The Ringling Thread Part Deux (2005 hopefuls) + summary of old thread

[carakhan]

Pixel: Really? Dude he's my favorite teacher at this school. His silly little puns, I just want to put him in my pocket!

[EccoXile]

I really wish i had been able to take liberal art classes during these past couple years. of course, I never thought about it until it was far too late. And my summer is just too much stuff to do to be able to take any then. Sigghhh. So I suffer. Maybe next summer, sometime. Unless I can find distance learnign courses online, that would be wonderful.

Oh, and nooo, i am not excited for the food. But I must take it i fear. One thign about ringling I am not excited for :P

[jayneko]

Eh. Most of us won't have a choice with the meal plan. All incoming freshmen staying in freshmen dorms HAVE to buy the meal plan. S'in the darn contract!

I was thinking of taking courses over the summer... Gotta ask the peeps there if I can do that for next summer, since I'm not a resident (and I basically need permission to study anywhere else). ;P I hope so. It'd cost more, but the extra time to work on the anim classes would be great.

[jejuhorse]

Aren't there like several kinds of meal plans?
i think i saw something like that in Ringling website
if there is i think i should get a different meal plan rather than a full covered meal plan
cause like me i bearly eat breakfast...
so if i miss couple...then that's total rip off..hehe

[carakhan]

There are apartments on campus. These are more expensive than the dorm rooms, but they come equipped with a kitchen. So, if you live there you avoid the meal-plan trap. I also believe that first years living on campus are required to buy the full meal plan. :pain in the ass:

[carakhan]

Just so everyone knows, Pixel is not being taught by the same teacher (Kaplan) that I am.

[ScatteredLogical]

Also for what it's worth, I don't know if RSAD does this but at Edinboro the meal plan could be purchased in various packages. If you were like me, three meals a day except twice a day on weekends + a credit account at the school-hawked stores, that was a certain price. For twice a day every day eaters, another price...Maybe you'll catch a break there.

Eat your breakfast! lol

[Pixeldragoon]

*shrug* oh well.

[sula_nebouxi]

Taken from welcome.rsad.edu -

Meal Plans

Every meal is priced "all you care to eat." For pricing on the different meal plans, please contact the Director of Food Services: Ron Haynes at 941.355.8064.

The "Full Ride"

This plan offers Residence Hall students "Three Squares-a-Day" Monday through Friday, including Brunch and Dinner on the weekends.

The "Give Me Five" Card

Perfect for the occasional diner. Five meals of your choice for one low price.

The "20/20" Card

The benefits of this plan are crystal clear! Twenty meals of your choice for one low price.

The "Deal of the Century" Card

One hundred meals of your choice for one low price.

"Cash and Carry" Plan

Or, you are welcome to pay on a cash basis per meal.

Breakfast - $5 Lunch - $6 Dinner - $7



Personally I think the 100 meal plan is the best choice. I don't think I'd be able to stand eating at the dining hall 3 times a day(twice on the weekends), 7 days a week. I rarely eat breakfast and I need variety in my meals :P At Rutgers, everyday is some form of pasta with some kind of chicken. It drove me nuts. Sometimes they'll have Mexican or Chinese, but they were absolutely disgusting. Probably the only thing that was actually good was the pudding. Plus, it was a total ripoff. Meals cost anywhere from $8-12 and you never ate your money's worth.

Meh...I've had my fair share of bad food. The Brower Commons at Rutgers is infamous for it. Even students of Rutgers from decades ago had the same hatred for it. I've eaten it bunches of times, I've survived. Ringling can't be any worse right? Unless the meat's green and my soda has a finger in it, I"ll be fine.

[ScatteredLogical]

At least you didn't eat in an Army mess tent every day for three years like our surgeons in Korea...

*snaps out of M*A*S*H trance*

[jayneko]

Hey guys. :)

Just talked (very briefly) with Amy at admissions. Turns out the five elective slots we have in the program (at least, in CA), can be used for taking the minor's classes. Sooo there's no need to overload if you want to take game design or whatever minor you want to take. (Or so she told me! Don't blame me if it's not true! ;P) I'm guessing the othe rmajors have five slots to use to their liking as well, so... woot! :yayca:

I'm wondering jusy HOW bad the food in the cafeteria is...

BTW, are there any other intl. students here besides me? ^^;;

[Pixeldragoon]

Dont worry Jay, Im sure there is someone here. I think a few of the posters in here said sorry for my english, so I dunno. Maybe I got confused.

[OneYouCannotMention]

I'm wondering jusy HOW bad the food in the cafeteria is...



It's not really all that bad; there are daily specials and the staples like deli sandwiches, salads, soups, wraps, burgers, hot dogs, etc. But like any place if you eat there day after day breakfast, lunch and dinner are going to get pretty tired of the food.

I usually grab a soup or salad a couple times a week for lunch and I haven't noticed any intestinal problems or new growths.

[ScatteredLogical]

That, or you've built up an immunity to it :wink: Hopefully it doesn't evolve into something stronger...

[jayneko]

Dont worry Jay, Im sure there is someone here. I think a few of the posters in here said sorry for my english, so I dunno. Maybe I got confused.

Not worried.. I'm just wondering how their visa application stuff is coming long... I've been waiting for a form I need to apply for a student loan for more than a month now. :/ The admissions people are really nice, but they seem to get a LOT of work. :P

It's not really all that bad; there are daily specials and the staples like deli sandwiches, salads, soups, wraps, burgers, hot dogs, etc. But like any place if you eat there day after day breakfast, lunch and dinner are going to get pretty tired of the food.

That's good. I'm hoping people are over-reacting about the food. ;) It would be nice not having to cook all the time and concentrating on college....but we'll see. :)

[carakhan]

Yea there are enough elective spots. But you have to remember that: If you're in CA (not sure about the others) after the first year you will never again take a figure class, or painting, or illustration, nothing outside your major that isn't one of those stupid liberal arts courses. If you want to keep up with your figure drawing, you need to either make yourself go to FEWS (really hard to do when you've got 30 hours of homework for just CA every week) or use one of those electives to take an upper level figure class. I also want to take a few other electives if I can, maybe a painting... I'm actually taking a comic book writing course next semester. You won't be able to take that if you don't have enough credits ahead of time.

[sula_nebouxi]

At least you didn't eat in an Army mess tent every day for three years like our surgeons in Korea...

*snaps out of M*A*S*H trance*

Heh...I eat MRE's(meals ready to eat) for the taste ;). Yum...there's nothing quite like radiation-treated vaccum sealed corned beef hash. I remember eating bunches and bunches of them when I was a kid. My brother would bring home packs and packs of MRE's after Army Drills and I'd love them. Spaghetti, fettucini alfredo, stew, they had it all. This one time, I had corned beef hash for breakfast and I ate about half of it and stuck the rest in the fridge. I left it in there for years(don't ask why) and when I 'discovered' them again 6 or 7 years later, guess what? No mold whatsoever. It probably would have been ok to eat, considering they have a shelf life of 10+ years. It probably wouldn't taste very good though. Mmm....I'm probably the only person in the world that eats Army rations for the taste. Now with the new gourmet selections...oooh baby.

Meh...I've decided that food is food. I've grown up eating ramen and Spam/balogna with ketchup and I thought it was awesome. Heh, just letting you know, I don't eat stuff like this all the time...I do go out for the occasional porterhouse steak at Bobby Van's or Japanese at Koi. I'm just used to the...less-exquisite foods. Bring on the cafeteria food! Although I'm probably gonna bring some MRE's...just in case. ;)

[Sojo7]

Hett15

Nihongo wa hanashimasu ka?

[sula_nebouxi]

私は日本語を話せるんです. それでは...みんなは元気だか.

[jayneko]

Darnit. I HAD to uninstall my japanese thingie... ;P

At least I can view the characters! hontou degozaru yo! ;P

Anyhow. Hrm. Interesting, Sula. Mayhaps..you can get us those yummy things... Are they cheap? ;) *Plots money saving schemes!*

[jmccampb]

Yea there are enough elective spots. But you have to remember that: If you're in CA (not sure about the others) after the first year you will never again take a figure class, or painting, or illustration, nothing outside your major that isn't one of those stupid liberal arts courses. If you want to keep up with your figure drawing, you need to either make yourself go to FEWS (really hard to do when you've got 30 hours of homework for just CA every week) or use one of those electives to take an upper level figure class. I also want to take a few other electives if I can, maybe a painting... I'm actually taking a comic book writing course next semester. You won't be able to take that if you don't have enough credits ahead of time.

This is not correct. In the Junior year, you will take Drawing For Animators, and on top of that, a second class... Drawing For Animators 2 has just been created. They are required classes in the major. These are intended to cover character and environment design, but typically span illustration and painting techniques as well.

[sula_nebouxi]

Jay, most people wouldn't want to touch MREs unless they absolutely had to :P They are sometimes known as Meals Rejected by Ethiopians and Meals Rejected by Everyone. But I like them and they're usually around $5 a bag.

Oh and we're glad you could join our humble little thread jmccampb ;)

I'm sure every CA major here knows who he is...:P I wonder if LryRThoms will be joining us soon...:)

[ScatteredLogical]

All this talk of Army and majors....Is it still considered inappropriate to salute if one is a civilian?

[Pixeldragoon]

Oh! oh! Idon't! Of course, I'm three years from getting in. And to get into precollege, do you have to be accepted, or is it first come first serve?

[Kendraad]

You have to be accepted into Precollege, but I'm pretty sure they except anyone as long as they get the mooola if you know what I mean ^ ___ ^

[carakhan]

Ah you are right jm, I totally forgot about drawing for animators. It's so much better to have an actual teacher, or even head of the dept, to better answer questions. It seems that a few of the freshman don't realize what drawing for animators is, since I know many of us thought we weren't going to take painting ever unless it was an elective. Thanks for the info :thumbsup:

[ScatteredLogical]

ThinMint shares my grandfather's birthday.

How many of you have thought about topics and/or themes for your senior thesis?

[jayneko]

Hrm. So far I have three big ideas I haven't been able to pull off so far. (One's in a beach and the other's in a forest). Got some storyboards around, but I'll probably do these in my spare time and think of a new, better one while in rsad. :)

[carakhan]

Hey scattered... did you know that your grandfather and I also share the birthday of the founding of the nazi party? God, I feel so cursed... :dead:

[ScatteredLogical]

You feel cursed? Rudolf Hess is in my family.

[Hett15]

.............and back on topic :P
Got back from a week long vacation. Celebrating my wife and two brothers all graduating at the same time from college. Two masters and a bachelor. It appears that my brother is actually going to start working as a rocket sciemtist. Yes a real live brainy rocket scientist. He got a masters in mechanical engineering and thermal something or rather and now he will be working on the F-22 Fighters in West Palm Beach, FL, My little brother found a girl in college and decided he now wants to go back and get his masters in political science or something, and my wife got her masters in education and is going to start teaching this fall in Sarasota! Vacation was great too.


To answer your question Vin, I have tons of ideas that I have been trying to write down, but I am finding that some of my best ideas come to me when I am not able to write them down and I lose some of the details I was thinkning about when I later have the chance to scratch them down on paper. One thing I do when I am on the computer at work is to email myself my ideas and as much detail as I can think of or at least words to trigger my memory for later.

I hear that one of the hardest things to do is come up with really good and original ideas when you are playing catch up with homework and projects for 5 different classes and trying to be creative in each one in a different way.

I have one story that I have been working on and off again for about 4 years and it has exploded from a simple idea for a picture I was going to draw while bored in a American Lit class, into a trilogy size epic spanning 3 generations. All because I starting thinking about things like How did this character get into this location, where did this character come from , why is he dressed like he, on and on and on until i figured I could have a small story, or a video game, and then I thought maybe a comicbook, supporting characters began popping up all over the place and soon it was so far out of my control. It was all in my mind until one day I sat down at my computer and started typing like mad until I was 75 pages into a story, but I didn't know where it was going. I guess I love character development a little too much :teeth: I now have about 160 pages written that will under go extreme editing and changes, but I also have about 25 pages of just notes and back stories on characters that I will one day piece together to form the final thing. The characters and motives are basically finished and the story arch is fairly laid out, but details and timing still need a little more mapping. So my pet project might one day make it into a novel, comicbook, or some form, Here's hoping!

[Hett15]

Many have read this before, but it is a nice thing to read even if it's your 5th time reading it.


I'm very familiar with the Ringling program. I know the faculty and have been involved as a visiting artist and guest lecturer on several occasions over the last several years.

In my opinion, the quality of the education in the Ringling Computer Animation department is top notch. There's a strong emphasis on traditional art throughout, as well as for developing the ability to tell a story. The faculty are constantly inviting working professional artists to review and critique student work in progress. Every year the faculty also hires working pros to come and do faculty training so that they stay current with the industry. Not to mention that the faculty also do a fair amount of actual professional freelance work during the off months of the year. So there's no basis for implying the Ringling program is not among the best in the world from a quality of education standpoint.

Having said that, going to Ringling is not a guarantee that you'll get a high paying job in the CG industry right out of school. I'd say a good 50% of each graduating class isn't ready for the job market upon graduation. They need more work on their own time after graduation to get up to par. I make that judgement based on a simple question: Would I hire this person right now as a junior artist in my studio? To more than half the graduates I'd say that answer would be "No, not yet."

Is that a fault of the program? I don't think it is. Those are actually pretty good averages for hire-able people from a given pool of graduates. I've seen entire classes of students coming from other programs that I wouldn't hire if you held a gun to my head.

Every year there's 1 or 2 Ringling graduates who are so good they have multiple offers awaiting them upon graduaton. Then there's the next level, perhaps the top 5-8 graduates who will get a job offer within 2 months of graduation. There's the next level of students (perhaps 10-15 of the 35 or so who graduate) will need to work on their reels on their own time for a period of 6-12 months after graduation, occasionally getting a spot assignment here or there until they can catch on with more consistent work. They have training and ability, they just need to get more practice and grow in their skills. Even so, that's not bad. Again I've seen whole classes of graduates from other schools that I would say would need years of additional work on their own in order to be good enough to get in as a junior level artist.

Sadly, just as every graduating class from Ringling produces some super stars, it also produces it's share of duds. People who never took the program seriously, rebelled against the faculty's instruction because they thought they knew it all already or were so talented that they didn't need to listen, folks who goofed off or didn't feel a burning need to improve their craft and take advantage of the opportunities they'd been given. Almost universally the people who fall into this category have their schooling paid for by their parents. Such folks likely will never work in the CG industry without a significant change of attitude, but they won't have any loans either. They'll just have taken their parents for a $100,000 joy ride on the sunny beaches along the Gulf Coast of Florida.

When calculating the costs of the education, you need to weigh what it's worth to you to have access to knowledgeable, well trained faculty, industry pro reviews and a competitive class environment which will push you artistically. The typical pay for a graduating Cg artist from Ringling may be a bit higher than from your usual Art Institute, but not much. After all this is a merit driven business that judges the artist by their work, not by their class ring. The hire-able Ringling graduates have offers that are typically in the $30-40,000 range. Maybe $45k if it's the right studio or game company. But not typically. Still, $30-40k is quite good for a first job right out of school. The top guys will get a bit more (maybe $50-65k, but VERY rarely). The folks who have to work on their reels for a few months will get less to start because they won't be walking into the top studios right away. Overall the payoff is not bad for a typical graduate. But you'd better not be dreaming for a 6 figure income right out of school because that just doesn't happen anymore. That pay scale is reserved for high end TD's, senior level artists with many years of experience and supervisors. The occasional production artist may hit that mark in a very few select studios if they work a ton of paid overtime (key word here is "paid"). But fresh graduates won't get a sniff of anything near 6 figures, not even superstar Ringling graduates.

