Orlando Scene TV

As I get older, I tend to have more and more visitors come down looking for a break from the rest of the world. Orlando can be a pretty good place to do that. It’s one of the top vacation spots, after all!

As we have people visit, we’ve started to compile a list of activities (some are mega-touristy) and restaurants that we can recommend to everyone. Here they are, in no particular order:

• The Wine Room
• Disney’s Animal Kindgom
• Cafe Tu Tu Tango
• White Wolf Cafe
• Funky Monkey Wine Co
• El Coqui Mexicano
• Gatorland Zoo (Go Orlando Card)
• Sky Venture Orlando
• Florida Ecosafaris Zip Line (Go Orlando Card)
• A Day Away Kayaks – Bioluminescent Night Kayak Trip
• Blue Man Group Orlando
• SAK Improv Comedy Lab
• Sea World Orlando
• Wild Willy’s Airboat Rides
• Bok Tower and Gardens
• Manatee watching at Blue Springs (cold weather months)
• The Old Spanish Sugar Mill Pancake House, DeLeon Springs
• Disney Hollywood Studios (formery MGM)
• The Ravenous Pig
• Hamburger Mary’s Hambingo (Gay Bingo, Tuesday Night)
• Farris and Foster’s Chocolate Date Night
• Leu Gardens
• Kennedy Space Center (Go Orlando Card)

Note: links to Go Orlando Card are part of an affiliate program.

Orlando, FL – Mark Baratelli of the Daily City shows us the art show in a U-Haul Truck.

Every month, downtown Orlando galleries open their doors for a new art exhibition called Third Thursdays. Mark parks the Mobile Art Show in front of CityArts Factory on the corner of Pine Street and Orange Avenue.

Every Wednesday Night, Stardust and Ourlando play host to Audobon Park Community Market from 6pm – 10pm.

Bring cash, check out some local music, artists, and food. Holly Riggs shows us her Tarot booth and talks about her music. Ryan also shows off some of the food vendors.

Tomorrow morning at 8AM, people in 60 cities all over the world will get together for coffee and conversation, continuing a 3-year tradition that started with 2 trendsetters in New York who decided to have good coffee and conversation in real life instead of online. In Orlando, we hold Likemind at the Drunken Monkey, one of the best coffee shops in town, every third Friday of the month. Watch the twitters about likemind scroll by today and tomorrow to see all the other people and places that get involved in this international affair.

To get email updates about future Likemind events in Orlando, check out the Likemind.orl group on FloridaCreatives.com, or use the direct registration link.

Local performance artist Brian Feldman organized the second-annual Pillowlando on April 4th this year in front of the SunTrust building.

I was walking downtown last week and captured this on my phone. Meets last Friday of every month at Loch Haven Park / Science Center, then rides through downtown. I love the pedestrian who was pissed at them for “blocking traffic” and the hipsters who grumbled back at him.

@ The Office Art Gallery, Friday Oct 10th

A word from Frankie Messina:

www.apartmente.com got all the info you need.

hope to see you all my friends.. come kick off this incredible evening and be able to say you were there the first night…..

bring a friend and they get in half price.

then they can help you donate to the cause..
that cause being local ART and MUSIC and LOVING the two..

thank you for all the support, and I can’t wait to meet you all………..and give you all a big o’le country hug..,Frankie

This came across my desk at work today:

Does anyone know of an animation school in the Orlando area? A friend’s 16-year-old son is interested in pursuing animation as a career and is looking into classes he can take now as well as college programs for the future. If you have any insight, please pass it along.

Just doing a google search returned a bunch of crap, so I wanted to help this person out with information you could snack on:

UCF’s Visual Language program is top-notch. In Orlando, I wouldn’t recommend anything above the UCF School of Film and Digital Media. They also have a graduate program at the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA).

The Valencia Graphics program has some animation stuff as well. I blogged some students’ motion graphics projects at Orlando Video. I think high school students can take VCC classes before they graduate.

They offer some stuff like that at the Orlando Tech Center – it’s run by the Orange County Public Schools – right near the Amway Arena. They have a Computer Animation lab, a 3D printer, a motion capture stage, an Audio Recording studio and a TV studio. There are also several tech or vocational schools in Orlando (besides the OCPS), but I don’t have any information about one over the other.

Has anyone mentioned the DAVE School to you yet? They are/used to be located on the backlot of Universal Studios, but that has nothing to do with what they teach there, it’s just the space that they use. They are focused only on animation, and I think they take students of all ages.

And then there’s FullSail, of course (the school, not the beer). Little-known fact: most FullSail teachers were students from last year’s graduating class – the law of diminishing returns will have to catch up with them sometime. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get a good education there, but from what I understand, there are lots of folks at the school looking to get somewhere without really trying. If one works hard, a good education can be obtained despite the reputation an institution garners for itself.

If you in the blogosphere can think of any other programs of note, please leave them in the comments.