The Brussels Experience

Week 3, Day home :'(

2005-12-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well thats it, I have to go home, and so I shall. I said goodbye to my Belgium beer collection

and the crane. Picked up my stuff. and left.

Then I walked the 10 minute walk to the station in just under 40 minutes with my suitcases falling over every 3rd paving slab when it got caught in the gap (joy) I think I looked a little strange, people kept looking at me from their cars, HELLO give me a lift!

andyway, I got on the train and off I went (I didnt pay again HA!) and I was clearly looking out the wrong window last time I went into Brussels Nord station because to my right were lots of buildings which I saw yesterday, but to my left were about 80 windows in a row full of women in their underware! beckoning people in with their naughty naked bodies.

Then I got to the airport spent 15 minutes walking up and down looking to see if I could hide my 'handluggage' suitcase anywhere, but alas I couldnt, so I ust braved what I knew was to come. Now seeming as I was 10kg over on the way out, I was now coming back with more clothes 5 champagne sized bottles of beer and loads of chocolate that seemed to weigh more than gold. So if my 'handluggage' was to big I was probebly going to have to pay like £1,000 excess or something stupid. But he let me take my handluggage as hand luggage and my suitcase was still 10KG over but he didnt charge me. and my hand luggage was 20Kg so I had almost 3 times as much as I should have, all for free.

Then I got to the gate.

sometime later i was still at the gate...

and then finally when im sure 3 days had gone by,the plane for my 20 minute flight to amsterdam arrived.

and then I was in Amsterdam, and then after a few more days I was in bristol, and after that I was on a train that broke down twice. and then, then I was at home, eating chilli and drinking wine! WOO.

Fin

Week 3, Brussels day!

2005-12-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

Well the excitment today! I'm going to Brussels to meet Matthias, and look its snowing!

and heres the back of a belgium street...in the snow

and then it stopped snowing, and then it started raining, and then it was sunny! yay!

heres a gate house of Mechelen or something, I was it on the was to the station

and at this point I realised that my damn camera battery was damn flat!

then I got on the train, but there was no ticket place, or man on the train, wierd. and then I was on the train and I had to get off at Brussels Midi, so I was waiting and then Brussles midi came up on the screen, so I though that the next stop after this one Brussels Zuig, must be Brussels Midi. Then all of a sudden The logo on the screen changed and it was all in french. and the announcments were all just in french, and Brussels midi wasnt on the screen and woosh, there was Brussels I could see it going straight past me as I was whipped out into the country side :|

Then I got off somewhere in the middle of nowhere and waited for a train back (still with no ticket) I got back on another train, off at Brussels Midi and found Matthias at the info desk a mear 15 minutes late, although I was supposed to be there an hour early if all had gone to plan. but nevermind. I found him and off we went into the exciting world of Brussles!

First we went through the christmas market (busy busy) and through to some shops, and then another shop, and then he took me to the town square...

there the town hall

each of these buildings belonged to a different guild, and they all have their different mascots on the buildings. Very pretty square.

There's me and Mattias in a giant christmas decoration.

there we are again, at a bigger christmas decoration.

here's mattius.

after all this site seeing we decided to go see some site eating. mmm Brussels waffle. with cream and banana.

WOOO! yummy

heres me writing a postcard :p

THE PEEING BOY!

and me with all the peeing boy tourists!

and then we went to some comic shops and some other shops and some animationy type shops.
and then... beer

and matthias drawing

and the peeing girl!

Then we went for a LUSH meal in a Art nouveau restaurant type place and it was good! I had a meaty beef stew with fries and a Kwack beer.

and here I am with my kwack. and it didnt 'kwack' me when I finnished it either :D

then our final stop of the night was at this old bar, something to do with a cave. Anyway, it was cool! full of real brusselsy people and there was a keyboard player for karioke! WOOOO. I think I laughed a little to loud at someone who was singing really badly at one point. but it was ALLLLL good. I had muchas fun, and we drank beer and talked (about what I have faint memories) and then drank somemore.

and then it was back on the train back to Mechelen, and I didnt pay again :D YAAAY!