The way to ensure that you get an offer for employment when graduating from Ringling is to be in that top 5-10 students in your class. Those are the folks who will get work. The rest have to do it the way the rest of us mere mortals do and work their way up from the bottom over a longer period of time. You need to HONESTLY assess your abilities right now. If you cannot say with confidence that you are capable of producing work that is on par with the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater or Animation Theater shorts coming out of Ringling each year, then you're best served not spending your money to go there. You're better served keeping your overall debt load low and taking the longer, slower path to a job in this business because that's the way you'll have to go if you can't do stuff that is on the same level as something like Poor Bogo.
http://www.animwatch.com/Spotlight-PoorBogo.shtml

That's just my opinion.

-k

[ScatteredLogical]

My eyes actually get tired watching wave after wave of CG models from the alient/robot/monster triumvirate, and I have respect for Bogo.

It isn't much to ask for inventiveness, I like when people step up.

[jayneko]

Thanks Hett. Inspiring as always. ;)

And yeah, Poor Bogo is definetly awsome. I was lucky to be sent as an SV (with free room and ticket too!) on 2003 and saw it in all of it's glory. ;) Didn't get to meet the guy who made it though..not even sure if he went that year.. @.@ After You was another I liked a lot. I'll bring the 2003 Electronic Theater dvd up there if anyone wants to watch 'em. :D

And I agree. Gotta work hard for this. Although I think all of use in this forum really want to succeed in this.. :)

[ScatteredLogical]

And the best way to -show- you want is to -do-...

[sula_nebouxi]

Heh Hett...didn't I post Keith Lango's quote like on the first page of this thread?....I'm pretty sure it's the 2nd post :P Meh...who am I kidding? Who remembers that? :P

PS- Finals over! Yay! :) And 2 more weeks till I head off to florida for some fun in the sun. That reminds me...I gotta schedule a tour of Ringling for when I get there.

[Hett15]

Heh Hett...didn't I post Keith Lango's quote like on the first page of this thread?....I'm pretty sure it's the 2nd post :P Meh...who am I kidding? Who remembers that? :P

PS- Finals over! Yay! :) And 2 more weeks till I head off to florida for some fun in the sun. That reminds me...I gotta schedule a tour of Ringling for when I get there.


yea pretty sure you did. I was just going through the old Ringling thread and saw it and thought some people might not have bothered to read every pageof this mammoth you created. Cheerio

[ScatteredLogical]

Word to the wise -- don't let the tall red-headed junior girl tour you; were it that you had been born just this week, you would nevertheless possess a competitive edge in the area of CA knowledge...

Someone please take pictures of the labs...They were shut when I went before the semester started, so I got a split-second view of one through the windowpanes on the doors.

[sula_nebouxi]

I'll see if I can get into the labs and animation studios and stuff. Don't worry, I'm interested in seeing these places too so I'll be sure to remember to get some nice pics.

And SL, I take it you had a less-than-satisfying experince with the tour? Really all I want from the tour for is a sneak peak at the classrooms/dorms and stuff :P All they have to do is unlock the doors and I'm set heh.

And Hett, I know right...who would be insane enough to read through this entire thing? :P

[ScatteredLogical]

I enjoyed the tour...she was just boring, didn't know much, and took her bad day to work with her... But the facilities make up for it...

[Kendraad]

Thanks for posting that, Hett. It kinda made me really fearful, but it was good info to know.

Poor Bogo is my favorite RSAD animation. It's crazy good. I hope I'll have worked hard enough tot be come super talked like that to create something that sweet.

But only time will tell.

The next 4 years is going to be exciting for all of us.

[CatHicks]

Kendra! I didn't know you posted here! What's up chicka?

How'd everyone been doing? Sorry I havent been around too much. Graduation is soaking up all of my time. It's almost over though.

[Hett15]

Just wondering how everyone's financial situation is going. Does everyone have a way to pay for the tuition yet? Waiting on a Loan or financial aid?

I'm pretty much squared away. I still have to get that health form turned in, but other then that I will be there for orientation ready to go.

[jayneko]

Well, I'm ok for a year..got a 20k student loan approved (getting the funds on tuesday!) and my dad's being really nice and giving me 12k. :) Hopefully I can save some of that for the next school year.

Health form's in..all I need is to go get my visa and get a plane ticket. :D

And say goodbye..I hate goodbyes. XP

[sula_nebouxi]

Just got my loan approved...the bank just has to check with Ringling to see if the amount needs any adjusting. I also have to get that health form sent in too. Other than that...I'm all set. And like Jay, I gotta get a ticket and say goodbye to my friends too :P But, I've got 3 months to do it. Plenty of time :)

[EccoXile]

ugh, loans. I i think im going to do that tommrorow, my grandmas coming over and shes going to be paying a lil bit, helping out here and there.

and i have to figure otu how to get from poitn a to point b on the big big map. my moms just worried about my monster computer (desktop) which I will not leave behind. I think I can get an lcd screen instead of this shit dell which would cut down bulk...but other than that confusion. Im a light packer, but shipping....shipping? do i trust that? whats everyone else doing?

[sula_nebouxi]

I can't bring my computer on the plane...just way too damn big. And it's just too much to carry. I'm gonna have to ship it too. What I'm planning to do is get a big box for both and completely immerse it in bubble wrap and hope it doesn't move in there. I might put some packing peanuts in there too. As a precaution though, I'm gonna take the hard drive and anything that can wobble out and carry that myself. I figure the cost of shipping is gonna be around $100...bleh. Plus I'm gonna have to ship it back and forth every year. (I'm still deciding whether or not to bring it back home during winter break) Maybe I can just get a laptop :)

On a side note, does anyone know if airport x-ray scanners can damage hard drives?

[jayneko]

Well, my computer made it all the way from Montreal to Bogota, and it's working. ;) So I guess the xrays won't damage it. I didn't SHIP it, I just payed extra to take one more piece of luggage in the plane with me...but I guess it's the same thing!

And yeah, bubble wrap it and put those peanut things in. Mine got a nasty dent on one side, but thankfully it was one of those studry metal cases so nothing inside broke.

Myself, I'm getting a lappie when I get to the states. They cost double down here. :P Just getting a comp to keep in contact with people... It'll be better to actually do work on the computer labs.

Oh. And put those fragile stickers on the box. ;P Not that it helped my comp in Colombia but.. :P Stupid cargo people.

[jejuhorse]

Welp for me on loans
i've borrowed 16k from private and 6k from federal
and the rest will be from my parents and some from scholarship and work study and i've registered for the AMS plan so i'll be paying about 700 a month or so not that bad at all :) so i guess i'm also set to go~:D AHHH!!soooo exciting~

And for the computer i think i'm just gonna ship it there
so i'll probably won't get my computer for about a month when i get there
it's gonna be soo painful tho..cause i can't live without my comp..:( hehe

And i cannot wait who my roommates gonna be..hmmm
hopefully he will have his computer with him
so i might ask him if i can share his comp until my computer arrives :D

Oh and do you know what you all gonna do during winter break and spring break? cause you know how all the resident halls will be closed during that break...right?
so does that mean we have to find some kinda place to stay while the break is over?

[sula_nebouxi]

Yup, jeju...you'll need to find a place to stay until they open up again. I'm just gonna head on home. I know the rooms and stuff will be locked down but I don't really feel like leaving my comp there. I wouldn't have anything to do when I come back up here :P

Oh yeah...and I asked for an $18,000 loan from the bank...we'll see if that needs any adjusting. Plus I got a little over $2000 from the government.

[EccoXile]

*starts looking for a really big box*

spring and winter breaks..i dont know. my parents probably want me aroudn for winter christmas, so go home then. spring break, ill probably just stay at my friends house that lives down there

[jayneko]

Colombia during winter, Orlando during summer. We'll see how it all works out. x_x

[jejuhorse]

damn...i have no clue what i'm gonna be doing during breaks...no where to go..:(..motel??..but too much money..bah..

[robvmonte]

u can go home, stay at one of your friends house, stay with your gf/bf or do wat im gonna do and be everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hett15]

Has anyone heard back about any transfer credits? I sent off an email to the admissions people asking about it and I'll let you all know if they ever get back to me. I have a lot of liberal arts and art history classes that should transfer in and I want to know which ones will and which ones won't.
Do we find this out at a later date? In the mail perhaps?

Jejuhorse, get a girlfriend and cozy up to her during the cold winter months and graciously impose yourself on her family. Who could resist taking in a starving homesick artist during the height of the Holiday season? Just remember to bring a bottle of wine for the parents (unless you are underage, then bring a fruit cake :dur: )

[EccoXile]

florida gets cold? and fruitcake? ick.

im hoping for the transfer thing coming in soon. I really dont want that nice ap score to go to waste.

[Hett15]

florida gets cold? and fruitcake? ick.


Florida gets cold depending on what your relative sense of cold is. 50degrees is cold to some, 30 degrees to others, and some are cold at 10 and under.

and fruit cake is a joke. Fruit cake IS "ick".

[EccoXile]

yeah, im in that 30 range :P im goign to miss my boots...and my gloves, and my scarves. not the big puffy jacket though.

[sula_nebouxi]

They say you'll be freezing even if it's only 50 out. After a few months of being in Florida weather, you get used to the heat. And as soon as that happens, your blood thins out and you start to feel cold even if it's normally warm for you. You might even start wearing sweaters and stuff when it's like 50-60 degrees. Just a heads up ;)

[jayneko]

Bah! You all need to spend a winter in Montreal! ;)

I'll take cold over heat any day. I like my coats and cozy sweaters. ;)

[jejuhorse]

lol Hett
Bottle of Wine...very good idea :bashful: parents loves gifts~
bottle of wine for both of them and some flowers for her mother
And also a gift for my gf~:D
but...by then hopefully i'll have a gf...lol...
i'm not really good at talking to girls...i'm pretty shy...bah :(
well..i was watching the G4 channel and they were talking about E3 2005
and i saw some previews of games that will be for PS3....it's soooo stunning...
i couldn't stop saying WOW~
that makes me more excited to be in Ringling for next 4 years :D

Oh and i live in Michigan..so it's quite expensive to travel all the way up there :(
and i don't like snow anymore lol i got so sick of it while living in Michigan..
My last snow was during April...and couple days before it snowed were like 60-70 degrees

[jayneko]

Jeju- Hrm.. How much would a ticket be? If it's much less than paying rent in FL..well.. Although yeah, living with friends or a gf is always nice. :) cheaper too!

And blah. The Nintendo Revolution will be cooler! ;)

[ScatteredLogical]

I've been in Florida since August, when I rode my bike in 103-degree weather. I've also worked at UPS here in 43 degree rains. Minus beginning my life in California, I too am from Michigan and then Pennsylvania so I know cold. Like everyone said it's relative. Thanks to those last two states I can appreciate a place where it's 70 degrees almost every winter day, where it rains maybe 5 times the entire season....

We'll see how I survive when I have my first winter after going through an entire devilish summer. My POOL water today was 90 degrees lol Gotta love solar heating. Oh, and you do -earn- the nice winter because the first two or three weeks before it stays perfect are overcast and wet.

One thing I haven't seen is a FLAKE of snow. I was this warm in Cali but we still got snow because it was windy enough sometimes to blow off the mountaintops.

Jeju, where are you from in MI? You may be surprised how many 'ganders you run into down here.

[jejuhorse]

Welp i lived in MI for 4 years and lived in 3 places...lol
yeap i moved a lot..:( not really good as far as making friends and stuff
my first 2 years were at Livonia
then 3rd year was at Taylor
and now i'm at Ann Arbor
out of three i mostly liked Livonia
it was so much fun..hehe
Gander? as a animal? or as like stupid ppl? lol

Well if i go to MI by greyhound or bus it will cost about around 150 bucks
but to get there will take around 1 1/2 days and same as coming back..
which will make me be able to stay there for only couple days..
but round trip for airplane will take around 300....hmmmmmm...not that bad...
i might think that would also be a good idea
or maybe there's this one person he's a one of the professor in Ringling
He teaches for Interior design
and my dad found out that my dad was in the same college as him at the same time
and my dad knew this other person well
and the person who my dad knew
knew that person...so my dads gonna try to contact him and see what's gonna happen....maybe if get close to that person i might be able to stay at his house :D who knows...lol

[ScatteredLogical]

'gander = Michigander, a term Michigan residents use to identify themselves, like Pennsylvanian or Rhode Islander. I was in Romeo then moved to Lake Orion.

[Hett15]

Here is an email that I just got from Admissions. Anyone else get this?

I just wanted to give you a run-down on what to expect in the mail during the
months of June and
July.

JUNE
*Student billing for tuition and fees for Fall Semester will go out the 2nd week
in June and be due on
July13th.
*Academic calendar
*New Student Orientation newsletter #1
*You'll receive a letter from the CORE program letting you know what to expect
and also be given
information on how to pre-order a CORE Studio Kit. These kits are pre-packaged
with the art
supplies that you will need your first year here. It comes in a carry-case and
is available at a
substantial savings than if you would purchase everything separately.

JULY
*New Student Orientation schedule to let you know what's happening at
orientation.
*Health form is due first week in July.
*New Student Orientation newsletter #2. These newsletter let you know what's
happening during
orientation and your first year at Ringling.
Mailbox assignments.
Housing and roommate assignments.

You can view these and more on the welcome.ringling.edu web site under
"mailings." We are
looking forward to having you on campus come August. If you have any questions,
please give us a
call on the 800# listed below and speak to any admissions counselor. Thanks and
have a great
summer.

Gina Malander
Admissions
1-800-255-7695
941-351-5100

[Hett15]

Once you have been accepted to Ringling School of Art and Design, you can expect to receive a wide variety of communications by mail from various offices prior to your arrival. Here is what we will be sending you:

Office of Admissions

Mail Date
Information

Varies
Acceptance Letter
Welcome Letter from Hugh Davies, CORE Studio Program Director
Welcome Letter from the Department Head of your chosen Major


Office of Financial Aid

Mail Date
Information

April 1
Financial Aid Award Letter. The priority date for filling out the FAFSA form is March 1 to optimize your potential for receiving Financial Aid. Most Award Letters are mailed April 1. However, regardless of when you are accepted, if you have filed a FAFSA form you can expect to receive an Award Letter from us approximately two weeks after we receive your FAFSA form in our offices.


Office of Finance and Administration

Mail Date
Information

Second week in June
2005-2006 Student Bill. If you have not been accepted by June 1, you will receive a Student Bill shortly after your acceptance letter is mailed.


Office of Student Life

The following information is mailed from the Office of Student Life. The timeline is subject to change depending upon the student’s acceptance date and/or any unforeseen printing delays. Parents of new students may expect to receive information in early June that will include a newsletter, parent handbook, Sarasota lodging information and an announcement about Family Weekend.

