University courses?

[sofarok]

dont know where this should go but i was just wondering if this would be a useful subject to cover? In theory my new media degree should hold me in good steed for this visuals malarkey, in practice it was three years of financial deprivation and stress for a piece of paper?well maybe it was more than that, I don?t really remember I was drunk for most of it.

[Rovastar]

Dunno but Visuailzations from the specs is not at all what I thought it would be. :)

[infopocalypse]

You can never underestimate the importance of a good editing class, as well as a class on videography, photography, and basics of film. I'd also study:

marketing
advertising
graphic design

and specifically I find knowledge of the following is helpful:

development techniques
contrast ratios
popular culture
color-thought association (what people think of when they study certain colors, i.e. red is courage but also anger).

could list more.

[Amukidi]

Originally posted by sofarok
dont know where this should go but i was just wondering if this would be a useful subject to cover? In theory my new media degree should hold me in good steed for this visuals malarkey, in practice it was three years of financial deprivation and stress for a piece of paper?well maybe it was more than that, I don?t really remember I was drunk for most of it.

Precisely the reason I reluctantly quit my job as a lecturer 7 years ago - our sylabus did a 180 degree turn from practical, useful skills to theoretical bollocks that was of no real use to the students. This, of course, was all done in the name of "Student centred learning", but in fact was just cheaper to deliver. It costs a fortune to have a set up where, say, you can teach a group of students on-lone editing, (IMO education should have the same priority as, say, the military - ie whatever it costs, we do it). Sadly, our rubbish governments (both Labour and Conservative) are more interested in statistics - "We have more graduates under a Labour gov" etc. For the first 15 years of my career, we were placing loads of students into the industry - Film, Television, Graphics etc - now, they get their 1stClass honours then get a job in insurance (if they get a job at all)! Its all bolocks and totally scandalous!

[InsideUsAll]

As i see it you have two choices when choosing a university course thats relevent to V.J'ing. And it really comes down to which one is right for you as an individual.

Are you a techie, or are you an artist? Of course the best V.J is both an artist and a techie, but very view people exist with real talent in both fields, in my humble opinion.

I chose to study computer graphics, imaging & visualisation (BSc Hons CGI & Visualisation) at staffordshire university. My chosen course was basically a computer programming course, so I am a self confessed geek.

My Colleagues in the inside-us-all collective Calve and Ralph both studied art based courses, Ralph did Photography & Digital Imaging at Sunderland, and Calve did Graphic Design at Carlisle. Both of these courses are good in there own way for budding V.J's, yet very different to my chosen route.

I think as the scene evolves and hardware potentially standardises [pipe dream?] it will become more important for a V.J to become artistically talented. Unfortunately though at the moment a V.J would have no chance whatsoever without at least basic technical skills.

[eirenah]

mucho interesting thread, i must admit...

that's something i'm fighting for 5 years now, and i gave up, i'll just finish it and get this piece of f@**ing paper since it matters too much for getting a decent job overhere.
I had an offer to stay and work on faculty of graphic arts after my graduation and maybe continue with postgraduation, and at the beginning i tought i could stay and /try to/ make some difference, but after 5 minutes of rethinking it i was aware i don't have nerves for that. No equipement (niether quantity or quality), 80% of proffesors that are over 50 years old and don't know a hell about new media and are not choosing ways to save their chairs, that was pretty much enough for me to say NO WAY i'm spending my time on this mission impossible.

Faculty of graphic arts is everything but what i expected, and it's sooo ironic, we're not even treated as designers or artists because we're under technology university. haha.

But one good thing i got from my education is, i realised there's no educational institution that gives you the knowledge for getting a decent job. and it's great that i realised it early enough and started to dig all the knowledge/practise i need bymyself. Paper is paper but when you get it then it's just the beginning of troubles because noone actually prepared you for what's coming next. i know that paper means something, but it's just a (not necessary) predisposition for making your own knowledge database.

aah, and infopocalypse, since you mentioned color-theory... my graduation project will be about colours in all media including the color psihology and color influences... i will try to cover every aspect of colours, and it's probably going to be a web+multimedia CD project also, so i'll share the linx when the time comes : )

e.

[eXhale]

schools has never been my cup of tea. i tried various things and have always been dissappointed so basically i've been into self-learning for 4 years. in my opinion there is so much information on libraries and on the internet that anyone with enough curiosity (you know, this thing all children have before school kills it? ;)) can get an education as good as or better than a formal one through self-learning.

