Thursday morning, I spent refining my Powerpoint presentation which I was to be giving the next day. In addition, I also wrote up evaluations. That's pretty much what the afternoon consisted of too. Towards the end of day, Tony came in and he said that he had looked for my poster which he'd helped me to create, but couldn't find it. He had wanted to print it off on a piece of A3 paper, along with the posters which everyone else had created. I found it for him and burnt it to CD. That was Thursday.
Friday was fun. Friday was finally the day I'd been waiting for for three weeks now. Presentation time.
Although we were supposed to start giving the presentations at 9:30am, due to lots of technical difficulties which everyone was suffering, they didn't start until around 11am. People hadn't realised that since their presentation was going to be run on another computer, all files had to be relative to it. Everyone just assumed it'd magically work or something. If the Powerpoint presentation can't find the file, it can't run it, simple.
When the presentations did start, the lights got switched off, the projector got switched on and we all faced it. All four tutors were present to watch everyone's efforts - Bronek, Brian, Daniel and Tony. I think that has to be the first time I've actually seen them all in the same room together.
In order to keep things fair Bronek had decided that the order in which we'd give the presentations would be random, and names would be picked out of the preverbial hat.
It was great watching everyone give their presentations, although at times cringeworthy due to their lack of understanding of what actually looks good when giving a presentation. For example, hardly anyone had the bright idea of actually using a font other than Times New Roman. Another example would be the way some people wanted to describe how they made something, rather than why they made it, which made for a very boring presentation. However, some people's work was interesting to watch and look at, especially the animations and the movies.
It got to 12pm and we were still only half way through the presentations. I asked Bronek, who was sitting behind me if we were not having a lunch and he said that it'd be best to just get through the presentations instead. I was fine with that, but I wasn't sure if anyone else would be, which is why I asked, as sometimes I'm the only one willing to speak up. Ironic that, really, isn't it, when compared to perhaps five years ago.
Instead, we had a five minute break and then got back to the presentations again. As I said, some presentations were truly bad and although some were awful, the way which was being displayed in the presentation wasn't.
As people gave their presentations (how many times have I used that word now?), the tutors gave comments on it and an oppurtunity for anyone else to offer questions or comments was given at the end of each one. No one had any questions for anyone else though. Sometimes the tutors did, but not particularly.
One thing that was quite noticeable was many of them were running over their allocated five minute presentation time. Personally, I think five minutes was too short for all of the work that we've produced for this project. I mean in total, we had to produce seven different things, two of which were a movie and an animation which were a minute or longer. That eats into your explanation time, along with your time to display all other work. Five minutes was not long enough and people had to sometimes be rushed to get their presentation done because their five minutes was up.
Another thing that occured to me was the fact that as names were being called out, mine had yet to be. This occured to me after around 8 of the 11 of us had giving our presentation and when I realised this, I began hoping that my name would be the very last. Not because I was dreading giving the presentation, but because I wanted my presentation to be the one that lasted longest in my tutor's minds. Afterall, they decide my marks to an extent so I want to use every trick there is to get better marks. I know I'm not competing with my fellow classmates, but I've always had a competitive streak in me, no matter what the subject is. I like to win. Who remembers the runner up?
There were three of us left now. Me, Tom and Alex. Alex however, apparantly didn't have his name in the hat for some reason, which left me and Tom. Dylan had just given his presentation and he had the honour of picking the next name. It was me.
I hadn't felt nervous at all about giving my presentation up until the moment I sat in that chair, my hand on the mouse, looking forward like everyone else at the wall where the screen was being projected. I knew that I'd be completely lost for words, which is why I'd already wrote a ton of notes on each part of my presentation, which I was going to refer to throughout. No one else had done this, but I thought it was an important element of my presentation.
I started with an introduction to what the project was about instead of diving straight into my work. Because I had written the introduction down, I found it very easy to sound confident and know exactly what I was talking about. I talked loudly, and consistently, so everyone could hear me. First up was my 60 second movie.
