Had some time to finish my portfolio design. What do you think? I need more content, that’s for sure. I’ll continue to add images and videos in the future. Critics are welcome by the way.
I think I’m gonna put my CV there as well. Not sure if I should add a link to LinkedIn, Facebook and other social sites.
Go to http://portfolio.bjornrostad.com now and have a look!
Academy of Art Online web site
There has been some changes in plans again for my education at Academy of Art. I received an e-mail from my advisor asking if I wanted to take a few courses online and start earlier than Fall 09 which was originally the plan. So I could actually start at AAU this summer and be finished earlier? Of course I would like to do that!
I got a list of possible courses to take and ended up choosing “Composition for the Artist” and “Concept, Design & Process”. The first course is mostly a course in English, but required to do. Not too interesting for me, but better get over with it sooner than later. After successfully completing the course, I’m supposed to be able to utilize the writing process to analyze and articulate artistic backgrounds and processes, use elements of narration and description to articulate a personal artistic purpose aaaaand a lot more. The list is long and you’ll probably fall asleep if I write it down for you.
“Concept, Design & Process” was somehow not available, so I suppose I’ll take it in San Francisco in a couple of months. That course is a lot more interesting for me though.
The online education works surprisingly well. We are around 10-12 students in my class. And we are able to communicate with each other and the teacher. In fact, 30% of the grade is based upon discussing with other students. My first assignment in “Composition for the Artist” is to write an artist’s autobiography. No fun? That’s what I thought too, but after the first lesson today it kind of got interesting. I read Claude Monet’s autobiography which somehow was a little inspiring. If there’s one thing I’ll be doing this summer, it’s writing English!
On a side note: Amazon.co.uk is slow. So slow that I still haven’t received my book for Composition for the Artist. And I absolutely must have that book before friday. I ordered the book at Amazon.com as well now. They are faster. With books. But shipping was $45. Because I must have the book now.
And since 98% of the people – in other words the 9 persons – reading this blog is from Norway, I’m thinking about writing in Norwegian instead. What do you think?
Better late than never. I joined Flickr almost 2 months ago. It’s a nice way to save and share photos compared to Picasa which I used earlier. Feel free to check out my photos at Flickr stream. I’ll try to remember to add photos to my stream as often as possible.
I’ve been looking around the interwebs for some free or open-source photo galleries to put on my site. Then I suddenly came over AutoFocus Wordpress template by Allan Cole. So far I’m satisfied with the template, but it has some bugs he’s working on.
I hope for some more functionality in the future, but so far he’s done a good job! So if you’re into creating a photostream or photoblog – look no further.
Check out my photostream at http://photo.bjornrostad.com to see it in action. Now using SimpleViewer.
Do you have other solutions like Flash-based galleries? What do you use on your site. Let me know.
Update: I ended up using SimpleViewer. Rocks!
I moved this domain to Subsys.no. And I did it while I was on a vacation in USA without a computer. That’s why the site has been down for a week. But it is working now as you hopefully can see. Also I forgot to take a backup of the database, so I lost some comments. Sorry! I installed a new basic theme which looks great in all browsers. Maybe I’ll make a serious theme if I get some time this summer.
Anyway, New York City was great as always, but I won’t come back for many years now. Feels like I’ve done the most fun stuff there is to do now.
The weather was nice, but windy. Hot in the sun (walked with only a t-shirt some days) and a bit cold when the sky was grey.
Fun stuff to do:
Do you have any tips you want to add? Post in the comments!
Picture of San Francisco by (nz)dave on Flickr
It’s been some crazy months lately. Some of you know I’m going to move to San Francisco this fall to study (more). I made my decision in July or August 2008 after some thinking and browsing through extremely many art schools, forums and reviews in USA and Canada. Some schools also sent me catalogs for free across the world in less than four days (thanks AnimationMentor and Academy of Art), while other schools told me they would send me info, but I didn’t receive anything.
If you’re thinking about attending a school in USA it could be smart to apply as early as possible (after thinking about it 35 times each day for one week). One year ahead is a good time to start planning. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed before you can move to the US of A. And it will cost you lots of $.
