Arts University Bournemouth - When is everyone moving in?

I'm with summergreatscott on this :B In my previous college, those who joined in animation first then decided to go down the illustration route had a tougher time covering the foundation of illustration. As I recall, one of the paths in Illustration includes animation in AUB, not sure if it's the kind of animation you have in mind though. But if after some thought you feel animation has become your main calling (for lack of a better word, haha!), then go for it!

Ahh, really? I would have thought it the other way around! Damn, I have a lot to think about xD But if they have a section covering animation in Illustration, that may just be good enough for me.. I just want to be able to know how to do it in case I move onto it later or something ! ^^

It's the only reason I still have my dreamcast really If only they'd ported it over to XBLA like they did with some other dreamcast games Who was your favourite character?
I'm doing the life drawing classes at the AUB atm which are on a Monday evening. I did the course last term too and it's really good Still have a lot to learn though and need to do more practice at home. There's this youtube channel called Proko that's really good for life drawing. I've watched the videos a few times but need to get round to the actual drawing side more. I know on the Animation Production course you do life drawing weekly and that you can go to this life drawing club on a Thursday evening so there's lots of opportunities at the Uni itself

Even though I live close to Bournemouth I'm not that familiar with the surrounding area. From what I've read online though Winton seems to be one of the best areas for students and appears to have the most student houses.

Yeah those are both really good My friend Simon actually worked on The Honey Plot as a junior animator in his second year. I remember he told me he animated the bee keepers getting out of the van and some other bits. I really like Train of Thought and The Great Race too, but those are probably two of the most well known seeing that they won some awards The art styles in Leaf and Roots of the Hidden are really cool as well.

Apologies for not getting back to you sooner, I had most of my exams all of last week! I know what you mean about the Xbox port- there is quite a few series that I'd wish they'd renew, one of my favourite games of all time was TimeSplitters 2 on the GameCube/Playstation/Original Xbox and despite it's highly innovative and immensely popular multiplayer components, it was just completely forgotten about. Definitely hoping for some kind of renewal. My favourite character was probably Gunrock or Jack- Jack was pretty useless competitively and he had an awful attack range and minimal utility but I liked how he looked. I believe it had some kind of port to the PSP back in 2005-2006 but I can't imagine it would be the same as it was on the Dream Cast.

Yes, The Great Race was absolutely fantastic- there's a lot of fantastic graduate work and it was definitely one of the pulling factors for my application.

Good to see that there's so many opportunities for life drawing, I'll definitely avail of them provided I get in- in the meantime though, that YouTube channel looks fantastic. What's your favourite animated film?

That’s ok How did they go? I played Timesplitters around a friend’s house a few times but didn’t own it myself. I can’t remember if it was 2 or a different one. The multiplayer was great though. I played red faction 1/ 2 a lot with friends as well. We had this adapter for the ps2 which allowed you to use 4 controllers which was really handy.
Gunrock was awesome One of my friends always chose him. I liked all of the characters, but I usually picked Ryoma. Mainly because I thought Samurais were epic and robot samurai’s even more so Accel was another I picked a lot. I didn’t play Jack that much but I liked his design and entrance animation. He reminded me a bit of Voldo from the Soul Calibur series. I saw the PSP version and didn’t think it’d be that great either. The 4 people on the couch playing it on the same TV helped make the game what it is, like the super smash bros series. That atmosphere really adds to the game. On a related note I believe there was a Power Stone anime but I’m not sure how good it was

Same That and it covers lots of aspects of animation, not just focusing on 3D or anything. The “studio atmosphere” with all the group work was another big draw for me as well.

It’s hard to choose just one but by going for a film I loved as a child and still do today, but in different ways, then I’d have to go for The Iron Giant. The character acting, story and art/ animation in the film are awesome How about you?

Hi everyone
I firmed my conditional offer for BA Graphic Design a month or two ago and just finished my housing application with Madeira Road as my first choice. I'll be coming over from Florida, so it is all a little terrifying! I am very excited though! Does anyone know anything about when the orientation for international students is? I had heard something about it during all my research a while ago and I was just wondering if anyone knew anything further? Thank you!