No one in the class had actually seen it before. Infact, no one in my class had seen any of my completed work yet. Not even my tutors. Well, Daniel had seen my Flash animation completed, but that's the only piece of work both my tutors and my classmates had seen, finished. I like hiding things till the last minute. I think it gives a better impression than if you see something half compelted and then again when it's all done.
Once the movie had finished, I then talked for a few moments on some of the features of it. However, even though I had my notes in front of me, I forgot to actually look at them often enough and found myself stuttering slightly. It made me sound less confident and nervous. I also didn't time the changing of the slides correctly and began explaining things and then going onto a slide that had everything I had just said on it, rather than explaining over that particularly slide like it should be done.
Like a lot of other people, I got a prompt from Bronek to press on as I was running out of time. This made me more nervous and I forgot my 'lines' more. I skipped quickly through some of the things, as I wanted to finish the presentation and not have it simply cut short.
The last thing that I had to present was my Flash animation. What was great was that I had told Bronek to get some speakers, since everyone had sound on some part of their work and it was just great hearing the Kill Bill theme playing over my animation and finishing up with its trademark five stings.
"And that's it", I said, concluding my presentation. Everyone applauded and while I'd like to take that as a sign that my work was that good, we did do it for everyone to make them feel appreciated. I turned to my tutors sitting at the back of the class for their comments. Bronek asked if anyone had any questions first though, which they didn't, so he continued.
"Excellent stuff Neil", he said, in a non-excitable tone.
"Thankyou", I replied.
"Your work is of a very high standard", he continued, "And I know that you were on a course last year. What was it?"
"A graphic design course"
"Yes", he said to the class, rather than to me personally, "Neil did that course last year and you can see how it's helped his work".
I absolutely hate it when he says that. He says it as if its a kind of excuse for why some of my work may be good and to make the rest of the class feel better. It's as if he's saying "Don't worry if your work doesn't look like Neil's because he's had a year doing another course", which is complete bullshit because that was a graphic design course which involved me drawing a trainer and product design. I already had the skills shown in my work in the presentation before that course. That course is nothing to do with what my work looks like now. However, I didn't correct him because Tony then quickly followed on from what Bronek was saying, but in a much more positive light.
"Mate, your design work is spot on", he said, with a kind of mouth-half-open smile. "Excellent mate".
"Thanks"
Brian then added his comments about a DVD cover which I had designed. The design had been very original because of how the text had been used and the case itself. He said how he liked what I had done then explained to me and moreso the class in general about how with a design like mine, it'd make the consumer want to actually open up the case. "Nice stuff mate", he added.
So, while I didn't give a stirling performance, I did get some nice comments from my tutors who were pleased with what I had come up with.
Tom gave his presentation next and then Alex gave his. The presentations were then over and Bronek said how he was very pleased with everyone's work etc. It was 1:20pm by now and everyone went on a lunch break except me, Dylan and Ray.
Jamie appeared around 2:20pm and asked me to come for a walk with him, but I explained that I was now in class and couldn't leave. However, Tony came in with all of the posters and Daniel said that they were going to be mounted on some card and put on the walls. Daniel wanted me to go get the card from the upstairs stationary shop so that's where me and Jamie went.
The guy in the shop was just going out for a few minutes though so back down to the class we went and Jamie said goodbye. I went back up after 15 minutes and he still wasn't there. The third time I went up, I announced it to the class, saying that I'd buy the card and then they could give me the money when I came back down with it so that's what I did.
