The end

Look at this... More than a month ago since I last posted something...
Wow.
I just didn't have to time for it. We were having so much fun here, that time flew by.

I will try to give you a quick look on what happened.

In October it was the autumn holiday.
With a bunch of friends I made here, we went on citytrips to Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen.
That was a really amazing week we had!

 

After that, I had an internship in a Danish school. Together with Andrei and Casper, we had to teach animation to teenagers of 15 years old. 

And in the end of October we went to LEGOLAND! It was really nice!

Also, not to forget, it was my birthday on the 27th...

So I asked some people to go and play laser-tag. I had never done that before, but it was really nice! I kinda won....

In November we had to write a report about our internship.
We also had to start our final movie (see post above).

As being part of the social committee, we had some budget left and organized a trip  to Aarhus.
There we went to Den Gamle By, a part of Aarhus that they rebuilt as it was a long time ago. It was nice to see. But I also wanted to go to the art museum, ARoS.
That museum was really really nice. I liked the exhibitions that were there at the moment.

 

But right now, as I'm writing this, already about half of the people left here... I am leaving in four days... FOUR DAYS!
I don't want to leave this all behind...

Movie n° 5: L IV E

Last two weeks we worked on a class animation.
The technique we used was hand drawing. That means you have to draw every frame by hand.

Well... I 'cheated' a little bit on that. I scanned both my background and my main character and then used photoshop to place the character on every background.

Here is the result of the class movie.




My part is in the Water part, where the seagull lands on the water.

Life size puppet

Today we had class from Gert, about puppet animation.

As part of the class, we had to create a life size puppet out of newspapers and tape.

The limbs had to be separate.

Here some pictures of our work.

 

 

After that we had to animate our puppet.

Each person had to move a limb.

I moved a leg.

Through coördination we managed to make the puppet walk kinda 'natural'.

All the others students who saw us walking around with the puppet probably thought we were crazy, but I don't care! :)

Here a final picture of our lovely class, the puppets and our teacher!

Movie n° 4: Creation

Movie n° 3: The End

 

Workshop with young children

This Wednesday we had to work with children from the kindergarten.
They were around 5 years old.
When they came into he room they were shown a few animation movies we made.
After that they got a short introduction to the steps you have to make during the process of making an animation movie.

1. Idea 

2. Synopsis 

3. Storyboard 

4. Background 

5. Characters 

6. Animating 

7. Sound

After that they were split into groups of five.
The children had to take the puppet they brought and try to put them in a way so they expressed some feelings (happy, sad, …).
Then they also had to do it with their own face.

After that their puppets had to walk and greet each other.
When they got to know their puppet and were a little more comfortable they had to come up with a story with the characters.
They chose two bad guys, a good one, and two Princesses.

When they know the story completely each child had to draw a part of the story for the storyboard. After that they had to place the drawings in the right order.

 

Then the staging began.
We made a background and placed the camera. And finally we could take pictures.
Each child moved it’s own character.

At last an adult can edit the frames a little bit, if the timing isn’t right.

My thoughts about the day: 
It really is difficult to communicate with children if you don’t know their language!
Also, we ourselves didn’t really know what to do, so I think next time would go a lot better.

The creating of the story took us really long.
Also drawing took long, but I don’t mind that.
Because of the drawing they drew themselves they are more connected to the movie and they learn a lot more.
Also because they had to place the drawings in the right order. So they really know what the story is about.

The moving itself was a little bit difficult in the beginning, the children moved their puppets a lot. But still, after a while they got it, I think. I hope the children had something about this morning, although they did not finish their entire movie.

Movie n° 2: Hopefully Alive

A normal day at the pond

The second movie was made with cut-out animation.
During the making of the film we had some problems with the team, but the result is really good!
I'm proud of my movie! ^^

Going out

Yesterday was Vibstock, a (small) music festival in Viborg.
We went there with some international students. We left after two hours.
It wasn't what we expected.
Especially because I'm used to the music festivals from Belgium!
This was small and the bands weren't that good...

Here some pictures I took during Vibstock. The others you can see on my Flickr-page (link on the right).

 

 

   
The weather is changing!
Since a couple of days there's a lot more wind and less sun.
It's around 17°C now I think.
Today it has also started raining... Boooh!

Movie n°1: A teapot in Paris

Week n° 1

First week of school is finished! It's weekend already!
Let me try and explain some of the things that happend this week.

This week was introduction week, so we didn't have real courses.
We got to know eachother a bit better and learned about the school and Viborg.

What happend on monday I already explained.
What happend the other days I will tell you now.

Tuesday morning we had a class about the Danish welfare system.
In the afternoon we had some sort of drama and music.
We did the game 'Around, under and over' (or something like that).
We had to stand in a circle. When there was a signal we all had to run around a person of choice.
After that we had to pick two persons, run around the first and crawl under the legs of the other.
At last we had to choose three persons, run around the first, crawl under the other and jump over the last one. It was a bit of a chaos, that game, but really fun!

