From time to time, I like to write on this thing. Obviously, not very often, but hey, where have you been? If you go I will surely die…

Wait a second…. That’s a Pixies song….. Better steer clear of that sort of thing.

Anyway, someone emailed me last night who was interested in Ball State. They said they were interested in Film or TV production and asked me for some advice. My reply is as follows…

Some advice? Don’t do it! Run AWAY!

Wait, no, that’s not right.

Actually, as far as film and television production goes, we’re the way to go in Indiana. We’ve got more equipment than just about any other school in the state, light kits, camera’s, those long poles with the fluffy things on the end of them (you might also call them boom mics…), the works..

Also, every summer the TCOM department alongside the department of Theatre (yeah, that’s how they spell it, and no, I don’t know why…) shoot a feature length movie. They’ve got these camera’s, F900’s, same model used to shoot the most recent star wars movies. They only get used on the summer Movie. I’ve been around those cameras a few times, and I have to say they’re pretty sweet.

Oh, right, and we’ve got a new building full of all sorts of fancy things to play with. I haven’t been in there yet (it opens in the fall) but it’s looking pretty cool and I hear good things.

As far as software goes, the computer lab in the department, VIA 2, (where I work, btw) is getting Adobe CS3, Final Cut Studio 2, whatever the latest version of Protools is, and brand spanking new quad core Mac Pro towers. That may or may not mean anything to you now, but basically it means just about anything you want to do, you can do.

So, I mean…. I like it…. but my advice to you? Take a tour. Send someone in the department an email asking about taking a tour, meeting some people, that sort of thing. Off the top of my head, you could try jneedham@bsu.edu , which is professor Jim Needham. He’s the faculty advisor. My guess would be that if he isn’t the person to talk to, he can point you in the right direction.

So there you have it. Any other questions? Fee l free to ask.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 1:30 in the morning. I do tend to get a bit wordy don’t I? Goodnight.

I feel like I should be paid by the marketing department here… Or that they should at least buy me some Jimmy John’s…. Mmmmmm, Jimmy John’s… I live further away from campus now and I can’t get Jimmy John’s delivered to my apartment. It sucks so much. I actually have to go grocery shopping now. I hate it.

Grocery shopping is probably my least favorite thing to do. I always feel like I’m buying too much. “Oh, wait, do I need that?” or “Is that really necessary?” I was at Wal Mart the other day (which I’d prefer not to shop at really, but it’s close to home so I don’t really have a choice), and I found that Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper was on sale. Score! But as soon as I put it in the cart, I immediately felt guilty. I know I don’t need it, but damn’t, I wanted it!

There comes a time when the distinction between want and need grows much more distinct than it was when we were young. When the money comes out of your own pocket, the things you want seem…. not less important…. But you feel bad about getting such things. I’m not so naive as to think everyone’s in the position I’m in. Some people occasionally get money from their family. Some people don’t end up paying their own way through college without anyone’s help. But I’m also not so naive as to think that spending money only makes to poor feel bad. No one likes to do it.

However, as a word of advice, learn to do it effectively before you get here. It’s always going to suck, but it doesn’t have to suck as much.

That is if by fun you mean mind numbingly painful and takes forever and drives one to the brink of their sanity. Anywho, here’s my project that I’ve been working on now long enough that if I dare look at it ever again my eyes will start to bleed. I’m really dissatisfied with how it turned out, but some people like it. Guarantee if they had looked at it for as long as I had, they’d hate it, too.

I really dislike it. Luckily, it’s a bad picture, so everyone else can dislike it, too! Here’s some other peoples, too. That way you get a feel for the sort of thing you do in intro art courses.

So, there’s something we need to talk about. It’s called having a life.

See, I don’t have a life, and that’s fine. For me, it’s not that big of a deal. I spend all my time at work (most of my friends are there anyway), and the rest I spend at home working on other things or in class. That’s fine. I don’t need time for anything else because really for me, there isn’t anything else.

However, for the rest of you, this might be a problem.

I have a massive workload right now. I technically have 3 jobs right now, another one on the way. That’s fine, I can handle it. On top of that, I have 2 art classes. You have NOOOOOO IDEAAAAAAA how much work college level art classes take.

Alright, imagine this. You have this giant 18×24 piece of Rives BFK paper, right? And now you have to fill the entire thing up. With me so far? Seems like that’s not too difficult. However, you’re not just filling it up, it has to look like something, good composition and all. There are guidelines and you have to make this thing somehow visualize the idea of a labyrinth.

That’s hard in and of itself. However, in order to shade in my work, rather than cross hatching which I’ve grown quite fond of because of it’s speed and efficiency, I decided for this piece to do stippling.

What’s stippling you ask? YOU’RE WORST NIGHTMARE!

You remember how, when you were a kid, you were always afraid of whatever was out there in the dark, watching you? That ominous feeling of something not being quite right, some dread force ready to pounce at any given second and rip you apart into what could only be described as the aftermath of a Quentin Tarantino movie shoot.

Yeah, you remember that? That’s probably the best way to describe stippling. But here’s another.

Imagine taking a needle. Now you put it under your toenail, while your feet are on like a footrest or something, something keeping the feet pointed up. It’s just chilling there, waiting. Got that far? Alright, now you take a hammer and drive the needle home! That’s stippling.

Essentially, it’s shading using thousands and thousands of tiny dots all throughout the page. It’s the most painstakingly tedious thing you’ve ever seen, and it sounds just as annoying.

However, believe it or not, I kind of enjoy it. The only problem is that in order to get it right you really have to spend a HUGE amount of time on it. Time isn’t something I have a lot of.

Trust me, guys, Art school is not for the weak willed or the sleep needy. All I’m saying.

I’m out.