I came back to the class with 14 pieces of card. It was bigger than A3, but smaller than A2. A very weird size, which meant that it had to be trimmed in order for the posters to look ok on it. In addition, he had no black card, only white. White looks stupid, but Daniel was insistent. He was only bothered about getting them on the wall for Tuesday, since an inspector is coming in, so that's all Daniel was thinking about, not about our work looking good. That annoyed me, because you don't have to be any sort of art student to know that a white piece of paper with a white border is going to look stupid compared to a black one. I asked him could we not simply wait till everyone could get their own black card, but he wouldn't have it. It also fell to me to trim the card, for which I have no idea why. I asked the group as a whole should I cut everyones or did they want to do their own. I guess that was a stupid question reason, as everyone was too lazy to do theirs and said I should do everyones.
I took the card and went in search of a guillotine which Ed said I could use. However, it proved a hell of a lot harder than simply trimming 14 pieces of card. Plus, with all the walking up and down I'd been doing, I was sweating. That's how unfit I am.
I wanted to cut all of the card at once or at least in two piles, but the feed was too small and it'd only let me cut three or four at the most. In addition, the guillotine was incredibly stiff, which made cutting the card hard. I managed to cut the first four pieces and then inserted another four. I pulled the guillotine over the card and it got stuck three quarters into the card. I went to push it back but it was completely stuck. I tried harder and it was like I was pushing against a brick wall. It must of taken me literally 10 minutes to finally get the guillotine out of the card and by now, one edge of the card was totally fucked up. In addition, it seemed that the guillotine itself was as well, since I could now no longer pull the blade at all for some reason.
Jamie appeared once more out of nowhere and watched me struggle with the guillotine and card. It was pissing me off by now and I was sweating way too much. It was also now 3:50pm and I wanted to get back to class before everyone had left to ask for my money off everyone. Mike had appeared too by now and was waiting for me/Jamie. By 3:55pm, I had given up and headed back to class. As I headed out of the room I was in, Jamie asked if I was coming the pub. I said I didn't know but he wouldn't take no for an answer. I said I might, or might not.
When I got to my class, Daniel was heading to it too and he asked why I'd taken so long. I said that the guillotine was messed up and the card had been messed up because of it. In addition, I saw people from my class going home, which meant that it was harder to ask them for my money so I shouted to them, reminding me that they owed me it.
I left the card on the table, now pissed off with it a hell of a lot and waited for Bronek, who said he wanted to give me my tutorial, which is basically him and I sitting down for five minutes putting down on paper stuff like "What I have achieved", "What do I want to achieve?", etc. It was now 4pm.
He wanted to do Tony first though so I waited. Daniel waited too, since he needed to speak to Bronek. I asked Daniel what he thought of the stuff I had designed, since the stuff like the DVD cover, the CD cover and the mini-DV cover were all in real world packagings in front of him. Daniel's never one to voice any real excitement over something someone makes though. "Yeah, it's nice", was his reply.
"You just gotta keep pushing it though", he said. "You know, your work looks really professional", he said and I was about to say something along the lines of "Uh, isn't that a good thing?", but he continued.
"And yeah, that's a good thing, but just be aware that sometimes it's good to make something that might not look great because you're still learning.", he said. I was confused now. I wasn't sure whether he was saying my stuff looked good or bad. It felt like he was on about something different than what I had asked him. He went off on a tangent for a while about various things and I just nodded and said yes.
I waited some more for Bronek. And then some more.
Finally, at 4:20pm he reappeared and walked around the classroom sorting stuff out. I eyed him as he moved. I knew he'd forgotten.
"Bronek?", I said.
"Yes?"
"You doing this tutorial?"
"Oh shit", he said "Neil, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot"
"That's why I've been sitting here, waiting for you"
"Come on, I'll do it now"
So we went off into a little room. "I do apologise", he said. "Eh, it's ok", I replied. It's not like I had anywhere else to be particularly, although I had wanted to get home with enough time to spare to get an hour's sleep before coming back to town and going the pub.
He gave me a form with the questions on that I commented on earlier and after a brief talk, said he'd be back in a few minutes, expecting me to fill it out. I didn't have a fucking clue what to put.
