This week is "Reading Week" at UEA. That means that most classes are not meeting and the students ideally stay home to study. Some people use it as a vacation. While I'm definitely taking advantage of the time off, I still have a couple of classes to attend (Early British TV today and Archiving on Thursday and Friday) and some reading to catch up on. I'm going to be a GOOD STUDENT!

-RP-

The Chirping of Crickets...

Sorry for the lack of activity over the last couple of weeks. We've both been really busy. Please stay tuned over the next few days for some updates (which will be BELOW this post on the appropriate days).

Bung-Plug in the Bung-Hole

On Tuesday and Wednesday I volunteered at the 27th Annual Norwich Beer Festival, put on by the Norwich chapter of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale). It's a fairly large festival showcasing about 200 cask-conditioned Real Ales from UK breweries. There is also a tent with over 100 bottled beers (most of them Belgian). It is a week-long festival which started on Monday and runs through Saturday.

On Tuesday I was a "Steward" (standing by a doorway and telling people they couldn't go in there) from 5pm to 11:00pm. Then I helped roll out the empty casks, roll in the new ones and hoist them up to the serving platform. Got home at around 12:45, but also tried quite a few beers over the course of the evening.

I went back for more punishment on Wednesday. Same hours, but this time I pushed to get behind the bar instead of "Stewarding". A lot more fun and the time went by really quickly. I'm not sure how many beers I poured, but there was a continuous flow of glasses coming at me.

I'll go back on Sunday at 8am to help them break down all the equipment and move it out of the festival hall. Just doing my part for CAMRA!

Official Phestival Photos

-RP-

How does this thing work?
...he said, pointing to his brain.

Today I have to write my first essay in about 5 years. Luckily, it only has to be 1000-1500 words (about 2 1/2 to 3 pages) without footnotes, bibliography, etc. Hopefully, I can get the academic side of my brain working properly... the rust has been scraped off, but it still needs oil. The paper was originally due tomorrow, but he gave all of us an extension until Wednesday. I'm going to be a nerd and shoot for handing it in tomorrow anyway.

-RP-

Trip To London

Today the archiving group took the train down to London. We visited PresTech, a film laboratory that specializes in working with archives. Their processes are designed to help archives make quality prints of their holdings with minimal impact on the precious originals. We were taken around the entire lab and introduced to all of the machinery. Won't bore you with all of the VERY SPECIALIZED details (only interesting to the nerdy film-freaks like myself).

The owner of the lab "graded" our negatives from the film shoot, preparing it for striking a workprint that we will use to edit the film. Later, when the editing is done, we will send the negative back to them for final projection prints to made.

It was a bit overwhelming to be in London, since I have not been in a city that size pretty much since we were in LA. "The Tube" (pronounced "Chube" by the locals) was so full of frenetic energy, I sort of didn't know what to do with myself. Sort of a gloomy day, overcast and rainy; but a fun trip.

-RP-

For my archiving course, we each had to shoot a short silent film using B&W film and a Bolex 16mm camera. The film will then be sent to Prestech Laboratories in London (a lab that specializes in working with archives) for processing. We will then personally go and pick it up (next Saturday) while at the same time getting a tour of the lab. When we return, everyone will edit their film on a Steenbeck (film editting table), cut the negative according to our editted workprint, and send this off to the lab to make a projection print. In this way, we will learn about the entire process involved in making an exhibition print.

So, I've been having a bit of a taste of what I did in my undergrad days at Boston University. However, we never got into cutting the negative and making a projection print there, mostly for budgetary reasons, so I'm really looking forward to trying that out. By the end of this semester, I'll have a 2-minute silent film, ready for projection without any tape splices to get caught in a projector.

I shot my film yesterday. It's sort of an "avant garde" piece and I don't really know what it's about or what it means. The "story" will essentially be made on the editting table. The basic idea is that a lady (played by Kristen) is having a really weird dream which, among a few other things, involves a pumpkin falling and breaking open. Don't ask... I don't know what it means.

-RP-

Pictures of UEA Campus

What is it?
A kryptonite mining camp on a distant planet? No, it's student housing at UEA.

Cubies
More of the same.

Idyllic
This is UEA's own private "broad" (aka "lake").

Warning
But the broad comes with a warning lable. This is the UK, after all.

Concrete
One of the concrete overpasses that links one part of the campus to another.

Arts & Humanities
This is the building where most of my classes are, the "Arts Block". Isn't it just lovely? And another view.

Educated

So, that's one week of classes done. By far the most interesting one is the Archiving course. It's going to be a lot of fun. There are three or four trips this semester alone. In fact, I just got back from our first trip: a film archiving conference in Great Yarmouth (a 30 minute train-ride from here). The conference was held in The Hippodrome. It was built in 1903 and has been the site of an indoor circus/variety show since then. History came full circle because part of the conference was regarding the early days of film exhibition -- "movies" were shown at fairgrounds and variety shows by travelling exhibitors -- and The Hippodrome was one of the venues where films were shown in this area.

Anyway, I'm slowly but surely getting back into the academic mode and I'm being a good boy about keeping up with my reading assignments. And I've been seeing a lot of movies which is always a plus. I really don't envy the people who have there noses shoved in law books or something like that! But I guess they'll be making more money than me when they are through with it... so I don't know who's luckier.

Other pictures from the Great Yarmouth Trip:

-The circus ring.

-The Empire, another building from the early 1900s which is now a nightclub called "Zen".

-1908 theatre (I think), but now bought out by an arcade.

-Group photo of some of us archiving students (from left to right): Vicky, Louise, Audrey, Liana, Clare, & Alex. Audrey and Liana are from the US.

-Another group photo of same people, but with me substituting for Alex.