UCI Anteaters

The last 24 hours have been a nonstop race it feels like! But it is this high paced lifestyle I have come to know and love - or if not love at least embrace with open arms. 

Two hall mates, and best friends of mine, and I drove up to Los Angeles where we watched Coldplay perform at the legendary Hollywood Bowl.  I suggest everyone put seeing a concert at the Bowl on their bucket list! I would love to spend a day seeing the city of L.A; I live such a short drive away (only an hour and a half from UCI!) there is really no excuse to have never explored up there.  Surprisingly, it was my first time seeing the Hollywood hills and the famous Hollywood sign.  The venue was gorgeous and the concert was one of the best I’ve ever been to. The fun quickly came to an end when homework awaited my 12:30 a.m. arrival back to my room. 

A quick 6 hours of sleep and I was up for class, then another class, then another class, then yet another  class.  In my “break” between 2 and 5, I was furiously working to finish an assignment due at 5p.m. Cutting it close, I printed my assignment and took off for class. Class was  followed by a quick dinner and study session for Campus Reps. I attempted to fit in a quick hello/goodbye with Bahia hall mates, and even got to squeeze in a video call home. 

Even though my life is both insanely busy and totally pressed for time, it is a life style that I have really gotten used to.  The better moments, like seeing Coldplay live, or catching up with friends, neutralize those moments that I’m not sure I’ll survive the day.  It’s a handful that’s for sure, but I enjoy the bustle of my UCI days.  There never ceases to be a dull moment, and I always know eventually everything will come full circle.  The accomplished will meet the frustrated, and then a moment of accomplish will come again.

My best friends and I waiting for Coldplay to come on stage!

— Mackenzie

The Zotfilm Winter Premiere Gala was a blast!  This red carpet event took place at the Social Science Plaza and showcased several high quality student films which were all very impressive.  It was great to see my team members again, as well as my team from the previous quarter.  It was also a great way to network with some of the other film/drama/arts students for possible future collaborations. Considering this was my last quarter, I was happy to have ended it with great memories, new friends, and inspiration for films.

There I am (on the right) being interviewed alongside my fellow co-director:

Reunited with the cast & crew:

Looking forward to writing, producing and directing more exciting film 
projects!

— Justine

At Senior Desgin Day, all engineering departments are displaying their senior design projects.

For my senior year I am enrolled in a class called senior design, and the class breaks everyone up into small groups of about 4-6 students. Each group is paired up with an engineering company outside of the university - and for the entire school year we meet up with the company weekly and work on a project that the company either has or are currently working on. Having a specialization in structures within civil engineering, my group is building a 3-story steel building. 

My group consists of 6 civil engineers, and we are working with the engineering consultant LPA. The steel building is a project they have worked on in the past, so we are basically redoing it from scratch with a slightly simpler design.  You might be wondering how do you design a steel building? To condense everything we’ve worked on, we had to calculate the forces (loads) that was going to be placed on the building (such as all the heavy equipment and weight of people inside the building). After multiple calculations, we were able to determine what beams, girders, and columns to use for the building. That is almost where we are right now in our project. Next we will determine the bracing system and all the other detailing during spring quarter. This might seem like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but it’s actually really interesting to understand how buildings are designed!

Here are some pictures I took from the design day …

All the engineering students with their posters to present.

One of my teammates and I!

My group’s poster!

— Nam

Just to give some background information, Zotfilm is part of FADA (Film-Arts-Drama Alliance) here on campus.  Its purpose is to bring together students who are involved and/or interested in Film, Dramatic Arts, and Studio Art to network with each other, learn about the film-making process, and collaborate on creating short films which are showcased at the end of the quarter.  This is the first year they started creating teams to make films and it has become a huge success for the club.  I served as a producer last quarter on a film noir short called “Eyes of Retribution.”  This quarter, I was chosen to be one of the directors for a comedy short film which we just completed shooting two weekends ago.

This comedy short film is called “A Night Like Tonight” and is about four friends who embark on what seems like a normal trip to the party of the year, but soon encounter ridiculous obstacles that draw them to their limits.  In the end, they realize all they really needed was some cold beers…and each other (and yes, all the actors who drank are of legal age.)  For the film, we shot on location just 2 miles away from the UCI campus near the San Joaquin Marsh and the Dartmouth apartment community which is walking distance from campus.  We spent 3 long nights of shooting, sometimes staying up until past 3 am in the morning!  But it was an absolute blast, as our crew became like a family.  We are currently in post-production, as our Zotfilm Quarterly Gala is next week!  Looking forward to seeing the crew again and all the other films, as well as dressing up for this uber fancy red carpet event :)