Week 3, Day 6

2005-12-16T07:39:00.000-08:00

What a great way to start the last day, drunkenly waking up at 10 and stubleing into the studio at 10 to 11. Bad tom. BAD TOM.

Well thats it then, my last day at work! :'( But I did get to sign a contract! and I did get paid for my rights to the work I did on the movie AND I GET A CREDIT! suh-weet! Bring on Easter 2007 I'll be wooping and chearing that credit... right at the end... when everyones gone :D

so what did I do? today? Well I did some more scenes, 67 in total now for the 3 weeks. WOO! It's been fun and tedious and then more fun. Or as Hilere said... A cheap way of working out timings befor the scene is given to the animator when it will be more expensive to get them to re time the scene :D. Well as long as they love me and remember me, I don't mind.

We went out for lunch today, to Pizza Hut! However I made the mistake of trying to proove my theory that Dutch is just English spelt wrong, by ordering a pizza, I even manged to get it without anchovies. However, I was soon a little less than happy when my pizza was brought to the table and I had infact ordered an Anchovie and caper pizza, but without anchovies. So infact what I had, was a pizza completely covered in capers. Now whoever the hell ate a caper, called in a caper and decided that it was actually edible and a form of food, I have absolutloy no idea, but I would like to meet him.
But on the plus side I did get a tanker of beer with my pizza so that was nice. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get rid of the vile taste of Capers that was repeating on me. BLEUG! Frederic gave me some last minute tips on the joy that is Maya, and tried again to convince me to take up fencing, and I have to say, it DOES sound fun! :D

and then, then WE HAD A PARTY. and I love partys, especailly ones with alcohole and especially especially ones with alcohol and cake! and this one had champers, cake, and crisps! YAAAAY! that was fun fun fun, there was music, and booze and GOOD TIMES. :D thank you Secret Realm :D... and then, then everbody left :'( and that was it, my last day at Secret Realm Productions.

heres the last time I saw my desk :'(

oooh and I had to take a picture of this staircase befor I left. its booooootiful.

and then on my way home I though, Ill just go check out this 'Christmas Market' so I did, and there were stalls with christmasy stuff, and stalls with food, and STALLS WITH BOOZE.

I had a look around and what did I find? A JAGERMEISTER STALL, love upon love and joy upon joy, a stall with jagermeister, and a jagermeister machine, and a jagermesiter man!

I was talking to the jagermesiter man, and he let me come inside and take a picture of the machine! A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! and It was only 10E a bottle! a big bottle! its like £25 a big bottle in UK, but I am so far over my allowed baggage weight I thought I best not buy any...

and heres some horses... oh no thats people...

Heres some horses... AMAZING

and then I went home, got the final beer that I hadnt tried to add to my collection, only to find I already had tasted it. doh!

and as I sat on the sofa watching 'The Princess Bride' again on my Lappytop, I though, well this is fun, but I'm going to go back to the market and try some of that jeneve. SO I DID, and I drank some jeneve, and then I tried some Gluwine and then I tried some more, and then the market closed booooo, I said goodbye to my new friends, and then on my way home, I spotted a bar, and thought, well it would be rude not to see it really. So I went in and tried a couple of beers, stood by myself at the bar :D. and then I thought well I might aswell go home. then on my way out, what did I spot? Why there was ANOTHER bar there, and another and another. Well I couldnt really not go and see just one more. So I went into this wierd looking one, and all the locals stared at me, and I ordered myself a Golden Carolus Triple.
Now obviously I wasnt thinking straight, who really orders themselfs a 9% beer at the end of the night. Well anyway... by the end of that bottle I was sleeply slummped at the end of the bar completely fascinated by the rocker bar man and his dad, who was also sporting long hair, but he had a full santa beard aswell. Then after I decided I couldnt actually sit up anymore, or ask for another beer due to my drunken numb mouth, I thought I best go home. and I did, but not befor stopping off in a builders porta loo on the way home.

Week 3, Day 4

2005-12-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

SOMEBODY BRING ME COFFEE!

