Digital Media III

Digital Media III is coming to a close with only our final film presentations and this blog to go.

Media lecturer Rob Cover suggested for me to do this course and I'd always wanted to learn how to animate so I decided to take the challange. It was certainly that. The amount I have learnt in this course has been huge, for some one who barely knew how to use Photoshop let alone Flash or Premiere it was a huge learning curve. I managed to pick up most the skills and thanks to the help of Lisa and Josh and their patience with me constantly asking questions I was able to improve on my very basic and nonexistent skills.

I was surprised at how quickly I picked up the basic Flash folio skills which will be useful in the future. I also found that I picked up using a Wacom tablet in Flash and the short cuts quickly. Once I actually began animating I became faster and was able to churn out several scenes in only a few days. Over all I am really happy with what I have learnt and proud of what I have achieved in this course, especially considering my lack of skills and knowledge in digital media at the beginning. I like a challange and would much rather be challanged than bored in a course.

However, it's not just the skills and knowledge tht I'll be taking away from this course but the networks and new friendships that I have made. The architecture school has a real sense of community which I feel Media as a course is really lacking. At the start of this course I knew one person in the class but he dropped out before assignment one was due. This was the first course that I have ever had group work in and although we had our differences and difficulties in getting started the members of Nice Pear Studios have become quite close and I hope to keep these connections after the course.
I have also made friends with members of other groups who I hope to work with in the future.


DM III has taken my love for art to a new level and I am even considering studying Digital media next semester. I'm still thinking about this though because we would be using 3DS Max for 3D animation and I know nothing about that. But if I can learn basic Flash skills in as little as a week and if I work with the right group then I'm sure I can achieve it.

I really like the lay out of DM III with the different assignments designed to meet certain dead lines and learning to work in a group.This is much more relevant to any industry than working alone, as was reinforced in the lectures creating something takes many individuals working together for example pre-production, production and post production levels and all the individual roles with in these such as sound, editing, mixing, animating, directing, producing and the list goes on. A project won't work with out communication and collaboration.

On the topic of the lectures, I really enjoyed the People's Republic of Animation lectures and their knowledge and experience as well as their contacts with people in the industry. The examples that we were shown in lectures were daunting but inspiring.

I definitely found not having my own lap top, the Adobe suite and at times even the internet at home a disadvantage as getting a computer in the school with the programs required was very difficult at times. However, over all DM III has been a fantastic, though stressful experience and I am really glad that I chose to study this course.