"What have I achieved?" was the first question. I didn't feel like I had achieved anything so far. I hadn't excelled in any particular way. The skills I had demonstrated in the work I had completed so far were skills that I already had before joining the course. I was at a loss as to what to put. The next question as just as hard - "What do I want to achieve?". Again, I didn't know what to put. I just want to continue doing what I'm doing. The third question was "What actions and support will I need to achieve my aims?". I didn't think I needed to do anything special and I didn't need any support to do it either.
I sat there looking at this piece of paper for 10 minutes, wondering what to write, before I decided to go find Bronek in the staff room. He was talking to Brian. I told Bronek when he'd finished, to come and help me. He returned to the room I was in after another five minutes and was disappointed to find that I hadn't written anything.
"I haven't got a clue what I'm supposed to write", I told him.
"Well, what's the first question?". He looked at the first question. "What have you achieved so far on the course?"
"Well...I don't know?" I said. "I mean, all the stuff that we've done for this project were skills that I had before coming onto this course so...I don't know what to put"
"So you're saying you've not gained anything from the course so far?", he said, shocked.
"Well, no"
He raised both of his eyebrows for a moment. "Hm...well have you learnt anything new? Any new programs or techniques?"
"The only thing new is InDesign and I've not used Premiere before either. But I wouldn't say I've achieved anything"
"Ok, well put that anyway. That you've utilised programs. And you've proved that you can work in groups, that's another one". That's a shit one was my initial thought, but whatever, I put it down.
"Erm...What about deadlines? Can you work to deadlines?", he asked me.
"Yes"
"Well you can put that down too"
The next question was just as difficult for both of us to fill in and it took a while to do so. One thing Bronek did say was the same kind of thing that Daniel said about making sure my work looks good, but also has content. Make it meaningful etc. Blah blah.
For the third question, he wanted me to put down stuff about improving my attendance and "thoroughly research ideas" before I pursue them further. Pretty standard answers, which I didn't want to put, but it's better than nothing. He left me to write that section out by my self for ten minutes and returned to write his comments underneath. It was now about 5:20pm.
His comments:
"Neil has come onto the course with some excellent graphic design skills which he has demonstrated across the board. He is enjoying the course and gets on very well with staff and students. To fully utilise his abilities, Neil knows he has to deal with some attendance issues (which will be monitored) and has to prove to both himself and staff that he can create the best work he is capable of, both in form and content. Excellent work.
While writing this, I talked to him, since there was a silence. He asked me whether I was enjoying the course and I said how I thought it was so very boring at the beginning, but since we've been doing the project, it's been better. I also said how all of the tutors seem to like what they're doing. He asked me to elaborate and I said how both he and the others seem to enjoy teaching us all and how it seems like its an enjoyable experience for them and not just because they're getting paid for it. He smiled.
"Well, what a nice thing to say", he said, all happy and such. "Thankyou for that Neil".
"Now write good things about me", I joked.
"Oh, I am anyway" he said.
Finally, we were done, but Brian interrupted at the end to say that he had seen my work on my desk and wanted to know if it was ready to hand in. I said yes and he said to leave it there then and he'd collect it. He also complimented me on giving a great presentation. Then he said to Bronek something about marking all of the work tomorrow. "Tomorrow?", I asked, puzzled as it was a Saturday. "Yup", Brian said, "Me and Bronek are coming in".
When me and Bronek had finished with the tutorial, I went back to the now empty class and finally left college at 5:30pm. Because I had so late and because I wanted to go the pub with my friends, I knew that by the time I walked down to the station, caught the train home, and then come back again, it'd be a waste of time. So, I called Jamie to see what time he was coming. He said that he'd be there at 6:30. I said that I may or may not see him there. I then called Stan to see what time he was getting there and he said 7:15pm, but just before he hung up, he said offhand that Dave was already there so I stopped walking, turned around and headed up to the AJ's straight from college where I found him and his friend Glenn.
I'll talk more about the night in my next entry as this one is huge already!
