It has been the longest 13 weeks of school I have ever gone through during my entire two years (so far) at Concordia! I started off this semester, pumped and ready to take on the entire world :) now I'm ready to hit the hay and hibernate for the next two weeks. Well, I'll be ready when I submit my Sound II portfolio completed haha! Waiting to hear back from the department to see if I got accepted into Sound III. Man, I worked so hard to get into the Communication Studies program only to realize that I have to reapply into a specific field every year? I love it! Seriously! It helps keep the motivation up with pushing these practices past our 150% :)
In hindsight, taking four core classes (one being a practical one where the lab time exceeded the hours in a day) and one elective wasn't the brightest of ideas. At the beginning of the semester, it was all fine and dandy keeping up with readings, reviews, assignments, small projects. But when it came to midterm season (which was - in our department - within the first 4 weeks) everything seemed a disaster. Things then just spiralled downwards as profs started putting more and more onto our plates and sometimes made me wonder if they forgot that their class wasn't the only ones we were taking... but then again, it was all foreseen within our class syllabus. So I guess I had it coming. That and I should have realized that it would've only gotten worse seeing as I took more classes than I should have.
Classes taken this semester;
Mondays: Specializing topics in Recording pt. II and Media & Gender
Tuesdays: spent most of my day in the studio
Wednesday: Psychology of Communication
Thursday: Sound II
Friday: Studies in Documentary
All were excellent profs and classes! Although I'm sad to say that we, as a program, are losing two great profs after this semester. I won't mention any names due to pure respect for their privacy, but all I can say is that it has been an honour studying their specific fields of interest with them. I would have recommended them to other friends soon joining the program, but for now all I can do is wish them the best for the upcoming future and know that which ever university hires them, they will have done themselves a great service and are extremely lucky to have such dedicated staff. Dad says it's more political than just keeping profs due to their evaluation... but doesn't that have some part in deciding to renew their contracts?
En tout cas, for the end of this semester I had decided to collaborate a final project using animation... all to say, I haven't touched Adobe Flash since last year and am rather surprised with the outcome! (You'll notice it in the vid. below)
This past week was a chaotic nightmare! With the semester coming to an official end, here's what had to be done. Now let me clarify one thing, I started doing these two essays weeks in advance, but there were numerous subject changes along with a ridiculous amount of proofreading that had to be done.
Monday: last final in my "Intro" to Recording class, instantly followed up with a 12-15 paged case study on the roles of gender within the use of televised media (TV series, documentaries, movies, and films) specifically paying close attention to the Aileen: the Life and Death of a Serial Killer case.
Tuesday: Friday schedule - 10 paged paper for my Studies in Documentary class
Wednesday: Psychology of Communication final project due (this is where the animations come in to play) where my classmate and good friend (her name being confidential as well) did our final project on Jean Piaget's theory of how the child's mind works. Needless to say, it was a long process. I'm not exactly proud of the vocal recordings done seeing as we both had much more experience within our respective fields than that... but with everything being due and this project proving itself to be a little bit more complicated to put together, we're still happy that it's done and of its outcome. Props to the best classmate and friend in the world for agreeing to have a head start on this project while I was swamped with other papers to do :(
Finally, I've got this portfolio to submit which has its own complications within itself that I'd rather not talk about. It's just frustrating and makes me realize that when it comes to practical projects, I much rather work on my own. But on the fun half of all this, I experienced my first photoshoot with portraiture as a photographer and am quite happy with the outcome! Well, after I've adjusted the lighting in the photo... hey! Don't look at me like that! I'm sure you've done the same (for all you photographers who just tsked me haha)!! First time guys, cut me some slack :P
So that's pretty much it for now... hopefully you'll enjoy the upcoming animations and the photos taken... feel free to criticize! But for the respect and copyrights of these individuals, do not copy and distribute without permission from myself or these models, thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
Good luck to all those still in finals and school!
Cheers,
C.
