Week 2 | Update

Wow it has been a big weekend of learning for me! I thought that it would be timely to do this update thang each Sunday night when I finish assignments, upload things to DDB or Blackboard so I can track my progress. Well I have uploaded my Draft Concept Brief and Storyboard to DDB this afternoon and made significant progress today/tonight so here is my sanity check. :P)

Lecture 1 WAS A MONSTER. I don't know how other students found it but the volume of information that was in that 61 page PDF was STAGGERING! Interesting but overwhelming is another way of saying that, actually it was more than interesting, it was amazing. I am one of those people (early adopter) that must have every new gadget as soon as it becomes available, I usually have Google alerts set up for anything new and interesting in technology way before most people and become well conversant way before the products hit the market. That may seem irrelevant but in terms of digital media an being asked to think about it in a historical context I was quite flabbergasted by what I didn't know. I had no idea that it went back so far in time! So for me this whole weekend was just a complete trip. The 45 degree weather on Saturday helped in that it was better hiding indoors than out.

But seriously, that was a monster lecture, it took me two full days and I reckon 14hrs plus to get through before I provided some feedback to Cathie about the volume of content and she advised that I was able to be more selective about my areas of interest. Regardless of that I regret nothing because I know now more than I ever did about the history of film and digital media. Watching all of the YouTube videos (YES I WATCHED THEM ALL!) was an incredible journey. Totally fascinating. Just getting through that lecture however so that I could post my thoughts to this blog was a arduous task only in that it really took my time and full concentration.

But then on top of that was all the module readings, which I am yet to gain access to on Books 24x7, plus the actual course outline, the workshops, setting up the blog, posting thoughts to Lecture 1 on my blog, using the BlackBoard to discuss stuff (even just in the welcome forum) and Module outlines themselves... it already seemed to much even though I was enjoying it and I had barely started gathering my thoughts on the Concept Brief and Storyboard for assignment one yet, when I found all of the Lynda.com tutorials (BTW what a stupid name for a online learning system??).

And so it is about 10:30pm on Sunday night and I have been at it since 10am this morning which makes for a full 12hr day of learning about Digital Video and I must say my enthusiasm has not waned one iota. I am more pumped full of ideas and creative information now than I have ever been. If only 3D modelling and Animation last year had some tutes on Lynda.com for modelling! God that would have been good.

So these tutes on Premiere CS4.. I opened with hesitation after having a minor log in problem only allowing access to the first 3 modules, I thought.. meh.. .yeah whatever... I know how to use the interface, I know the basics, dont waste too much time. But such is the curse of the early adopter who thinks he knows everything, was I about to be taught a lesson.

It is the intricacies and finer points of being able to use those buttons that up until now I had just thought were fancy show pony buttons I didn't need. Boy was I wrong. The tutes are fantastic! A must see. Especially the tips about using the Program VS Source window. Up until now I had always just imported my clips straight into Bins in the Project window, and then edited on the timeline. I used ins and outs, I cut chopped, ripple edited and locked audio to cut video and vice versa, but never had I bothered with the Program window! What a waste of time I thought! Now I see the error of my ways. Capturing clips to you project window is the basic, but now I see how you can do most of your pre-production in the program window, batch bunches of clips from the same source to the timeline and change one without the other, log ins and outs that can be drag and dropped on the timeline, inserts and overlays.. OMG so many things that I didn't know!

These dribbled late night random unfocused over tired thoughts are probably not very cohesive but to me in short mean a new world of digital editing. The exact reason I wanted to put the theory to the 'madness' of what I thought I knew has all of a sudden in one short day become completely validated. I feel so happy to know that after years of doing sub par courses at other unnamed places of education that this has been worth my persistence. I am finally learning everything and more than I ever wanted to know.

I often find that after reading more and learning from hands on experience that I would have gone back and done things differently. As with today's submission to the DDB, I now have tonnes of ideas about my collage project collecting in my mind about how I will complete that assignment. I want to rewrite and resubmit my concepts but understand that this is the process of learning, no need to really, just refocus and make it a work of progress, learn as I go, do by doing, and make it the best I possibly can. I am so excited I can virtually hear Hollywood knocking my doors down!

Yours sincerely, the mentally fatigued, Surrealist film maker to be... aka Dan Black.