One term down, five to go....
This has, without a doubt, been the most challenging and stressful two months of my life... and it's just the beginning.
More than being the most challenging and stressful two months, it has also been the most fulfilling thus far. I have never felt more alive and more pushed to reach my potential than I have been in this first term at Vancouver Film School.
For those of you who do not know, I started a one-year intensive Digital Design program at Vancouver Film School where I hope to become a motion graphics designer.
I came to VFS to learn the technical aspects of becoming a designer which meant learning various programs that I had hardly every touched like photoshop and illustrator to the more complex after effects and Cinema 4D. I knew where my weaknesses lay and it was definitely in my lack of experience with these software.
What I did not expect was how they were training us to become more than just technically savvy designers, but to be thinkers and innovators.
In this term, we took on various team projects that were unlike any other any of us had ever seen before. We learned how to analyze the simplest human interactions to learn how to innovate experiences with the hopes of changing human behavior in our User Experience class.
At first we were not sure how this all fit into the puzzle of design and then quickly realized that this was a valuable step in innovating design because our ultimate goal, as designers, is to make interactions with this technological world intuitive and seamless.
I could go on for hours about how much I learned from User Experience, but I want to go on and talk about process.
Process... What is this simple word? We all know what it means... We all know its importance... but we don't all use it and we all overlook it.
If there is one thing that I have now prioritized in any piece of my work, it is PROCESS and keeping track of my workflow.
We learned to breakdown our projects step-by-step... sound obvious? Well, executing it is not. From brainstorming to story boards to choices to production - every step is critical.
This term was about using process to get closer to our vision.
One thing I noticed about my work prior to VFS was that I was producing decent work, but I was not reaching the ultimate vision that I had in my head. I remember talking to someone about this and saying that the more I work and learn, the closer I am to nailing the vision in my head - but I have yet to hit the exact mark. For some reason, what I visualized looked SIMILAR but was never EXACTLY what I had envisioned. Yes, some turned out really good and others... not so good, but I did not know WHY I wasn't quite hitting the mark.
Until I learned to take advantage of PROCESS.
This year I hope to hit my mark with all my projects at VFS. Prior to VFS, I did a decent job of writing shot lists and planning, but it wasn't enough - it wasn't the complete Process Package.
I know it has been a while since I posted something, but I will try my best to post the process of my future work here at VFS.
I know this was a rather wordy post, but there was a lot to say after these 2 months. I could go on for hours, but I think I'll leave this post as is.
