A Valuable Take Away from Each e-Comm Guarantee:
Technology:
I have learned a lot from e-Comm but it has definitely allowed me to get some experience with industry standard programs for technology such as Maya and all of the Adobe Products. Throughout this year I have also learned much more about Macs and their specialties compared to PC's. Most of my learning of these things comes from personal experience in class rather then being lectured to which is a nice change compared to almost every class.
Collaboration:
Collaboration is a vital concept that is hard to learn and even harder to master. Being able to take 5 ideas and mold them into one is a very challenging task. I have had one major group project in this class and it was the final. We had to adapt to each others ideas and situations and come up with the best solution for each problem we encountered. Like technology, most of our experience with Collaboration was just throwing yourself into a collaborative environment and getting to work. This skill is especially important for me considering I am wanting to go into animation myself, specifically in game design. If I had to nail down one thing that I learned this whole year for Collaboration is that often team work can be independent. Sometimes the best way for someone to do what they need to is too leave them alone so they can do the best they can.
Communication:
Communication ties into collaboration quite well. To describe my visions/issues/ideas for a project I needed to find the best way to communicate them. This is still quite difficult for me considering that I am almost always in my head and can rarely describe how I want something to be. This is definitely something I am still working on and this year has really helped in that regard. The main learning environment was both away and in the action if that makes sense. I would have to work it out in my head how I would want to say something, and then attempt how I would.
Project Management:
Project management is horribly difficult for me. I can plan something down to the finest details just fine, anyone can. Problems arise, however, when I get side tracked. Side tracking is one of the most difficult things for me to control when working on a project of any type because I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I can't just run through a project and THEN fix it. Each segment I do HAS to be perfect after I work on it. That being said: This year really tested me in that regard. One of the most valuable things I learned this year has been that in animation you must go through the entire project first. Then you refine. A problem that I was encountering with the 2d story project is that I would be working on a segment and I would get it to look good for that part, but it didn't line up at all with anything else. This made it so that I had to redo that section all the way through and refine it. Flow is one of the main parts of animation and I really learned that through error this year.
Leadership:
Leadership has always been a natural thing for me, ever since I was a child. I have always wanted to take lead and see my vision through but their are a couple problems with this. 1: I am not the only person with a view or vision. One of the harder things for people to realize is that everyone is creative. Everyone has their own unique imagination and concepts for something but the main thing that sets artists away from normal people is the ability to realize their imagination and make it reality. Having this in mind I tried to "lead" my groups and take in every view point and go with the best option. Leaders have to be realize their own strengths and weaknesses as well as the people around them, take them into account, and form a plan based off them. 2: Natural does not mean born amazing. I have always been working on how to communicate to a team or group, and as I said earlier, I'm defiantly not the best at it. The great thing about e-Comm is that it throws me straight into an environment where I can decide what skills need to be refined and work towards it. One of the main skills I have been working on as a whole is leadership. Wether it be leading a project in school or managing my own gaming groups and organizations outside of class.
Strengths and Weaknesses
To better yourself its important to take into account what you are good at and what your are needing to improve upon. Lets start with strengths:
Like I said in my Guarantees segment, I am quite good at taking initiative as a leader. I am very objective based and very goal oriented. I like to be able to have something to work too in projects so that I can have a clear mindset when it comes to working on something. I am also very capable at being able to think of solutions. I have a very good ability to analyze multiple pieces of a puzzle and put them together. The trouble comes when I try to communicate these solutions.
I often say to myself that my mind is my greatest asset and my voice is my worst. I can't thoroughly communicate ideas to other people yet and I'm needing to work on it more. Another issue I have is that sometimes I get to caught up in my ideas that I can't take in others. I try to be as optimistic as possible since, ya know, I'm not an all knowing god who can't do anything wrong. But sometimes I desperately try to stay with my vision no matter what and it often works against me in the end.
What Would I Fix?
Oh I have one project that has been in the back of my head ever since we did it. One project that I thought was so awful that every time I messed something up I would say to myself "At least it wasn't the 2d story project". The 2d story project. This is what made me realize why I don't want to go into 2d animation. This project pushed my to the end of my sanity. Their was a time where half of my progress on the project got corrupted and I was screwed over. Very rarely do I hate one of my projects so vividly as this one. If I had to fix ANY project it would be this one. This project was awful. I would fix it just to get it out of my head. Their are things that you can learn from failure. But this one is a little too much.
Conclusion
Sophomore year. I hated it. I did not like it at all. Lots of things outside of school, marching band stressed me out, friend issues and many more factors come into my disliking of this year. Thankfully e-Comm made my year a little better. I have a feeling senior year I will look back on my journey and remember this year fondly but I don't know how. Leave it to melancholy I guess. Anyway this year of e-Comm has been a lot of fun for me and was a great experience. I can't wait to start next year, considering 2 of my hours will be dedicated to animation alone.
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