[robotfunk]

The main advantage a uni course has over self-tuition is that through various assignments you are forced to think about certain things. When learning by yourself one has the tendency to only explore what seem to be interesting roads. This way you miss a lot of those roads because they might not seem so interesting at first sight. A good uni course is a balanced menu of different (mostly essential) things and I think it may be much harder to get the same balance doing everything yourself.

[LEVLHED]

university is also a great place to pick up a husband/wife!

Seriously, I did the degree thing, though not in any art/VJ type field...you get out of it what you put into it.






SCHOOL SUX

[InsideUsAll]

i agree school most definately sucks.

the best thing about uni is being surrounded by people who are interested in the same field as you are, those are more often than not the people who you learn most from.

The other huge advantage is being in an environment where you have to think about little else other than your chosen subject. Very few jobs give you the luxury of learning what you choose to learn.

Sitting in your bedroom/studio learning is an essential part of the learning process, but you can't beat having solid foundation understanding of fundamentals to fall back on, which you would definately skip over if you taught yourself

[Bluelive]

university is also a great place to pick up a husband/wife!
Not around here, its a technical university and its 20/1 male/female.
Party's round here tend to turn to korsakoff nights.

[holly]

20/1? Sounds like better odds than VJF.

I think I last went to college a little over 10 years ago, and they weren't teaching the fields I'm in now. Hell, the fields I'm in now didn't even exist 10 years ago. Film/art theory and history, those existed, but nothing technical or practical to what I'm doing now. DVD authoring, digital compositing..., I don't think codec was even a word back then, and if it was I certainly never heard it. Aside from the occaisional adult education class or seminar you'll always be self-learning.

Take all the theory, history, and psychology classes you can stand. Those will help you longer than any technical course ? which will be obsolete in two years anyway.

[bassy]

if u see the numbres over here in Belgium,
how many people really will do work for what they've been studying over 4-5 (...8) years uni, 70% WON'T do work for what they've been studying,....
So for me, I'm trying to do nothing that has any relation with VJ'ing, although if anybody begins the direction VJ-art in any university in Western Europ I hope my parents will let me go,...

Bleulive indeed,
I'm doing indus. engen. in Belgium,.... u have to look very carefull to find the girls... But the uni with the "typical "-girls direction is just around the corner,.....

So my opion, learn what u like to do, but in your free-time, do what ur not learning for and what u even like more.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by eXhale
schools has never been my cup of tea. i tried various things and have always been dissappointed so basically i've been into self-learning for 4 years. in my opinion there is so much information on libraries and on the internet that anyone with enough curiosity (you know, this thing all children have before school kills it? ;)) can get an education as good as or better than a formal one through self-learning.

here here, the only good thing to be said for higher learning is the beer drinking and the comradeship, oh and the possibilty of access to COOL TOYS :D

[unjulation]

thought id throw my two penath in

as an indervidual who faild even at the basic school level and then tried to do the mature, lol, student path i would agree with both strands of this conversation

1) uni does force you to go down roads that you wouldn't normaly travel, think about and experiance

2) even though it proclaims to teach you about the real world it very rarely actualy gives you the skils needed

but one thing any good education can do is give you the ability to think for your self, to gather knowlage and uterlise it for your own ends, but unfortantaly these kind of spaces are few and far between

[Kriel]

Hmmm. Interesting thread.

My experience is to have done both -- first to have gone through 10 years of a career (from 15 to 25) with no higher education, and then to have gone back and educated myself through PhD level (or, almost -- three more months to go 'til I post as "Dr. Kriel").

I have to say that things are easier with an education. An autodidactic education can be a wonderful thing, but you end up with a lot of holes in your thinking -- unnecessary holes that even the most basic uni education would have filled. A technical education is essential, particularly for VJs, but a broader and more rigorous aesthetic education is more important. The technology constantly changes, so we are constantly self-educating as practitioners of a technical medium. Aesthetics are nearly timeless -- and nothing beats a thorough grounding in visual issues.

