dailypixel Network :: Update
Beginnings.
In 1996-97 I attended the Vancouver Film School's New Media full-time program. Macromedia Flash was just in the process of making the rugged transition from FutureSplash Animator to Flash 1.0 to Flash 2.0., few cared. Director was all the rage, and CD-ROM's were peaking in popularity. It was an intense program, many felt that it was too much ground to cover in just over a year. From 3D animation, to digital audio creation and editing, digital design, internet programming, and digital video creation and editing. In retrospect, it was an insane amount of ground to cover, and the school was open 24 hours for a reason. We were always there. Sleeping on couches waiting for files to finish rendering was a regular sight, finding a vacant one was the tough part. The .bomb era was just about to take off like a rocket, the buzz and electricity in that school reflected the anticipation of the times.
Despite the incredible experience, the general prevailing feeling amongst myself and colleagues was that we were 'jacks of all trades, and experts in nothing'. We had all made a major financial sacrifice for this education, we were capable of doing so much but the number of employers at that time who could truly utilize our full repertoire of state-of-the-art multimedia skills was still very small. Also, the 'state-of-the-art' part was a target that few, even the course creators could've imagined would move as fast it has, and will continue going forward no doubt. The day you left their electronic den, you were obsolete and the industry you were trying to penetrate was in constant flux, and very immature. There was a hidden committment behind acquiring those skills at that time. Become a student for life, or lose 80%-100% of what you've just paid so dearly to learn.
What is clear to me today (or, as Steve Jobs likes to call 'connecting the dots') is that the VFS program provided the ultimate foundation and springboard for learning many components in the new media technology spectrum. An instant career it was not.
I had been creating digitally for years, but having an empirical understanding of how to learn and train digitally wasn't something I was truly exposed to until I walked through the halls of VFS.
Much of the actual detail of what I learned at the Vancouver Film School has faded from years of upgrades, re-writes, re-prioritization and discontinuations or stored on dust-covered Bernoulli disks that make for better conversation pieces than storage devices.
But the obsolescence of my education will never delete the two most valuable pieces of data that got hardwired into my brain from that experience as it relates to digital media; never stop learning, never stop creating.
Without that experience, I never would've downloaded Ben and Mena's first child, and my love affair with CMS and all things blog-related never would've transpired.
Never stop learning. Never stop creating.
Welcome to Dailypixel Network.
0 comments
