Art therapy

[gwyn]

Every day feels like a slog uphill through quicksand or something (mixing my similitudes there, but it's apt). It was easier last week, in some ways, when I was just home and trying to recover; this week there are wills and probate appointments and cards by the barrel and just stuff I have to think about and deal with. And no one local yet to take my sister's kitties, though there's been other offers elsewhere, much farther away. The one kitty I'm not sure can handle a trip, which is my major concern. It's all just so much *stuff* and so I am doing things like painting some of my kitchen and buying stuff and changing out the hardware in the kitchen. Mindless things. Work is good in that it takes my mind away when it's busy, but when it's quiet, I have too much time to think.

So I decided that buying my Euro-washer/dryer combo unit (one small tiny little machine, not stacked!) with the front loading (which I've always wanted, since it's energy saving and environtmentally better) washer and painting and buying expensive retro hardware wasn't enough, and tackled my La Femme Nikita vid again. Final Cut Express continues to dumbfound me, but in a weird way, the frustration and need to pound on the computer because I Do Not Get It is almost kind of therapeutic. I abandoned the vid when things just got too emotionally fraught with my sister's illness, and I just couldn't add that stress level as well. Plus, I'd hoped to make it for the Vividcon dance show but it got torpedoed, so then I wasn't as motivated to try to force myself to learn this damnable program for a vid with no end goal in sight.

I've finally started to figure the most basic of things out, slowly. Though the math stuff is still... I don't get it. It really, really upsets me, because I simply can't do things that involve math and numbers. I can't figure out why I can't see the audio waveforms, either, even though the box is checked. But the online manual -- I HATE online manuals because they are so cumbersome, especially when it's like this one at nearly 1,000 pages, and you can't just mark pages and flip back and forth to a glossary so you can figure out what the frickin' hell they're saying -- is both helpful and exasperating, but at least it shows me pictures of things, so I can kind of almost understand. Stuff wasn't behaving in my copy the way other people told me FCE should behave, but I'm starting to notice when that is, and using the manual to try to work around it -- at least, when I can understand what the manual is saying, which is about 50 percent of the time.

So I guess it's art therapy for my loss. I don't think the vid is going to be any good -- well, I know it's not, because I'm so busy trying to understand this effing program and figuring out how to achieve the things I want, then realizing I can't, and then trying to find another solution, that the story I wanted to tell is going to be lost inside it. And then I'm worried I'm going overboard on effects because I can. Having never had the ability to do some things, especially superimpositions, it could be that I'm going a little OTT with them all.

I'm definitely not making a lot of progress -- just 1:47 at this point, and honestly, in the time I've spent on this, I would have two four-minute vids done by now in iMovie. But at least it's something else to focus on besides work. Nothing really takes my mind off things, not as well as I'd like, but... I can't seem to write, so I guess vidding is it. I suppose that like any therapeutic activity, it won't be great art, but at least it's something besides crying.

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think the vid is going to be any good -- well, I know it's not, because I'm so busy trying to understand this effing program and figuring out how to achieve the things I want

I think the above statement goes for any program--you can't learn it and create brilliant things at the same time. One has to come before the other. I could show you some of my early Photoshops to prove my point--horrible, cheesy, pixelated, stupid Pieces of Shit.

[fishsanwitt]

It's *definitely* something :) ::hugs::

When my mother died, I stayed in school, even though I didn't know if I could concentrate on anything and it helped - b/c it forced me to think about something else.

I'm thinking of you.

[fiercy.livejournal.com]

*hugs* You know, I bet that video will be a lot better than you think to those of us who are watching and didn't know what you planned. But I get the frustration. And I get why the frustration would help, believe it or not.

[killabeez.livejournal.com]

Heya :-) Just stopping by to say that I'm glad to see you posting, and to hear about how things are going for you. You're in my thoughts. And art therapy is a tried-and-true coping mechanism for me -- I always write a lot more when things are bad than when they're good. {{{{hugs you}}}}

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I hope so -- and of course, it's hard to tell anything because any vid make syou crazy when you're working on it, but then later, when you look at it, all you see are the parts you had trouble with, and they loom so LARGE to you. You're sure everyone can only see the transparently horrible mistakes you made, or the problems you never figured out how to overcome.

Vidders are all crazy, though. ;-)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, usually I do write through my pain, but this one seems to be... worse than normal, I guess. Harder to feel my way through. But hating FCE is a good exercise in some ways, because I can vent all my frustrations on it, instead of my life. Makes a good scapegoat since it's so difficult and so intractable.