Well I got everything done for the Production Bible, but I am sleepy. So I shall drink more coffee, and play with after effects some more!

After work I stayed in the Studio with Jimmy, and we had a few beers and played wolfenstein, and then we went to some bars, woo! I seem to remember it being quite fun. I think I drank a few beers maybe and I am not quite sure what we talked about, but I remember it being fun. Oh and he told me about the most amazing drinking game ever! In pubs and bars in Belgium they have these massive blocks of wood, and you can actually buy nails and get the hammer and play the game! they actually give out nails and a hammer to people in bars. Somehow I don't think that would be allowed in the UK! :D

Week 3, Day 2

2005-12-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

Well It's uber work time now, for me, not Secret Realm. No time to talk really.

What did I do, I After Effects some scenes up, and drank some coffee, and now, I'm going home to do some work likes.

Week 3, Day 2 - Red Carpets and Christmas Trees

2005-12-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

So I finnished the animatic last night, and Hilere told me last week that he wanted to see some of the work for my film, so he could offer some advice. I thinked he liked it. He didnt stop laughting for a good while, which worried my slightly but then he said, 'That's absurd, I love it'
So I think he liked it. Then I got some good advice about 'classical cinematic approaches' framing and editing type stuff. But he said that It didnt really matter, as with this film we can do what ever we want.
Then I realised that we hadn't actually been taught any of this stuff, which is most odd.
Anyhoo, Below is the excitiment of the Christmas Tree hunt!

see? maybe they are public lavatories for dogs?

just lying on the floor! cast away? What life is this for a christmas tree?

.

so many Christmas trees!

Week 2. Weekend.

2005-12-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

So I showed steve my animatic and his reaction was 'I only understood about 70% of that' uh oh.... Anyway he gave me some top notch advice and stuff so all is good! and then we went to the market! WOOO, It was exactly the same as last week except this time I had my camera. well not the first time I went , I forgot it, but went back after steve went to go meet Tom. Steve was nice.

Heres the bridge... mmm what a lovely warm day

and there is slightly further over the bridge.

and there's the market

YES THATS RIGHT, they are spit roasting chickens in racks on the side of an HGV in a market! far from the broken old tables and dirty tarpaulin of British markets.

a fully functioning bakery...

and dead stuff.

and a cat

crane!

I also noticed on the way home, the streets appear to be littered with christmas trees, christmas trees just leaning against houses and shop windows. It's very strange indeed, why would people just leave christmas trees lying in the streets?
Its almost as if everybody in the whole city went to go and buy a christmas tree, but they were all diseased by some sort of fairy witch, and as soon as people got them home, they just dissapeared, and all thats left is the tree, lying outside the front of the house. I shall investigate some more when I have light for some photographic proof.

The rest of my time this weekend was making an animatic (that people may beable to follow) so that was fun, I used a real light box and everything.

Week 3, Day 1

2005-12-12T03:49:00.000-08:00

Shadows!

more pictures of this road, you can just see a christmas tree, but I was in a hurry, so I couldnt take more. Tomorrow though! I shall hunt them down and solve their mystery.

So what did I do today you may well ask? WELL It was more After Effects madness, followed by alot more after effects madness. Not that I am starting to get a little weary of it, oh no, not at all. Although I am sick of seing jimmy's screen with blend shapes on. 2 weeks now hes been doing them and I can't stand to look at his screen, I wonder what he thinks about it :p

So anyway, I did some more shots, and then I drank some coffee, went for lunch, and then played with more after effects.
Then I went home and...played with after effects! But I did finnish the animatic

Click here to watch

Week 2, Day 5

2005-12-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

Well another week has gone by, and I must say... I'm really running out of things to say, I did some more shots, they were approved and it was kind of fun.

