Presenting

When a portfolio or just a piece of art is being presented, not only is the art being judged but so is the artist, so I would like to talk about something’s that I have learned about presenting, myself. To start off, you need to make sure that you, yourself looks presentable. If you do not look appropriate, or maybe you just look like a fool, the audience is not going to even pay attention to what your presenting, but they are going to be paying attention to how ridiculous you might look. So bottom line is to just dress to impress. Second, I would have to say is how you speak. Odds are if you are presenting something that is of importance, you are going to want to speak proper English, and you are going to want to speak it well. You should not be standing in front of an audience speaking slang. For one not a lot of people can understand or follow along with it, and for two it just doesn’t even sound good. You should not be saying the word “like” every other couple of words and you should not be pausing and saying “umm…” When you are presenting something that is yours and that is supposed to be something that the audience likes, you should be doing everything that you can to sell it. It is really hard to follow along with a speaker when the speaker doesn’t even know what he/she is saying. So try and have an idea of what you will be talking about and stick to it. Along those same lines would have to be, know everything there is to know about what you are presenting, after all it is YOUR art. So that when someone in the audience asks you a question about one of your pieces, or why you did something you did, you don’t have a stupid answer like, “I don’t know,” or “cause I thought it would look cool.” Try to sound a little intelligent about what your saying. And last but not least is Posture and eye contact. Don’t be standing there in a slouch with you hands in your pocket swaying back and forth or leaning on something. Stand up straight, with a positive attitude (like you actually are proud of your art) and sell it. Be energetic about it, it’s ok to talk with your hands, I’m not saying to spin around the room doing a helicopter, but keep the audiences attention, and look at them! Don’t look down at your hands or the floor or just be staring at your art the whole time, but look at who you are talking to, it is so much more personal that way, and it makes them feel like they have to be paying attention to you (even if they don’t want to).

Oh and one last thing…BS! It’s ok if you don’t know the answer to something or if you don’t know what to say about something, but don’t not have a good answer! Make something up that you know they want to hear or you know would be the right thing to say. Because answering a question with “I don’t know, I forgot, or because I thought it would look cool” is not ok. Make something up, its just a little white lie.

Word Press

I am currently working on designing a web site using Word Press. If you are not familiar with Word Press, it is a blogging web site that you can customize to make it like a web site in itself. So far it is pretty neat, I have learned all the basics in a week, and there is so much more to learn.

From what I have found out, you can customize everything from the layout of the pages to what exactly the pages contain. You can choose from a ton of themes that are already preloaded on the site, or you can build your own.

When you are blogging, you can make it so no one can comment on your stuff or you can just leave it open. You can go into the HTML and customize your page that way.

I’d have to say the coolest thing about Word Press is that you can customize the CSS just as much as much as you can customize the HTML. This make it so much easier to make your web site different from all the others, and it is also easier to get the page looking exactly how you want it to look.

I would recommend Word Press to anyone who is looking to build their own for free, or if you are afraid to do it on your own, it would be cheaper to have someone build a Word Press site rather that have them completely build it from scratch.

Using Templates

Using templates when making a web site can make the job so much easier. Rather than have to worry about weather or not your html will match up on all the pages, you just type the html once and define your editable regions once. The editable regions are where you can add whatever you want on different pages. And when it comes to the navigation bar, the templates are useful in the way that you only have to link your buttons once. You don’t have to go to each page and link every button. That could be a pain if you have around 3 or more pages, I’ve seen sites with over 15 pages, could you imaging linking all those buttons individually?

Templates can also be a bad idea sometimes. Yes, they do help with the conformity of all your pages, but they do make it difficult to add different creative flare to separate pages. When you make your template and its editable regions, only the editable regions can be changed throughout the different pages, but the rest of the page is going to look exactly the same as the others.

I, myself like using templates, I think they are so much easier than the alternative and a lot quicker. When you are doing a job for someone and you have a deadline to meet, quicker is definitely nicer. and when it comes to adding conformity over creative flare, I’d rather my site look neat rather than have no flow.

Designing in CSS

When creating a web site, CSS is supposed to make it easier. CSS helps you define how the elements of your HTML will be displayed. Generally HTML is only supposed to define the content of the document, then CSS comes in and gives the HTML some or a lot of style.

