Having the college experience seems like a dream come true. I can party all night, hang out in the shopping areas, and get whatever I want without my parents telling me what to do. During the past summer, I stayed at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) for a month in the CSSSA/Innerspark Program for inspired artistic high school students. I thought as a young 15 year old student in the Animation department, that I had the freedom to do anytime and anywhere but as it turned out, I was wrong. On the third week of the program, my chairperson of the Animation department, Lori D., assigned our big final project. She was about average height, skinny, wore glasses, and would always carry a clipboard that had her attendance sheet and announcements. The final project was extremely significant since it held most of our college credit. Whenever we were in doubt or our minds went blank for every assignment, Lori D. would always say, “Go crazy!!” After my class ended for the day, I walked to my dorm room and started to storyboard my idea. Creating my own seemed like a piece of cake, but things became a lot tougher. I had only a week to finish my animation and I needed to schedule a time where I could record my drawings/cutouts and sound. Everyday after class, I would come back to my dorm until 9pm to work on my project and stayed up to at least 2am to finish. It was very difficult since I had caught a cold and became extremely tired. Usually about 9:30pm one of my roommates, Tiffany, would come in always say, “What are you working on now?....I feel so sorry for you and you guys always have a little sleep.” After my two restless days, I was to shoot all of my frames in a split second. I was scheduled for about an hour for Saturday and Sunday. It seems like an hour was a long time, but when I attempted to finish most of them, my time was almost up. Luckily, the person who was supposed to finish their project after me wasn’t really ready, so I took that advantage to finish what I wanted to complete. On Sunday after I came back from the Getty Museum field trip, I had only an hour to record sound that I wasn’t prepared for. With the help of one of my tall, proud teacher’s assistants (TA), Melissa, it was a delight that she could direct me to prevent my animation from becoming a silent film. I had to transfer my movie using a flash drive to another computer and download sounds to each section to match my animation piece. Melissa was able to determine what would be best for my movie. When I highlighted to the part where it had starlight colors appear and disappear, Melissa and I went to soundsnap.com to check out some twinkling star sounds. “Let’s see,” hesitated Melissa, scrolling down the list of sounds, “Aw, let’s check this one out….no that’s not the one we’re really looking for.” As Melissa was struggling to find the right sound, my other skinny, calm, and heartwarming TA, Kate, was striking her keys on her xylophone, and Melissa and I looked at each other knowing that it was the sound we were looking for. Melissa asked, “Kate, could we use your xylophone and your keys….it seems perfect for this part.” Kate happily answered, “Sure, no problem…I’m just going to step out for a moment…call if you need me.” As she left, we recorded the sound of striking keys on a xylophone with the microphone. I struggled to duplicate the sound but it turned out fine in the end. Luckily, just in time, I had finally finished my final project and I was able to relax for two more days until our showcase. On the last week, two days before our graduation ceremony, our Animation department had our showcase at “The Bijou” to show to other people. When I came in, a lot of people showed up and my stomach turned upside-down. I was completely nervous because I didn’t think my animation was good enough compared to my other classmates, and some of the parts I wanted in my project wasn’t able to fit in on time. Once the show started, it showed everyone’s projects since the beginning of the class. “Wooaahhh!” the audience praised at our works. Then the final projects came. When my animation came up, I immediately covered my eyes and bowed my head, feeling ashamed of my work. “Please tell me when it’s over,” I whispered with a worried look on my face. Suddenly I heard laughter and cheering from other people, and I remembered that one of the parts was extremely hilarious based on what happened to my roommate, Tiffany. After awhile, I didn’t feel so embarrassed. After this whole experience, I felt very confident in my work. No matter how terrible I believe my work would be, I know for sure that if I work productively then someone would enjoy what I’ve progressed. At first I wasn’t confident that I would be able to finish my project in time for the showcase and that it would be awful, but afterwards, I was able to finish my key pieces, and when my project came up on screen the audience cheered and was able to regain confidence. I realized that with the support of my friends and other people from my department, I was able to have the courage to create a fabulous project that I can show to other willingly interested viewers.
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