Step 1...

Well After Effects and I had a little tiff yesterday. I was in the middle of something and didn't realise that somehow my motion track had disappeared so everything went to pot and had to start again right near the end as it just would not go back to normal. But I am glad to say I have finished it now! I am not happy with it though, I just don't think my idea is good enough and would have loved to change it, but I just don't have the time. My tutor said as long as we covered the skills he taught he didn't mind, and I think I've done that.

So here is a screen shot of each of my stages!

                                                                   My original footage

                                                                       Final Image

I have learnt a lot but it could be so much better.

Oh the pain of being a perfectionist...

Time to open my toolbox...

As you may fully be aware, After Effects and I have a love/hate relationship. But we have been to relationship counselling in the form of Graham my Digital Media lecturer. I used to look at it as a massive obstacle that I had to do all in one go, but I realise that it isn't. He explained that every tiny skill he learnt goes into his 'toolbox' so when he knows how to do something like keyframe the position of something or how to scale something then that's a skill, and you use all of these to do bigger tasks like set extension.

And I just did my first ever After Effects work on video yesterday and today :) even overcoming some of the worst problems ever! I am really pleased with myself, eventhough the piece of work could be better I learnt:
- Sky replacement
- Using masking (auto and by hand)
- Motion tracking
- Null objects
- Chromakeying properly
- How to use curves to add depth
- Change my image to black and white

And that's from a 20 second project!

My toolbox is starting to fill up nicely...

Do you have a weakness?

Wow! I am in week 7 of uni now, I was going to blog more but the documentary has taken up a lot of my time for single camera.

So what has happened the past few weeks, well, I didn't go any further with the Campbells Soup competition (I didn't place in the top 6) and I also haven't got anywhere with the Pepsi competition either. My time has been taken up by the Parkour documentary I am currently working on and digital media has already moved onto the 3rd project! I'm about to start my after effects work to be handed in for thursday.

These past few weeks have also made me realise something, a person is determined on how they deal with weak moments in life. Around week 4/5 I had a time where I thought I couldn't do it anymore, there is too much work and I didn't know how to cope. But I got through it. And the other day my friend went through a few days of turmoil, but he got through it too. It just makes you realise how strong minded you can be if you put effort into it and the weak moments you have can shape the person you are.

Let's stay positive :)