Designing a web site with CSS is not meant to be easier than just using HTML, but it does help the site look more professional. When designing a site using CSS it is easier to have the site do what you want it to do and keep it that way.

Using CSS you can lock certain objects in certain spots and have others move where you need them to when you need them to. The possibilities of how to make a web site using CSS are endless.

Creative Writing 1: be visual

So I’m not sure of the exact date, but I know it was around 8^th or 9^th grade. It had to have been near the summer cause that’s paintball season and it was hot as balls out side, it must have been around 100 degrees. It was a very clear day with not a cloud in the sky. And there must have been 50 teams and hundreds of fans for all of those team’s there to watch, the place was packed. My paintball team (Chain Reaction) and I were out at Central Florida Paintball, which was Sinister Paintball at the time. We were there playing in one of the paintball series they put on. We were in the middle of one of the last games in the finals, and our black and yellow uniforms had pink and green smeared paint all over them from previous games. The adrenaline was pumping and we only had 2 minutes left in the 5-minute game. We had all five of our teammates left on the field and they only had three. Our front left player, Dane, decides to move up to a bunker closer to the fifty in order to get a better view of the opponent he was about to shoot. Just as he moves up to his new bunker the other guy pops out just in time for Dane to shoot him. Now the game is five versus two. The other team is loosing and the guy that was just shot out is not very happy and decides to turn and run towards Dane, with the rest of my team still in the game and spread across the field. None of us knew why the guy was running at Dane, but it wasn’t normal, it looked as if he was going to try and fight our teammate. So in order to protect Dane, my whole team including me turns and with 30 balls a second, lights up the guy, mid run. At each paintball marker shooting 300 feet per second, the guy had nothing to do but stop and duck for cover till we stopped. After the hail of balls on the moron’s upper torso let up, he turned around, and with better judgment, walked to the dead box like he should have in the beginning. After the game was over he came over to apologize. He had so much paint on him he looked like a color wheel. You couldn’t even see his jersey through all the paint. When he lifted his shirt up to show us our damage, he had purple and blood red circle welts all over his chest and stomach. Maybe next time he will calm down and think about his actions before trying to follow through with them. We went home with 4^th place prize out of 23 teams that day which was entry to their next tournament. Not too shabby for our first major tournament as a team.

Rendering

When scheduling your time to complete a project that needs to have render time, you need to make sure and give yourself enough time to be able to render your project at least three times before your deadline. I say you need enough time for three times only because you will most likely always see something that you can change, something that might look better a different way. And I say at least three times because you never know how many things you are going to want to change. When you are handing in your animation, you want to feel confident in what you are handing in. If you don’t feel confident in your work, why should your client?

Just as it is good to storyboard your video before you actually start to work on the computer, it is good to at least have a day-by-day plan on what you will be accomplishing on your animation. Always keep in mind that rendering out your work can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours all the way to a couple days. And you don’t want to be stuck with nothing to hand in come dead line time.

-George

Working in Groups

Working in groups can be a great help and it can also be a hindrance. I am in the middle of a group project in one of my animation classes right now and everything seems to be going well for us. Almost everyone in the group seems to be trying to help out as much as possible. I feel no matter what, there will always be someone who doesn’t help out as much as everyone else, sense no one is identical. So it doesn’t bother me when not everyone gives 100 percent. It bothers me when there is people or peoples that don’t want to help. But I feel that weather you want to be in a group or not, you are there, so make the best of it. I’m not having too much problems in m group, besides the one bad apple that everyone is going to have at least one of. In fact I feel that everyone is trying as hard as the can and everyone keeps checking up to see if there is any help needed. On the other hand it’s not bad to ask for help if you need it, it is also helping the group when you get what you are supposed to be doing right the first time. It’s not a bad thing to ask for help, it is actually a good thing.

Then again, I guess I don’t have too much to complain about in my group. I actually got placed in a good one. I like working in groups from time to time, because there are a few others to go to that actually know what is going on when you need help. And they are also there to share them same amount of stress when the time is starting to run out or when your client or in this case teacher is breathing down your neck. I’m not so concerned about my group as I am more concerned about the other two. One group lost a group mate, and the other only has one that knows how to use the program half way decently, but my parents always told me to worry about my self and not what others are doing around me. So I guess we will see what the outcome looks like.

-George