Mail Date Information
June 2005 Letter from Dean of Students
2005-2006 Academic Calendar
New Student Orientation Newsletter #1
Volunteer Activities Selection Card
Letter from CORE Studio Program Director and CORE Studio Kit Order Form
Services for Students with Disabilities
Counseling Center Brochure
For International Students – International Student Handbook

1st Week in July New Student Orientation Schedule
Student Health Services Information and Health Insurance Plan Brochure
Status of your Student Health Form
International Student Health Insurance Compliance Forms

Mid-July New Student Orientation Newsletter #2
Mailbox Assignments
Student Organizations Brochure
Greek Life Brochure
Spiritual Life Brochure
Letter from Chartwells Dining Service
Career Services Information
Residential Students

Housing Assignment/Roommate
InformationOptional Theft/Fire Insurance
Optional Linen Program


Academic Calendar

New Student Orientation begins on Wednesday, August 17 and runs through Sunday, August 21 for all students.

International students need to arrive on campus Monday, August 15, and those who are on-campus resident students will be permitted to move into their residence halls. An International New Student Orientation will be held on Tuesday, August 16.

Residence halls open for all other students beginning Wednesday, August 17.

Parents Orientation activities will end on Thursday evening, August 18.

Check back to this site often for updates. Details on New Student Orientation programs will be posted as soon as they become available, in June, 2005.


Fall Semester 2005

Mon
Aug 15
Residence Halls open for international students only @ 8:30 a.m.

Tue
Aug 16
International Student Orientation. Mandatory for international students.
Wed
Aug 17
Residence Halls open for new resident students @ 8:30 a.m.

Wed- Sun
Aug 17-21
New Student Orientation.

Thu Aug 18 Parents Farewell Event. (Parents Orientation activities are complete after this evening.)
Fri
Aug 19
Schedule changes for new students from 8:30-11a.m., Office of Advising and Registration Services. Last day 100% tuition refund.

Sat
Aug 20
Resident Student Housing opens @ 10 a.m. for returning resident students.

Mon
Aug 22
Classes begin @ 8:30 a.m. Check-in required for returning students

Fri
Aug 26
Drop/Add ends @ 4:30 p.m. Last day to change classes, major, or full-time/part-time status. Deadline for completion of grade reviews.

Thu
Sept 1
Last day to withdraw from school with 90% tuition refund.

Fri
Sept 2
Discrepancy Reports due by 3:30 p.m. in the Office of Advising,

Mon
Sept 5
Labor Day. NO CLASSES. OFFICES CLOSED.

Tue Sept 13 Professional Day. NO CLASSES.
Mon Sept 19 Last day to withdraw from school with 50% tuition refund.
Tue Sept 20 Last day for grade changes.
Wed Oct 12 Midterm.
Fri Oct 14 Midterm grades to be recorded on IQ Web by 9 a.m.
Fri - Sun Oct 14-16 Family Weekend.
Mon Oct 17 Last day to withdraw from school with 25% tuition refund.
Fri Oct 28 Last day to withdraw from classes without academic penalty.
Sat Oct 29 Spring billing begins and continues through the end of pre-registration.
Wed Nov 23 NO CLASSES. Thanksgiving Break.
Thu - Sun Nov 24-27 NO CLASSES. OFFICES CLOSED.
Fri Dec 9 Payments for Spring Semester due in Office of Finance and Administration.
Sat Dec 10 Fall Semester ends at 3:15 p.m.
Sun Dec 11 Residence Halls close at 4:30 p.m. for Winter Break. Bayou Village and Palmer Quad remain open.
Mon Dec 12 Final grades to be recorded on IQ Web by 9 a.m.
Wed Dec 14 Academic Standards Meeting, 10 a.m., Office of Advising, Records and Registration Services.
Wed - Mon Dec 21- Jan 2 OFFICES CLOSED for Winter Break.

[jejuhorse]

Thanx for the updates hett~:D
i didn't get it yet
but while i was at Rsad website and i was lookin at the dates
i found out that there were no words about having our resident halls closed for Winter break and it says that during the winter break only Offices will be closedXD
but for Spring break it says that resident halls are all closed except for the apartments hehe

[EccoXile]

I thought we already got our health forms to fill out? I filled out something. maybe they just are nice and extending that....hmm.

i shoudl get started on that loan thing....im such a procrastinator. :dead:

[GBmoomoo]

i'm still waiting for my letter. so i may not be coming next year but they saw my protfolio priar to applying and told me i was fine and my gpa was above 2.0 so it should work out.


my question is how should i go about finding a loan so late. i have a subsidized stafford loan which is like 3500 so should i go through a bank or will fin aid atleast texplain all that to me. i have a pell grant and frag as well. lost bright futures which f-ing sucks but im going to work so hard, ill have it back. i have to. anyway, do you think i should call. they got all of my stuff late on monday b/c stetson didnt send my transcript like i asked them.

[jayneko]

Ecco - I think what he meant was that they'll send a letter stating what the status of your health form was. If you've sent it already then you'll get an ok and some papers regarding the health insurance, if you chose to get it.

As for student loans, they shouldn't take too long to get. It's usually a week or two of processing time if you have all the papers needed and cosigners and such. Myself I'm taking a loan at amedfi.com. It's not the cheapest interest rate around (about..1% higher than usual), but it's much better than what I can get down here. XD

salliemae.com offers some too. Hope that helps!

[ScatteredLogical]

Our credit card company found out about financialaid.com doing the "As low as 2.7 percent!" thing which goes up to 9, and offered us a loan at 4.5something. It's higher than the 2.7 but at least it's fixed. This from the people who consider 20 percent reasonable interest. Where's the Go Figure smiley?

[EccoXile]

ahhkay. thanks for the enlightment. I did some digging through things, but you need to know how much you want to borrow and money things and incomes and that. Geh. So, I shall have a chat with the parents this weekend.

two more weeks of high schooll. wooot.

[Madfly]

When will the admissions for the Computer animation program re-open. i missed the deadline this year (januaray 2005) beacuse i wasnt finished with my portfolio... im just about done ..but yea. id really like to apply for a scholarship or something next year than pay full tuition for other colleges that have rolling admissions.. :dead:

hmm..my choices are: ACA, Scad, Sva, ringling,*im going to apply to those for this year sept* blah..i cant remember the rest of em..anyway as i asked before when will they re-open admissions for the CA program?

[carakhan]

When I applied I had to get my CA app in by January 15th. Not sure if that's still the date, but it should be on their website.

edit/ It should be mentioned that it's not just the app that had to be in. I had to get absolutely everything in by the 15th. So request your fall transcript early if you are going to some other school in the fall. It almost screwed me in the process because my last college took so long in the transcript process

Jeju: The resident halls are completely closed during Winter Break. If there are no RA's , there's no living in the dorms. And it's true about Spring Break, with the apartments being open, but believe me, anyone who tries to stay on campus will get fined. Happened to quite a few friends this year. Buy your tickets home early, so you make sure you get out on the day you're supposed to. A lot of my friends couldn't get flights until after they were supposed to be out of the dorms, and that was a big issue.

[Avelena]

*looks over the last couple pages*

Ehh, I haven't posted in awhile! Oh well, I graduated last Friday *dances*!

That calendar Jeju posted is on the school website, yes?

[GBmoomoo]

got my acceptance packet thingy! place reserve and housing form are on the way to them! things are finally happening. now on to the financing of this bitch.

[sula_nebouxi]

congrats GB :) You'll find a way to pay for this monster heh.

oh avelena...the calendar is on the welcome.rsad.edu page, lots of info there. But I don't remember Jeju posting a calendar hehe...:P

As for me...I'm off to Florida tomorrow :) I'm going all over the place...Sarasota, the NASA space center, Disneyland/world(whatever it is...I always get them mixed up), and Sea World...it'll be fun. Soooo...I'll see you guys in a week. I'll be sure to get plenty of pics. I'll try and smooth-talk them into letting me into the dorms too heh. Usually dorms are locked down during summer and stuff.

Yay!

[Madfly]

How much is tuition? for rsad int total ( i mean with living on campus expenses and so forth)?

[jayneko]

Here's a list of all the fees and such for this coming school year.

http://www.rsad.edu/pdf/TutionandFees.pdf

[anniednk]

Hi everyone! I just joined ConceptArt.org! I am hoping to attend Ringling in '07 and was very relieved to find such a helpful thread. Reading through it gave a lot of great information about the school and what I can expect - so thank you! :}
Looking at the fees Jay linked to has gotten me worried: The school will be so expensive when my time comes around, hopefully though I'll be able to rely on... something. Fastweb, here I come :p

[EccoXile]

Welcome the the thread and the site annie :) yes, get a good start on those scholarship searches, and draw ike mad crazy


is this the point in time where i start to have second thoughts about all of this? i dont know...but looking at some watts kids threads...it would be soo much cheaper :dur: and i have some kind of relative somewhere in that area....last i heard shes in san diego....

*goes back to homework as to stop thinking such evil thoughts*

[jayneko]

Welcome, anniednk! :) Hope to see you in Sarasota in '07!

And yes...it's ridiculosuly expensive, but it'll prolly be worth it.
I am hoping they don't increase it like the did this year every coming year.. They're making a new student center thing (more dorm rooms..a gym I think..neat stuff), so that was their excuse..but we'll see.

Anyhoo, welcome to our little thread! :D

[Madfly]

Heres another question..does it make sense i get a laptop?..see i already have a good pc however my dad and mom are going to need it while im away at college.Im also planning on doing some digital paintings during my time at college (i already have a wacom intous 3 4x5) and i wouldnt mind practcing some 3d modelling during my time in the dorms etc. (cuz the way i see it..i want to become one of the elites. in this industry..i am going to work my ass off in both the traditional and digital mediums :confident so whenever possible (during college) i want to be practacing etc etc not just having hardcore sex with some of the local females muahahahhha :bashful:

so is it worth it?(the laptop i mean)

[jayneko]

Well, there are always the computers in the labs. I hear all of them can support the wacom, so... But yeah. I'm planning on getting a lappie too. Just waiting for a good deal to come along and to get the money for one..damn expensive technology! ;P

So I would say it would be worth it if you can afford a good one for cg use. Myself I'm not too sure, college being so expensive and all.. but eh. :P

[CatHicks]

I was thinking about getting a PowerBook before I left but then decided not to. I'm bringing the computer I have now. Dell Dimsension 4500. Works fine. I'll get something new before sophmore year I guess.

Has everyone gotten their email about what to expect in the mail this summer?

[jayneko]

Nope. Haven't really gotten anything from rsad lately, Cat.

(Dell's having some neat promotions, btw, you laptop seeking peoples. ;) )

Anyhoo.. :D If you've gotten anything Cat, mind sharing? :) Hotmail tends to lose my mail every now and then so.. :upset:

[Madfly]

whats the best laptop for Computer animation... and digital paintings...oh yeah i want to also run some guild wars orsome other mmorpg's on it while on campus

any recommendations..BESIDES BOXX AND ALIENWARE and voodoo..WHICH ARE WAYYYYYYYYYYY TOO EXPENSIVE

[jayneko]

Well, what's your budget? ;)

There's some pretty decent Dells going around 1500... I built one at 1100 yesterday night, although it only has 512 ram with is a bit of a turnoff...

So hrm. You need a good processor, good ram, and a nice video card. According to Alias' website, the min. requirements for running Maya 6.0 are:

512 RAM, Pentium III Processor, an Open GL able accelerated video card, 450MB of HD space. Ideally you'd want to work with at least 1gig of ram, a processor that's about...2ghz I'd say, with HT technology would be nice. And a 256mb graphic card.

Even though the first year we won't be using compies much, I hear Seniors end up working a good deal of their time in their own comps..so buying one that's going to be laggy and such isn't a good idea. I'm thinking of getting a workstation rather than a lappie..better toy for the same price. o_x

Maya's min reqs are here: Link! (http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/maya/system_requirements.shtml;jsessionid=UGAUBWJ3P2FK3 QCLCWSSM44AJMK0IJVC)

My plan is to wake up early and get the computers in the lab before they get too full when I'm in thesis time! ;)

[carpal]

Anyone know when RSAD is going to post the '05 Theses on their site?
Thanks!

probably never because they were terrible.

terrible is a really bad word to use actually. "They took a step in the wrong direction" might be better, and I think that is pretty much universally accepted.

then again, the illustrations on their website are done by people who graduated 4 and 5 years ago. Shawn Barber, Chris Ryniak, Carl Dobsky. Even the stuff they use to promote core year are graduated now.

funny stuff

[ScatteredLogical]

Wasn't OYCM just on here a while ago talking about many different seniors being snapped up for jobs? I can't imagine that happening if they had awful work to show...

[jayneko]

Anyone know when RSAD is going to post the '05 Theses on their site?
Thanks!

Not sure, but I found some! Someone in the RSAD LJ community posted them. :D

www.metavisuals.com (http://www.metavisuals.com)
www.rsad.edu/~cbancrof (http://www.rsad.edu/~cbancrof)

[CatHicks]

You beat me to it Jay. I think my friend Rob has a collection of links to more thesis projects. I'll have to bug him when he signs on.

Sorry I haven't been around here much lately guys. Graduation can really drain your spare time!

Any earth shatterning news breaks?

[jmccampb]

probably never because they were terrible.

terrible is a really bad word to use actually. "They took a step in the wrong direction" might be better, and I think that is pretty much universally accepted.

then again, the illustrations on their website are done by people who graduated 4 and 5 years ago. Shawn Barber, Chris Ryniak, Carl Dobsky. Even the stuff they use to promote core year are graduated now.

funny stuff

OK. That is a completely Stupid thing to say. Time to make a few corrections and dispel a few rumors here. First of all, the reason that the Senior work is not on the Ringling web site yet is because there has not been time to get the Divx movies compiled and over to Institutional Technology. They will probably be on the web inside a couple of weeks.

Second, the work this year was very strong, and the person who wrote the post above has highly questionable judgement. It might interest this group to know that the "terrible" work above includes 4 Siggraph winners and a student Academy Award winner as well (we will find out on the 12th if it is Gold, Silver, or Bronze).

On top of that, approximately 25 out of a graduating class of 33 had jobs BEFORE graduation. There was a diversity this year too, and here are the numbers to prove it...

Activision = 4
Dreamworks = 3
Electronic Arts (Tiburon) = 9
Electronic Arts (Redwood Shores) = 4
Sony Pictures Imageworks = 4
Bluesky = 1

Somebody seemed to think the work was fairly good.

Third, please stop quoting that old Keith Lango post. That information is way out of date. As you can see by the numbers above, the whole "Every year there's 1 or 2 Ringling graduates who are so good they have multiple offers awaiting them upon graduation" line does not hold water anymore. And the salary range he mentions is WAY low based on what this year's hires were offered. It's been a couple of year's since Keith has been out to Ringling for a visit.


-------------------------

[carakhan]

Jim is completely right. I saw the theses myself, and I quite liked a lot of them. Not everyone is looking for the same thing. Not to mention the demo reels include a lot more than just the thesis. I heard (not to say I'm correct) that many students focused on their lighting in their demo reel than their thesis. I know some fantastic students who got fantastic jobs and their animations weren't the best of them. It doesn't come down to one piece. That's what a portfolio is for. That's what a sketchbook is for.

