Three days later

Hello again everyone. 

As I write this, I have just finished my 3rd day of my after effects course and just beginning the advanced part today. If there is one thing I can recognise about myself, it's when I get tired. I'm not talking about physical fatigue, but that feeling you might get when you've been concentrating one thing all day like I have all this week. It feels like a mental marathon or any other type of long distance running. I think I've reached that bit in a run where you want to carry on but your body (in this case my brain) wants you to stop. There is no chance of jacking this course in, it's been so good so far, learning all about bits of the software that I didn't really understand or that I needed to take my best guess at...!

So although I want to consolidate today's notes and learnings into someone I can refer to another time, I just want to relax, have a few drinks and unwind, if only to get ready for the onslaught of new techniques and facets of After Effects that I am currently blissfully unaware of this evening. 

So with that I will leave you and say good night. Wish me luck for tomorrow, although I can't moan much - I'm not having to go to work at all this week. 

What a whiny bitch I've become eh?...lol

Peace,

SVD

Cardiff bound...

Well this week I'll be in Cardiff spending my time on an After effects course. I decided about 6months ago that I needed to 'invest' in myself and learn something that I could use in my film making. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I might actually like a career in VFX. Of course the journey from where I am to where I want to be is a long one, but I hope that this will be the fresh new start that I have been searching for.

The reason that I haven't made any videos recently is a melting pot of excuses, but in all honesty, I grew tired of trying to be someone in front of a camera that felt different to the real me. Sure, being crazy and random is fun and some people like that but the reasons that I started making videos are different now. These days I want to do interesting things with other film makers. I want to learn the craft of the process. I want to be naturally interesting because of the passion I have for the subject matter. 

So this is why during a rainy week in Cardiff, I am spending a week learning some tools of the trade and hopefully be a better after effects user at the end of it. 

Feel free to follow me on this journey for the next 5 days or so, as I intend to post some rambling blogs on YouTube as well as write some drivel on here too...

Tanks for staying interested and speak soon,

Snare.

Crisis

Hi guys - I know it has been such a long time since you have heard or seen anything from me. For that I truly apologise. Life has been a funny beast this last year, and its been so long that i might even make a video about it. I get these pangs of guilt about my own Youtube channel, where i realise how long it has been since I last spoke into a camera to my subscribers. part of my brain believes that it is due to how I'm now 33 years old - surely that is too old to still be doing this internet video lark...? then I just tell myself to stop being so full of it and really ask again...why aren't you making videos?

I think the first reason is a simple one. Since August last year, work has been exceptionally busy, leaving me with little or no motivation to 'work' on something when I come home. I've been working weekends as well as a full week at the office. My creative juices dried up it seemed, leaving me with a sense of just getting through it and looking to a future where I wasn't so busy.
 
Then it became clear that I wasn't following a path that I wanted, or that i had control over. everyone should have some control over their destiny in life - whether it be the small things like what you want to eat for lunch, to big stuff like what you feel you are here, alive on this shiny blue orb for. right now, I'm having one of the latter crises.

I have been still very busy on the film front, working with the lovely lads from Cerebral Visions on some short films and learning all the way. I guess this might have had something to do with the lack of snarevandamm videos. My expression was being pushed into my collaborative work on our short films, rather than my own personal babbling bollocks.

This must change.

I know that some of my subscribers are missing me - and while that feels great, I don't want that to be a good thing! I shouldn't be away so long to make them wonder if I'm dead or not. (mind you if you are reading this - I can assure you I'm not)

Life in general has become quite busy outside of work too, which is nice, but I've now realised that time away from work is more important that putting in 40-50 hours weeks every week. Yes, the extra money is nice, but I wasn't getting much chance to enjoy it. I've definitely realised that I am a social animal. I have real issues with having to decline a social gathering of any sort, because I have to work the next day. Actually it is even worse when the person inviting you has to ask "are you working that weekend" as if it has been named; been made real by the acknowledgement of a friend.
 
So, I'm not going to make any promises about a video soon because I don't know if I can back that up with actually making one. My heart is beginning to turn back to my youtube videos, but that is all I'll say right now.

Right I have to go do bits and pieces now, like eat dinner and do my homework (no joke, even at the age of 33) so I bid you farewell and tweet me if you feel like saying hello...

Peace,
SVD

https://twitter.com/snarevandamm