It's been almost a month and a half since I completed "Soot" and graduated from college. After anxious waiting and the thought of many resumes still floating in the employment void, I luckily found an adorable little full-timer at Travel Channel Media.
Within a week I went from rolling out of bed at 9am and walking to class in a sweatshirt to rolling off my bed at 6am, donning heels and driving off to the metro station. It's been a rude awakening realizing that there will be no more summer breaks, much harder to spontaneously see the fabulous friends I've made in Baltimore.
This senior year was incredibly challenging. Spain was an entirely different animal and "Soot" really feels like a triumph with the time constraints that we aligned too. Of course there was more I wanted to do with it, farther I wanted to take it, but sitting in the puddle of funtastic mud won't help me move onto better ideas and challenges.
Looking at this short, there are a million things I would wish to change, scenes I didn't want to leave behind and corners I wish had been cut. If time had permitted I would have bumped the frame rate from the 10-12 fps (frames per second) back to 15 at the very least. Two short environmental scenes that were cut could have been reworked to help draw the time out. Most of all abandoning the Venus and birth of creativity concept was depressing and necessary. It was tough, don't get me wrong. My life was absorbed by this thing. There would be days where I would forget to eat, would stay up all night in that crummy little window-less lab we affectionately called the "dungeon," kids from the 3D Intro classes would walk into the engineering labs exclaiming "You're still here!?"
But really...it's not right to beat myself up about it. "Soot" was not as deep or dramatic as I had first envisioned, but if that was the case I probably wouldn't had had as much fun with it. I love the classic and modern cartooning styles, and getting to explore those quirky movements was possible with my little caveman. Some people see this thing and call it "avant garde," but really I think it just weirds them out, haha. I'm just happy people can feel something from it.
So anyway, here is the final version of "Soot" a little cleaned up visually. The delay came from my lack of software to shrink down the size since leaving school. (I'm still awaiting answers to my drum circle ads, so hopefully one day for kicks it'll get a real soundtrack)
But really...it's not right to beat myself up about it. "Soot" was not as deep or dramatic as I had first envisioned, but if that was the case I probably wouldn't had had as much fun with it. I love the classic and modern cartooning styles, and getting to explore those quirky movements was possible with my little caveman. Some people see this thing and call it "avant garde," but really I think it just weirds them out, haha. I'm just happy people can feel something from it.
So anyway, here is the final version of "Soot" a little cleaned up visually. The delay came from my lack of software to shrink down the size since leaving school. (I'm still awaiting answers to my drum circle ads, so hopefully one day for kicks it'll get a real soundtrack)
If I had to sum up my experiences from the past fours years up, it would go like this:
College is what you make it. I made it awesome.
Being involved with the UMBC Animation program and organizations like ArtCOM and ArtWeek opened the doors to incredible opportunities, but most granted me some of my most cherished friendships. These individuals are challenging, honest, creative and I miss them incredibly. They were my rivals, my fuel and my greatest teachers. When looking at art schools, don't just look at where the faculty is coming from, look to the students because that is where the real learning will take place.K