Something to keep in mind: I've noticed, that incoming Freshmen are always enamored with the senior theses as they get to the school. At the end of the year, they think they're hot shit, and aren't as impressed. I discussed it with a lot of my friends, as some of them felt the same way as the above person. But when it came down to it, it was just that they already felt like they could do better, without even having any experience! The competition here is so stressful, but you have to keep it all in perspective.

One thing: Whenever you hear about a company coming, just to do a quick presentation, ALWAYS GO. You will learn so much, and it always inspires me to keep going and try harder everyday. This year, Pixar came to visit, and two of the presenters were Ringling Grads that worked on their recent movies. That alone got me excited. Stop stressin over 4 years from now, and worry about the now. You're going to drive yourself nuts otherwise.

So I babbled a little bit. Just calm down, enjoy your summer, and DRAW.

[carpal]

I think a random opinion of a person on the internet by a guy named .pz. is being taken a bit too seriously and I also believe I can be entitled to an opinion. I could go into why I felt the way I did. But I think it can be summed up by what ThinMint said. It seemed the majority of the films focused on one thing. Great for getting a job, not as good for entertaining ME.

That is a joke. My first post was supposed to be red with a bit of jest also.

I have only been to school 2 places. Sheridan, and Ringling, (actually I went for a summer to Vanarts too)

I don't believe there is a better place to study Computer Animation than Ringling.

I hope someone can quote that for emphasis because I feel people breathing down my neck.

internet forums are fun

[Hett15]

I don't believe there is a better place to study Computer Animation than Ringling.



He REALLY means it too. Go easy on him he is just trying to joke around, but the use of text to express inflection can be misleading, and besides it is helpful to have differenting opinons on the same subjects.

Thank you jmccampb for all your info too. Most of us had no idea about that stuff. It isn't just common knowledge on the net, thanks.

Forgive me for the Kieth Lango quotes... I am but a student in search of info.


Activision = 4
Dreamworks = 3
Electronic Arts (Tiburon) = 9
Electronic Arts (Redwood Shores) = 4
Sony Pictures Imageworks = 4
Bluesky = 1

Somebody seemed to think the work was fairly good.

and That is AWESOME TO HEAR!

[jmccampb]

Just to clarify, I don't have a problem with anyone expressing their personal opinion about the student work, quality of the program, etc. My issue was that one person was saying that it is "universally accepted" that the work took a step in the wrong direction. That exceeds the bounds of personal opinion and implies that everyone (including faculty, industry, etc.) agrees with the statement. That certainly isn't the case, and therefore is misleading.

Also, each of you should be aware that CA grads read this forum as well, and that the people you are insulting may someday have a say regarding your future employment. We are living in a global community, and the notion that any forum is a private, quiet little place where you have complete anonymity is an illusion.

[jejuhorse]

Hey Jay, Thanx for the LINKS XD

but www.metavisuals.com this won't work
i can get into the site but it won't let me dl the thesis :dad:
I'm really looking foward to his animation tho looks SWEET XD

[jayneko]

Jeju- Weird. It worked for me last week. If you log on I can send it to you. It's really nice. :) Penguins ROCK. ;) And if you looked at his CG stuff...it's awsome. I hope I can color like that someday. o_o

And thanks jmccampb. That was very uplifting. :) And agreed. The web is the exact opposite of privacy. It's great that they all got great jobs, too. :D

Well, on 'nother topic... Is everyone ready for Ringling yet? :D I only need my visa, but that'll be taken care of next week. Really looking forward to working with you all.

Aaaand. Is there any place we can find the students' demo reels? Theses are great and awsome, but yeah, I'd like to see how the demo reels are made in Rsad and what they put in them.

:yayca:

[jejuhorse]

yea his website is great
love his computer illustrations XD
i wish i can paint like he does

[Pixeldragoon]

Apparently I dont have the right quicktime/divx software, and it's "Not avalabile on the servers". WTF? I even downloaded the latest DivX codec and all that! Little help? I cant even veiw 2k4's projects =(

And also- Does the rpesidents list mean he won the presidential scholarship?

[anniednk]

I am so much more looking forward to seeing the new theses after the new information that came from that little misunderstanding! Strangely the links didn't work for me, but it may be because my little sister deleted something... I'll have to try again/download DivX/Quicktime after this post.

I am going to take a tour of Ringling in July with my dad. It's probably a bit early for me to go, but I have been wanting to see the campus since forever :P I think my dad is a little skeptical of my wish to be a computer animator, but hopefully seeing the school will calm his nerves. He's always said I can do whatever I want with my life blah, blah, blah, but now he is suddenly saying that he would prefer that I go to an Ivy League school. WHAT??? :nohope: I won't give up, though! :}

[carakhan]

I believe the President's List is the Ultimate Dean's list. It means he managed straight A's. Hard to do at this school actually. It would say Presidential Scholarship if that's indeed what he had. I was on the President's List last year for my other college, so I believe that's what it is.

Annie, when are you going to be there? My sister is going to Precollege, so I'll be around a lot on campus (sneaking into the labs!) I don't know if they have people to bring you around campus, but as a Computer Animation major myself, I'd be glad to help ease your dad's nerves :} I'm excited for everyone coming to visit!

[anniednk]

I'll be there 7/11/05 at the 10:30 tour, ThinMint. Any help you could offer would be great! :D

[Pixeldragoon]

Meh.. CAnt wait for Ringling.. Want o go.. SO.. badly.. *chokes*

[carakhan]

Sure thing, I'll see what I can do.

[sula_nebouxi]

Hey guys...just popping in for a quick hello from my bro's lappie in florida. For those who live in FL, holy crap did this week suck. Nothing but rain the entire time. The only time I saw sun was on Tues and today and that was only for an hour or two.

Soooo...I checked out the campus on Tuesday and I got the 1:30 tour with Susan(I think that's her name) and she's a senior majoring in Illustration. People have said the place is in a ghetto. Uh...gross exaggeration. The only thing I saw that was umm...unsightly was east of Keating...some really old looking black house. We were exploring the outskirts of the campus and we kinda got lost :P. The area north isn't that bad. From what little I've seen of the area, it seems typical of a suburban neighborhood. Couple of residential areas, couple of stores, etc.

I saw a few theses from this year's graduating class. I only remember 3, although vaguely. The one with the penguins and polar bear(i think), an old man imagining he was in a racecar, and the one that I remember the most, the little boy walking through a burning village experiencing the battle through touching the dead and their weapons. Oh, the old guy animation was pretty cute :P The lobby of Keating has samples of work from the different majors at Ringling. Of course, CA has the most space given to it. 2 wall mounted plasma screens outside the office of admissions show the '05 theses, and some work from the sophmore and junior classes. Oh...one thing about Keating...the bathroom. That little step...yeah I'm a clumsy moron. After I was...finished, I almost fell on my ass walking to the sink. I forgot about it being there :P

Ok, so I toured the major places. Hammond Commons(which is being cleaned right now, it also advertised a presentation by Jeffrey Katzenberg CEO of Dreamworks), The CIC/Ann & Alfred Goldstein Center which has some awesome work from graduates in the lobby(like sketches from Beauty and the Beast), The fishbowl, Christ-Janer building, and a few more studios(I can't remember the names). We were showed the computer labs in the CIC building. It's exactly like the one you see in page 62/63 of the 05 catalog only there's this huge banner for the movie 'Robots' on the wall. The whiteboard had a few notes on what to keep in mind for animations. Each machine is exactly the same as in the catalog too. Dual screen HP's. Lovely nice little 19" screens. The mac labs have larger 23" screens, but only one to each comp. I'll post some of my pics when I get back home.

Sadly I didn't get to see any of the dorms. Amidst a lot of complaining, I had to leave earlier than I would have liked. It took 2 hours to drive there from Winter Haven so...my family wanted to get back. They didn't want to see the campus :P so....they stayed in Burger King across from the Ringling cube.

Anyways...thanks Jim for giving us that info :) It's much appreciated and it's really nice to see the graduates getting jobs at great companies. Oh yeah and it was explained to me that it is incredibly hard to get A's. Since at Ringling an A is considered to be professional level work. So, don't be saddened if you get a B or even a C. They're still taken as good grades and people who are straight B students will still get good jobs out of school(at least that's what Susan told me :P).

Till next time....I need a vacation from this vacation. Oh and the best line I heard this week, "What country is Morocco in?"

[jayneko]

Hey dood! Nice of you to drop by! Too bad about the weather. o_x;; Hopefully it'll clear up so you get a day of sun!

About getting As in Rsad..I did see a student's (illustrartion major) LJ saying she got all As this semester. o_o We'll see. Least it's not impossible! :D

Be sure to post pics once you're back. Got a chance to go to the Disney animation studios tour thingie?

[EccoXile]

six smilies. good job sula.

haha, no really, good to hear you had a decent time. sucks about the dorms, but oh well.

[ScatteredLogical]

Yah I can definitely vouch for the rain.

[sula_nebouxi]

Heh I hear we're supposed to get some sun after I leave :P That's pretty impressive that a student got all A's. It gives me some hope heh. Oh yeah, about that Disney Animation thingie...well, it's been dumbed down horribly in the past few years since Hett went. You can't even see where the animators worked now. First they sit you in this auditorium where you listen to a guy read a script about Disney animation and Mushu from Mulan comes out and they have this back and forth dialog. They talked about concept development and stuff. Some of it was neat but it lacked substance. 9 minutes was just too short of a presentation.

We were then brought to the next area where we saw early designs for many of Disney's early works as well as the more modern ones. I saw some designs for Tinkerbell right next to designs for Stitch. There were also some cool little clay models of the Incredibles. After that was a replica of the sweatbox, which oddly enough looked like a dark room with a bunch of box shaped pedestals...the next room was a little cooler. It was a replica of a story room, complete with storyboards lining the walls. After that were the gimmicks. What a let-down. No animator showing you how to draw Disney characters, just a bunch of stations letting you color some characters in with a touch screen. There were a few drawings on the wall which were pretty cool. I was the only person interested in the drawings. Everyone else was too busy trying to get Elastigirl's autograph or making Nemo purple and pink.

It was pretty dissappointing. I guess they didn't want to keep the animator around since it cost Disney too much. Better to have a bunch of cheap coloring stations and souvenir shop than give people a nice experience that they will remember years later. Oh, and what really pissed me off were the friggin ads and previews for Chicken Little in the *middle* of the presentation. Ugh...made me sick. Plus the numerous posters for upcoming feature Disney 3d animated films. All of them were immediately forgettable except for 2. A remake of Rapunzel and some movie about a geeky kid(to which me and my brother laughed at. I said it violated a basic rule of animation, Appeal. That kid looked plain and ordinary. Just not a very good design...certainly not for a hero character that you need to root for) It's like the magic was lost...seemed way too gimmicky even for Disney standards. Oh well...

Heh thanks Ecco, I'll post some of the cool pics tomorrow. I took some pics of some of the hordes of lizards around campus and squirrels and painting of some dude barfing but I doubt anyone would want to see that ;)

[Hett15]

Sorry to hear that the animation tour sucks now. You could proabably get a better tour just by picking up a book about it nowadays.

Just think, if I had waited until now to go see the animation tour then I would have never stared through the window into the animation pit and made my wife see how badly I wanted it and my wife would not have told me I was going to go to art school.... and I wouldn't be on this forum, or know any of you, and I would hate my life (more because I wouldn't know any of you :) ). Thank God for perfect timing!

By the way I think I will be telling my boss I am leaving in August for Sarasota, either this week or next. Hope I don;t get fired!

[ScatteredLogical]

When I went in '95 they told us that the guy in the pit wasn't even a real-live animator. It was actually his job as a sort of "cast member but not the food service kind" to sit there and draw and/or ink cels whilst people watched. It seems sandwiched between Sula and I Greg did get the best deal =)

Today started out bleck again but the pool went from 80 to 85 and the last half of the day was bright and only slightly cloudy. Yes, blue skies again!

As far as that movie, I can see why maybe they'd wanna make the hero average, since so many people would place themselves in that category (making the experience more palpable and livable, and potentially more inspiring) but it's disappointing to hear that it sucks from just the design standpoint alone. It's weird when you've got animation on the mind. I watched a cartoon today for 20 mins just looking at the dialogue synch. The mouth shapes were great, especially the vowels, but timing wise it was like watching bad Flash.

[Hett15]

So I did it. I told my boss that I will be leaving for Sarasota to go to art school and that my wife is taking a job there as a elementary special education teacher. Despite all my fears about it, everything went really well. We talked about the possibilities of me staying and he offered to call the Superintendent of schools here to get my wife any job she wants. He would really like to see me stay, but he understands why I would want to go to Sarasota. He even said he would love to hire me after I graduated, which was really cool. He told me I was more artistic then just about anyone in our office and he thought that I have a lot of potential to become a very good animator. We sort of left it at "I will know for sure whether or not we are going in about two weeks after my wife and really have a chance to talk about it." (Of course I will defiantely be going, but I want to make this a slower transition for him so that I just don't spring it on him all at once.)

I told him that the benefits my wife will be getting and her pay rate will be much higher down there, and that I got accepted to Ringling earlier this year, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to go unless my wife were to get a good job down there. (She got THE PERFECT job down there by the way). I told him bluntly that this has always been a dream of mine and the window of opportunity has finally opened for it. I went on to tell him how much I appreciated him hiring me right out of school, basically off the street all becasue he liked the email I sent him one day.

I hope some of you learn a little from this that you will be treated the way you treat others in a professional workplace. I gave him the courtesy and respect by giving him time to find a replacement like he asked me to, and he in turn is going to let me stay on until I want to leave becasue he thinks that I have been a good and honest employee. Almost all the other people I have talked to about this in the business wold told me I only needed to give him two weeks, but I didn't fell that was the right thing to do (It would have been easier on my nerves though). So he has basically wished me good luck and hopes I can work with him again in the future. "Don't burn bridges!" that is so important in this or any business. One bad word about you can spread like wild fire. Don't give them reason to say anything bad about you. the worst thing that could have happened was I give him the proper amount of notice and i get fired anyways and I tell my next employer that I was fired for being honest and courteous. It will make me look even better.

[jejuhorse]

That's great to hear that everything went smoothly Hett :)

my last week was a rough week for me
saturday i got a speeding ticket with a violation of having a small cracked windsheild
tuesday i got my wheel stolen
friday after i bought a new wheel, and then i lost my brother's debit card
monday i went to a auto shop to get my cracked windsheild fixed but they say that my whole windsheild has to be replaced...which cost way more than the violation fee
so i decided to just pay my violation fee and not fix it (the police officer told me that if i fix it then i'll get my violation fee waived)

But in the good side i went to watch Madagascar :D
i loved it hehe it was hilarious :)
you guys should go and watch it i think it's worth the money hehe

And sula i can't wait to see those pics :D
that sux that you only had two days of sun :(
Florida has lot of rain, right?