Hi there, congratulations on your conditional offer! Florida's a long way to be coming over to study, what was it about AUB that made you apply? While I'm not an international student I'll be moving from another country within the UK, so I can understand how daunting it seems moving to a new country. From the research I've done, Orientation is compulsory for all international students and as far as I know it simply involves prepping you on UK laws & legislation, help with settling in and advice concerning your visa. Generally it's held around the 15th of September according to international students I've spoken to- here's a link to AUB's website with information on the orientation:

http://aub.ac.uk/international/study-at-aub/orientation/

My exams went okay, one of them was abysmal but the others were fine and I thankfully got Art over and done with last month. I have one more exam, but it's an AS repeat so I'm not too worried about it. I have no idea why I didn't draw that comparison with Voldo at all before, but it was maybe because Voldo legitimately terrified me- I see exactly what you mean! Soul Calibur was a great game, particularly 2- There was something particularly amusing about pogo-sticking people to death with Yoshimitsu. SC2 probably remains my favourite in the series as some of my favourite characters like Necrid don't feature in any of the sequels as far as I know. Red Faction was one I had never gotten around to playing while the PS2 was in its prime, I know that it was very well received critically. Games nowadays I'd likely turn my nose up at a split screen, but I think that's largely because games have become a lot more reliant on visual aesthetics and display (which isn't a bad thing at all) whereas ten years ago I wouldn't have minded playing Halo off of a tiny four-way split screen. When I look back there's certainly a charm to trying to cram 4+ people onto a sofa and spending more time untangling the controllers than actually playing the game as it was a few console generations back.


I do like how they stress the collaborative nature of the Industry, it does set us up for success when we go on to work. I like the collaboration between the different departments, like you said, they do give off a kind of "studio vibe."


The Iron Giant is a fantastic film, one of my favourites. It's incredibly difficult to pick an absolute favourite, so I'll give you a few- Plague Dogs, Felidae, Watership Down, Summer Wars (I'm a sucker for dynamic fight scenes, the fights between King Kazma and Love Machine are fantastic), Wolf Children, Akira, Treasure Planet, Ghost in the Shell and Rango, I'm also a big fan of Miyazaki, Pixar (especially The Incredibles) and Dreamworks. I've had a lot of people scoff at me when I say I want to go into animation. It's the only thing I've really been interested in, but I hate when people say that it's not a valid storytelling platform- there's kind of a lack of respect for it among western audiences and a tendency for people to misinterpret it as solely for children, which is incredibly frustrating.

Nice I was a bit similar with my A-levels. I was happy with all the exams except Chemistry, but I’d pretty much given up on the subject earlier in the year anyway since I wasn't enjoying it.
SC2 was my favourite as well. It was the one I’d played the most really. Yoshimitsu was my favourite character to muck about with; his move set was just hilarious. I liked Nightmare too, his appearance anyway, but I wasn’t very good as him. If I really wanted to try I chose Kilik since he was the one I had the most practice with.
I still like split-screen, but for games like Halo I prefer system link since that way people don’t call each other screen cheaters :P Then games like Power Stone, Super Smash Bros, Spelunky and the lego games etc have everyone looking at the normal screen anyway. It’s mainly at birthdays though that there are enough people for it, so not that often.

Plauge Dogs is so good. I saw it a while back and just bought it on amazon two days ago Felidae is one I’ve been meaning to watch for a while but haven’t yet. Summer Wars is great and Wolf Children is one of my favourites. Have you seen The Girl Who Leapt Through Time? I believe it was the same director for all three of those films. I’ve only watched Akira once but feel I need to watch it again before I can make a decision on it. Ghost in the Shell is another I’ve been meaning to watch. I’m not sure if I should watch the TV series or film first though. All the Miyazaki films are great I really want to see the new one coming out. Have you seen some of his early work like The Castle of Cagliostro? I recently bought the Nausicaä manga but it’s still in the post Will be interesting to see how it differs to the film. In general every Ghibli film I’ve seen has been amazing. My favourite ones not directed by Miyazaki are Whisper of the Heart and Grave of the Fireflies. I feel I can relate to Shizuku in Whisper of the Heart since she was going through a similar struggle about deciding whether to follow her passions or the general school path so I like it for that reason and also the motivational message throughout the film. I actually have a picture from Whisper of the Heart as my desktop background to try and keep me motivated and procrastinate less Then with Grave of the Fireflies the sheer emotional impact is astounding. I’ve only been able to watch it once but really should watch it again.

Animation is the most valid! Ah it’s just their opinions. You’re right about the general stereotype though, I think it’s due to the huge success of Disney movies and people trying to imitate them rather than trying to bring something new into the market in case it doesn’t do well. Hopefully it should change with time.

What kind of video games do you play nowadays?


Plague Dogs is absolutely fantastic. Felidae's one of my favourites in that it's quite dark and intuitive in its application of film noir. It can be gruesome in certain parts but overall I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. I have, I went to a screening of a film festival a few years back and I thought it was really interesting, great film.