I chatted, ate, OOH! We went to McDonalds today, that was fun, it was like a 10 minute walk out the centre (yes thats right there is no McDonalds in the centre of Mechelen, and theres no Burger Kings in the whole of Belgium apparently) anyhoo we went there and I had a large Big Mac meal, or Big Mac, McMenu Large, as it is in Dutch, and once again it was exactly the same as everywhere else. and then spent the whole of lunch listening to them talk about something, apparently extremely funny, but I couldnt understand, sometimes Mattius would translate bits, but that was really as funny I think, so I stopped listening and started to have a pannic attack about the time inbetween now and May, and how little time that was to make a film, and how the hell I am going to make the bkrds stop looking like crappy maya scenes and more like pretty bkrds that are in my head.

But anyway, after what seemed an age of internal torment, we went back to the studio and did some more work, Steve came round and talked to everyone (except me :( ) and then that was pretty much it.

I must say it is very strange when I sit back and think, I am actually here, in Belgium, on work experience, very strange indeed.. Oh well, 22 Beers down and apparently another 200 to go, but I have drunk the supermarket and night shops out of different beers, Ill have to go start looking for beer shops. Well apart from flavoured beers, but I had one of those last night and almost puked, so I won't have another one of those.

and now... I am sat here, munching on my olives panicking quietly to my self.

2005-12-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

Oh my... Steven Burch Is staying at the house in which I am living tomorrow night, he was a technical Director on The Iron Giant *gets excited*, so I really must go and do some washing up (turn on the washing machine)

Week 2, Day 4

2005-12-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

OOPS, I turned OFF my alarm this morning instead of pressing snooze, I woke up, saw how bright it was outside and though 'Oh no...' It was 9.37!!! Im normally in the studio by at least 9, oh well....

David brougt in the PSD files for me to work on today, so off I went.

it took ages to get one shot right, infact, I did the frist shot by 11, and for the whole rest of the day I was working on this shot of a character jumping through a sort of snad dune and rolling and sliding down it, with a 3d camera turn and a pan and zoom out. ach. Its still not finished. Maybe tomorrow....

Anyhoo, Hilere offered to give me advice on 'Thomas' today which is pretty cool. Im going to finnished the animatic and show him on monday/tuesday so thats cool.

Week 2, Day 3

2005-12-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I have a whole new batch of sequences to start now. All I am going to say is I am glad I dont do this all day everyday. Although it is odly satisfying.

Anyhoo, I have crazy 3D camera angles and all sorts now, so its fun fun fun.
Well theats that I thought but I didnt have the files to work from so I ended up spending half the day doing nothing.

But I did get some help from Frederic on Compositing in shake and Rendering in layers with maya. Theres so much infomation that I just dont understand . I need to emply a technition I think. :D
Anyhoo, we spent most of the afternoon going through that, and then he was telling me about what he did on Thunderbirds and Charlie in the Chocolate factory which was pretty cool. He got angry when talking about the featuretts on the Charlie and the chocolate factory DVD, they don't even mention the fact that most of the UmperLumpers are CG, it basically says that its just the actor and multiplied, but most of the dancing is motioncaptured dancers applied to a CG model of the guy.

Anyhoo, after work I started on the maya animatic for 'Thomas' so thats pretty fun... Heres a still...
Im just blocking out the scenes in maya and animating the camera moves, ooh and tying out lighting etc.

Week 2, Day 2

2005-12-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

Oh the excitement as I wrenched myself out of bed as I was late getting up again this morning.

I have defonatly now come to the conclusion that the middle floor of the house is haunted, just by the bathroom door, and the hallway and the bottom floor leading to the kitchen. I get a strange feeling every time I am in those areas and its freaking me out. FREAKING ME OUT. Because now am I feeling it because its there or am I feeling it because OH MY GOD I’m upstairs and I’m going to get that cold feeling down my back, OH MY GOD THERE IT IS, ITS HAPPENED AGAIN. So this is obviously going to get progressively worse as the weeks go on and I am sure that by Week 3, Day 4, I will be running into the house, straight through the loungy rooms and into the kitchen/living area and staying in there washing myself in the kitchen sink and relieving myself in the garden. But lets hope not. And I don’t want to ask, just incase someone else says, oooh yeah I think it is. Because then I WILL be toileting in the back garden, or maybe just sleeping in the studio.