And i got one more question for you guys XD
last week i went to the doctor to get my health insurence form filled
and there's this one shot that is recommended to whoever that will go live in dorms and it's called Meningococcal..something like that
so.. did you all take that shot yet?
i just signed that i am not gonna be taking that shot in the health insurence form
but i'm thinking of taking it just in case..don't want that decease..lol

[Hett15]

And i got one more question for you guys XD
last week i went to the doctor to get my health insurence form filled
and there's this one shot that is recommended to whoever that will go live in dorms and it's called Meningococcal..something like that
so.. did you all take that shot yet?
i just signed that i am not gonna be taking that shot in the health insurence form
but i'm thinking of taking it just in case..don't want that decease..lol


that is for Meningitis. It will kill ya, but it is pretty rare really. There was a little scare a few years ago and so now it has become a required formality that they offer it to you. If you turn it down that is just their way of covering their butt if you contract it and get sick or die. that way your family can't sue for claiming it was a known risk that they were not informed of. I never got the shot, but it's fine to get one.

Sorry to hear about your crappy week. I don't know what kind of auto insurance you have, but here your insurance has to replace your window damage at no charge to you at least once a year. Otherwise people would be driving around with cracked windshields which is dangerous becasue of poor visibility and the potential to shatter at any given moment. I just had mine replaced a few months ago because a rock hit it and left a little crack in the corner that started growing across the whole driver's side.

Sula we want pictures!

[Hett15]

Came across this today
http://www.blueskystudios.com/content/process.php
its just a good read about how Blue Sky creates their animation. Couple of pages of text and some pictures. I would reccommend it.

[jayneko]

75 bucks? XD Whoa. It was 20 down here in Colombia. ;) I did take the shot. Better safe than sorry you know? Just 'cause it's rare doesn't mean it can't show up somewhere....dundunduuuuuun.

And that's great news Hett. :) Congrats!

As for myself, I got my visa approved this morning. Whoopee! Imma all-a set to go! Can't wait for the humidity and the piercing sun rays... ;P

[Hett15]

Jay you can finally come down out of the clouds and suck humidity at sea level like the rest of us. Ha ha ha it'll kill you the first few months you're here but then you'll adapt...just in time to go back and visit the folks for the holidays... and then you won't be able to breathe up there and you'll get winded walking up the drive way.

Glad to hear you got the Visa. Don't do anything that will get you deported...and don't do anything that will make us want to get you deported :tihi: hee hee hee Cause we can and will!!!...Just Kidding!

[jayneko]

Tsk. Does that mean I can't beat you in Unreal Tournament without getting in trouble? ;)

Hehe, you're right though. Whenever I came back home from Montreal it took at least a week for me to stop getting out of breath even walking here. x_X

Fun stuff. ;) Hope we don't get any hurricanes.

[jejuhorse]

ah...i think i'm gonna take that shot maybe over at Ringling or at Korea
but right now i'm pretty broke cause i lost my brother's debit card..:(
right now i only have about 50-60bucks :(
but i better get that shot cause i'm not a neat person...lol
i also have to change my car's Oil but i can't do that either.. :S
my refrigerator is empty too..except for rice lol..and ramen noodles
i guess that's gonna be my only choices till i go to korea lol

Yeap good to hear that you got your visa Jay :D

[Hett15]

Don't worry you'll be safe with UT 2004 becasue I will always be victorious!

[sula_nebouxi]

I'll get those pics up as soon as I can...I, being the moron that I am, left my camera in my bro's house in florida. So until he can get a working compactflash card reader, we're all gonna have to wait a bit. It's also a huge buttload of pics. About 400mb worth. But only about 1/3rd of that was Ringling shots. There are only a few things that I took pictures of that most people haven't seen. The traditional animation studio, the bookstore, some really artsy fartsy looking vending machine in Hammond(even those have to look spiffy), the weird ass step in Keating's Men's bathroom, a Mac Lab, the map of Ringling graduates and where they are now, the fishbowl, the barfing dude, and a shot of the new student center(it's just a dirt pile right now).

Oh and just wait till I get a copy of UT2004, I will school you in the arts of fragging hehe :). I was a total Counter Strike and Quake2 junkie a few years back. That was all I did back in my AP computer science class in high school. At one point I had a 12-1 kill/death ratio. *cracks knuckles* Bring it ;)

Your's truly,
[GEP]AWP's Bitch

[jejuhorse]

Awww darn~hehe oh well...can't wait for those wonderful pix~XD

AWP...lol that's one sick gun when you can handle it
i'm more of M4A1 and AK 47 :D
I have UT 2004 but it's dled so i cant play online :( hehe

[anniednk]

Bleh, I hate getting shots! I'll actually have to get some soon as well because I need to take another physical for highschool. My doctor always says it won't be worse than a mosquito bite - but it is worse! Those needles are thick. Of course, though, I agree that it's better to be safe than sorry. You never know who lived in the dorm before you, after all :P

It hasn't rained as much in Florida lately. The days now consist of some scattered showers and a thunderstom close to midnight. Scattered showers make the day seem drawn out and dull, but powerful thunderstorms are pretty neat to watch, especially when the palms are forced around by strong winds or when the sky turns purple. Now that I think of it, I believe Florida has the most thunderstoms in the US yearly. When a storm ends and the sun comes out the air is so full of vapor... it can get pretty uncomfortable. I remember one summer I went up to Utah to visit my grandparents, and the air is so thin there I felt I couldn't breathe it it; when I came back to FL and breathed outside, the air was so thick that I began coughing - I felt like I was choking on air! I think humdity will be the hardest thing to adjust to for those not used to it. You get dehydrated much more quickly. ...I'm rambling now

I wanted to ask you guys if you think it would be good to take Physics in HS for CA ...because it'd be helpful to understand the relationship between matter and energy and all that, right? I may take it my senior year, but I'd have to focus more on math... yuck.

[sula_nebouxi]

Needles suck...I have two holes in my arm now...I just got the shot for meningitis and I had a blood test done(regular checkup). Needle right into a vein...booyaka. And yeah...for people living in high altitudes, it will be a pretty big change. The body starts to adapt after about 2 days though.

Annie, I took Physics in high school and...well let's be honest. Unless you're going for absolute realism in a ball bounce, there's very little that can be directly applicable in character animation. However, for effects animation and other things, physics becomes much more important. You could plot the exact points a ball will land and exactly how high it will bounce each successive landing. It's cool stuff :)

We had this experiment that our teacher designed. He had a little cannon and he would predict where it would land from the information he was given. He missed but it was cool nonetheless :P He was so pissed cause he always got it in the little cup. A couple kids stuck around after class and they figured out that he forgot some little number.

[Hett15]

A couple kids stuck around after class and they figured out that he forgot some little number.

Nerds. :P

[ZeldaFreak85]

Hey Ya'll,
(I actually don't have a southern accent, but I thought it sounded good anyways...) I Just joined ConceptArt. I was searching the net for anything about RINGLING, and stumbled across this very lovely site. I am going there this fall as a Freshman in the CA department. I just got back from visiting the place, actually. Everything was sort of chaotic there right now. The staff is cleaning and painting the dorms for the Fall semster. Got A tour of the place. It's really impressive. One of the Admissions people showed me the tradit. animation lab. Don't know if you guys know or not, but the anim. tables in those labs came straight from one of Disney's studio's! I can't wait to animate something on those!
Has anyone heard anything about housing assignments yet?
I haven't got the shots yet, but yeah... They really Suck. For those of you who have not gotten the meningitis shot yet...... GET IT YOU FOOL! One of my best frineds from high school almost died of it. She has complecations from it still, and It has been almost a year since they treated her for it.
Anyways, I just wanted to pipe in and let you all know that I'm going to RSAD to....

~*Later*~ :P

[jayneko]

Welcome to the thread, Zeldafreak! :) Woot. Pretty soon all of the CA freshmanclass is going to be in this forum.

Glad your friend got better from meningitis. From the description rsad gave out it looks like a nasty thing... Never heard 'bout it south of the Ecuator before they told me about it. Got the shot though!

The room assigments should be sent out in July. Probably along with the evil bill. ...Can't wait! :E

(Say Hett, still got that list of current rsad frechmen for the fall semester? How many are in CA.org? About 20?) o.o

[anniednk]

Thanks Sula, that actually did help a lot. Knowing that I might use it outside of school makes it more valuble to me than something like Chem II...

Nerds. :P

ha, that made me laugh, Hett, but someone has to be passionate about that stuff!

[Hett15]

Just updated this list of all the freshman I know of that are going to Ringling this year. I compiled it through this site and Live Journal's Ringling Thread. I of course don't have real names, but this was the best I could do. If you know of someone else that should be on this list let me know, I'll gladly add them. Also if you know the person or are the persons at the bottom of the list, I didn't know what your major is, so I'll fix that too when someone notifies me.
I'll also add your AOL Instant Messenger Screen Name beside it if you want to.

Forum name = AIM Screen Name

CatHicks (CA)= acousticat27
CalicoRabbit (CA)
Father McKenzie (CA)
Hett15 (CA)= Hett15
Hunter (CA)
Ilikebread(CA)= artistagurl
JAIR428 (CA)
Jayneko (CA)= jayneko77
Jejuhorse (CA)= jejuhorse86
Kendraad (CA)
Kgb (CA)
Nicole (CA)= NikkiCat528
Robvmonte (CA)= RubbertDuckE
Sula_Nebouxi (CA)= tony67182
Sojo7 (CA)
The Horror (CA)
TK421-SW (CA)
ZeldaFreak85(CA)

Avelena (Illustration)
Cantrainalltime (Illustration)= longingchainsme1
Dadmafia (Illustration)
Delvennerim (Illustration)= Delvennerim
EccoXile (Illustration)
GBmoomoo (Illustration)
Improved (Illustration)
LeeAlex2005 (Illustration)
Onurbasaldi (Illustration)
Pipthecrazytaco (Illustration)= PipTheCrazyTaco
Prettymachine (Illustration)
Red Rock (Illustration)
RSADHopeful (Illustration)
Trashcan_punch(Illustration)= AngeloBlaze1
Velo (Illustration)
WayoftheStrega (Illustration)

Coneyislandlow (Photography/Digital Imaging)
Puppet_zilla (Photography/Digital Imaging)
Cherylalala (Fine Arts)
Rapidfix (Graphic Interactive Communications)
Beatniklow (Graphic Design) = CagedBirdFlying
Wallflower651 (Graphic Design)= Wallflower651

Animegrrl143 (?)
Kimikos (?)

[anniednk]

Ringling added some new these on their web site! Yay!

[sula_nebouxi]

Wow...that's a lot of theses. Saw a few but it's great seeing them again :) Thanks for the heads up Annie ;)

And welcome Zelda...congrats on getting in :) Yeah I heard they bought tables from Disney too. Although I didn't see them. All I saw were basic, normal slanted tables with the round disc. They must have been tucked away somewhere.

edit: Things that go bump in the night is friggin hilarious. Oh my god...so not school appropriate. But damn, if that wasn't one of the funniest movies to ever come from Ringling :) Totally did not expect that ending.

Football Toys is pretty funny too, Food for thought has one funny moment(watch it) and Remote Control is also pretty good. But the best one this year for animation has to go to Gold and Brown. Saw it on CGtalk awhile back and it's fantastic. That is all :)

[carakhan]

Hey guys,
About those Disney tables, I believe they are the ones you saw. They aren't these special Mickey Mouse shaped tables or anything, they were just leftover from the shutdown Traditional Department. The ones hidden away in storage and such are just a little bit older. I don't believe there's any real difference, at least from what I saw.

I could be horribly wrong though, I do that a lot (sometimes I feel like I need a little disclaimer in my signature...) :D

[ScatteredLogical]

If you saw them they were likely the Disney ones. I went earlier just before this last semester started. I didn't expect a huge difference in the actual physical objects, I thought just the hand-me-down aspect was the cool bit. A part of history.

"Bump" was good, almost a bit freaky with the expressions. I also liked the way they chose to display the title. You can tell with those eyes where Josh wants to go work =) I thought Football Toys was awesome as far as the basic setup and the gags; his strength leans more towards editing/cutting/directing for the moment though...occasionally either poor accents or so-called "swimmy" movement threatens to take you out of the fun and into technical detail discomfort. VERY amusing though.

[CatHicks]

I can't watch the new thesis projects. It says that Quicktime requires software that's not on their servers.

Should I just reinstall Quicktime?

Or is there any other way I can see them?

And it's nice to meet you new people! I'm Cat. I'm an incomming CA major too.

[anniednk]

Hi Cat :)
The same thing happened to me the first when I first tried to see it, and redownloading Quicktime and DivX didn't work - but try again anyways. If it still won't work for you either, try opening the URL in another program that plays .avi files... like Windows Media or something.

[CatHicks]

^ that's what i just did and it worked. woot! thanks.

[jejuhorse]

sup all :D
I'm in korea now XD
met my family and some few of my old friends
now i'm using the internet on my dad's laptop but this don't have quicktime and divx..so i'm not being able to watch those thesis yet
i guess i'll have to download those programs...gotta ask my dad first...
ah...and i have to take that shot here...bah
wish there were no diseases such like that...cause i also hate needles...hehe

[ScatteredLogical]

Anyone else submitting to the Nicktoons festival?

[Pixeldragoon]

What festival?

And also, how do you get the URLs??

[CatHicks]

What's the Nicktoons festival all about? What are you submitting?

[Hett15]

http://www.nick.com/all_nick/nicktoons/site/filmfest/

I won't be submitting anything, but Luke Skywalker will be judging the contest! Also check out the faq section on that website. It should tell you all you need to know. Oh and some bad news Pixel, you have to be 18 to enter.

[ScatteredLogical]

To answer Cat, originally I was doing a decent-length short about the bird world's reaction to the news that, in science rings that classify animals by their ancestry, not only are they reptiles, but direct descendants of the so-called "non-avian dinosaurs." It centers on one particular bird who's left out of the broadcast's list of related species (creative license with fact) and how he deals with it during a dinosaur pride/heritage festival that the birds hold, especially in the face of those he thought were close friends, whose secret instincts have now been awakened by the news. Very surprise ending that's coy enough to appeal to "family comedy" audiences and an equally familiar device to toon lovers.

I've been busting butt on it but I only even heard of this year's contest and its deadlines when I got out of school so it wouldn't have made it by the deadline. I will definitely be finishing it afterwards for future shows. I'm thinking of making that my thing; keeping making short films in the background of everything else I'm doing to give my self practice in a realistic, applied way. Anyhow, in its place I'm actually just finishing today a -very- short short entitled A Call to Arms, in which a prank call is placed in the middle of the morning to, well, a husband-wife pair of disembodied arms. They still have hands on the top of their heads for posing purposes, and it may only be funny to me, but it's something to submit and you never know.

[Daissan]

Hey all,

First of all, I just wanted to say congrats and welcome to all you peoples who got in this year. I'll probably see all of you pretty early on seeing as I'm on the Smile Staff. (For those of you who haven't been to a college orienetation before... which should be most of you... that means I'm gonna wear a dumb shirt and pretend to be happier than I am for a week while I help you guys move your crap into your dorms. :P)

And now my ulterior motive. I'm an officer in the Rinling Gaming Club. (Now the second largest organization on campus. FOCAS, the Fellowship of Christian Art Students, has us beat. But not by much. ^-^) I wanted to come here, where some of the best and brightest ringling students have come from, to invite you all to join the club, and to introduce yourselves to me and the other new officers on our new forums. New is a big word his year, since we just ousted the old government (it helped that most of them graduated) and we're pretty much doing a complete overhaul of club activities and operations.

