As you can see, Monica had a captive audience for her AfterEffects demonstration! Learning any program in the Adobe suite can be challenging at first, with its key frames and time markers and the (dreaded) pen tool, but our girls definitely got the hang of it after a while.
We finished up the Tech Talk with Monica explaining how to add sounds to our animation, aligning sounds with text, and how to render your animation when it’s ACTUALLY complete (lol).
Now it’s time for the girls to ‘Geek Out’ in the AfterEffects world! Some are starting fresh from scratch, others are building off of files the facilitators provided for them.
As the girls worked, I asked Monica how she felt about the dorkShop. She was the primary facilitator today so it seemed a bit overwhelming, but seeing as this is her field and this is what she loves to do, I shouldn’t be surprised that she thought it all went very well.
“The general consensus with respect to our time constraints was that the Tech Talk went very well; and with this really really basic intro to the program, then can definitely move forward. If they want to go forth and experiment on their own they most definitely should — I mean, Georgia and Karen did. They came to the lab hours and worked a lot on their own, and now they’re on a great track.” Monica explained. “I think if someone really wants to undergo this path, they have to go through a lot of references and do a lot of research. The most important thing I want them to leave with today is that nothing is arbitrary. Everything is important, nothing is random.” Hm, definitely something to think on…
I went around to the girls as they finessed away on their computers, I got a couple of mixed reactions, which to be honest — I’d be surprised if I didn’t.
Mentee Samantha Y.C. thinks AfterEffects is very cool — and very different. Mentee Idamaris P. seemed reserved, saying that while it’s helpful to have so many options and ways to do things, the entire process of it all can be frustrating. Mentee Kathryn J., on the other hand, liked it a lot. “I’ve done a lot of work with Photoshop and all of their programs are pretty similar with lots of the same tools. I’ll probably be doing more traditional animation since I know how to draw well.”
It seems this venture will be a bit more difficult for the girls than the iMovie journey. But what is progress if not difficult? Right?….
…right?