My first day at Confetti college was overall, a pleasant and educational experience. Even in the very beginning, meeting new people and introducing myself to the class encouraged me to revisit some skills that I haven’t used in a while. I stepped out of my comfort zone practised communication, observation and initiative. Throughout the day, learning new things and pushing myself to exceed expectations has motivated me to jump back into routine and focus on improving myself in the areas that I am weak at. I enjoyed exploring different programs and a new setting and I was presented with a lot of information that I sometimes struggled to process and remember. I liked the challenges and tasks given to me, and I feel that with every day that I am at confetti, my independence and perseverance will be stretched, which makes me excited for the future, as I know that I will most definitely grow as a person.

 

 

The work we did on the first day was stimulating but also not overly complex or difficult to follow. We were introduced to two new programs and learnt some of the basics on how to operate them. For Premier Pro, we created a trailer composed of a sequence of short clips which were provided. It was up to us to choose which clips to include, the length of each and in what order to put them together, using some of the knowledge obtained the previous lesson, on what video editing is and what impact it has. I found it quite interesting to be able to see what a profound impact music choice and choice of clip and length has on the atmosphere of a trailer and how much it changes the perspective the audience has on the narrative. My favourite part of the day, however, was when we made our first animations. The task was to arrange a group of images (grass, trees, sun, etc.) into layers, that made a plausible image, created a sense of depth and allowed us to animate.

 

 

By using skills that I had already learnt in Adobe After Effects from the previous lesson, I was able to transform the shapes and program them to do various things, such as rotation, movement from point to point, and change opacity, which was crucial to changing the sky from day, to sunset, to night.  

 

 

Using an example video with the target result, I decided on how many seconds it would take for the different components to disappear and change, eventually leading up to the night sky with the moon. By inserting star shapes, I also succeeded in adding stars to the night sky, which appear as the moon is rising. Overall, it was an extremely gratifying experience and I am really happy with how it turned out. If I had more time, I would try to add a glow to the sun, stars and maybe moon, to make it even more realistic.