This year we've added a subsection dedicated to console gaming, (A perfect place to get your Halo on with our new high res projector screens and campus-wide LAN) and our DDR section is still going strong. (Yes. We have a whole section dedicated to DDR. It's quite a bit of fun. Good way to stretch your legs and actually get some exercise between pictures.)

I myself am in charge of the Table Top section, which handles every card, dice, or numbers based game you can think of. (seriously. We're out of ideas. We're counting on the new guys to bring something new to the table.) I also run all the D&D/WoD/WTF games, we already have four going this year and, lamentably, not quite enough players. I'm sure you folks will help fix that, though. We even have a LARP, and no, it isn't about Vampires. It's a Mage LARP. So less angst and more exploding houses.

I don't want to throw the forum name out here (too much spam from) but anyone interested just send me a PM or AIM and I'll link you to it.

See ya all in August! ^-^
-Een

[jayneko]

Hey Daissan, and thanks for the invitation. :)

Do you perhaps play any Magic The Gathering in there? Any..type 2 goodness? If so I must pack my cards. Havent played in ages. Where can we IM you about this? (Didn't see an aim name or anything so..)

And I guess we're all curious about orientation, so got any sneak peeks of what we can expect during happy week? Don't WE get tshirts? ;)

:yayca:

[sula_nebouxi]

I wanna cast magic missile!

*fshh*
You hit kobold for 5 damage!

*ahem*
Good stuff. I'll be sure to join the gaming club. Never really had anyone to play D&D with so...this oughta be fun :) See ya on campus.

[carakhan]

I have plenty of friends who like to play Magic, although I think a few of them threw out their cards this year. Honestly, I don't know how I'll even have time for Halo anymore. Hard enough as it is not being on campus and all, can't get on the network :blah:

Are there any elf girls in here? If there are I wanna dooo theeeem!

[jayneko]

O_O Dood. Tell them to give ME their cards! ;P

Most expensive pieces of cardboard ever. ;)

[Hett15]

Text of Commencement address by Steve Jobs
This is the prepared text of the address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, who spoke at Commencement on June 12, 2005.


I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my patents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that your are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

[sula_nebouxi]

Wow...what an inspirational speech. I got a little confused in the beginning when he talked about quitting college and stuff. I'm not sure if that was the right message to send to students who will br graduating with over $100k of debt :P But he ended with some great pearls of wisdom. Don't live someone else's dream, do what you want to do because life is short. It was not meant to be wasted on something that will never bring happiness.

PS I never knew Steve had cancer...wow. I tip my hat off to him.

[ScatteredLogical]

If any of you have even a remote interest in the WEC, I also recommend "The Art of Looking Sideways." I think the author's name is Alan Fletcher, could be off. Different origin, different purpose, same category of impact and profoundness.

Very insightful speech. I'm also happy he found a way to sneak in a Windows dig.

Anyone know if NeXT has any connection to Next Education, the umbrella over Animation Mentor?

[CatHicks]

Wow. That was a great read. Thanks for sharing that!

[Daissan]

Hehe... forgot that I didn't have an AIM name up here. It's been added now. I also unlocked my e-mail address so that any of you can e-mail me or PM me and whatnot.

We haven't played Magic in the last couple of years, but I'm ready to change that if you guys are ready to bring cards. I don't play myself, but I've had a good time everytime I've messed around at it with friends, and I know the comic shop nearby sells cards pretty cheap and I'd be willing to pick up some and start just for the fun of it.

Damn, Stever jobs is hardcore. Seriously, he went form collecting soda cans for food as a college dropout to starting Apple and Pixar? That takes some... well... something, that's for sure. And damn do I feel dumb for missing commencement this year. I was upset when I realized I'd miss my friends graduating... but to miss Steve Jobs? Whoops. Last year we only got Laura Bush. Maybe we'll manage to get our hands on Gates by the time I graduate?

[ScatteredLogical]

Mostly relevant (Ringling applicant + animation...two out of three ain't bad)

His name is Stephen Gregory - Cal Arts graduate, animation teacher for 3 years, interned on Turner Feature Animation's Cats Don't Dance (He's one of the few 2Ders), also Sierra Online King's Quest 7, and then he went to Pixar to do A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc., Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and he's still there working on Cars which comes out next year.

Our first live Q&A with him is next Wed. I'm pretty excited. I like that he's had his hand in 2D.

[CatHicks]

That is awesome! I can't wait.

[casiorabbit]

hi. i noticed this huge talk about ringling. im an illustration major..just graduated. i took 2 animation department classes and i have tons of friends that are animators in the entertainment industry. i could answer some questions about the school if you have any.

[jayneko]

Hey Casio. Thanks for dropping by! :) And congrats on graduation!

Can't...really think of any questions right now. At least not good ones... At least none besides how big is the CA workload (can a part time job be had after the freshman year to help pay for stuff?)... Must think of more! ;) And how are your friends doing in their jobs? How's the industry's outlook for the next four years? ;)

And does anyone know what the new curriculum for CA frist years is? What classes changed and so on?

[casiorabbit]

jayneko. i can answer all of your questions. the first year for CAs is core with one extra class about films. core is like figure, history, drawing, design, etc. second year and on is a LOT of work. you take concept classes and your major classes..plus traditional animation <i took that, the classrooms have the old disney tables> in CA class you learn to use Maya hardcore...but the curriculum is very strict on animation skills. the work load is very much, and the teachers are hardcore about attendence and process work done on time. and jobs. if you are a CA at ringling, you are basically going to get a job. recruiters from all kinds of companies come. EA for example took half the seniors. <there were roughly 45 seniors that graduated> the entertainment industry is looking for people who not only are amazing at drawing but also can use maya. for example, if you can illustrate and do maya, you can be good for texturing. my friends work for EA, Sony, Blue Sky, Pixar, Activision, Midway, Disney, the CIA <yes, the CIA>, ILM, LucasArts, yada, yada, yada. one of my friends who just started at Sony was told by his fellow colleagues that he must be a prodigy for getting a job right out of school. Illustrators on the other hand, its not so easy. to get into the entertainment industry, you have to be able to draw anything. from storyboarding, character concept, environment concept, anything. No BS. the entertainment industry usually looks to people with experience. so getting an internship is also very important. Ive personally had interviews even with the film companies. they are pretty happy people. and the work load in the real world is nothing compared to ringling usually...not unless there are crunch times. so i hope that answers your questions.

[ScatteredLogical]

Don't you love hearing 10 different things from 10 different people?

Do you remember any of the exercises from the traditional animation course? Or the format of any of the animation classes? What you learned and when during a given semester?

[casiorabbit]

animation....well, i only took one semester <animation for illustrators>. My teacher was an ex disney guy. i generally learned the same things that the animators did. first we did the ball bounce, then ball bounce with a tail, ball bounce in perspective, flour sack animation <drawing a simple flour sack and giving it personality...about 15 to 20 seconds of 2 diff. emotions>. then we did the walk cycle. each of the assignments took about 2 weeks except for the flour sack <about 5 weeks>. that is A LOT of time to animate but that class tended to be way relaxed compared to the others. we also had the option to make a sculpture but i know that for the animators it was required. we used the monkey jam program for the most part. the second semester, im not totally sure of..i only took one semester of it.

p.s. i was there, you can take my word for it.

[jayneko]

Wow, thanks Casio. Now I'm even more excited. :perv:

And the class sounds pretty neat. From what I've seen that's what the AM kids are doing, which is good. :D

Thanks for the info! If I think of any more questions I'll be sure do ask away.

[ScatteredLogical]

The teachers are also there, and they've said different things. The admissions staff is there, and they say different things. Other students there have said different things. The companies doing the hiring, through various professionals at the studios, say another thing. But you can't really base decisions that big on secondhand info anyhow, so I suppose it's a moot point on my part.

[jayneko]

What stuff have you heard different versions of, Scattered? Don't quite get what you're talking about...

[ScatteredLogical]

Like I said, it's irrelevant. Don't worry about it, especially if you're getting a straight answer; you don't have that problem. Claims, stats, details, etc. about start to finish all have different takes. It's even more beside the point since like casio said, he was there. It didn't -not- happen if he was there, existing, watching it. So that's all that matters.

[Hett15]

This is just a rant about noting in particular, Just bored at work and had a thought in my head about differenting opinions. you can very easily skip over this and you won't miss much of anything.

Over the course of the last few years I think that in my encounters online, with Animation graduates from Art Schools , I have found that the ones that bitch and moan the most online are the ones who have enough time to do so beacuase they are not employed. These are typically the same students who didn't work very hard at school or didn't have any right being there in the first place, but enough money and a few connections can get you into anywhere I guess. I have heard of so many people that think because they went to school for animation, they should be able to work for Disney or Pixar etc.. Like there was this magical golden limo waiting for them at graduation to whisk them away to their new job as the lead animator on the newest big summer blockbuster. It shocks me to even acknowledge that there ARE indeed students that believe this. Not just in animation, but in all jobs and careers at all colleges.

If you look into the best of the best in any area of life you will see that, that person dedicated most of their life to learning, honing, and perfecting their skill until they surpassed everyone. Michael Jordan is perhaps the best example of this. In animation Glen Keane is a good current example of this, and he is just now directing his first animated feature after working for so many years in the industry proving why he is one of the best.

Back to varying opinions... With no exagerration I have been searching and gathering information about Schools for animation for about 5 years. So many people are biased for or against their school as being the best or worst depending on where they ended up after they graduated or where they ended up after dropping/failing out or pursuing other interests. It is consistent that the majority of those that are succeeding have had a track record of working hard their entire life and then those that have no motivation and dabble in this and that, expecting things to come to them, most of the time fail at the path of becoming an animator. There is a margin of error with the extremely highly gifted and talented artists that just scribble and create masterpieces, but those are very very rare. Considering that if you are reading this and you have not already made $500,000 from your art work by this point in your life...you are not one of those rare individuals :) and neither am I.

This by no means encompasses all those that I have met or encountered online. Many very talented and succesful artists and animators find time to go online and share their opinions, but most of them agree that you will get the education and structured environment at an art school, but you only succeed if you put in the time, effort, and WORK on your own, no matter what school you go to.

The opinons I love seeing are those like casiorabbit, who are there now talking about their experience in the current program. This gives insight to us that want to know what is going on now. The opinons of students from many years past sometimes have no relevance to the current program, since everything they knew back then has changed.

and on another subject... the old saying that "Those who can't do, teach." is such a cynical and ignorant phrase. Teaching anything is damn hard to do. It looks easy, but having the knowledge to answer any question a student might ask (correctly) takes experience and a degree of insight that the student does not yet have. So many good teachers are veterans of their field of expertise and feel that they want to teach another new generation of kids how to do and enjoy the thing that they have already had the chance to do. Granted there are some bad teachers that can't find a job in the industry, but if you find yourself in a class with a bad teacher...doesn't that make you the fool that follows the foolish. Do some research and set your self up to succeed by getting into a program that only hires good teachers. Also there are many people that simply love teaching and sharing thier experience with others. These are generally the most unselfish people you will ever meet. Just like in the military (see: Band of Brothers DVD) there are people who can train you to be the best and set you up for success, but although they can follow the guidelines if employed teaching is what they are better suited for. in the end If it weren't for teachers none of us would learn a damn thing.

Once again, where this came from I don't know. I was just bored and started typing.

[jayneko]

Great post Hett. :yayca:

[ScatteredLogical]

The clearest writing I've ever seen you do on a forum.

The direct connection made between savant-level talent and monetary success was very interesting.

[Pixeldragoon]

o_o... I kinda got lost after I read through it.


Just one more year until Precollege! YAY!

[CatHicks]

Great post Greg! Good read. I agree with pretty much everything you've just said. Awesome.

[CatHicks]

jayneko. i can answer all of your questions. the first year for CAs is core with one extra class about films. core is like figure, history, drawing, design, etc. second year and on is a LOT of work. you take concept classes and your major classes..plus traditional animation <i took that, the classrooms have the old disney tables> in CA class you learn to use Maya hardcore...but the curriculum is very strict on animation skills.

I can't wait. I'm def going to be working my tail off. At pre-college our TA for CA kept joking with us all saying things like, "You won't even have time to sleep!" or "Say goodbye to your friends!" Even though he was joking, if he wasn't.. I'm still all in for it. I'm very ready. It's gonna' be great!

Though I think CORE year has changed a bit for us. We take Traditional Animation 1 in the spring. And the old Disney tables have been thrown out. There are now new light tables things that take up less than half of the space as the old ones. There are around 80-90 or so of us CAs coming this year. Have to make room!

[sula_nebouxi]

Aww...and I was hoping to work on some of the Disney tables. Heh and I'm sure you're TA was only *half* joking :P. We're gonna be a bunch of hermits that live in the CA caves :)

What was that big yellow, bright thing in the sky again?

[Pixeldragoon]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=514388#post514388

A sarasota sketchgroup. That way we can all see eachother.

[ScatteredLogical]

One of the 2D videos on Animation Mentor had one of the Disney tables being used at Pixar. It was cool to see it on campus here at Ring-a-ling and then see a brother of it indoors getting professional use.

[jayneko]

Thrown out? Man, I would've liked one... :E Fools! Fools I say!

...They could've at least eBayed them. ;P

[CatHicks]

What was that big yellow, bright thing in the sky again?
I have no idea but it burns when I walk outside.

[OneYouCannotMention]

And the old Disney tables have been thrown out. There are now new light tables things that take up less than half of the space as the old ones. There are around 80-90 or so of us CAs coming this year. Have to make room!

I don't think that's true. I know the old camera setups (for scanning in the work) are being replaced with new and improved setups but as for the Disney desks in the traditional labs I don't think they are going anywhere.

If anything there might be a new traditional open lab with new desks but I'm not sure about that, there is a lot going on this summer (as always).

oycm

[CatHicks]

^ Really!? Wow, that's great then! Everyone up there has told me that they were trashed. That's awesome if they really did decide to keep them. I've always wanted to work on them!

[jayneko]

I'm sure there's still some Disney magic in them. ;)

Animation mojo!

[sula_nebouxi]

I hope they're still around...I wanna suck in all that Disney mojo, that is unless the guys from last year haven't taken it all. It's so gonna rawk to work on the same tables used to make some of the greatest animated films of our time. Dammit...why can't it be August yet?

On a side note, is anyone planning on going to the San Diego Comic Con this year? I will be...got my 4 day pass all reserved and ready to go! Muahahaha...Watts Atelier goodness here I come. Oh, and I'm all set for Ringling. Everything is in order and I have a balance of -$2,112! w00t! Yes, I have to give it back to the bank but still... :P

[carakhan]

Hey Cat, what group are you in? My sister is in the orange group. PreCollege looks like it's going to kick everyone's asses!

[CatHicks]

^ I was in the orange group last year! Your sister is going this year? I have a few friends going this year too.

