Frustration Over The Unknown.

Today was a frustrating day, because I took a step into a world I knew very little about. As you know, I have been making little videos every few weeks to entertain and hopefully motivate those who watch them. Not the comedic ones, mind you, but the ones that are more like slideshows.

I’ve been using the very basic program, iMovie, to create these films. I’d draw in photoshop, record in garageband, and put ‘em all together in iMovie. The simplicity of the program is actually very good. I’m able to create results within hours, but my options with the program is very limited.

I thought it was time to try and bring the videos to the next level, maybe include some crude animations to the videos, that I’ve seen many people do with their videos on youtube. “I could animate like that!” I can draw a before and after sketch and flip back and forth between the two, and call it “walking.” No problem.

So I asked a person who is known for their videos, as well as studying film both during college and now during grad school. They’d know which program I should look into. I asked, and they thought I’d do well with Final Cut Pro.

And thus, that program was installed on my computer, and… Crap. I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. The shift from iMovie to Final Cut Pro is even MORE of a contrast than night and day. iMovie I could figure out what I wanted to do within a few minutes of trial and error, but with FCP, I’m staring at windows all over my monitor, overwhelmed and lost.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

So I spent some time on youtube, looking up beginner level tutorials on how to get myself running the program, and, that went nowhere.

The videographer also mentioned to me that another person who posts videos online uses Adobe After Effects. I downloaded CS4 last year and noticed that was part of the bundle, but I just never used it. I booted up the program this time, and once again… What the hell am I doing?

This time there were a few youtube videos that did result in some progress within the program, but then I shut the thing down because what I was trying to do on my computer wasn’t matching the video. “It’s not ****ing working!!!” With After Effects they talked about keyframes, which reminded me of Flash… So I gave up and tried booting up that program.

In the past I took flash courses in high school, and had an internship where I was being taught flash little by little everyday. So, at the very least, I had a clue with this one. I wasn’t completely lost with Flash.

But I was probably even more frustrated… Because this time, when I was stuck, the video tutorials were pretty much telling me what I was already doing, but when I did it, it came out wrong. And when they did it, it was beautiful.

I spent hours and hours just trying to learn a few basic things, just to get the ball rolling, and it made me think about how much I’ve absorbed in the programs I use everyday, without even acknowledging it.

Adobe Photoshop is up and running every day on my computer. There is not a single day when I’m not working in it, and at this point in my life, it all feels very natural. But I remember when I first started using it, I was only using it to scan in things, crop them, and then put them on sites a ten year old might use… Something like geocities.

That slowly evolved to drawings where I’d simply use the fill tool to color it in, and that slowly progressed where I was using a few photoshop effects here and there, eventually making comics, one thing leads to another, and now I’m getting paid to use the darn thing.

Fun thing is, I’m still experimenting and learning something new with photoshop to this day. I know I’ve skipped and ignored some very basic things the program can do, but I use it in a way that’s easy for me.

So, going back to film editing… It’s foolish for me to want to have incredible results within a few hours, but I just get frustrated anyway. I want to see instant results. I want the things I have in my head shared with the world.

But is that a good thing? I mean, yes, it’s good and vital to be educated in multiple things, but when it comes to a career in the art world, it took me a few years to realize that when my resume and portfolio show that I’m kind of all over the place, willing to do anything art related, the jobs were hesitant to hire me. Companies, in general, at least, need a person that has a specific talent, and to be really good at that. They fear a person who dabbles here and there, and remains at a beginner level because they don’t spend enough time gaining the experience to become a master at one of those crafts.

So I’m divided. Half of me believes it’s good to know these programs, because if I wanted to leave a freelance world, companies often want artists to know all of these programs, right? However, these same companies want to hire experts within their field, and not someone who dabbles for a hobby.

I’m a busy guy. Look at me. I can’t count the number of websites I’m working on with just one hand. I’m working on a comic once a week for free, and I’m writing a novel. I’m making those videos, I’m writing scripts for them, I’m drawing for them. I’m writing journal entries such as these… I’m working on a rock opera for goodness sake!

I even know what I want when I’m older. I know what I want to do. I’m not spending all of my time on all of these projects because I’m unsure of what it is I really want. No!

The problem seems to be, however, is that I want to create more than I can simply handle as a human being.

Like maybe if humans lived an average of 300 years, and there were 400 days in a year, 32 hours in a day… Maybe then I could handle all the ideas in my head on my own.

But for right now, boy do I feel scatter-brained.

And perhaps, it’s time to understand I could always use some help to get my ideas out there.

Can you animate?