Blog Post 7 - Approaching the Semester End

We are reaching the end of the semester and I am pretty happy with my group, and how far we've gotten this semester. Not only do we have most, if not all, of our models done, but we have an almost set in stone storyboard, are working on getting a full 3D layout animatic done, and we all have been working together so well!! I'm very excited to see where we'll be when the semester ends, and I'm just glad I've managed to get through it so well. School has been a bit difficult this semester.

Recently, we've been looking back on and trying to lock down our storyboard finally so that no more changes need to happen. Rianne and I got notes from Jorge Gutierrez last weekend, but we all decided as a group that we didn't entirely like his critiques. We're still keeping his comments in mind, of course, but the amount of stuff we have in our storyboard feels a bit incomplete if we remove too much. But we will end up removing little unnecessary bits, I think. I'm honestly not the best at storyboard edits or comments, so I tend to leave most of that to the rest of the group, but I do still lend my eye and own opinion.

Our asset list and shot lest are getting more information and more colorful as the semester starts to come to an end. The schedule is looking a bit scary too, as I only have so much more time to plan things out. But!! A wonderful thing happened to me last Wednesday!!! I was showing Noah, from Encroachment, how I keep track of all our organizational documents and stuff, because he wanted to try and get his group more in order so that they wouldn't be quite so frazzled on their next production pass. So I ended up spending about 30 minutes showing him what I do and telling him the process. Turns out, the teacher for my next class, who had apparently been there the whole time, was impressed. I didn't even realized he'd been paying attention to what I was doing, but apparently what I've been doing with all our production documents is super awesome, because he sat down next to me and helped me write an email to the company Mass FX to ask for a possible summer internship, and to attach my documents to it. It made me so happy not only to have this skill of mine aknowledged, but to have one of my teachers, who I look up to immensely, say that they were so impressed by my skills they wanted to give me a personal connection to help me get an internship!!! I've made it to the second stage of interviews for this internship and am hoping I can go all the way. I think I've been riding that high ever since.

I am still trying to work on my other classwork for other classes, so this class has been taking a bit of a backseat for some things, but it always is in my awareness, and I try to give all my attention to it when I can. I'm hoping things can be worked on a little more over the summer. At least on my end. My brain has been struggling to focus on more than one thing at a time lately, I think I'm just a bit overwhelmed, and so I've been trying to make it easier to focus on things.

It was a bit hard to focus on working on Monday, but not at fault of anyone. I felt so bad for Rianne, I wished I could do more to help then just buying her some meds and walking her to her car. She was in so much pain and it was hard to see. I was panicking on the inside a little bit. But everything worked out, and when I saw her on Wednesday she was doing much better, which was a relief. I don't know what our group would do without her. Our whole group is incredible, and I am just so so relieved to have them all both as support, and to support. Our thesis film is going to be amazing. I remember hearing that one of the senior groups still wasn't even fully done with their animation at this point this semester and the film is due in about two weeks?? I promised my group that I would not allow that to happen to us. At least not to that extent. I don't want us to be stuck with a product we are at the very least not happy with the effort of.

I just want us to have something we can be proud of, and can say we learned a lot from, and can then go into the industry with experience and skills that are not only technical but people and production based as well. I am tired and so now I do believe I will finish up this blog post. :)