Brandon Buda

New Media

Graduating Spring 2024

As my time at the University of Tampa begins to close, I begin to reflect on my journey that brought me here. The world of New Media gave me loads of different opportunities to explore and has helped me realize where my skills are. Specifically, 3D Animation 1 was one class that I not only had fun with but was something I felt confident in whenever I went to create something. In addition, another class where I realized my potential lies was Visual Effects. This was also an unfamiliar territory to me, but I found myself enjoying this area of New Media more than others. Being able to mess around in softwares such as Autodesk Maya, Blender, After Effects, and Premiere Pro have helped me realize that this is side of New Media that I enjoy, and I strive to get a career out of. I am very grateful for the education leaders, specifically Santiago Echeverry who has almost pushed me past my boundaries and helped me find my passion.  If it wasn’t for those classes and professors, then I would not be where I am today nor would I be as happy with where my major has got me.

Out of all the categories, I got to try within in New Media, I can proudly say I am shifting all my focus on 3D animation and video editing. This is where I tend to have the most fun and I constantly find myself messing around with software’s such as Blender and After Effects in my free time.  As I looked back at all my work, I realized these were the areas where I saw the most growth. Furthermore, going off what I said earlier, it is also where I felt the most confident. Once I realized my where my potential was, I started to gain the confidence to continue going down this path of 3D and video editing. Another reason is this is where I feel the most creative. There are so many topics you can use such as sports, movies, music and life moments, just to name a few. The ideas flow naturally and allow my creativity to take off.

Being introduced to the world of New Media meant there would be lots of new experiences which in turn helped me find my strengths, but it also helped me find my weaknesses. One area that could have been used more work was the coding aspect. Learning different languages such as JavaScript and Python were fun to explore, but I found that my work never really turned out the way I wanted, and it took a while to learn what the coding language was actually doing when I would type it out. Part of that was because I limited myself to learning certain things and only sticking to the few skills I knew. Another area where I feel like I could use more work is filming. I got to mess around with a camera and film some short videos in a few classes, but my videos did not turn out all that great. I would struggle to learn how to use a camera with different settings and sometimes my footage would have weird effects on it that would almost ruin the entire clip. Even though I enjoy video editing, I like creating my assets with animation clips or clips that are created by my peers which I work together with.

Ultimately, in the future I plan on launching my own platform across social media and releasing whatever content I want to make through being independent. I would be open to collaborating with anyone whether it’s to create a music video or an advertisement for a brand, my commissions will always be open. Alongside my independent work, I see myself working for a movie studio and working with the 3D aspect or the visual effects and video editing part of it. Seeing all the movies from big companies whether its live action or animated motivates me to create something extraordinary and unique that will eventually end up on the big screen. Movies and TV shows have always played a big role in my life and seeing all these movies I grew up with has given me the confidence that I can give that same love of movies to others through my work.