Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Day 4

Long day. Hockey practice at 6:00am, so up at 5:00. I didn't go on the ice (there were more than enough coaches) so got to watch the practice instead. Was up later then I should have been last night, I was working on a little prototype...

As an aside, why do people bring bikes on skytrain in rush hour?  I thought that wasn't allowed...?

So a prototype for the Visual Design course.  Making a movie in 4 parts etc... talked to Judy about an idea I had with an way of telling an interleaving story and she came up with the idea of just making a movie randomly on the fly. That seems to fit with Visual Story where the viewer fills in the gaps and makes up their own story, 3 hours later I have something that splits things up and puts them into a semi-logical sequence.  Cool. Off to bed at least it was before midnight. I probably should have explicitly worked on the Branding assignment, but I have some ideas.  Also set up dropbox for Arron to try (he is also on leave from CST at BCIT to do the MDM) as we are in the same Visual Story group (which I was trying to avoid, want to try things with new people, not ones I already know). Asked him to read what I wrote for story ideas.

So get to the MDM at just after 9:00, damn iPhone and Fido.  They hid the personal hotspot setting and I thought my upgrade to iOS7 GM was borked... several tries later I had to head to the train.  Maria (another student on the same Branding assignment) is running late, so since both of my teams are meeting at the same time I join the Visual Story one.  We talk briefly about our ideas, Arron quickly says no to mine before I have actually explained it. Not a good start... but whatever. They talk about the mechanics about shooting, etc... coming uop with a plan while I hop over to the Branding room. 

The Branding meeting is very productive, we are getting better, well we did realize we had no agenda until part way through. We got a lot done, we are not doing software for those with learning disabilities but instead are doing it for those that have trouble. Not as specific as I'd like, but you have to compromise. Get a tagline and values. Decide on a new team name too - Totem Box. We finally instituted a round robin system where each person gets a chance to speak before we vote. That worked out pretty well. I left to join the Visual Story group while the others work on Logo designs. We did manage to scale it back to presenting a Log,o our tagline, and our values. Remember we are the product, and it is supposed to be low-rez. I talked to 3 other teams, they are all doing web pages. At least we will be different...

At lunch Arron and I have it out a bit.  Hopefully no bad feelings on his side. We both have strong personalities... he was upset that I was interrupting, I didn't realize I was... I thought a pause meant I got a chance to talk... finally we institute hand signals to help me figure out when he is done.  I do better at not interrupting, not perfect, but better. At least he didn't use his suggestion of kicking me in the groin :-)  He hates the idea of the random story generator, seems that he thinks I am making everything a programming problem. I pointed out that Judy came up with it, and the only way I can see to do it is to program. He likes the idea, but seems a lot of issues in implementing it. I can agree with some, but not others. But I want to investigate it, and it is my time, so investigate I shall. I can find out pretty quick if it has a chance of working. I also wander over to talk to George, the instructor, to see if he things the idea can work at all. He thinks it is worth a try, but save it for the next project which is interactive. I can do that.

1:00 pm rolls around and class starts. Richard and Jon introduce the course and we get our readings, 39 books.  Wait... what?  Ok one book each to read and write a short, index card sized (literally an index card) critique of it.  Then Jon talks law. I like this. It also seems that we will do a cohort wide business plan.

Finally we have a speaker, Carl Rosendah, the founder of Pacific Data Images, the company that made the movie Antz and Shrek before being bought by Dreamworks. Lots of questions, lots of answers. We apparently will get a number of industry speakers, which is a good thing.  Perspective is everything.

The good news is that I wrote all but the last paragraph on the train :-)

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