Anyhoo, excitement on the way to work today, they have their Christmas trees up, the shops and stuff. Not like in Britain where they put them about the shops, oh no. They are just on the pavement, leaning against the wall of the shop. Slung out just like the rubbish, its very strange, looks a bit like lots of people all bought their Christmas trees and then just left them lying about in the streets. There’s even some tied to parking signs and stuff. Very strange. But on the plus side I haven’t heard one horrible Christmas song that are inflicted upon us in Britain from mid November onwards, and I’ll tell you it’s bleeding marvellous! I may go away in the month of December every year, until the 20^th when Christmas is allowed. Anyhoo… back to work.

Did the same as yesterday, after effects ‘shortbread’ that her name, a little fairy I think. Anyhoo, she’s flipping out in the world of storyboards, it’s a bit like Tarzan at the moment, sliding around on branches and stuff.

Then what happened, oh Jella has changed the jumper Stuart is wearing to a knitted jumper, it looks much better, and it sort of looks like my scarf :D

Well anyway, I finished the stuff they gave me to do today the last of what they had, So I’m not sure what I will be doing tomorrow, maybe they have more from earlier on in the story I don’t know.

I gave Hilere (the director) my Ed Hooks, Acting In Animation book to look at today and his eyes lit up like a little school boy. It was amazing, He didn’t know that Ed had written a new book and got all excited when I told him what it was. OH that reminds me jokes are a lot funnier if someone with a European accent says them, very funny indeed.

Well I learnt a new word today I don’t know how you spell it, but phonetically it is [ee-da] which means come here, or there you go, well basically it means ‘here’ but in Dutch, so you can shout [ee-da] at someone and get them to come over, so that’s a good one.

Oh and ‘Slag’ in Dutch means, oh damn, I have forgotten, but it was a good one anyway. (it doesn’t mean ‘oh damn, I have forgotten’ I have actually forgotten)

Well just one more thing, I had a Belgium fast food today. And it was reconstituted meat, mixed with cheese into some sort of paste and then deep fat fried. It was deeeeelicious.

*throws up thinking about it being in my belly*

Well back through the Christmas tree littered streets I go

Week 2. Day 1

2005-12-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

Well what an exciting weekend, touristing followed by geeky fun and internet. What happened today you ask?

WELL I’ll tell you, tell you right now. Mattius brought in the backups of the files for me so I could get started on s29 again, which is a fun scene, I’m taking 2 drawings and making someone swing around branches, fly through the air and swing around in the trees and stuff, so that is pretty fun. I have got to grips with the 3D function in After Effects, although I keep wanting to ALT + click and move the viewpoint around, but tis not quite that advanced :D

Anyhoo, so I’ve been doing that all day.

There was a very exciting 20 minutes where I showed the studio the trailer for Hoodwinked (link) which is so amazingly bad its horrible. So we were laughing and watching that for a far while. I think I described it as people who didn’t know anything about rendering, coming together with some people who didn’t know anything about modelling or rigging and joining forces with people who couldn’t animate. It’s good, I advise everyone to watch it. Then we had some lunch. And everyone stared at me and my left over spag bog which was funny. Then did some more work, then I was talking to Jelle (yell-a) the modeller about the models and I showed him the trailer for ‘Monster House’ as it is pretty much the same style as what they are aiming for on ‘Secret Realm’. That got him excited about the rendering of the hair (like they are doing it) and the jumper, then the director came over and we watched it again, then the lead animator, and the storyboard artists, then the character designer, then the technical director and the production assistant, Then we watched it again :D

Then at home whilst pondering in the kitchen cooking my soup and looking at my collection of tried and tested empty beer bottles. I was wishing that I could take all those bottles back with me. And then I realised (in my beer induced state) that I could keep the bottle caps! Genious!, and then followed 5 of the rather more disgusting minutes of my life as I reclaimed the previous days bottle caps, I got 15, I am missing the STEENDONK beer bottle cap. So I shall have to buy another one of those.

Week1, weekend

2005-12-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

Well what did I do on my 2 days off?

yesterday I went on a mamoth tour of Mechelen and walked so far and for so long that I was almost sick, I really should have eaten something...

