The acclaimed, Oscar nominated, 2007 French feature animation "Persepolis" is one of the showcase films at the Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF).
Matt, one of our international contributers, rates the film highly in his comments on the Kung Fu Panda topic.
It's playing on Friday 1 August, 12pm (lunch), and Friday 8 August, 7pm at The Regent, Cinema 3. Entry is $13.50 for full time students.
On Sunday one of our most beloved teachers at Southbank, Terry got married. It was a wonderful afternoon/night, Terry and his beautiful new wife Kate were simply bursting with joy all night long. Congratulations Big T. Pictured you can see Terry and Kate taking to the dance floor and below the whole animation teaching team making an all to rare appearance all in the same place at the same time.
I found the blog of 2006 graduate Clay, and it has a new show reel on it. Nice to be able to see some of what he has been getting up to down there at Blue Rocket studios in sunny Tasmania. GO Clay GO!
I was chatting with 2006 Graduate Sam earlier today on the wibbly wobbly web, and he mentioned that he had updated his online show reel. You can checkout some of his best work from the last year. He was telling me that each of the scenes with the 3DS Max Character Studio Rigs (the ones that look like they are made out of blocks) were animated in a single day. Nice work Sam, you make an animation teacher proud.
Thanks for the pics Hong :)
For me now begins the end of year paperwork........ sigh.
Two quick things. Congrats to Angus for scoring a fascinating-sounding multimedia/animation gig for ReachOut that will keep him busy for the rest of the year. We'll support you as best we can, Angus. And kudos to Ian for being nominated for in the "Best Educator" category at the SBIT Staff Awards. Geez you guys make me feel so inadequate... one day I'll do something worthwhile though, just you wait!
I think Frank took some pics too and if I can get my hands on them when he returns I'll post some of them as well.
WAYYYY WAYYYY Back in the olden days when I was an animation student at Southbank 
Tafe (somewhere around 14 years ago now, yikes!) there was already talk about moving back to the main Southbank Campus. Its hard to believe its finally happening. Today was the first day I got to see our newly fitted space, and its pretty dam impressive.
There are so many light boxes, I don't know how it happened but we ended up with 50 of em, we don't even have that many students in total. I would have preferred a few 
less and some more PC's, but having too many of something is a nice problem to have for a change.
The other day I intercepted a conversation between some 1st year students about going to see Spiderman next Wednesday, and since then Frank has mentioned it on the forum.
Jane and I have been looking for an excuse to take everyone on a field trip to Southbank so that we can point out where your class rooms will be next semester. So now we are hoping we can 
muscle in on the action and make it an actual official class excursion for both 1st and 2nd years. If we go to the Southbank Cinema then the new campus is just around the corner and we can go around there before or after the film and point out where we will be.
There are session times almost every hour but we haven't settled on a specific time yet, we will keep you posted. If your on a tight budget then save your penny's, its 4 bucks for a student ticket and the more the merrier :) As always friends of the blog and forum members are welcome too, although I know its hard for many of you to get away from work during the day.
Following on from the conversation I intercepted we talked a little about Bruce Campbell, and HERE is a recent interview I found with him. Or you can visit his official web site by clicking HERE. Its all good.
Remember SPIDERMAN - WED the 9th of May, Southbank Cinema. 4 Bucks for students. Time to be anounced!
While we are embarrassing students with photos I thought I'd document that last Wednesday a few of us went to see TMNT after class. I tried to take a clearer picture of everyone at the cafe afterwards, but was experiencing technical difficulties.
The film was pretty average, both technically and dramatically. Worst thing for me was the computer game like modeling and cinematography, low poly stuff with photo like textures (mainly with the Background and props) and constant spinning camera moves. Mark O pointed out that perhaps that kind of thing is intentional because it connects with the kids and I'm just getting old. This 
could be the case, but I want my cake and eat it too, they should be able to reference computer games without damaging the feeling of the film as a whole.
I was happiest when the turtles and just the turtles took center stage, from a character animation point of view they were a cut above. There were SO MANY other characters that I don't think they had any choice but to resort to broad cliches. I would have preferred less characters and more on the turtles, students pointed out after the film that Donatello only had about 4 lines in the whole thing.
Its the third film in the last 12 months that I thought had an amazing preview but left me feeling flat (Open Season, 300 and TMNT), I think I'll just stop watching previews (I loved Meet the Robinsons, and its preview was boring). Anyway, I think a good time was still had by all. In the next few weeks Jane and I are planning a field trip to the movies at Southbank so we can point out where your new class rooms will be next semester, stay tuned.
And we have a 
