on exactly how much is required in an animatic or storyboard until you’ve done said animatic/storyboard and handed it in, by which time she calls you lazy for only having “a frame here or there” instead of 3fps. Before then, she said “as many frames as you need, ie like your storyboard”, which isn’t 3fps when it doesn’t need to be.
This term, we ask instead. The answer : “An animatic is like a storyboard” … “Well, a storyboard is like an animatic” …Need I say more, really.
Of course, it might help if the assessment criteria stayed the same. So if said tutor suggested that our animation could be about a minute, then we do about a minute, one week before the deadline being told not one frame more or less is not pleasing. Especially since last term we were told anyone over one minute would be penalised, yet every 70%+ was about 2 minutes long. Because of course, us one-minuters worried we’re going to be penalised are just lazy. Cutting it down after sound syncing to meet your standards, which you then disregard is just lazy.
Oh, and sound sync. Glorious sound sync. Alas, you are still marked, yet did we recieve our two weeks of sound design workshop intended for us? I believe not. And is it still part of the assessment criteria? Oh yes. When your sound technician is away because he’s suing the college (pinch of salt here, it’s from the third years) you could at least either drop it from the assessment, or bring in a sub.
And that’s hell for lip syncing by the way. Our Animation Skills tutor is truely a good guy, but the “erm… well… er… I’m sure there must be something…” when faced with “well how do we record it” just isn’t sufficient. It’s really not.
Again with the assessment criteria; we’d appreciate it is we didn’t get lumped with large amounts of SUPRISE AMBUSH ASSIGNMENTSÂ two weeks before the deadline, instead of being told fair and square at the beginning. This is animation; you’re not going to get something decent out of us in the last two weeks when we have 3 deadlines all at once, the other 2 of which have also lumped on work the last few weeks.
Essays. Well damn if I’m going to lose marks because of not double spacing, don’t tell me it was in the study skills handbook when it wasn’t. I looked.
Hmmm. What else what else… The library’s good, that’s fair… the lectures, now that they’ve acted on the lecturers with accents we can’t understand (not their fault, but not good for us, y’know?) and we have our decent lecturer, they’re good. Our Animation Skills tutors is generally good and knows a bit about specific animators if he hasn’t met a few (he’s mentioned Richard Williams (Director of animation, Roger Rabbit) and Milt Kahl (disney, recognisable in Jungle Book and Rescuers) and actually explains what he means-
Oh! Another gem from the tea obcessed lecturer:
“This animation has a beginning, a middle, and an end *show completely unrelated film* Your animation needs this”
Rather than explaining why a film is being shown or what to look out for, it’s “I want you to think about why I’m showing you this film”. That sounds like me when I’ve used a completely unrelated film as an example of something in an essay just as filler. That’s what it is. Filler. We don’t want to be spoonfed. But we want to know why we’re being shown something, or what to look out for. All the other lecturers/tutors do it, why can’t you?
I’m sure there’s other things; like last term’s lack of digital skills tutor for most lessons. But that probably got covered last term, so there’s no point going over old ground.
Lets see if I can remember this for feedback time.
Lets see if we get feedback for that particular lesson. I think it’s entirely possibly the university’s got it’s lips stuck up Skillset’s ass so badly it can’t see how bloody stupid certain lecturers (who I still believe has something to do with Skillset) are. But I’m paying £3,000 a year for a tutor to get paid 8 hour days consisting of 1-2 hours actual lesson time, and I’m not liking it one bit.
But while I’m on the subject, I remember way back when when everyone was like “OMG! Uni! It’s wonderful! It’s amazing! It’s totally worth all that time and money!” When I had better teachers at my sixth form college. People need a smack in the head when they insist on going to college for the sake of it and not for their career, because they’re going to put up with that much shit and then come out at the end going “Well gee, I’ve got a psychology degree, but I don’t really want a job related to it so… hey look! Vacancy at Tesco! Oh shits I’m over qualified, no shop job for me! What now?!”
I don’t see why the government wants this 50% of people attended uni thing when apprentiships would have been so much more practical. Honestly.
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