Well I started off in the main square and there was a HUGE market there, and I mean HUGE. and it was possibly the most amazing market I have ever seen, the food stalls and stuff like that were massive HGV lorries with hug fold out stalls on the back that had proper kitchens in. there were a couple of stalls acually spit roasting chickens and stuff on the side of the stall, one was a fully functioning bakery!!! and there were loads of cheese ones and meat ones. The meat stalls were amazing, they had whole skinned rabbits and all the poulty was layed out and plucked apart from the head feathers and tail feathers which was pretty freaky. then there were you usual crappy clothes stalls and stuff, none of those were ver impressive, ooh excpet one that had proper folding out clothes racks and manicans and stuff. I didnt actually take aney pictures though.. I don't know why. and then I went on my exploration of Mechelen.

here is a nice place...

and an amazing door

on an amazing building

with other amazing doors

and a nice shop sign, and a scared woman wondering why I was taking pictures of her

tall narror streets

a big cathedral

witha massive tower, that apparently they only half finnished building, it was supposed to be twice as tall as that...

inside, I wasnt sure if I could take pictures, but then I decided to try my luck.

a loverly peer thingy, all carved out of wood.

and Thomas! draped in a cloth and being lead out of school.

a goose in a park that made me get lost.

another cathedral type building thing... apparently Mechelen was the catholic head of the netherlands when the netherlands included brussles, or something like that, so there are a bazzilion huge churches and stuff, so this is the last one a took pictures of...

pretty, pretty town center

man on bike...

and then I had some Belgium fries, apparently the belgiums invented the french fries, but then lost the name to the frenchies.

and then I went to the supermarket and found some beers I hadnt had yet, and then I went home and did some work but then after a beer and a half a was drunk (damn strong belgium beer) so that stopped.

and now its sunday, and I just stayed in all day reading stuff, and then I came to the studio to play with the internet.

week 2 tomorrow....

Week 1, Day 5

2005-12-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

Well thats it, one week done.

I have done 28 shots and they are all ready to go into the animatic. WOO exciting. I have almost run out of approved sequences to do now, as they are still storyboarding, so what Ill be doing later on next week and the week after I don't know.

upon reflection I would have to say that its been great! actually seeing a working studio, and how itruns and the expectations of peoples jobs. Who would have thought that working 8.30 till 6 was so much fun, and so very tiering and then these people go home, this is their jobs! amazing, they do what I do for fun, and they get paid for it, and then they go home after work a do normal things, they don't just carry on working untill they go to bed.

Well I am having fun, its a little bit strange living by myself and not being able to order anyhting in shops and what have you, or just talk to people. But still fun, obviously everyone speaks english here :D

oooh and today at lunch everyone was talking a little more in english, which meant I could actually join in on the conversation rather than listening to them make up words in a very convincing mannor. Frederic has worked on some cool things, and ... went to uni in Bournmouth (BOOOOOOOOOO). I did get a little too excited when he started talking about working on Charile in the Chocolate factory today, Johnny Depp should really never be mentioned arond me when I am trying to look profesional...

So a whole weekend of fun to come, what shall I do without internet or technology or telly even for TWO DAYS? what indeed, I suspect bordum followed but a large amount of death may be on the lines. But who knows, Im going to explore the town a bit and maybe venture off into belgium and try some more beers for sure :D.

Week 1, Day 4

2005-12-01T10:16:00.000-08:00

Oh my its so cold i that house I have officially moved into just the kitchen, there’s a sofa bed in there which is better that cushions in a bed frame, and there are 2 radiators in there and its small so relatively warm. The beers that I bought were most pleasant and the milk was actually milk.

and then the MOST AMAZING thing happened last night, the boiler stayed on ALL NIGHT, that’s right I didn’t wake up in the morning cold Cold COLD. oh no.

