My introduction to Blender was back in early 2006, around the time that Elephant’s Dream was being finished up and released. I found Blender as part of a search for programs that I could use to do stop motion animation. I started trying to learn it, got frustrated, looked around for help on what the program could do and found the short movie Elephant’s Dream. I remember watching about half of Elephant’s Dream (I had a pitiful computer back then and dial up connection), but even the little I watched of that renewed my interest in learning how to use the program and I dove back into it.
Things in life happened and I had to abandon my hobby of learning to make animated films for fun. A couple of years later, late in the summer of 2008, I found my way back to Blender, but before I could start focusing on how to use the program my mom passed away and I spent the next few years in a chaotic point in my life. After my father passed away in 2010 I was left in a bit of a daze from which I have now started to step back out of and as part of my look back on my life and what I wanted to do with it I have realized that my first love is still my deepest love.
When I was eleven my deepest dream was to be a filmmaker. I did not want to be an actress, I wanted to be behind the camera. I wanted to create the props that were used in the movies, or to build the scale models of cities and ancient civilizations. I wanted to be the person that sat behind the camera and looked through it, seeing the story unfold and knowing that what I saw was what others would see.
I clearly remember being crouched in a field as a little girl, and thinking as I studied a spider web covered in dew, that I wished I could make films so that others could see the wonders of the world how I saw them.
I’m over 40 now, and about to start my life for the first time. It is both odd and scary, but I think this time I will do it my way. I will make films that show the world through my eyes. It might take me a while to lessen the slightly jaded edge that has formed across my view of the world, but who knows, that jaded edge might result in some good work – once I figure out how to use Blender and assorted other programs to achieve the results I am seeing in my mind.
So, here I am, almost six years after my first introduction to Blender, and I am going to dive back in with a determination that this time I will learn it and make movies using it… and a few other free to get programs.