We also sang a version of 'We will rock you', and learned a Danish folk dance, some sort of polka.
The polka was a bit difficult for some, because it was in a circle with lots of combinations.

Then the class was split in two, the Animation part and the Entrepreneurship part.
We did a name game where we had to find an animal with the first letter of our name.

At last we had to make something for the other group.
The Entrepreneurship sang a song for us and teached it to us.
We made a jungle and made the others feel like they where in it.


 

This is a picture of the students that follow Social Entrepreneurship after they teached us the song (so not me).

On wednesday we only had classes in the morning.
We got information about our student card and StudyNet.
But my student account wasn't activated yet, so I couldn't do anything because I needed my ID to log in to the internet...

Yesterday we only had courses in the morning, because our teacher for the afternoon was ill.
In the morning we got some info about the canteen at school and after that we got a course about the Scandinavian education.

Today we had a guided tour around Viborg. We went to the old centre, visited a museum, visited the dom and made a boattrip on the two lakes.

   

This is almost the entire group of Animation and Entrepreneurship! 

First day

Today was the first day of 'school'.
It was an introduction day, like the rest of the week.

We started in a nice classroom, with comfortable chairs. Not like those in Belgium!
There the teachers and coordinators were presented to us. We also had to present ourselves.
Almost half of the Erasmus students are from Romania.

Then we were offered some breakfast, buns and cheese, tea and coffee.
I didn't eat anything, because I already had breakfast. Who would think you get breakfast on your first day of school?

After breakfast there was a treasure hunt!
We had to answer some questions about school and the answers were found within the building.
That was a way to get us to know our way in school.
My partner and me ended fourth! (The winners got a VIA University College pen)

Then the two modules (Animation as a Learning Tool and Social Entrepreneurship) were presented to us.
We also got some information about other things for school.

The students were getting their Green Card (student card). I did not.
I never got a mail to fill in a form for the card! So I don't have one yet, have to wait...

With our Green Card we can get discount on some food in the cafetaria.
We also can enter the school and almost every room in the building with it, whenever we want. During the day, at night, in the weekend, ... Even the music room, a room with like eight acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, two bass guitars, two pianos, two drums, micros, ... All for us to use!

In the end we had to sing a song. It was an African song (so nobody would know it) the music teacher thought us really fast. Although I forgot it already, it was fun.

Oh yeah, we also got some homework. We need to read a text on the Danish welfare state.
Already read it!

About Viborg

Since school only starts monday, I still have time to explore the city.
I've walked already many kilometers!

Viborg is a very beautiful city! It reminds me both of Ghent and Bruges.
There's a giant lake, actually two lakes and a big park.
One of the lakes is the Nørresø, translated in 'North Lake'.
Here's a picture I took of (a part of) it.

 

There's also a city center with a lot of shops and a shopping mall.
Unlike most people say, Denmark is not a really expensive city. At least, not for me.
If you compare the prizes with the Euro, there's almost no difference.
If you compare the prizes with like Czech Crowns, it has almost doubled in prize.
So for me it isn't expensive! Yes!

Very close to my campus is a cinema, a bowling alley, a music hall, a bank, ... All on walking distance!

A bit further in the city is a beautiful cemetary, which I still need to visit one of these days.
Close to the cemetary is a church. Well, actually it is a dom.
And next to the dom is a little park with herbs and flowers.

This is a picture of the dom, behind the park.



So in short: Viborg is a very beautiful city and almost everything is within walking distance of my hostel.

Camp Logos Delta

 I have arrived!

Well... I've arrived yesterday, but there were some problems with my internet.

So now I have time to write my first real post in Denmark!

The hostel, Camp Logos is very modern. It is really new.

The room is very clean, but empty, so I've decorated it with some Ikea stuff :-)

Here are some photos of Camp Logos Delta.

Camp Logos Delta

This is my letter box! Feel free to write a letter!

Inside the building (1st floor)

Now some photos of my (shared) room! 

This is my desk

The kitchen

And my bed!

I had to buy new bed linen in IKEA, because the ones they left for my were really ugly.... 

So... Now my adventure begins! 

All settled, waiting for my roommate to arrive tomorrow. 

See you next post!

Getting ready

So... This is where  my adventure (almost) begins.
Only two more weeks until I leave on Erasmus to Denmark.
I will study at VIA University College in the city Viborg.
There I will follow the course 'Animation as a Learning Tool'.

Hope it will be fun!
Meeting lots of different people, new cultures, new friends.

Although, there's still some work to do.
I have a groupwork and an individual work that need to be finished by the 10th of August.
It's getting closer!

This is my new blog where I will try to post as much as possible to keep you all up to date.
I do say: try. Not sure if I will have much time for that in Denmark!

I will say this in advance - for the people I won't see before my departure on the 11th of August - 

see you at New Year!