1) Where are you in your hours that you declared earlier in the semester? Looking at your work now, are your current accumulated hours enough?
I am actually, surprisingly, over the hours that I declared earlier this semester. I had planned to work around 3-4 hours per every 2 days, but have ended up working more than that. However, it doesn’t feel like it, and I believe that’s due to how much I struggled with this project. I had a very hard time understanding what I wanted to do and as such, was never happy with any iteration my project went through. I struggled a lot with After Effects and kept doing the assignment(s) wrong over and over in different ways. I didn’t know how to verbalize what my issues were, it was just as a whole impossible for me, and even with that I couldn’t think of how I wanted to make the project look. This was a challenge every step of the way, but I tried my best.
2) Has your definition of “sophisticated” work changed from last year? If so, how so? Can you visually document it on the blog entry what is sophisticated in your Power Report?
My definition of “sophisticated” work has changed a bit from last year. I think that for a work to be sophisticated, that means that it harnessed and used materials and resources not generally used by people (like the Adobe Suite compared to the Microsoft Suite), and is actually well-produced and looks professional. However, I think it isn’t synonymous with challenging. For example, a student could produce sophisticated work, but not have challenged themselves in any way while making it. With the Power Report, I think the actual “look” of the Illustrator files were sophisticated, and perhaps even the movement of the text from points A to B to C. However, nothing else was sophisticated in my opinion because I did not know what I was doing or how to do what I wanted to do. Because of this, my end project isn’t sophisticated, but I struggled really hard to make it look all right.
3) Describe how the new things you’ve learned so far connect to what you already had known coming into the semester.
I learned how to import Illustrator files into After Effects, which I had not known how to do previously, though I had already known different ways to export and import files. I learned that there were even more ways to struggle on projects and even fail on them, though I had previously known that there were going to be times I failed and struggled (as I had done in previous semesters); I just didn’t realize there were even harder and worse ways to struggle. I knew that I would have to get closer with my peers and utilize them when I needed help, I just recently learned how valuable they are in the aspect of a helping hand, especially how we as students are complimentary to one another: where I didn’t know some things, my peers knew extensively and could help me, and vice versa.
4) What are somethings you are still unsure about in this project that you would like to know more about?
I’m unsure what more I could do to make it better. I know that the letters and script are really pixilated, but I don’t know how to import a non-pixilated Illustrator file. I don’t know if my final project is satisfactory, especially since for me it feels basic and boring. I’m still unsure about Adobe After Effects as a whole (i.e., how to use it, what can be done on it, and everything in its entirety). I’m unsure about the color scheme I used, I am unsure about the fonts I used, I am unsure about the designs I made, I am unsure about the LATCH aspects I produced, and I am unsure about the movements of the text to their final places.
5) Assign a level of value to this project. Identify two favorite projects in your creative life and place this Power Report project relative to them. How close or far are they from one another? What qualities did each project have that the other’s didn’t, that would rate them higher/lower? If this project rated low, did that mean you could have spent more time on it? What did you spend your time on?
I think this project was very valuable, I just was not in a good place or mindset to actually utilize it. If this was the only project I had had this semester, it would have looked phenomenally better and would have been increasingly more valuable to me, from a personal standpoint. But because I was so overworked, this project didn’t have the same value to me as it did to other students, as I experienced it “at the wrong place, at the wrong time”. In relation to my final animation project and symbol project, the Power Report ranked the lowest of all of them. This is because with my animation project, I struggled throughout it and made a multitude of mistakes over and over, but still learned a lot, and with my symbol project, I didn’t struggle but actually got to learn how to in-depthly use Illustrator and produce exactly what it was I wanted, all the while easily understanding and becoming naturally proficient with the program. However, with the Power Report, I only struggled and failed while also learning nothing. This project did rate low, but it wouldn’t have changed no matter how much time I spent on it because I was so overworked that all I could do was stare blankly at the screen while my mind stayed empty. I tried to ease up my stress by prioritizing my mental health and getting other assignments that I could easily do out of the way so that I could focus fully on the Power Report, but I believe that it was too much too fast.
6) Break down the percentages of what entities are responsible for creating growth within the creative you. Am I part of it? Part of it is on you, right? Do you consider your classmates/friends as influencers on the course of your trajectory for success? At the end of the semester you will be evaluating me, but right now within your own pie piece, how much have you brought to the game? How did it end up that you brought that much?
I think professors are about 25% of the growth, classmates are 10%, and I am 65% of the growth responsible for creating creativity within me. I absolutely consider my classmates and friends as influencers on the course of my trajectory for success, because they are the people who I refer to when I need help or a secondary opinion on something. If they think something looks off, I mess with it until it looks better, and we both communicate until I’m fully satisfied with the end result. Sometimes it still doesn’t look right to them, or it’s not what they would do because they are of a differing opinion, but once I get into that territory, I go with what feels right to me (so long as the product itself has the core foundations correct).
7) Ask me or express something, you feel like you can’t in class or even my office: tunarice.tumblr.com/ask