My Leadership Strengths

"Be a True Heart Not a Follower."

I've never thought of myself as a leader. Definitely a follower, or worried mother-type trying to prevent her children from doing something stupid, or simply a quiet suggester, offering up ideas hoping someone else will put them into action, but never a leader. That is until I took the Gallup Strengthsfinder quiz, which turned my skills into leadership qualities that I could use to be a better leader. My Top 5 Skills were Deliberative, Input, Restorative, Intellection, and Futuristic.

Input describes people who have a natural curiosity and crave knowledge. They constantly file things in their minds to hopefully one day use this compiled knowledge to their advantage. This is completely accurate for describing me because, while I might not seem like I'm paying attention or participating, I'm actually just observing, and especially listening, to everything that's going on, picking out the pieces of information that are most important and will be most valuable in the future.

Deliberative describes people who take serious care in making decisions, weighing out all the pros and cons of every choice. They also anticipate obstacles. This is true for me because I always, in my head, plan out my routes and plans of action for everything. I plan everything out so I can avoid awkward or uncomfortable situations. That is one reason why I don't talk very much, because if I'm not prepared enough for the exact approach I have to take, then I'd rather say nothing at all than risk embarrassing myself in front of people.

Futuristic describes people who are inspired by the future and what it may bring. I very much live my life thinking about and planning for the future. I guess I just set goals for myself for my future because it's easier (and more fun) to think about the possibilities, the dream, than staying stuck in reality where I may not be the best circumstances or have the best chance to do what I want with my life. It's better to think about the future, to hope that everything will get better, that everything will all work out in the end.

Restorative describes problem solvers, people extremely adept at figuring out what the problem is being able to resolve it. I'm not necessarily the most verbal in addressing problems, but I guess I'm just more of a brain behind the situation. I like to figure things out and feeling the satisfaction of being able to solve them.

Intellection describes people who are introspective and like to think. I am always thinking about anything and everything, sometimes on a specific topic or task, and other times, just letting my mind run wild and seeing where it takes me. I love listening to people and the intellectual discussions (or stupid conversations) they have, even though I'm not as likely to take part. People fascinate me, everything fascinates me, and I like thinking about what other people think about and how they think. My mind is a never ending brainstorm.

This whole experience, with finding out that my natural qualities actually have leadership value, was very, for lack of a better word, enlightening. I've never thought I had many skills or that the few skills I had actually had any value. These little things that I do- collecting information, anticipating obstacles, planning the future, solving problems, and nonstop thinking- never seemed very important to me. But this experience, the interaction between everyone, and seeing who thinks like I do or whose mind works in similar ways was incredible to me. My involuntary processes and mindsets are strengths, and those strengths have value. Amazing.

Monsters University

An Adventure into the World of Sound Design

For my role as Sound Designer for our 2015 class short film, I read the article "Watch a Complete Sound Design Breakdown for a Scene from Pixar's Monsters University" by Joe Marine on nofilmschool.com. Now it wasn't so much an "article" as it was an explanatory video, but it was still beneficial to me in explaining somewhat what a sound designer might do and how the different elements of the designs work cohesively in the final product. 

It was particularly interesting hearing the sound design process for Monsters University from Tom Myers, the actual sound designer for the film, because it, being an animated film, provided a sort of extreme instance in which sound must be handled. The entire Monsters University world had to be created from the ground up in terms of sound. There is no reference in the real world as to what that world sounds like, other than Monsters Inc., which Monsters University is a prequel to and which had to be taken into account when considering technology.

Tom Myers talks about trips that were taken to college campuses early in the process to record sounds and get a clearer idea of what the film needed to sound like to be an accurate representation of a college, as well as the energy in the atmosphere that needed to relate between the animation and the sound to make it realistic.

He also broke down a scene from the film into the different types of audio that were added one by one to create the complex, "bulky" scene. He started with the voice audio, playing just that to the animation, then switched to just the crowds, then the music, and sound effects, and finally foley. He than put all these elements together, after describing which speakers each would be set to to create certain effects (such as playing the crowd noises on the overheads because of the crowds' position above and around the main characters, and to make the voices on screen clearer), and played the final mix of the scene. It was interesting being able to pick out individual noises in the scene after knowing they were there instead of just hearing it all as just one big noise.

So the process of creating/editing the sounds was tedious and bulky (referring to the shear amount of different sounds and effects that had to be worked into each scene), but the attention to detail that went into the film made it that much better. 

The article, while not containing much content text-wise, was very interesting and provided me with a better idea of what I need to do to make our class film sound amazing.

Here's the link to the article: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/monsters-university-soundworks-collection