End of the Semester! Party Time!

Last week of school consisted of a lot of big final projects and promises of what's to come in the new year. I'll be writing a summary of classes and such in a couple of days, but for now today was the big holiday bash character animation party so I'll write about that.

It was amazing! First off, the freshmen organized a Secret Santa for the entire department and for the past few days various presents have been sent around, my seceret santa was all about the pirate booty. haha. Also got some treats from friends and I did my secret santa best. =) Lots of fun to be had. Anyways, at 6:30 pm the character animation party took place and the insanity begun---we had food, giant driedels, animation paper giveaways, various raffles, Freshmen screening of our kid animations(SO COOL! I can't wait to see how intense the Open Show will be. The energy level in the Palace was unbelievable!), and NO animation party is complete without a hand-made Bee Movie pinata! Don't believe me?


Gathering for the thrashing that's about to be released upon Mr. Bee.

By round five a fellow freshman succeded in knocking the Bee's head clean-off, Here's said freshmen enjoying the spoils:


After the pinata everyone packed themselves into the Palace and with my traditional animation teacher leading the charge, we played all of the freshmen animations. All of the upperclassmen were great, we practically yelled ourselves hoarse as we watched little kids do things only animators could think of. Afterwards the teacher had all of the freshmen stay and he gave us little presents before wishing us a happy break. Around 10:30 everyone gathered into the Palace again and we played a rousing game with the giant Dreidel in which the freshmen team won! Our team got the little wrapped presents that varied from My Little Ponies, Bratz coloring books, and in my case: A plastic gold bling necklace. haha! Shortly afterwards the raffle took place, various items were given away, but highlights included: Stacks of animation paper(PUNCHED PAPER!) and several copies of the Pixar Short Collection set that was recently released. Tons of fun, saw a lot of faces I didn't know before and had a great time ending my first semester at CalArts! Woo hoo I survived! Time will only tell how next semester will go. Anyways, here are a couple more pictures from the party and also my own kid animation:





Because they go by so fast---The title cards I used:



Well I have to pack, back-up all of my files, clean a LOT, and other such things before I leave tomorrow afternoon! It's been a memorable semester at CalArts and can't wait to dive head-first into my film on Jan. 10th!