Just when I thought Star Wars couldn't get any cooler, it did--with a little help from the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. There's a reason why I love the BSO as much as I do.
Monday: All I had to do that day was meet with Linda, so I hung out in the Photo Studio for most of the afternoon. We Photogs are a pretty funny bunch, but that day it felt like the humour was ratcheted up a couple notches, and I was howling with laughter before you could say, "Peter."
It turned out that I had the wrong time written down for my meeting: it was supposed to be in the 2:00 - 3:00 hour, but I had 3:00 - 4:00 written down. However, it was one of those times where just showing up is good enough, as I was one of the few students who actually came to their meetings. I showed her the photos that I'd taken of my experiments, and we decided on the best one, which would be used for the final version.
Tuesday: My independent Photoshop project is to design a business card, and this week I had my rough-draft version critiqued. This isn't the first time I've done a business card--I did one in first-year Photoshop class--but this time around, I wanted to end up with something that I could actually use in real life.
Turns out, the Røde directional mics aren't as nice as we thought they'd be--and as they pick up sound even from the side, they aren't exactly directional. Oh, well--at least we know now.
Wednesday: We've officially hit crunch-time in terms of prep for our Gallery as a Market Place show. It opens in almost three weeks (March sixteenth), but we lose a week due to March Break (the week of March seventh). This week, we did a lot of work in class: writing bios, tweaking descriptions of our work, writing the press release... We'd planned to visit Ingrid Mueller Art + Concepts, but A. we had enough on our own plates, and B. Ingrid had enough on her plate, as there's a show coming up at that gallery.
That afternoon, we presented our research. I talked about what I'd found out about digital portfolios--which ranged from an Adobe Bridge web gallery to a PDF portfolio (note to self: include a title page next time!).
I spent the evening doing prep for my next Still to Motion (Tuesday afternoon) assignment. My plan is to film myself singing some of my favourite songs (I'll be listening to them on my iPod and singing a cappella). As I went through iTunes, picking out pieces, I landed on MPBN radio, which is in my library. I caught the tail-end of Neptune, the Mystic, which is the final movement in The Planets (Pluto hadn't been discovered yet, though because it's now classified as a dwarf planet, I wonder if Holst would include it if he wrote that work today). I listened, and then got back to work. But somehow I ended up back on MPBN--and was treated to the Main Theme from Star Wars. I'd read the Bangor Daily's review of the BSO's last concert, and wished that I could've heard the concert in person, so I was ridiculously excited. Because I hadn't tuned in earlier, I didn't know that it was the BSO until the end of the broadcast, but I knew that they'd performed the Main Theme as an encore thanks to that review, so I immediately started putting two and two together, and thought, "could that possibly be the BSO?" I jumped up and danced around my dorm room, revelling in the sound of one of my favourite orchestras and one of the most beautiful violin sections I've ever heard. The performance was so thrilling, spectacular and beautiful that I cried as I danced (not the first time the BSO's gotten that sort of reaction out of me). A couple times I slowed down in places where I wouldn't normally slow down, as I wanted to take in the beauty of the violin section. After the last chord had faded, and I found out that yes, it was the BSO, I let go and sobbed with indescribable happiness.
After all that, I had to listen to the theme again, so I searched YouTube. I threw in the Imperial March for good measure. Thanks for starting something, BSO! By the way, this was my first time listening to that orchestra on the radio since the 2004 - 2005 season. A lot has changed since then: new concertmaster, new conductor, new logo, new slogan... But that orchestra is still awesome.
Thursday: This week was the final week of our independent projects. For me, that meant that I played teacher for a few minutes. And then Peter and my classmates critiqued the project (I still need to make changes).
During our meeting, Peter and I discussed my next project--and I showed him the file of notes, ideas and resources that I'd been feverishly putting together for the last couple weeks.
Because I wanted to share my experience with her personally, I emailed Lynn (who's the BSO's co-concertmaster), telling her about the night before.
I also printed my photos for the show, and one of my classmates cut mats for me.
That evening, Helen and I had our usual Skype meeting. In between tech problems, we discussed the project that I'm finishing and the one that I'm about to start. She also talked about paintings that she's working on.
Friday: I'd planned to shoot my Still to Motion homework that day, but as one of my classmates signed out the studio's only Zoom H4N mic for the weekend, there went that idea. Hopefully, I'll get it done tomorrow, but if not, then I'll try to double up this week. But because it's something that's completely out of my control, Rod will probably understand.
However, I managed to get other stuff done that day, including starting my log book for Imagery (my Monday class). And I started the final report for the independent project that I'm finishing, and the proposal for the one that I will start after March Break--and got more than a little fired up about it. Watch out, Harper!
Because my last project was so uneventful--there weren't any serious changes or mishaps, just improvements to stuff that was already decent--I had problems getting up to the five-hundred-word mark. So I consulted with Peter, and he came up with some slightly different questions for me to answer.
I also put together the final version of my Imagery assignment.
Saturday: I spent a large chunk of the afternoon researching the ins and outs of combining Photoshop with Final Cut Pro X (I'm going to use Photoshop to give the different segments of my video their look, and then import those videos to Final Cut). I also edited my final report and project proposal, and made smaller versions of my photos for the show (to be used for publicity). And I did it all while listening to opera (Ernani, by Verdi).
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