[carakhan]

Oh I guess I misread, I thought you were going this year.
She's at her little orientation meeting right now, yay aquaintance games! It was really hard for me to come out of my shell at Orientation, I hope she does better than i did :sweatdrop:

[jayneko]

Just what all do they do at orientation? Details! ;P

[carakhan]

Believe me, orientation is not fun. You walk around in the heat, listening to people repeat the same thing over and over, you meet other students and your RA's and TA's, and thats about it. My sister had to listen to two sessions of the same thing, and the same people asked the same stupid questions over and over. It's like a concentration camp over there. My sister is living with me for a month and I'm barely going to get to see her. Even Sundays are prohibited for me.

[Daissan]

Heh. I forgot that so many of you guys were headed to precollege. Noticed last night when suddenly all the dorms had lights on, and there were RAs hassling me for walking around at 2 AM. :P

Well, if you see a tall scruffy looking guy with stubble and a disfiguring sunburn walking around, that's me.

And yeah. Orientations of all kinds suck. If you can find a way out of the Ringling orientation when you show up for classes in the fall, take it. You spend 5 days sitting in the damn opera house listening to self-proclaimed self-help motivational speakers talk to you about how it's important to respect everyone and that you're all special people and so on and so forth.
(not that you aren't, but I don't think that any of you will feel better about yourselves if a complete stranger tells you to for a couple of hours.)

<shamless plug>Except for the Gaming Club orientation. That'll be awesome because it'll involve projector screens and videogames. If you contact me (By Email (eenlikebean@gmail.com) or just eenlikebean on AIM) I'll make sure to sign you up on our forums and you can get to know all the other gaming fanatics in Ringling!</shameless plug>

[Pixeldragoon]

ude, does the gaming club play Call of duty at all? I just got it, and it would be cool to play with some Ringlingers.

FOr the record, to remind everyone, I am going to be a highschool sophomore in the fall, I am NOT going to RSAD YET, because there has been alot of confusion bout this topic. =D

IF anyone here does play call of duty, contact me please!

[EccoXile]

damn you people making orientation sound like hell! >:{

I don't seem to say much here do i? you and your animators talk. In any case, loan I am not officially applied for but hopefully soon, or that would be bad. Materials list gotten, looked over some prices and it's dirt cheap :^^: My sister is goign to whatchmacallit in wisconsin, her first year aswell, and her materials climbs over $500. score. I guess we even out when it comes to me and long distance travelling.

So, as long as the loan goes through, then everything is bright and shinyier every day here. Wooooooo

Though, I really could go for some ice cream...and perhaps I shallst now...

[carakhan]

Hey Daissan, you've been allowed on campus while school is out? I was hoping to sneak into the labs while my sister is in there for open studio time, but I'm afraid security will give me shit. What have you been doing on campus? And do I know you?

[jayneko]

Hehe, hey there Ecco. :) Long time no see! ;)

Hope the loans go through. Im pretty sure they will tho. :D

And hey, Orientation can't be THAT bad. ;) I -am- worried about the weather. Not used to stuffy places, but eh. I'll deal with it. XD

At least there's the beach!

[OneYouCannotMention]

I was hoping to sneak into the labs while my sister is in there for open studio time, but I'm afraid security will give me shit.

I wouldn't do that if I were you...

[carakhan]

Oh no, it was just a joke, just stinks that I'm here babysitting my sister all summer and these wonderful programs are being used by her and not me. :dur:
I would never break in on campus, but to clarify, I am a student. Just can't seem to get a jump start on some programs legally. Stickin to what I got I guess

[Hett15]

Well I am going to enjoy orientation. I am looking forward to putting some names with faces from everyone I have "met" online. Something as simple as spending a day walking around a beatiful campus getting to know the area can't be as bad as working 8am-6pm at a job you don't like. Sure there are boring parts to any type of tour or thing like this, but that's only if you whine about it. I'll be having fun no matter what. Shy people won't have a good time because they won't talk to anyone or meet anyone. "Too-cool-for-school" kids will just try to whip out as many sarcastic and deprecating comments as they can to hide their insecurities and then they will tell others about how bad of an experience it was. My advice is just relax,don't be in a rush to get through school, go to orientation, have a good time, meet people, and then get ready for class on Monday. It'll be easier to meet people during orientation when everyone is talking to eachother then it will be when you are sitting in class alone while others have already made friends. but of course I'll try to say hi to anyone I don't know in my classes. See you all there.


p.s. Thinmint that wasn't at all directed at you I posted it before I read your earlier comments. By the way I really like your sketchbook here on CA.org

[carakhan]

Heh, that's ok. I was like , 'wtf? I'm not like that!' It was only boring to me because... I didn't have to be there. I was only there because I'm my sister's guardian.

Orientation for school on the other hand, is an awesome experience. I personally loved nearly every trip to the opera house to see the speakers, and to see some student portfolios. It was the first time I let myself out of my shell, and I met every friend I have now. Believe me, it's harder to make friends after orientation, everyone already has their groups. Because I said hi to everyone, I always have someone to talk to, or ask questions.

Of course orientation has it's dorky dances and getting to know you games, but then there was Casino nite! Where I won all of the silverware and dishware I have now! That was the most fun I've had, I like winning things :P

Dont go to orientation thinking everything sucks, otherwise it will. At my last college, I had about... A friend. Because I sat in my room for every orientation activity. It'll be awesome! I'm not a Smile Staff member, but I'll come hang out and introduce myself, I only live a mile away...

Hett, thanks for your kind words! I wish my scanner was better, I have so much work to post, I literally get better everyday

[jayneko]

Ouh, casino night you say?

Must brush up on my poker skills. ;)

[sula_nebouxi]

Dorky dances? Please don't tell me it's Cotton Eyed Joe and Celebration. And for the love of cream soda please please don't tell me it's square dancing...oh the horrors! *men make a left hand star, now promenade* ARGH!! I still can't believe the official dance of New Jersey is the square dance... :nohope:

This is compounded by the fact that I can't dance. Nope...no rhythm at all. I imagine I look like Elaine from Seinfeld when I dance. Now if that doesn't give you nightmares, nothing will :)

[carakhan]

It's hard to explain... they're not official dances really, but we all gathered and there was this obscenely loud man on the mic having us do stand up sit down dances and stuff, just more getting to know you crap. Like the entire freshman class got into two circles, one inside, one outside, and we had to move every three people and introduce ourselves, ask major, blah blah. It was all to bad music so I consider it a dance.

[sula_nebouxi]

Ahh alrighty then...that I can handle. And like Hett says, this is just another opportunity to meet someone. A future friend, coworker, roommate, hell maybe even a significant other(for those who are single :P). It might even be fun.

I can just hear the music choices now..."Why can't we be friends?"(makes sense right?) Well...as long as they aren't blasting raggaeton or something, I'll manage :P.

[jayneko]

IT'S THE CHUBBCHUBBS!!!!!

Hehe. I wanna piñata. With..computers in it. ;P

And crap, raggaeton made it to the US? X_X "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
But ragaeton isn't music, so they CAN'T play it. I hope!

Anyway. Perhaps they shall teach us the ancient Armadillo dance. That'd be cool.

[Hett15]

Just throwing out a general "I am so excited about moving!" and "I can't wait to start classes this fall!" and of course "it will be great to meet you all!"

:D :teeth: :^^: 1 month and 18 days from now!

[jacktheknife]

OneYouCannotMention,

I work in IT at Ringling and one rainy day I looked out the window to see a huge dumpster parked behind the CIC building (A&AGoldstein) with ten of the Disney Animation tables in it. I don't know that its all of the tables that were in Joutras but I'm sure its most of them. Considering that 180 students will be enrolled in Animation I or II in Spring 05, there just simply isn't room for all those large tables. I also got my hands on one of the smaller "light pads" which are cool, but Glen Kean didn't work with any of those light pads.

You said that they weren't getting rid of these tables. Do you know something I don't? Are you student, faculty or staff? Please educate us.

[Hett15]

Would have loved to rescued one of those from the dumpster. If they did get rid of them they should have just given them to students or auctioned them off to create scholarships for future students. If they were just dumped that is kind of a waste.

OYCM any updates about what will be happening the first year for this new class or any ideas about what might happen during the four years while we are there. We know about the 2D Animation class the second semester. Anything else? Estimated class size/new buildings/more labs/guest speakers/guest teachers/future projects/minors/tuition increases/anything related? We love getting even the smallest bit of info or updates.

[sula_nebouxi]

*pours a 40 for the ol' animation tables*

:nohope:

[Hett15]

R.I.P. :nohope: A good man and a good desk.

http://www.mpimages.net/other/compressed/FrankThomasObit1-Disney.jpg

[jayneko]

Aw man! I could've used one! Not eligible for scholarships so that would've been nice! :D

Ah well. No reason crying over spilt milk or wasted animation mojo! :[

And hey, it's Robin Hood! I love that movie.

[OneYouCannotMention]

Believe me anything that was worth keeping was saved. If any actual animation desks were tossed I'm sure they were the one or two that were beyond repair. The school also required a few cabinet/side tables from Disney as well that really didn't serve much of a purpose without the animation desks (that are being used in the traditional labs) so I'm sure most of those ended up in the dumpster along with some of the huge light tables that were there and non-usable too. We did save what we could and the few leftovers will be used in the open lab that is being created as we speak.

Hett15 asks
Anything else? Estimated class size

Though the class sizes are going to be bigger it's going to be business as usual. This is going to be the first time we are letting in 90 freshmen, last year we did 60 (or close to it) so we are slowly gearing up for the big numbers but don't worry individual class sizes will be the same.

new buildings
There is the new Student Life building going up right now so pardon our dust where you get here.

more labs
We are making a new open lab this summer and as we get to maximum load we will be adding more

guest speakers/guest teachers
We usually have a guest speaker or two every year. In years passed we've had Ed Hooks, Keith Lango, Glen Vilppu (drawing classes), people for Blue Sky, ILM, Dreamworks, etc; not to mention when recruiters are on campus they usually give some sort of presentation.

future projects/minors/
There are the new gaming, digital film, and visual developement minors that are all kicking into gear this year

tuition increases
I'm not in that circle but I don't see it getting any less expensive

jacktheknife asks
Are you student, faculty or staff? Please educate us

I am the OYCM. I'm sure if you thought about it long enough you could figure it out. It's not like it's a secret...or is it.

OYCM

[Hett15]

It's not like it's a secret...or is it.

OYCM

ha ha ha

It's the biggest secret there is on this website! :wink:

[jacktheknife]

I shout out a sincere thank you to OYCM - you made my day. I am so glad to hear we still have some Disney desks.

[ZeldaFreak85]

HI Guys.
did you all get the RSAD "Parent's Only" package today? I read it over. It covered some more of the orientation stuff. Sounds basically like a typical college orientation: how to survive freshman year, 101 study tips, etc......But then, there are some interesting things planned
(I just coppied the below things from the packet)

1. Variety Show:
Watch the School student staff show off their talents in a
fun and entertaining environment!

2. ThinkFast:
Come test your knowledge and skills about important college
topics in a fast paced game-show format.
(sounds like a Jeopardy Look-a-Like)

3.Playfair:
The Most fun that you ever thought you could have.
(Don't know what this is ??)

4.Sunset Cruise:
Meet Fellow students while enjoying a beautiful sunset out on the
Gulf. (This sounds awesome :^^: )

5. Beach Party/BBQ
(Self Explanatory, yet still pretty cool)

6. Departmental Conversations:
Talk to the heads/teachers in your major


I can't wait to get there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are any of you guys bringing your cars (if you got one) to RSAD? I think I'm gonna bring mine. I'm packing it full of stuff and driving down. (It's a LOOONG drive :dead: .....I'm coming from IL)

By The WAy... I Think they still have almost all of the Disney tables....There is a Whole page in the booklet sent in the "Parent's" package devoted to the Disney Tables.

[carakhan]

I won 200 bucks at Thinkfast during orientation. That game rocks.
I think I may participate in the variety show this year, if they let me. The whole experience is really a lot of fun. Playfair i skipped out on, but the beach was fun. Pretty boys in bathingsuits... yum.

[EccoXile]

Ha! Your driving all the way from corn fields. Have fun :) Well, that would be an option if I had me a car or even a permit. I would love a biek atleast, but the fact that you must lock your bike at all times...nooo. I wouldn't remember :P

I got the big folder thing as well. I opened it and first thing i looked at was send your kid a cake on htier birthday. Then my sister told me that the stuff wasn't for me to look at. boo.

I like the sound of the cruise and beachness :^^:

sending out loan stuff today, pray they mail everything fast so I can fianlly get to that ams stuff...

[anniednk]

hmm, I haven't posted here in a while :P

So my familia and I will be driving up to Sarasota next week to tour the campas (yay!), and, because I won't be applying to the school for another two years, I'm uncertain if I should bring some pictures or not. I mean, I know I ought to, but I'm not entirely confident in anything I have at the moment. Maybe I'll take copies of two or three of my betters...

Oh, earlier this summer I took a short art class that including figure drawing near the end (well, I guess it was more gesture drawing - we were allowed only 2 - 5 mins for most poses), and it was pretty difficult for me not only because it was my first encounter with nude models (being my Catholic-school-girl self [ha], I was a bit embarressed) but mainly because I was stuck with a charcoal block thing as there were no more charcoal pencils and could not figure out how to use it effectively. Does anyone know how to use those things well? I think I need to buy one and practice with it :P

[CatHicks]

Wow! I have a lot to catch up on here! I'm in NC right now with my family on vacation. Don't have a lot of internet access up here. Anyway....

OYCM, you are the greatest! Thanks for keeping all of us newbies updated. It's really good to know that class sizes are going to be the same. That's great!

I "met" my RA for the first time a few days ago. Her name is Kim and she's awesome. She's a CA major too. I love meeting all of these new people! For those of you reading who don't know... feel free to IM me at CatHicksArtist and we can get to know each other a bit before we get down there!

I saw War of the Worlds tonight. O_O Amazing! I loved it! I have been freaking out over this movie from the moment I found out about it. War of the Worlds was like my favorite book ever when I was little. My dad read it to me and it scared me to death! But I loved it. I even had the radio broadcast on tape when I was like 8. When I found out about the movie I flipped out. When I found out Tom Cruise was in it I freaked out even more. And when I found out Steven Speilburg was directing I just about shat my pants.

It was amazing. The animation, the staging, the dialouge, the ideas... omg. It was fab. It was a great adaptation. It was so real! I loved the characters. So typical back end story and modern day. I loved how Tim Robbins character was pretty much a mirror of one of my favorite freaks in the novel! Amazing action. I want to see it again. It was so action packed! Gah!

Ok... enough from me. I'll catch up with you guys later!

[sula_nebouxi]

heya Annie, I'd suggest bringing some drawings so they can critique your work. It can be a valuable experience. They can tell you what needs work and what doesn't.

