Dudes, if I hadn’t gotten like 4 hours into that After Effects course before taking on this assignment, I’d be writing this from the unemployment line.
Here’s the scoop: Client company scheduled an impromptu townhall with CEO and executives to take questions from employees. How impromptu? Assets were sent today at like 2pm and the event is on Thursday, two days from now. When I got the Illustrator files (did I mention I never used Illustrator before this, either? Thankfully the course went over how to import Illustrator stuff into After Effects) they came with a directive to try and get a first animation done by the end of the day. Sent at 2pm. “End of the day”. I was sweating profusely and it wasn’t just the covid organisms getting nervous on my behalf.
Well, open swung the laptop and I got to work, praying I could create something deliverable by the end of the day. With painful meticulousness I followed the orders of operations I learned from the course. Separate the illustrator image into top-layers, label them, export, import as footage then create composition etc. etc. Once I got to the (very simple) animating part it was actually smooth sailing. 3 hours later I sent off two deliverables, one in German and one in English, and my boss was very impressed.
I’m not kidding. If I didn’t brush up on this stuff exactly when I did, what I finished today would’ve taken me 7+ hours. Nothing like a little trial by fire, right?
Anyway, the picture is from my balcony, which gets decent light sometimes. These should be coming out more punctually as my strength returns. Feeling a solid 60% today although my heart did race like a maniac once, just from getting up to use the restroom.
See you tomorrow.
Nick
Nick Denardi 