AND I made some new friends...

well anyway, off to work I went (I soon colded myself up walking through Mechelen.)

so what did I do today? well the same as yesterday, but this time I was working on s29 - s30, oh yes that’s right. and 2 most exciting things happened, first the electricity cut out and everyone lost their work, and an amazing chorus of Dutch swear words filled the room, so I went out with Mattias to get some lunch and we bought Hotdogs, woo! and we were talking about what I am going to do on the weekend (what AM I going to do?)

Then we ate lunch and there was much talk about how weird it must be for me to call a Hotdog a Hotdog, the dutch word for Hotdog is Hotdog by the way. and then they talked in Dutch some more and then my secret almost came out, they were asking if I could understand any of what they were saying and I said no, but I didn't dare tell them that I sing 'Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirates life for me' in my head whilst they talk in Dutch over lunch, they might think that’s a bit strange, but it sure makes lunch fun, I think tomorrow I will get a big slab of bread, and some cheese and dry ham for that authentic pirate experience.

and then the mysteries of shopping in a Dutch supermarket were solved for me. Firstly they don’t have fresh milk over here (why) so the stuff from the fridge I bought was actually 'butter milk' which is milk halfway through turning into butter ie. Sour and foul. So I have to buy the UHT type stuff that NOT in the fridge. Then someone explained to me that they don't sell mince meat in large packs, which is why I can't find it anywhere. so that WAS useful information.

anyhoo, then the power came back on and we started work again, then the server went down, so we all stopped again for a bit, but then it came back on, and we started work again.

so that brings me up to now. what am I going to do tonight? well I don't know, maybe get drunk with my clothes stand friends again, they are fun kids.

Week 1, Day 3

2005-11-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

I left slightly later today (8.45 instead of 8.15) and the most glorius thing happened, there was sunshine! beautiful morning sunshine... so I took some pictures.

So what did I do today?
Well pretty much the same as yesterday and the day befor, I animated moving cameras and objects in the storyboard in AfterEffects for the animatic.
So what does that mean, I open up the scan of a storyboard sketch, seperate the moving emlements onto different layers, open that up in AfterEffects and make it move.
Then after Ive done a couple the director, Hilere, comes over and checks my timing and stuff then I change it to what he says, or leave it if he says its ok.

Its good, Hilere says its working well for him, because I might do something in a different way to how he thought about it, or I might have done it like he thought but then that gives him new ideas, and its good for me because I get to steal all of his knowledge.

ooh also Dirk (i think thats his name) installed shake on my workstation and gave me some tutorials to look at, so I can start working on that instead of after effects if I want to. WOO!

well I did 6 scenes today, a couple of them overly stupid to do in after effects.

Well I got to the super market yesterday, so I didnt need to go again, but I thought I would just pop in and get some AMAZING chocolate spread, some milk (what the hell did I buy yesturday)

and look at this amazing beer ^ I was most delighted when I took off the beer cap only to find a cork aswell! and then to my disgust and horror I was most dipleased when the liquid it contained touched my tounge BLEUCH!

Week 1, Day 2

2005-11-29T08:53:00.000-08:00

so what did I do today you ask?

Well, I started on Sequecne 24 again, and this time I finnished it, lots of camera mves flying with beams of light and stuff, and I faked some particle effects in AfterEffects which took forever. So that was fun. I also went out to the supermarket for lunch again. French stick 10 slices of salami, bire, tomatoes and a packet of crisps for just 4Euros, amazing. Its cheap to live here in belgium, I found out that I'm actually paying more to live in newport in my house that I would be if all 4 of us lived here, in that massive 5 bedroom, 3 lounged house. crrrray. Anyhoo then I came back here, and finnished off s24 and started the first shot of s25. Obv. I can't show you what I am doing, buts its still fun none the less.

I spoke more to the people in the studio today, and there was an exciting 5 minutes when everyone came over from their desks to watch the new 'Cars' trailer, lots of rasberry type sounds to that, apart from the Frederic (is that his name? I think it is) who liked some of the effects.

todays dutch word I learnt was 'donker' which means dark. I thought it was something to do with beer, but no, well it does mean dark beer on the end of a beer name.

now I must get top the supermarket to buy food, I don't want to miss it again.

