What to do, what to do, what to do....
I'm confused. It's time to register for classes again, I'm not sure that I should. I think I may have gone through part of this in here recently, but I've sort of got another option in mind now, so I want to run through it again, and see if it helps me sort it out any better.
...I'm thinking about signing up for the second computer animation class at Cerritos College. This one is mostly just a directed production class. You go in with an idea of a film you want to make, and the teacher kind of keeps tabs on your progress while teaching the beginning class how to use the program. If I take classes, I'm going to take that, the lab class to give me more time to work with the school's computers, and probably life drawing, although that has a fair amount of out of class work to do, which no one seems to want to give me the time to do.
But I don't know if I can really manage going to classes this semester. I kind of think I need a job. But I don't really know if I've got any of my skills developed to the point that I'm likely to land any animation jobs. So I'll probably register for classes and attend them until I can find a job, so that I have to start paying my student loans, then drop.
There's still a problem with that, too. I don't know what kind of job to look for. After 18 months of getting my animation degreee, and about 3 years since then trying to get some animating done on my own while taking more classes to refresh my memory, I still don't know what specific area of animation I'd like to go into. I don't seem to get to spend enough time drawing to get faster at it, so I'm too slow to do story boards professionally. And although I'm getting better at it, I don't really seem to have the right vision for that yet, either. So I was thinking that maybe I need to make my own short film first, to better understand the different aspects of it, so that I really know what area of animation I want to get a job in. But I don't think I can complete a "real" short film in 18 weeks at Cerritos. At least not by myself. And having other people work on it with me kind of defeats the purpose of doing it for exposure to every area of the process. So I'm wondering if I should try going to stay with my mom for a few months where I have little else to do or worry about but work on a film, even if it means that about a quarter of the very little money I get would be going to make payments on my student loan.
I'm confused. Deeply. And I kind of need to make some kind of decision about this very soon.
...I'm thinking about signing up for the second computer animation class at Cerritos College. This one is mostly just a directed production class. You go in with an idea of a film you want to make, and the teacher kind of keeps tabs on your progress while teaching the beginning class how to use the program. If I take classes, I'm going to take that, the lab class to give me more time to work with the school's computers, and probably life drawing, although that has a fair amount of out of class work to do, which no one seems to want to give me the time to do.
But I don't know if I can really manage going to classes this semester. I kind of think I need a job. But I don't really know if I've got any of my skills developed to the point that I'm likely to land any animation jobs. So I'll probably register for classes and attend them until I can find a job, so that I have to start paying my student loans, then drop.
There's still a problem with that, too. I don't know what kind of job to look for. After 18 months of getting my animation degreee, and about 3 years since then trying to get some animating done on my own while taking more classes to refresh my memory, I still don't know what specific area of animation I'd like to go into. I don't seem to get to spend enough time drawing to get faster at it, so I'm too slow to do story boards professionally. And although I'm getting better at it, I don't really seem to have the right vision for that yet, either. So I was thinking that maybe I need to make my own short film first, to better understand the different aspects of it, so that I really know what area of animation I want to get a job in. But I don't think I can complete a "real" short film in 18 weeks at Cerritos. At least not by myself. And having other people work on it with me kind of defeats the purpose of doing it for exposure to every area of the process. So I'm wondering if I should try going to stay with my mom for a few months where I have little else to do or worry about but work on a film, even if it means that about a quarter of the very little money I get would be going to make payments on my student loan.
I'm confused. Deeply. And I kind of need to make some kind of decision about this very soon.