Learning Experience #4: Super Danielle

         This semester I was lucky enough to take the post-production class in the Film/TV/Digital-Media department. Wanting to eventually work in the post production part of the industry, I was extremely excited to take this class from my favorite teacher in the department. Having taken two classes from this professor last semester, I knew that he would be one of those teachers that I would have to take again and again.
         I had taken motion graphics last semester which also deals with post work and I loved it. For the final project in that class, I had to work with the green screen to create a project. Many people chose to put themselves in a scene from a film or make themselves teleport from place to place. I got inspiration from one of my childhood loves: Super Mario. I re-created the entire Super Mario world and put myself in as Mario. I called it the ever clever: Super Danielle. The video is down below if you want to see how it turned out and go along with my shameless self promotion:

         As most people, I've never been extremely confident in my projects and abilities. Coming from a department where everyone always has such great ideas, it's hard to be able to distinguish yourself from your peers. Throughout the entire process, I was not sure how the end result would come out. I feared looking like a complete weirdo in front of my peers. When the day came around where I had to show the final project, everyone in the class clapped after my video was finished. I think I even heard a "Go Girl!" from the crowd. My professor was extremely supportive-as he always has been. He came up to me after the class and told me what a great job I had done and that he was very impressed with my work. I felt a sense of relief after the class was over. I felt confident and that I truly did a great job with my project.
        Taking post-production with the same professor this semester, I was both excited and nervous to take the class. I was excited because I knew I would be learning rich information but I was also nervous because I was afraid to let my teacher down. I did not want to go below his expectations of me-which I think is common for most honors students. Because I knew that this was the specific part of the industry I wanted to go into, I felt a big responsibility to do the very best in the class. I was trying my best to distinguish myself from the rest of the class again. I was intimidated by others that I knew were good editors, but I was very open to accepting and growing from their expertise.
        One of our projects was editing a scene from the TV show 24. I was extremely excited to work on this as we had footage from the actual show. It all felt real and seemed to mimic the setting we would be in in the industry. I worked diligently on the project, however, like most students, when I finished the project, I did not feel confident about it at all. When the time came to show all of our projects, my heart was beating so fast. We all gave critiques and compliments to each video, however I knew that I was my own worst critic.
        After viewing all of the projects, my professor said something that stuck out to me. He said something along the lines of "You see, not one of these projects is the same. Everyone cut their projects so differently-but you can see how each of the projects had their strengths." I think that that dialogue was something that I so badly needed to hear. I realized that I needed to stop worrying about comparing myself to other students. I had my own strengths and my peers had theirs. Not one of us is the exact same and we will never do things the exact same way, but we are all right in our paths. Although it took some trying, I'm now happy with the place I am in in both my studies and my career path. I know that I am unique in my own way. I understand that instead of comparing myself to others, the best I can do is to just learn from them. It's a lesson that has taken me some time to understand, but I am so glad that I know it now.