Day 6: back to work

the Creative Industries Centre's Media Training Lab

Amaury, After Effects baptism by fire

Chris and his personal trainer puppet

Here is the beginning of the second week, after a nice tour where we were all cultural tourists together and had a chance to see the countryside, thanks to Glyndwr instructor David Jones' generosity. Back to work and animation. Here are some made today.

Today we returned to face technology head-on, hitting the mouses and big iMac screens again for a concerted day of After Effects puppeting, moving pixels around, bit by bit, on big, luminous screens no one ever used to watch tv so closely on. The students are working very effectively, energetically, and with impressive alacrity, and we are seeing some personable acting and a harmonious mix between the audio and visual aspects of "Cook with Dan".

Differences between the way the school groups approach things? Well, while everyone comes through at the end of the day, it would be hard to ignore an apparently "inepuisable" verbosity on the part of the younger americans. Their optimism, hard work, and positive energy go some distance to mitigate their volume.

The French students, a linguistic minority in this setting, cope admirably with this apparent disadvantage, turning it into an advantage in terms of focus and concentration. And their English is much better than anyone's French!

The Welsh/British students also show a good dose of stoicism, in spite of being subject to the usual constraints of the home team: day job and home responsibilities, as well as travel speed bumps, getting to and from the lab from their homes.

Shannon's chicken, animated in Flash

digital puppets