There are now some pictures online about the Zoo Much that had its premiere right before Christmas. You can browse at my portfolio page.
The scenography is mine, so are the puppets and the (poor) lighting. There is no way one can take care of EVERYTHING, especially when it’s your first-time-experience sewing handpuppets. Nevertheless, most people have liked the play and there’s a great chance we go touring puppet festivals in Europe this summer (including Tallinn!).
It’s exam session time until some time in February. This means that nothing is happening, the Tuesday history exam got canceled and my next one is on the Tuesday to come. The weather sucks really bad and my only motivation to go outside is to get some food twice a week. Or Czech lessons twice a week.
So I’m studying 3ds MAX. It’s got a 30 day trial and a month of tutorials at vtc.com costs only 30 dollars. And my nephew told me that he earns 500 dollars a month for his iStock animation downloads. And he’s been doing this for two years only. What other motivation do you need to take up a crazy hobby?
And, about MAX – it’s like Photoshop with a couple of extra dimensions. I started from “Selecting objects, pt.1″ on Wednesday and have already gotten through the basic creation and editing of objects. And that with my slow and sleepy pace of sitting at home and sipping tea. Not bad.
It’s the first real university exam session of my life. So far I’ve been having intensive courses with an exam every Friday. It doesn’t feel much because I’ve been studying mostly practical courses (czech lectures are yet too much for me). My first grade is a nice round C in drawing. It’s been a long way remembering how to hold a charcoal.
The first tryout with a pencil.
Then I realized to buy some charcoals. The school liked this one most for some reason and took it for the exhibition.
Some more advancing done here…
..and this could even be anatomically correct. Promise to try hard during next semester also.
Today’s XKCD. I apologize to each and every of my teachers that reads this. But I think you understand, what I mean.
At last it’s winter in Tallinn. It’s been years since the previous time we had Real Snow. Traffic is jammed, planes are delayed, roads are deadly slippery and newspapers suggest that everyone would simply stay home. I picked a good time to visit home again.
Instead of cables and buttons on a lighting board, a chisel and a sewing machine have become my main tools of work. In a way it’s a good thing to know more things about the world, but it’s a fact that to be REALLY good at something, you need to be an obsessed nolifer to focus on your passion.
I’m not an excellent light designer (yet?). I’m a lousy stage designer (an recent upgrade from not being a stage designer). Will I ever be a really good something? Maybe a really good composition of average skills makes an excellent result when combined?
It’s not possible to do everything very well. I cannot be an úbermensch. I only have this one life and that’s it. And there are so many options.
I want it all, bloody hell, and I only have this one lifetime to do it. Here’s a relevant thisisindexed.
I just hurt my finger so bad that I left the carpentry lesson. It’s not easy to type on a czech keyboard with only 9 fingers, but it will have to do to use my time functionally. Yes, I get to carve things out of wood. I’m making a cyclope kitten. Got carried away with the chisel, that’s all.
The semester starts late in DAMU. I’m an exchange student at the KALD department which means Department for Alternative and Puppet Theatre. My main subject is scenography. The first real day at school was October 6th. Until that it was the lost in translation part. Later, it’s been lost in the Process by F. Kafka. I refer to the blog posts here and here, describing the process of applying for a living permit – for / and the process of – opening an internet connection. Even if you don’t understand Estonian, you can guess the elaborations by the posting lengths.
The main phrase that you can hear is “Come back later”. If you agree on a meeting with somebody, the meeting is probably just to confirm, when you both really have to meet. When you try to open a bank account, you’re asked to come back in 30 minutes (which you wait right there because it’s no time to actually go anywhere) just to receive a phone call that you really should come back in 2,5h. I think I will eventually be able to sign a proper study agreement with the school and then get my Erasmus scolarship in a week or so. The international office in Finland has been asking for it since beginning of September.
At school, the international programme is quite uninteresting. There’s a lecture on Czech theatre history by an overwhelmingly art-impressed lady who is quite difficult to follow. There’s a theatre analysis class that hasn’t started yet (but we’re going to see Euripides’ Medeia on Sunday and it’s all czech). And there’s a acting class by an (ultra-)american lady which I hope I could skip just not to ruin the experience for them who are really interested in group excercises and self-motivation at 9 a.m. on Tuesday mornings. At that time, the ultimate level of my social skills is grumpiness and pointless bitching.
The scenography courses, on the other hand, are pure gold. I have 4 hours of drawing and painting (and tired feet) on Mondays, basic puppetmaking and technical drawing on Tuesdays, puppet carving (and bleeding fingers) on Thursdays and sculpture classes on Fridays. In addition to that, there’s a cooperation class with the Technical University and abundant consultations for my personal stage design project.
As if that were not enough, I got already mixed in a demo production that premieres just before Christmas.
Added the czech language classes once a week, I get just about the 30 points needed for the exchange year. Meaning there’s no way I can skip the early morning acting class. This sort of depresses me.