Which in the end is to say, for a VJ starting off, thinking about a uni education (perhaps in visual art), there's really nothing to recommend against it. And loads to be gained.

seeya
kriel
x

[unjulation]

i would agrea with you, but there are people out there, that for whatever reason carnt work within that kind of formal education system as it stands at the moment, who therfore have to just jump in the deep end and hope for the best, which can scare the s***t out of you

all i can say is teachers come in all shapes and forms, wether it be a person or an experiance, an amazing gig or a compleate disaster of a show, a family background or a lifestyle choice

but yes i would recomend anyone who can deal with that kind of formal lerning to run with it, it can give an indervidual the time and space to experiment and basicly play, without the preshers of the real world, which is one of the most prefound lerning spaces a person can be in, and like you say it can fill in meny holes

its just a shame that the education syatem as its set up now carnt deal with both in some way

and this comes from someone who has run workshops
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[eXhale]

well i'm sure there is a load to gain from universities, and actually wouldn't recommend anyone to blindly ignore this path without giving it serious thoughts. i chose another path because i've never been able to adapt to the rhythm of the education system and i prefer to go at my own rhythm, even if it means sometimes working 18h/day and sometimes not working during a whole month. finding your own balance is the most difficult but i think this is very useful in the long-term, especially since most of us work (or will work) as independants.

[dedhedgehog]

Originally posted by MoRpH

the only good thing to be said for higher learning is the beer drinking and the comradeship, oh and the possibilty of access to COOL TOYS :D

dude - so true.

if i hadn't failed two different first years then i wouldn't (well it would have been harder) have had the chance to play with so many cool bits of pro kit. both lighting/sound and AV. including what rumored to have been the first ever Hog250 in the country.

although i'm now happlily close to completing a more vocational qualification, rather than the strictly theoretical and maths based - and therefore ever so boring - uni courses that i failed.

Having said that i probably whould have passed and found enjoyable the Uni course if i hadn't have got involved in the students union and it's wonderfull entertainments department.


And to get back to what i beleive to be the original topic of this post.......

I can't think of any UK uni courses specifically relating to the entertainments indstry (except perhaps those at the liverpool insittute of performing arts (www.lipa.ac.uk (http://www.lipa.ac.uk) ) but i don't think they have AV related courses) BUt Loughborough college (www.loucoll.ac.uk (http://www.loucoll.ac.uk)) run a BTEC General Theater Technician course and i think they also run similar courses (none of whitch are mentioned on there website. PLASA (www.plasa.org (http://www.plasa.org)) have a good list of entertainment industry courses.


dan

[MoRpH]

Oh and just so ppl know I actually have a dip in IT (network and multimedia) the multimedia section gave me the grounding in all the tech areas I use in VJing (photoshop, premiere, etc) and in my other part-time money spinner WEB work, and my hobby (abstract audio)

[Amukidi]

If you are fired up and HIGHLY motivated, then there is still a hell of a lot going for a good university/college course. In the UK it is a real buyer's market as many of the colleges are desperate to meet numbers targets! If you do your research carefully and look at the results of each course, you ought to be able to find something that fits your budget/lifestyle. Particularly relevant to the likes of us is the quality of the technical support staff! I started out as a technician, so know all about that story! Basically they are under-appreciated by the establishment but most students end up getting most of their gen from these folks. There is also more of a chance that they are in touch with reality/the outside world than many of the old lags! To quote the Vedas (ancient Hindu texts):

"Learning from books and teachers is like travelling by carriage; But the carriage will serve only while one is on the highroad. He who reaches the end of the highroad will leave the carriage and walk afoot"

Just thought I lay something profound on you!

[audioillusions]

Very interesting thread!! I agree with pretty much all the posts here.

But remeber this is a very individual choice, balacing personal directions and abilities, with what is required from formal institutions is not something to be taken lightly.

I began VJing at around the same time i started a 4yr course in MediaLab Arts ('sounds' cool does'nt it:mad: )... This put me in a very advantagous position where i could choose to work on Vjing or Uni when i felt, as long as all the deadlines were met. This also ment that the money i had from good ol' Student Loans and a few gigs prevented me from working elseware to keep bread on the table. This gave me enough hours to put in to the visuals, and have a social life. Top!!!

Then things got out of hand, as the contacts were building up so were the requests for our perfomances, too the point when people stop calling you because you've had to say that your booked or busy and again can't do their night! Then to make things worse we're asked by LTJ Bukem (personal hero of mine, till i started working for him, but thats another story...), after doing a few gigs for him, to go on the Uk Tour with them for a month!!! Doh, but i gotta still do my bit at uni... We lost the contract, and trust me missing out on things like that hurts.

There are some very good courses out there which like other people have mentioned will indefinatly help people out for the rest of thier lives, even if you don't get the paper at the end, you will learn some of lifes most important lessons, with the comfort zone of a Student Loan (providing your in england).

Not to mention all the contacts to be made, there will always be one student night that wants visuals!!

MysticalFish