...oh dear god that sounds like rain...

2005-11-29T00:02:00.000-08:00

So I missed the supermarket and had no food, why does everywhere open at 9 and close at 6 here? Anyway, my hungry belly then took me on a tour of Cat, Tower, Shop, Tramp, Drain, Bench, Cat... the actual city. Which was SO exciting to see they had taken our designs and actually built a city from it...

see? I'll take some pictures in the day sometime, the following are more pretty pictures of Mechelen.

interesting shop I thought.

and this is where I finally decided to have dinner. Now its time for work.

Week 1, Day 1

2005-11-28T18:50:00.000-08:00

right, nice and early on a monday morning - time for a tour of the coldest house I have ever slept in IN MY LIFE! heres what we see when we walk though the front door, lets go through the door on the right....

here we have a large empty room, through to another lage empty room (detail below) not the loverly plastering on the ceilings that you can't quite see in that picture.

the other large empty room... loverly doors though... lovely.

heres the kitchen and sofa room...

now up the stairs to the first floor...

where theres a landing a small balcony and, a tiny room with 2 more sofas in.

the next floor has this bathroom, and a large empty bedroom, like mine, but one floor below.

there you see the doors, to both rooms and er... more stairs.

this is my room! LOOK I have a balcony, but it was too dark to take a picture of the view.

and there are more stairs going up to 2 empty atic rooms.

Here's the house from the outside, that whole cold house to myself WOOO!

This is the road I walk up to go to the studio...

heres the square I walk through.

and this building with loverly doors, is the studio...

so... what did I do today?

well....

First I made coffee, BUT, only for myself, then I looked around a bit, then I sat down. then about an hour later, everyone else came!

I sat down with the Director Hilere, he's very nice. He showed me about 10 minutes of the storyboard so far, and told me what I was going to be doing. For now... untill I don't know how long, I am 'visualising the camera moves' and other type moving things in After Effects for the animatic.' So thats what I did, I got the scans of the files off the server, named Luag, and animated storyboards in after effects. Then I went out with Hilere and the animator (whos name I forgot) who is currently making the blend shapes for 3 main characters, and we went to the super markert and I bought cheese and ham or.. Hesp in dutch (thats right everyone speaks dutch here..) then I ate that with the people in the studio, then I worked some more. Hilere liked the shots I did, which is good. I did 4 or 5 I think.

But OH I shouldn't have mentioned Tom Hope Parry! Caroline told me he came here to do some work... and they all remembered him, because he spent his whole time here being some lazy ass who never did any work and just played World of Warcraft all day, even when the deadline they had to reach was coming, he still did no work. So they had to fire him and get someone else to come in and re-do all his work :D

well now everyone has gone.. so I'll take some pictures of the studio.

Heres what you see when you walk through the doors.

then through that door at the end to the studio...

and

Thats my desk on the right :D

Well its my first night alone in the big city so its time to get get some food cook some tea, and then maybe find a few places that sell nice beer.

Day 0

2005-11-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

Well heres me in Amsterdam, OH exciting. I almost missed the flight at bristol, I got a call over the tanoy and everything! so that was exciting.

Thats a plane, one like the one I flew in... a FOOKER :D

theres lunch... lunch and beer. now no one told me about the clocks going forward, not one, so there I was thinking I had an hour and a half and then I looked a the screens and it said 15.00, and then I had to go through customs (why) and then walk around the whole of amsterdam to get to gate B29, which is MILES

Here I go again - off to Brussels now! That man on the left is my seat buddy

and this is the longest journey of MY LIFE it took 20 minutes to walk from the plane to the baggage place, across corridors, down 2 flights of stairs...

across this corridor, up 2 flights of stairs (grrrrr) and then down more corridors.

and then I was there, and then I was in a car.. and then I was in Mechelen, and then I had 3 belgiums beers, and then... then I was d r u n k!

Work Experience

2005-11-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

Here is my work experience Blog. Just 3 days and The Brussles Experience will begin...

Heres where I am going, Mechelen, I wonder how one says that? I do hope they speak french and not .... flemish?