Anyway, I decided to join for the Animation/VFX-program at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. They sent me lots of papers and a list of stuff I needed to get asap. And a student advisor of some sort sent me a mail. He’s the one who’s going to take care of me if I have problems or questions regarding Academy of Art before moving to San Francisco.
Before I was accepted I had to send them proof from my bank that I had enough $$$, my IELTS-score which is a English test I took at a university in Oslo for some $$$ (got almost perfect score so I waived the ESL-classes :p), pay them an application fee ($$$), send them a copy of my passport and send them transcripts from my high school. Then, after some waiting, I was finally accepted and could join for the Fall 2009 semester. As you see, there’s a lot of fees for everything, but nothing compared what awaits when I have to pay for rent and school. Fun.
I also wanted a place to live, so I figured I’d try to get a room in one of the apartments/dorms the Academy owns. They’re expensive as s**t, but I don’t plan on living on my own the first year in a city on the other side of the globe! I suppose the apartments/dorms is the best place to get new friends. And the buildings are spread around in downtown SF, just like the school.
I also changed my major from Animation/VFX to Computer Arts/New Media which is a better choice for me. Animation/VFX is, as you may already know a program where you will learn Maya, animation, rigging, visual effects, drawing, storytelling etc. It also has a lot of courses to choose from compared to CA/NM, but I’m not that into 3D anymore. Well, I still love it and all that, but I realize I’m better off with general design for many reasons. I still might get into 3D with Cinema 4D though, if I have time to join some workshops at school beside my ordinary courses.
After four years with CA/NM I can become a Interactive/Web Designer, Graphic Designer, Motion Graphic Designer, Visual Designer, Imaging Specialist, Art Director, Producer, Creative Director, UI Designer and more. At least that’s what the course catalog says!
Apparently I have four courses the first semester:
Judging by feedback from forums, it’s not a 2-hours a day school like I’m used to. More like 6 hours teaching + infinite amount of homework every day. Will be fun.
Ticket to SF is bought, so all I’m waiting for is my visa which I’ll probably get this spring. There’s just one big downside of being a Norwegian student in USA/Canada. You won’t get any financial aid the first year which is pretty ridiculous! Norway is as far as I know a rich country, and should not have any problems giving international students some support/benefits when other European countries does it. Really annoys me.
That’s it. Just poke me if you have any questions!
…are willing to spend the rest of your life in front of a computer, constantly retrain yourself, never see the light of day anymore, constantly look for new work, move a lot, have no job security, make fairly little money, probably end up popping mood stabilizers as if they were M&M’s just to cope with the stress, eventually probably have your girlfriend or wife leave you (that is, if you can even find one. Computer nerd work = not sexy), never work less than 50 hours a week, be out of work every time any one of the innumerable unions of the film world goes on strike, work miracles every day and still have nobody know your name. If that kind of thing appeals to you, then…
Remo W. who graduated in 2007 from Vancouver Film School.
Funny, but I guess it’s kind of true at the moment.
I’m making a few websites right now. I could use some help with drawing for one of the sites. I don’t spend much time on it, because it’s just something I do if I get bored or need to relax. It’s just for fun, so there are absolutely no money involved. And it doesn’t matter if you’re not the best in the world. I just need to see some potential :p
Contact me if you want to join me and make a few cool websites without any purpose whatsoever. The goal is to have the site finished in a couple of months. It will be cute!
Just an old picture I took last year and tried to fix in Aperture and Photoshop. Could be sharper, could be better, but I think it looks all right. Hit the picture for big-size.
Unboxing of MacBook Pro 15 (WWDC 09 model)
A new MacBook Pro finally arrived today. As always, I was really excited and looking forward to open the box to see what’s inside and start to play with the computer. I bought a 2,66Ghz version with 4GB DDR3 RAM, two graphic cards (9400M and 9600GT 256MB DDR3) and a 7200rpm 320GB hard drive. Read more about the computer at Apple.com’s website for MacBook Pro. Awesome!