A Levels were a bit of a grind for me personally, I felt that I probably could have been much more productive in doing an foundation BTEC in Art and it would have pretty much given me what I needed, but sometimes your options aren't so clear as they are in retrospect. I decided to just get my head down and work for my exams, but I was tempted to drop out quite a few times. What did you do at A Level yourself?

Ghost in the Shell can be quite confusing in that the manga, anime and films all occur along separate standalone timelines/continuums and aren't really related in terms of continuity, and it's really up to you whichever you choose to watch first- I personally watched the films first and then the anime. The anime I found to be much more intense whereas the films were more metaphorical and gritty. Still fantastic though. Some anime series can be quite obscure in how film adaptions fall into their chronology, like Neon Genesis Evangelion.


Grave of the Fireflies is one of the most powerful films I've seen, I've only seen it once and I found it an emotionally draining experience if anything. Genuinely fantastic film, masterfully executed, but I can't see myself wanting to watch it again in the near future solely for the fact that there is seldom a film that has that same emotional impact on me as GOTF. It reminds me of Barefoot Gen- have you seen it by any chance? It's about the aftermath of Hiroshima and the bombing scene is one of the most visually disturbing things I've seen depicted in film. I haven't personally seen Castle of Cagliostro, but I will make a point of watching it over the summer as I'm fairly certain it was Miyazaki's directorial debut.


My favourite Ghibli film is probably Princess Mononoke, as it was the first that I had watched although Laputa: Castle in the Sky would come close second, along with Spirited Away and The Cat Returns. What I find brilliant in Ghibli's films, particularly Miyazaki's work is the underlying philosophical/moral undertones which really give them some integrity. I haven't actually seen Whisper of the Heart, which is odd as The Cat Returns is a sort of spin off of it and it's one of my favourites- would you recommend it?

I was wondering if anyone here knew much about the accommodation days themselves- does anyone have any estimate of how many people typically attend, if those attending are mostly first years and if or not you're guaranteed to find a house provided you go?

Our accommodation days will probably be less busy than last year, but we anticipate that we will still have many students attended, as we do not have enough rooms in our Halls of Residence for all of our first year students.

In regards to the accommodation days I’m pretty sure they’re just for first years and when I emailed the Uni asking about the number of people likely to attend they said:


I knew it’d be less than usual with the Madeira Halls being built but I’m not sure how many that means exactly. Hopefully a fair few
On the day you meet other students and form groups first. Then you go speak to landlords and look around some properties. I think everyone should have something figured out by the end of the day. The Uni expects people to have to go home after and not be able to look at properties, so they’ll try and get everyone sorted then.

Super nervous/excited about leaving here and joining. I'm an international student, got an offer for Graphic Design and i'm really happy. Placed my application for accommodation, my first choice is on campus and the second is madeira

When is everyone moving in? and when does orientation start?

The international induction week will start on Monday 15^th September ...

Do we pay our housing deposit in June when we find out if we got a room or not? Just because I know that here in the US you pay it beforehand so I just wanting to make sure that I hadn't missed a step in my accommodation application or anything...
Thanks!

Hi. Congrats on the offer
I'm planning on moving in at the start of freshers which is either on the 15th or 22nd of July. I'm not sure if freshers is 2 weeks long just one. It was 2 weeks last year anyway.

22nd of July? O.O I thought it started in september...

By the way! Does anyone have in mind part-time jobs to apply to in the area? I've heard that a lot of animation students and teachers have said that the course will keep you very busy so you won't have time for a job on the side and that kind of confuses me on what I need to do...

There are lots of places around Bournemouth that might have work going and Winton has some shops too. On campus there is a display up on the "student services" building (I think it's called that) that lists some jobs that are going so you might be able to find work through that.
I know that students work in the AUB library (stacking shelves etc) but I'm not sure if it's voluntary. I'd probably go for that if I was looking for a job, but I'm not sure I'll have the time, like you were saying, due to the course and everything keeping me really busy.
Overall, I think I'll have enough money to get by through the loan/ grant etc so hopefully won't need a job I need to plan some sort of budget for the year just to make sure.

Yes yes! I think the grant and loan will look after me just fine but most of my family are really emphasising the job part just cos I think they want me out of my comfort zone and being responsible. Ew...adulthood. oooohhh library work would be lovely an environment where people don't have to talk to me and I just have to organise stuff. I like organising when it comes to budgeting I think there'll have to be some housemate meeting on the first day, going over bills and food stuff.... o.o