Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Rochester Trip
10am
We're sitting in a 53 seater coach. 15 people put their name down and 4 showed up, 5 if you include Sue. Beautiful weather, crystal skies with light cloud. Our coach is heading to our Rochester campus, part of what used to be KIAD, right on the coast of Kent. With me is Nick from Graphics and two fashion pathway people, Steph and Tracy. By the look of the prospectus, Rochester is a large campus thats heavily focused on Fashion and Graphics like us, but their courses sound much more specialized including the intriguingly named "creative pattern cutting". If you're into Fashion, this is probably the campus for you.
The day is hands on with lectures and free food laid out. I'll be joining the Digital 3D Modelling while Nick is attending the Marketing, Branding and Advertising in Design. I've brought a camera so hopefully you'll get a feel for the place.
11.10AM
Arrived after an interesting series of interesting wrong turns in a coach thats large enough to stop both lanes of traffic.
We were warmly welcomed and shortly introduced to their showreel. We got free T-Shirts and they're mailing us a copy of the reel. Also have prospectuses if anyone is interested.
12.00
Treated to some live poetry/music. Curtis Tappenden & Andy Cherry. Curtis is one of the tutors and a kickass performance artist that does work for the Daily Mail. Andy is one of Curtis' students and does a great Bobby Dylan impression. A (poor) recording of their performance will be uploaded along with the photos at some point.
12.45-1.45
Digital 3D Design - Underwhelmed. The course is very new and I don't think they've found their way yet. They were emphasising the software over and over as well as the potential of CG. Which is all fine and good but they don't teach advanced compositing or generative art which cover at least half the work in the industry (and about half their examples of CG in action). Their animation is obviously nowhere near Farnham's standards and neither is their cinematography and textures were HIDEOUS. Which means you MUST be a modeler and they don't have AutoCAD which means no serious architectural and product design. New course = no contacts in the industry. No motion capture. No 3D scanners. No collabaration with actors and coders. Just PC's in the deepest, windowless basement. Which would all might be forgiven if they produce sublime, high detail models. They didn't show us any.
2.00
Photography - In complete contrast, the photography course is ANY photography student's wet dream. Spread over the two top floor with a fantastic view over the bay but you won't care! Why? Massive studios in several sizes with high ceilings should you want to shoot from above, try unusual lighting or suspend things. Several darkrooms for b&w, colour and specialist process. That's several of each! A large equipment store that also bulk buys film so you get it cheap. All types of expensive gear is availible, both traditional and digital. They even have the industrial developing machines so you can get your negs done in 7 mins and print them equally quickly. Dedicated kitchen, lockers, meeting rooms, lecture theatre, open access computers and workshop space all just for the photographers. You need feedback? They have a board spanning a corridor for it. The work that the students have done is hand on heart indistinguishable from professional work and some of them hadn't done photography when they started in September. Just wow.
3.45 - Fashion Show
Not much I can say because its not my field. Good show, very professionally done garments. Someone (no names) told me our pattern cutting is much better though. I'll let the photos do the talking later.
Great trip. Definately going there if I'm doing photography.
We're sitting in a 53 seater coach. 15 people put their name down and 4 showed up, 5 if you include Sue. Beautiful weather, crystal skies with light cloud. Our coach is heading to our Rochester campus, part of what used to be KIAD, right on the coast of Kent. With me is Nick from Graphics and two fashion pathway people, Steph and Tracy. By the look of the prospectus, Rochester is a large campus thats heavily focused on Fashion and Graphics like us, but their courses sound much more specialized including the intriguingly named "creative pattern cutting". If you're into Fashion, this is probably the campus for you.
The day is hands on with lectures and free food laid out. I'll be joining the Digital 3D Modelling while Nick is attending the Marketing, Branding and Advertising in Design. I've brought a camera so hopefully you'll get a feel for the place.
11.10AM
Arrived after an interesting series of interesting wrong turns in a coach thats large enough to stop both lanes of traffic.
We were warmly welcomed and shortly introduced to their showreel. We got free T-Shirts and they're mailing us a copy of the reel. Also have prospectuses if anyone is interested.
12.00
Treated to some live poetry/music. Curtis Tappenden & Andy Cherry. Curtis is one of the tutors and a kickass performance artist that does work for the Daily Mail. Andy is one of Curtis' students and does a great Bobby Dylan impression. A (poor) recording of their performance will be uploaded along with the photos at some point.
12.45-1.45
Digital 3D Design - Underwhelmed. The course is very new and I don't think they've found their way yet. They were emphasising the software over and over as well as the potential of CG. Which is all fine and good but they don't teach advanced compositing or generative art which cover at least half the work in the industry (and about half their examples of CG in action). Their animation is obviously nowhere near Farnham's standards and neither is their cinematography and textures were HIDEOUS. Which means you MUST be a modeler and they don't have AutoCAD which means no serious architectural and product design. New course = no contacts in the industry. No motion capture. No 3D scanners. No collabaration with actors and coders. Just PC's in the deepest, windowless basement. Which would all might be forgiven if they produce sublime, high detail models. They didn't show us any.
2.00
Photography - In complete contrast, the photography course is ANY photography student's wet dream. Spread over the two top floor with a fantastic view over the bay but you won't care! Why? Massive studios in several sizes with high ceilings should you want to shoot from above, try unusual lighting or suspend things. Several darkrooms for b&w, colour and specialist process. That's several of each! A large equipment store that also bulk buys film so you get it cheap. All types of expensive gear is availible, both traditional and digital. They even have the industrial developing machines so you can get your negs done in 7 mins and print them equally quickly. Dedicated kitchen, lockers, meeting rooms, lecture theatre, open access computers and workshop space all just for the photographers. You need feedback? They have a board spanning a corridor for it. The work that the students have done is hand on heart indistinguishable from professional work and some of them hadn't done photography when they started in September. Just wow.
3.45 - Fashion Show
Not much I can say because its not my field. Good show, very professionally done garments. Someone (no names) told me our pattern cutting is much better though. I'll let the photos do the talking later.
Great trip. Definately going there if I'm doing photography.
# posted by notnoodles @ 5:27 PM 
