Throughout the Future Self module, I have learnt new skills from software that I either have little to no experience like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro to help me create the promotional video to promote Stockport College’s university centre for an industry client. The skills I have recently acquired are removing a green screen inside of Adobe Premiere Pro using an effect called Ultra Key and cutting footage out using the keyboard shortcuts such as the I and O keys. I have also learnt how to set up a WordPress website with a theme that works for me and add categories to sort my weekly blog posts into the correct modules.
The skills I need to develop more are my research skills as I feel like I haven’t done enough research at the start of the academic year. I could have added research to my blog about any content creators that I am inspired by and the work they produce to inspire me to create work at a higher level and quality than the projects I have created from previous years. I also need to develop my planning skills for pre-production of my future projects because I think I end up creating ideas which becomes rushed depending on the amount of time I spend on it.
My strengths are that I can work individually or collaboratively in a group when it comes to working on projects, and I can record the process on my blog without fail including any new skills that I have learned in software that I use. For example, I successfully created an environmental sequence with Oliver by animating most of the sequence using FlipaClip (which is easy to use and accessible) while he records a transition near the end of the sequence from animation to real life.
My weaknesses are that I overthink things usually when I’m under pressure or stressed about any part of the work process. As for my role for creating the promotional video as a producer, I disliked taking upon the role since my previous role was switched with the producer’s role because of my classmate’s failure to complete the tasks that they were set, only to pass on their responsibilities to me and I wasn’t confident enough at first to be the one to give the rest of my class the tasks they needed to do to collaborate towards the group version of the promotional video before creating our own version using Adobe Premiere Pro.
If I were ever to do the Future Self module again, I would plan my environmental sequence better using my research and ideas and take the time to animate the environmental sequence better because I animated it in a matter of hours before deciding to add a transition using footage that was filmed near Stockport College to make up for lost time. As for the promotional video, I would make sure the A Roll and B Roll are sufficient enough to begin editing instead of repeatedly having edit, review and then film more footage each week.
Jamie Norris 