COFA Journal

Hello once again! It is now in my 3rd and final year of this course, I am so scared because that went way too quick o_O I got some credits and distinctions in last years subjects which made me very happy.

This semester I’m studying;

Digital Theory and Aesthetics – excactly as the title suggests. Except the theory is kind of interesting, so it’s not too boring :’D

Professional Practice – this is a good one, they’re basically helping us set up for our creative lives outside of university! Tips on getting in the industry, portfolio help, networking, tax, companies and how they work etc … would all be very good to know.

‘Special Project’ ABC2 – this ones an interesting one. ABC2 (a television channel) have given us a brief of a project we have to complete in class. It has to be an ident (you know those ads for TV channels) that use the ABC2 colours and the phrase “Always Brighter” – and its gotta be 10 – 15 seconds. It will be good because it’s a real life brief, if we do well our ads will end up being broadcasted on TV which is awesome!

Digital Video2

Our final assessment was to make some sort of sound piece. You could make your own composition, you could make a soundtrack to a picture book, you could make a soundtrack to a storyboard, you could do the sound for an existing video, you could remix some existing sounds … you could do anything. I originally wanted to make a remix using samples found from Disney movies … but I coudn't really figure out how to go about so I just found an existing animation and did the soundrack for it. I used most sound effects from the COFA sound effect library;  the sounds I couldn’t find I found on the internet, and the sounds I couldn’t find on the internet I had to record myself. I am actually really happy with the end result … lets see if tumblr lets me upload it (copywrite issues … the video is not mine, but the sound is)

I was not expecting this subject to be so damn intense. All the stress from semester 2 was because of this subject, pretty much! But, in the end, I did fine, and learnt a crapton of information about the history of filmmaking, which is what my brain needs. We had screenings every week of classic films that corresponded with the topics for the week, and, like Screen Culture, someone had to do a presentation on the week’s topic every tutorial. My presentation topic was ‘the Hollywood blacklist’, and apparently I did okay.(woo)

As well as the presentation, we had to do a 1200 word essay in pairs (that was weird, group work on an essay? NO MORE OF THAT OK THAT WOULD BE GREAT) (only just passed that one) and a 2000 word essay using a question from a big list of questions. I did mine on the coming of Sound Cinema. (I got a distinction, yay!)

Hello ^_^ (sorry for publishing this, I thought other people may want to know too )

UNSW main campus is located in Kensington, which is a southern suburb of Sydney and a 15 minute bus trip to the city. Kensington campus has a lot of on-campus accommodation and student activity, but Kensington itself doesn’t have much else going on. (mainly just apartments and chinese restaurants haha)

But Randwick (closer to upper campus) has a bigger town centre, better supermarkets and cafes and stuff C:

As for on-campus accommodation, I live in on-campus apartments, which are self catered, quiet, and very boring. (I never actually see any of my house mates) So if you can, I highly recommend applying for the colleges because that’s where most of the fun is! I am very jealous of all the fun activities they do together, haha :P on-campus apartments are very lonely.

Coogee beach is lovely and only a 20 minute walk from the uni (or 10 mins on the bus),

and Bondi is only just a little further.

The Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park is pretty awesome as well and not too far from the uni :)

Most of my subjects are over at COFA campus, which is in Paddington (the artsy suburb of Sydney) and there’s an hourly shuttlebus from main campus (15 mins) 

I myself don’t know much about law, but I do know that the law courts are located in the city; and so Sydney Uni or UTS may be a little more convenient as they are located right in the city. I also know that Law has their own building and library on campus, which is pretty cool, and its purple, which is also pretty cool :P

I have a friend who has just finished her 2nd year of Law, so if you’d like any insight into the subject itself I could get you into contact with her? :) 

Anyway I hope that answered at least some of your questions, let me know if there’s anything else you would like to know! Also, O-Week is SO much fun and has all sorts of silly games and events and music and free food, so make sure you don’t miss out on that :) (I’ve heard that other unis don’t ‘get into’ O-Week anywhere near as much as UNSW does ;) )

In this semester, my subjects were; 

Introduction to Audio, (1st year requirement that I wasn’t able to do last year) learned the basics of sound design, using pro-tools

Video2, (continuation from Video1) more focus on After Effects

Screen Culture (theory) learning about new screens and technologies that I didn’t even know existed ( we got to take turns using a virtual reality headset and I have never been more tripped out in my life)

Digital Composite2 - Project2 - Portfolio

Our final project for this subject was to make a 5 minute narrative. This proved to be …. Extremely hard. Basically we sat down and forced ourselves to come up with an idea. “A girl who’s late for uni and misses trains and buses along the way” was the original idea …. Which then turned into … this … abomination. We were just making stuff up on the spot, really, because everything written in the storyboard didn’t work once we turned up on location. It’s meant to be a series of unfortunate events but it’s more like a series of minor inconveniences. 

But, it was an experience, I guess. The actors were really nice and co-operative, even though they were last minute. I’m responsible for the editing and pacing, but not the music ….

(top image - maya render bottom image - photoshop touch-ups)

Introduction to 3D modelling and animation - Project2 'Make it Real'

Our final project for this subject was so create a scene out of 3D models. (no animation, just a practice at modelling and texturing and lighting, like a still life). It was so hard, and it was this project that made me realise that 3D definitely wasn’t for me. I tried to make it easy for myself by using simple shapes and just sticking them together, but really … we were marked on our modelling skills, which I lacked..

Anyway. It’s meant to be a cute little robot (because I knew I wanted my first model to be a cute little robot) in a jail cell, attempting to repair his broken arm. It’s meant to make you wonder what happened to the robot, why is he in there? I am a little happy with how it turned out, but I don’t want to touch 3D modelling ever again.

Here's what the model looks like without the shaders/textures/lighting (those wires were a bitch to model)

Intro to Interactive Media Arts - App concept

The final project for this subject was to create a concept for a phone application. You could either make the app using computer code, or you could just make a mock-video of how it would work (if you couldn't get your head around the code, e.g. the whole class)

The inspiration for mine came from Rafael Lozano Hemmer’s interactive artworks; many of which use the participants’ pulse. My concept was a therapeutic app; it measures your pulse, then analyses your mood, then generates a playlist of music based on that mood. The playlist would come from either music in your itunes library or from a larger online database.

Digital Video1 - Project1 - 5 min Documentary

Digital Composite2 - Project 1 'Object of Desire'

The first project for this subject was to make an image to do with the concept; ‘Object of Desire’. I struggled a lot with this, as most people were doing like professional photo-shoots with models and stuff, whereas I don’t have much of a clue about photography or lighting or models or anything. So I tried to come up with something just using objects/landscapes, no humans. I brainstormed to the bare basics of this concept … what is the one thing we all desire/need? Water.  And so here’s my attempt at making water desirable .. (lame I know)

Introduciton to 3D modelling and animation - Project 1

Our first assignment was to animate our ACT (action training character), using videos of random students doing random actions for reference. I chose a guy bending down pretending to drink water (splashing his face?), and the teacher told me I did very well :D yay!

Digital Composite2 - classwork