As far as charcoal sticks go(I assume that's what you're using), treat it like a paintbrush. Don't grip it like a pencil, hold it with the tips of your fingers. This gives you a much looser "feel" in your drawings. You might already know that...but the best way to use it is to use all sides of the charcoal. The tips, points, sides. They give you different looks and spices up the drawing with variety. Then just draw as you normally would. It takes a bit to get used to but it's a fun medium.

edit: Cat, yeah that movie was totally awesome. Dakota Fanning was *really* good in it. She's gonna be an awesome actress one day. Tom also pulled off a really good performance. The Yankees/Red Sox bit with his son was hilarious(Although a Queens Yankees fan? WTH?)note:non-new yorkers will probably not get that reference :). And yeah the animation was superb. Couldn't even tell if it was cg or not(good thing :)) Ever see the original black and white movie? It's a nice cheesy B movie, but it's still a classic.

Oh, when me and my brother were leaving the theater we had a discussion about the ending *(SPOILERS!)*




It went a little something like this:
Bro:Yeah, so what killed them?
Me:Uh...bird crap? Those birds were all over that tripod. And then that statue in the park had all those dead weed things.
Bro:Yeah...you know how much bacteria is in that?
Me:Yep...disease killed em. That's what happened in the original movie.
Bro:What disease was it?
Me:Um...AIDS?
Bro:....that's not transmitted through the air...
Me:Well...they were spraying all that blood everywhere...
Bro: Oh, that's right...



*END spoilers*

edit #2:I remember there was a complete and total panic in New Jersey and New York(represent) back when the original War of the Worlds was broadcast on the radio. People who turned on the radio in the middle were totally clueless and mass panic ensued. Crazy stuff...guess Orson Welles did a great acting job if he got all these people to believe him :P

Fun times :) Oh yeah, Cat...hope you're enjoying NC, and all that wonderful, glorious, splendiferous turducken...that is if you're having any :P. Happy 4th to you and to everyone else!

[anniednk]

Thanks Sula! I'll deffinitely do that :D (yes, I did mean charcoal sticks... didn't know what they are called :P)

I think my sister and I will see War of the Worlds one of these days. With your enthusiasum I will look extra-forward to it! Isn't it AMAZING how computer animation has evolved over the years? I remember watching that ReBoot show when I was younger, and I thought it was so cool and now...

I wonder how 'real' today's animation will appear five years down the line. I wonder how far it can be pushed.

[sula_nebouxi]

You're welcome Annie :)

I think there's much more that can be done. We have yet to create fully believeable humans in a close-up shot. And there's even more in the games industry that can be done. Oh, and Reboot was awesome...and Beast Wars too. The graphics were so simplistic yet soooo good. Oh, and while it wasn't cg, SatAM Sonic(with the Freedom Force) kicked major ass.

[anniednk]

I don't think I ever saw beast wars, but I do remember sonic! Ha, I would beg my mom to buy me a Tails plush, but she wouldn't. She said it was ugly :(

[anniednk]

What!? Former Disney animator Al Baruch held a cartooning workshop in my city in June, and I didn't even know about it? >:| He'll hold another one, right? Right?

[CatHicks]

There was a remake of the broadcast done in South America in the 70's and people freaked out over that too. People were fleeing to the mountians and killing themselves in the streets and junk. Crazyness!!

And that's great about the bird crap convo! Ha!

[jayneko]

Hehe. Asked my mom and dad about that broadcast but they don't seem to remember it.. But I can only imagine.. People here are very supersticious and beleive ANYTHING that's on the news. ;P

Happy 4th of July, yee crazy peoples!

[EccoXile]

Happy firework day everyone! :patriot:

I probably won't get much sleep tonight with all the noise...oh well.

on a slightly mroe related note, bought some anatomy books at target.com with my nice grad gift card. didn't even know they sold books, but it makes me a whole lot happier. Though, I would have gladly bought an army of rubber ducks instead.

[Pixeldragoon]

http://www.brookeolivares.com/

She won the PResidential award in 2002 apparently. Unless I misread, this is a hot bit of info, no? =D

[carakhan]

Why is it a hot bit of info? Quite a few people were up for it this year, maybe I don't understand what you mean.

I believe the current holder is the animation student that worked for Disney's traditional department until it closed. Of course his references and portfolio is going to be a million times better than any student, but that doesn't seem to matter.
Not to mention that the presidential scholarship isn't only based on your portfolio. I believe you have to maintain a 4.0 gpa to qualify, something I've found most students have trouble with. (Being an A student my whole life... it was really a downer comin here)
You may be the best in highschool, but you're just another average kid at Ringling.

[ZeldaFreak85]

I also just saw war of the Worlds. VERY impressive. Awesome Animation.
ThinMint: What did you mean by

"Not to mention that the presidential scholarship isn't only based on your portfolio. I believe you have to maintain a 4.0 gpa to qualify, something I've found most students have trouble with. (Being an A student my whole life... it was really a downer comin here)"

Is it really really tough to get A's at Ringling? I am also an A student... HighSchool and College. You're startin' to worry me! :bashful:

[sula_nebouxi]

People killing themselves in the streets of South America? Now *that's* messed up o.O

Anyways...I spent the 4th in NYC watching the fireworkds live :) That was pretty cool...feeling the shockwaves of these massive blasts heh. Awesome seats too...I was standing on the FDR drive(a highway running north-south on the east side of manhattan). They closed it just so people could watch from there :). I know where I'm going if I want to see it again :P. It doesn't get as crowded as other popular viewing areas. It's weird too cause it actually gives you a better view. Shh...it's a secret :)

Oh...and Brooke's sister, Lindsey is going to Ringling too this year. She's a freshman and she posts sometimes on the freshie journal. Although I don't know if she got the presidential too :P

edit: I thought Ringling only required a minimum GPA of 3.5 to keep the Presidential scholarship. Oh Zelda, I've heard that getting A's at Ringling is very tough but not impossible. Basically an A to them is professional level work. Many many students have straight B's and C's but it doesn't mean that they are bad.

[jayneko]

Just thought I'd share.

http://www.sloganizer.net/en/style3,Ringling.png (http://www.sloganizer.net/en/)

Reload and enjoy the slogans. ;)

[jejuhorse86]

Hey ya'll~long time no see~hehe
I've been quite busy here in Korea :)
well actually busy hanging out with my old friends hehe
And i've also been going to this place where they teach art
starting from total basic of art..mostly pencil and water color..hehe

Jay that's pretty tight~:D

And~~~~this sunday~~~with my family i'm going to the theater to watch war of the world~i sooo cannot wait to see it hehe

now let's see...we got about a month and 10 days or so?

Oh and i'm gonna be staying at Keating~hehe and it's also a single room :)
Jay and sula i see that you guys are staying at the Quads eh?
you guys are sooo lucky~you got the kitchen and all...hehe
And next year i wish my room will be at that new student center they are currently building..heheh

Wow...so exciting...can't wait to see ya'll at the Orientation~^^

[Hett15]

Just got back from my long weekend of moving to Sarasota. I packed a UHAUL on friday. the uhaual which I had to drive to Georgia to go get :( . Then I drove 5 hours to sarasota, unpacked most of it, fell asleep, woke up and unpacked the rest of it with my father-in-laws help and then spent the rest of the day putting things in the right places in my apartment. (we have a great kitchen by the way ;) )The place looks great, it is close to everything, and its only a quick drive to campus.

My parents and family came down for the rest of the weekend and they stayed in a hotel on Lido Key on the beach. We spent the 4th of July eating and drinking in the warm Sarasota sand and surf. Then we went and saw the fireworks downtown. they were pretty good for such a small city. It was really neat seeing so many thousands of people lining the streets and everyone was getting alng and having a great time.

My overall experience was that every single person I met went out of their way to be nice to me and my wife. It was cool to know we have friendly neighbors. Even the people in the stores we went to were nice. We finished off the 4th with some Ben and Jerry's ice Cream at St. Armonds Circle (which I highly recommend everyone visiting at least to go to some of the restraunts there)

I flew back to Tallahassee from Tampa on a twin prop 18 seater Gulf Stream Plane. It was the first time I had ever flown on such a small plane. We had to walk out onto the Tampa Airport runway just to walk out to the plane to get on. Same thing when we got off in Tallahassee. It was a good trip. One thing I have to say about sarasota was that it was sooooooo hot the last day I was there. I am pretty sure it reached 100 degrees. Now I spend the next 6 weeks here dreaming about how wonderful Sarasota is. I for one am going to absolutely love it down there!

Edit: I also saw War of the Worlds. I liked it a lot, but there were somethings I didn't like or would have liked to see more of. of course I think the good outwieghed the bad by a lot. Good flik.

[EccoXile]

Wonderful news Hett. And you know, I love ben and jerrys. Woooot. Definatly going there.

It seems I'm at the cove, single room. I really wanted keating, but oh well. I'm far away from everything, but good view of the river. So it shoudl be nice. get some exercise. Luckily my loan was approved, so I should be set to go with abit more paperwork. I'm pushing the deadline...not a good idea.

[Pixeldragoon]

That's really strange thin mint, last time I checked...

"The Presidential Scholarship is awarded to the strongest student applicant in each of the six majors...A cumulative grade point average of at least 3.25 must be maintained and one semester of probation is allowed."


Either I misread or misunderstand, or somethings up.

[EccoXile]

I was under the impression that you needed to have atleast 3.25 whilst at ringling in order to keep the scholarship, would make sense.

[Hett15]

meet some more Ringling people at

http://www.thefacebook.com

you'll need your Ringling email address whic you can get at my.ringling.com (http://my.ringling.com)
to get this email you'll need your student ID number they assign you which you can find on the bill you got. Sula, Jay, and i are already on there and there are a lot of older classman. Who knows you might even find an old highschool friend.

[Kendraad]

Sweetness! I'm trying to set up a profile, but your link to the ringling page wasn't working for me to see if they had my email up.

[Kendraad]

Oh, k, I got it now :)

http://rsad.thefacebook.com/profile.php?id=82800232

[ZeldaFreak85]

Awesome Link Hett! I just joined!
-Later :rendered:

[jejuhorse86]

Sweet~

But....my.ringling.com is somehow not working for me..
that's the exact site address i'm suppose to go to get my email address?

[jayneko]

Try my my.rsad.edu?

You just register and it should give you your email addy... As well as access to the forums and IQWeb and all those neat thingies.

[EccoXile]

http://my.rsad.edu

:P

think you need to have your bill all set out for getting that? because my account isn't liking to work.

[carakhan]

My bad then, I was going by someone who wanted the scholarship. I've managed to maintain a 3.5, but that's just my first year. so we'll see :P

Saw War of the Worlds as well. Visually, I loved it, but scientifically? They decided to play the stupid card on that one. They didn't explain anything, which I don't really appreciate. Although it was nice to view from a common man's perspective as well, instead of some expert. So all in all, 3 stars for me.

[GBmoomoo]

for residence, my bill just says "Residence Hall Triple".... any clue which hall they are talkin about?

[jayneko]

Erg...You could call student life and check where it is. Triple just means you're sharing, probably, an apartment with two other students? ...Doubt it's a ROOM with three other students, but I dunno. :\

G'luck!

[jejuhorse86]

Thanks Jay that was the right address :D
now i got my own Ringling email ADDRESS XD haha
feels cool hehe

here's mine~ http://rsad.thefacebook.com/profile.php?id=82800240

[Pixeldragoon]

X3 STOP IT! You guys are all making me jealous =(

[EccoXile]

Chill kid...your the one that keeps coming back here :P Juast wait a few years and all will be well :)

[Pixeldragoon]

I dont wanna chill... unless I get a coke...

[EccoXile]

pop is bad! eat a popsicle :)

[anniednk]

I recently came back...

When we (id est my family and I) drove to Sarasota on Sunday, we drove by the school to make sure we knew where to go for the next day. We drove in through the "ghetto" side so my parents became skeptical. They said, "Are you sure you want to come here, Annie?" and "You'd expect it to be in a nicer area." I don't know why it bothered them so much - my HS is surrounded by the same - if not worse - sort of area. The school also looked very small, but then I remembered that there is such a small amount of students :P My older sister goes to FIU, which is a very new university with over 35,000 students (I think) and a very large campus. She didn't seem to register that smaller colleges don't need superfluous space :P

On Monday we (my whole family wanted to see it) came to the college early and went into the Keating Center. We stayed watching the computer animations on those televisions until it was time. The president was walking around and said a quick hello. We were then called into the information room (obviously I don't know what it's called), I filled out a form, and our tour guide came ready to show us around.

We first went into the computer labs (the hallway was pretty cool!) in which the precollege kinds were working on their ball bounce projects. Some of them were very neat. I liked the computer labs a lot :D Then we walked through the Cafeteria, Student Life Center, Library. There were many places we couldn't see because they were closed :(

We then went back to the Keating center to have a talk with the admissions counselor. He answered everyone's questions and was able to sell the school to my dad (yay!). He saw my sketch book and seemed to think what I had was okay and gave me tips for my portfolio, financial aid, etc. It was a good experience. I got a lot of information and there was a good environment.

My dad is now much more open to the idea of sending me to Ringling and my future attendance seems much more tangible :teeth: He is even considering sending me to the precollege (when I asked before he only told me it was too expensive)!

I know most of you are already in Ringling, but I really recommend visiting for a tour if you can. They told that my coming early may give me more leverage :O
Random information that some of you may care to know:
Eric Kaster (the admissions counselor we spoke with) said that they were only able to clear about ten people from the waitlist and probably won't be able to clear any more at this point :(
Our tour guide told us that about 20 students from the 100 of the precollege she attended a few years ago attend Ringling. Others chose to go to different art schools while others went to regular colleges.
Eric said that he and the other Ringling faculty wish they could offer more scholarships to students because they feel they lose the "cream of the crop" to other, sometimes lesser, schools that do.
He also said that, although drawing from life for the portfolio is important, it's okay to sacrifice the limits of reality for creative purposes. For example, if you're producing a still life but want a cup to fly, go ahead and add wings!
Oh, he said that they don't recomend learning animation until you get there, because everyone is taught from the begining & you may get bored, and, if you learned differently than how the teachers are teaching, there may be frustration.
Afterwards we went up to Tampa to go to Busch Gardens and Adventure Island for the next two days, which was fun.

[ZeldaFreak85]

Awesome Info. Great to know that you are interested in ringling! My Dad reacted the same way to the "Ghetto" area, and flipped out when there were "ladie's of pleasure" walking just one or two blocks away from RSAD. When I went for my tour, the cafeteria was closed. What does it look like? What major are you interested in? Computer animation or Illustration perhaps? If so, devote ALL OF YOUR TIME!!!!! To drawing and sketching so that you have a kick ass portfolio come next January (or 2 Januarys from now.) Oh yeah, good grades also help you get in. What year in H.S. are you?
Anyway, Definetly definetly definetly work on that portfolio. Ringling is totally worth it. It's one of the best art schools to be at :)

p.s. Is anyone going to the 12:01 am release of the Harry Potter book on Saturday? I can't wait for it! Gonna spend all day saturday reading it :)

[Hett15]

Glad you had a good experience at Ringling. My first time there I was exstatic about just being on campus. When you are already excited about being there and then you watch the computer animation in the Keating Lobby, you feel like you are "destined" to go there. A little dramatic, but you know what I mean. Being excited about school is a good thing. I spent far too long dreading going to class every day. Work as hard as you can on your portfolio. If you think you are working hard, you need to work twice as hard. Spend at least a month steadily working on it during every waking hour. No TV, No internet (other then for references), and just stick it out and get it done.