Postgraduate Grotesque, Part 1
Let me just go ahead and warn everyone, it’s probably going to take several entries to fully articulate everything that has been going on with me physically and mentally. The next series of entries are going to be boring and irrelevant to everyone except me. I’m going to complain a lot and be severely emo but I do have hopes for some kind of positivity to shine through at the end of my ranting. You pretty much don’t have to read this and I wouldn’t blame you if you chose not to. With that said, let’s get started:
A few days before my final class, I was in a panic. I thought I would be finished sooner than I was but naturally, it didn’t work out that way. The only thing I really had left was to make a DVD, including setting up one of those snazzy menus and everything. That was all fine and good, except the professor never taught us how to do that. Steve said he knew of a program that was really easy to do and I could make it in five minutes. Awesome. So, a few days before my final class, Steve and I sat down and used the DVD making program. It wasn’t as easy as he thought it was. First of all, when we tried to use the customizable option, the program crashed on us repeatedly. We tried different computers and each one of them crashed. We then tried the “express” option and that worked but it was super janky, not professional at all. Great. Steve had to present his portfolio package the next day so he made due with the shoddy DVD he had made with the "express" option. I had two more days until I had to present so I had hoped I could talk to the professor about a different program that would work.
The next day, Steve and his group presented their projects. I was in the second group so I didn’t have to present until the next class. Some people’s DVDs looked really great and they named the program they used. I decided to use that program as well. So, after class, I sat down and opened up the program and had no idea what I was doing. I spent the next four hours looking up online tutorials and creating my DVD menu in the program. After I was finished, I was ready to burn. Unfortunately, the DVD writer wasn’t recognized on the computer so it didn’t write the DVD. All those hours of work for nothing! Once again, I thought it might be just the computer that was the problem so I went two a different computer and the same thing happened again. I stormed out of the building, frustrated that nothing worked like it was supposed to.
That night, I e-mailed a few of the people who had used the program and asked them if they were able to burn the DVD. The next day, only one person had e-mailed me back. The rest were douches and didn’t bother to help me out. Turns out, the jacked up program that Steve and I had used earlier was now causing the other program to mess with the DVD writing. She said she had to use a Mac to burn her DVD. Great. So, I went back to the animation building later that day and opened my PC created program on the Mac program. Of course, it didn’t recognize it. So, I had to create the DVD from scratch on a Mac. Fortunately, it didn’t take four hours like it did the first time. The only problem is now the aspect ratio was jacked up. While it looked perfect on the PC, somehow creating the program on a Mac created black bars on the sides of the menu and two reels. I tried going in and changing around the properties but nothing helped. Screw it. I was becoming frustrated again so I decided to burn the DVD as it was and if my professor wanted to complain, I would have just said it was the best I could do on my own (especially considering the fact that he didn’t bother to teach any of us how to do this).
The next day, I went in search for blank DVD cases and a thin/glossy paper that would make for a great DVD insert. I had taken out a DVD insert from another DVD earlier to check to see if a regular sheet of paper would be large enough so that I could print it out on my own computer. It was. That was great because I didn’t want to have to get an insert printed out at Kinko’s because surely there’d be a huge line of last minute students trying to get their flat books printed out that I’d have to wait through. Later on, I came back to my room with my materials and started printing. Firstly, I printed my DVD label several times. Steve had some DVD stickers he let me borrow but because of another bout of Mac/PC incompatibility, I couldn’t download the DVD template software onto my computer (‘cause I am the only one with a color printer) so Steve, Beau and I all had to guess as to where the template would go, which lead to multiple printings to get the image lined up to the DVD sticker.
After I finally got the image to print on the DVD label correctly, I then had the task of applying the label onto the DVD straight. I had a few DVDs that I had messed up and a few labels that I had messed up so I decided to use those to practice on. I did this while I was printing out the DVD insert. The DVD insert printed out wrong the first time so I had to go back into Photoshop and adjust it again and again and print again and again to get it right. I was surprised at how easy it was to apply the DVD labels so straight on the DVDs. I was ready to try the real thing. I applied it and it looked great! One thing out of the way. Now I had to get this DVD insert printed correctly.
