Futures and Options Speaker Event 4/17/2020

     On 4/17/20, we got to attend an online Futures and Options event where we got to listen to the advice of many guest speakers about a particular CS field. The event I attended was about animation, a field I'm quite curious about and interested in learning more about. The speaker for the event was Jacob O. and three questions I had prepared to ask him were "How can I get started animating?", "What are a few skills needed to be a successful animator?", and "What are a few challenges in a collaborative animating environment?". Jacob has been an animator for several years and he was very informative about what it's like to animate with others. He said it could get hectic and changes to the story could happen last minute, so animations are sometimes thrown out. A piece of advice he gave was not to become too attached to your work in such environment since you could've been putting a lot of time and effort into your scene in one instance and in the next you could be told it's no longer needed and a new scene must need to be worked on. When working in a team, he described it was best to let go of your ego for the sake of the project as a whole. It was important to be open to other ideas and compromise when some people may have ideas that conflict with your own.
     As for getting started with animations, he recommended a free animating software to get started, Blendr. He encouraged us to look online for a multitude of free animating tutorials and courses in order to get familiar with the practice and sharpen our skills. Some important traits he expressed it was good to have was to be able to draw and to be able to learn and adapt to new things. He also expressed that it was important to ask others for help when you get stuck and to practice. When it seems hard to ideate, he encouraged us to look into other mediums such as live-action to get some ideas for ourselves. Lastly, he ended the event by saying how we're more than our work and we should never let it be the sole thing that defines our lives, it's important to make bonds and connections with others and have people encourage you along the way.