submit a blog post link. just for this class
how many hours a week = 20
what should be the mid-term total = 120
what should be the semester total =240
what is your current grand total expert hours going back to elementary school = 23,920
Mid Term Assessment Essay
In the beginning of the semester, I was unsure of what expert hours were or how many would be possible for this class. After reevaluating my semester as well as my full time job which travels almost every weekend, I realized that the amount of hours I chose as the amount I could put in was unrealistic. During class it was said that we should be spending about 8 hours on our class work each week, outside of classroom time. That would put us at about 12 hours a week. This seems much more workable as well as helpful for the production of my work. I was really sick for a little while and was clocking way less hours than I should have been and this showed in the stress level it added when I began diving into the weather project.
I don’t believe my definition of sophisticated work has changed from last semester. I see what is produced from professional companies as sophisticated work and I have to work much harder to become as refined myself. I have never used After Effects until this semester so I practiced with it a lot on just silly projects so I knew my way around it better when I was trying to move 40 pieces of information around. I still have a really tough time with the background on my after effects projects and that is something I really need to work on.
Coming into this semester I knew how to use illustrator pretty well so using after effects has helped me build on that skill because it is actually a really resourceful tool. Images and works created on illustrator can be beautiful and effective, but there is just something aesthetically pleasing about your work moving around the screen. I have never seen my work move until now so it was really exciting to attach this new program to the others I have been working with for a while now. Before this semester I didn’t even know what After Effects was let alone how to use it.
Something I struggled with from illustrator to after effects was altering anything on the screen. Say I needed to change a number or edit an image I had a really tough time trying to figure out how to make it work the way I wanted it to. I would have to erase it out and either add a new layer from my document in illustrator or I had to leave it and make do. I also struggle with keyframes sometimes, sometimes it allows me to copy and paste an effect between layers and sometimes it doesn’t do it, there is some confusion about when I can do that and when I can’t.
This project to me was one of the most intricate ones I have done, there was no printing involved so I liked that a lot, but there was a lot of learning along the way. I think this is up there with the project from type 1 where I had to create my monogram. That was something that was so new to me and it was really cool to figure it out. I had to manipulate the shapes to make my name and it was almost like a puzzle. That was something I was pretty proud of in the end. Another project this reminded me of was my project from Graphic Design 1 at ACC where I had to create a poster for a made up event, but I was just learning to use illustrator so it was a learning experience and I ended up with a project I was pretty proud of! So far however I think this was the most important of the three because I love using after effects and I think the more I work with it the better I will get at using it.
I would say that about 50% of the work that I do effects my growth. There was a lot of work put into learning about the new program that we are using. But I would have to say that the other 50% is broken up 25 and 25 by my classmates and my professor. A lot of the work that my peers are producing is inspiring and sparks ideas in me. It is so cool to see their work evolve as well and it keeps it exciting. Also, the critiques are helpful because we are able to give our opinions to others and sometimes when you are so into a project it can be hard to see what is wrong with it and easy to overlook small errors we make. The other 25 percent from Tuan is his professional opinions, all of the experience he brings to the table is helpful to our growth. I think without the push in the right direction from time to time our work wouldn’t be half as good as it can be. After realizing how much our classmates influence each other, it inspires me to push myself to be a better influence and help them as much as they are helping me.