Campus happenings

Suzy from my Stop motion class asked if I wanted to join her in watching Kid Koala's Nufonia Must Fall since her 15 second short was screened before the show. So I went with some of her friends and another stop motion child to the puppet extravaganza. 

Kid Koala has previously worked on Gorillaz, Scott Pilgrim and The Great Gatsby and director K. K. Barrett did production design for Her and Marie Antoniette. Everything was live - live footage from the stage, live puppeteering and live orchestra music on the Royce Hall stage. It was such a good experience!

We then went to Westwood for crêpes and played with bubbles at a nearby bar. It was a very fun night out.

 I had to get up super early the next day though. My first student production was up and the costume department is basically first on set. 

The film had 11 kids! So we had to be very careful not getting food or other stains on their costumes.

2nd day of shoot was slow so I got to work on my storyboard as well. And we then went to get tacos at Frida.

 

We are moving forward in stop motion time and saw King Kong (one of Mike's great passions, here picture with old-timey animation stand). And we are building our puppets as well!

I'm going to school late in the evenings every day and I leave a dark campus every night. I do get to enjoy the sunny days from our balcony. And Kimya had made strawberries for us all one of the days that I got home.

Drawing in the sun! And then heading out to eat last Friday. Both pizza and ice cream sandwich.

Hannah and I went to a gymnastics meet (UCLA against Utah) last Saturday. It was crazy to see how many ressources are spend on sports here - and the gymnastics team is even one of the teams with the least amount of money. They really aren't kidding when they say that there is a mismatch between the spending on sports and then arts.

One of the UCLA girls' floor routine went viral and it has been pretty fun seeing it blowing up online. Me and Hannah have been popping up in backgrounds as well. But girls on both teams were doing so well. It is crazy what these girls can do - the body control!

I was sporting UCLA colours - blue and gold (which is normalized to yellow). SO I am basically supporting Sweden now...

 

Filip from back home suggested I got myself this storyboard book and some of the gags were really lovely. I have been reading so much non-traditional academic stuff lately... 

One Month Already

 

I realized it has already been a month since I travelled to the States. I still don't feel like this whole thing is real. Everything is so surreal and I kind of experience it all through a filter.

I have been down to Westwood Village a little. It is a pretty odd place. Seems very small-town. Living at UCLA is very much a bubble experience.

After seeing this year's Golden Globes, I finally pulled myself together and saw Mr. Robot. It was of course brilliant. I also found out about My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in all its' musical glory.

 

 My flatmates and I went to Santa Monica to stop by a few bars. The Bungalow had such a nice atmosphere with inside trees and lanterns, but it was packed. Also, this pink car is probably the most stylish thing I've ever seen. And all the places closed at 2! Such a difference from back home. So we went back to the flat and watched Footloose. Lovely.

Sunday Kimya and I went to watch The Revenant at Landmark. They had a bunch of costumes on display! Pretty fun.

 And an Anamolisa set on display! It was fun to see the scale of the puppets.

After the film, Lexi came to pick us up and we drove to Beverly Hills for a late-night snack. We got sundaes at Sprinkles, which is basically a cupcake split in two with an ice cream cone in the middle. Most American thing I think I have eaten as of now.

  

There was a campuswide High School Musical reunion hype last week. It was really fun to follow. And we watched the film as well. 

And I had rehearsals for my first production weekend last week! There will be a good handful of kids on this one. 

I have spent time in the stop motion lab as well. It is pretty fun coming up with new ideas for all these different projects I am doing for my classes every week. But the work load is challenging too. Four creative classes is a bit of a stretch. At least I am still having fun with all of them.

 I pass this statue on my way to class every day. I cannot help but wonder...

And Valentine's frenzy has already begun. It is... big here.

Today in Costume Design we had Danny Glicker come by and talk about his work. It was very rewarding and he was a good speaker.