Monday, March 07, 2005

Pushing past your frustration

I'm not really a technology person, I consider myself more an artist.

Over the last few weeks, my partner and I have been upgrading our computer systems and essentially taking on some new technology in order to facilitate our art in a new way (computers can be great tools - even for the technologically impaired :))
So, one of the tools we bought is FLASH - to assist with web page design, but more importantly (in our eyes) to be able to create animated cartoons. (what can I say, we're young at heart.) The goal is to create several cartoon shorts, and one half hour cartoon as well (aim high)

Now, some of you may know - FLASH has a pretty steep learning curve.

I spent five straight hours on the computer on Saturday and by the time I was finished, all I'd accomplished was an animation of a little red ball moving across the screen and bouncing up and down...wow.

And I'm a fairly bright person, on my good days anyway.

So by Saturday evening, you could say I was feeling fairly frustrated. I thought - "how am I ever going to find the strength to learn this stupid program, and why doesn't it come with print manual" (I hate trying to read those help tutorials that are part of the program- exhausting.)

So, back to basics as it were. Start with what you know and move from the known to the unknown (as one of my old teachers used to say.) What I know is frame by frame animation. FLASH can do that very well. Sunday I sat down to do what I know and....

SUCCESS! - things are looking up- and using what I know combined with extra features present in the program, I was able to move past my frustration, create something I liked, and now I'm excited about future possibilities.

Just the simple process of starting with what I know and moving from there (simple, but somehow not obvious at the time) made all the difference.

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