2012 Goal Recap – How did I do?

Every year I blog goals, and then how I did with them. I wrote more about goal-setting on my Creative COW blog, but here are my goals from 2012 and how I did.

1. Focus on post-production work and seek out more narratives and/or documentary work.

I enjoy working on sets, but the end of 2011 had me thinking that if I was going to do freebie work in the area, it needed to be editing. Through the magic of networking and social media, I came across The Impersonators last summer and fulfilled this goal.

2. Shoot more stills.

My reason for shooting more stills is to increase my hands on skills with the camera, but also to get me out and telling physical stories. I shot a number of portrait sessions and eventually a wedding, so I surprised myself in surpassing my own expectations for this goal.

3. Get more involved in local film.

Well, I’ve met more people this year than any other year thanks in large part to Impersonators, and I officially joined our local filmmaker network (dues paid and all) so I can check this one off too.

4. Become comfortable with Avid.

This goal is what led me to commit to cutting Impersonators on Avid, which is a good example of how setting a goal in January can actually hold you accountable for something in July. There are about a dozen reasons why I’m glad I chose Avid for this cut.

5. Seek a professional or two in the community that works on Avid that I can learn from.

This was not entirely a success. I did connect with more professionals locally than before, but not specifically with Avid. And that’s fine because it doesn’t really matter. Plus, I’ve connected with a number of Avid editors online who have been able to guide me as needed.

6. Write something and have other people interpret it.

I’m kind of working on this, but it’s not a priority since it’s not editing. Maybe 2013.

7. Do a short with heavy VFX.

This is something that became less important as the year went on. I work in After Effects every day, but the stuff I do is rarely heavy on compositing. I did partially fulfill this in doing VFX for Ingenue, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

8. Move my website to WordPress.

Complete failure. My blog is on WordPress but the rest of my site is not, and that is stupid but I have server errors that are screwing up things that I haven’t had time to fix. Plus, I still kind of like my site, even if it’s not very Google-friendly.

9. Be a positive force online in video production.

I’d say I did pretty well at this. Even when I’m talking about irritating or heavy stuff, I try not to make it dark. So let’s say I did well at this one.

10. Maintain a positive and healthy attitude toward video editing.

With all the nonsense about 48FPS or Premiere and FCPX, it can be difficult to not commentate my cynical thoughts on everything. But I try to self-censor. I don’t censor myself to avoid conflict, I do it to avoid sending my own brain into a tizzy. I can always strive to do better with this, but I think I’ve done an alright job.