Turns out, the piece of paper was long enough and I thought the image size was big enough but every time I’d print out the insert, the sizes all looked the same, despite me changing the size every time. Turns out, my computer was automatically adjusting the size of the image according to my margin settings. So, then I had to go in and mess with the margin settings, which caused even more print outs to happen. While I was printing out another insert, I decided to watch my DVD just to make sure everything was in working order. I popped the DVD in and realized I had used the wrong DVD. This is because I had burned several versions of the DVD because of the whole aspect ratio situation. Awesome. I then had to print out another DVD label and by this time, it was getting later on in the day and any progress I thought I had made was slowly dissipating.
After the DVD insert was printed out (and was still wrong), I went back and printed out the DVD label again. This time I was confident that I’d put the label on straight ‘cause I had done it so many times before. You know where this is going. I put the label on and it was slightly off. And this sticker wasn’t about to come off and be reapplied. That sucker was stuck on there. It wasn’t that big of a deal but because I am an Anal Andy, it bothered the crap out of me. Oh well, I didn’t have any more DVDs with me and I wasn’t about to go back to the animation building and burn another one. I didn’t have the time or patience for that so I decided to leave it.
After about half an hour of messing with the margins some more, I printed out the DVD insert and it was correct! Well, for about the first half of the page. Then it happened. The rest of the insert was faded. I was running out of ink, just as I had feared, just as I had finally gotten the insert correct!
I had to jump in my car and run down to Office Max to get some more ink. I came back and replaced the ink cartridge and printed the insert again. The ink was fine and I thought I had finally come close to finishing this garbage. But alas, when I went to put the insert into the DVD case, I realized it was too big! For the longest time, I couldn’t make the image large enough and now it was too huge. I couldn’t perform a simple trim job either because I had text on each side of the insert and if I were to do any kind of clipping, the text would be cut off. Back to the printer.
After several more adjustments, I finally got it correct. The DVD itself, along with the cover and all that looked decent. My flat book was done as well as my letterhead and resume. I was finally done! What should have taken maybe an hour or two at the most took all freaking day long. I was pretty much in a bad mood the rest of the day because I kept saying how I was supposed to be done, how I was going to have all of this free time on my hands and I ended up having to work almost up until the due date for my presentation. It’s just one of those things where things were much more complicated than they needed to be, how the little things add up to large frustrations.
And I forgot to mention my jacked up business cards. I used a company that my professor recommended and of course, they sucked majorly. First of all, I uploaded my image for the business card, complete with their template regarding where the card would be cut and the safe zone for including text. Well, my text was well within the safe zone yet when I received my cards, some of my text was nearly cut off. I also requested a portion of my card be glossy and when I got the card, it was not. I called and asked them what was up and she said they only did the gloss for the premium cards (which it does not indicate anywhere on their site). Despite the gloss, the card was still messed up so she said she’d send it back to the printer and I’d have my cards the day before my presentation. Well, with my craptacular luck I pretty much knew the cards wouldn’t get to me in time. They actually did, though, and the cutting error was somewhat fixed. My text still wasn’t perfectly centered and as I mentioned before, I’m really particular about those kind of things but I let it go because I didn’t wanna deal with it anymore. Beau got his cards a day after I did and his had the gloss on them. But he didn’t order the premium cards. So either he got really lucky or I just got screwed over…again.
I went to bed the night before my presentation thinking the worst was over. I was finished with all of my work! Although it was probably one of the most frustrating assignments I’ve ever been given because of the sheer goofs I had to surmount, I was at least done! As I pressed my face into the plaid pillow, I exhaled a sigh of sleepy relief and told myself the hard part was over. I had no idea that I was so completely wrong. My day of DVD frustration was just the beginning of my troubles…