Description:
For this
module, we had to negotiate our personal story projects and when I individually
tried to come up with a storyline for an animation my main idea was around
superheroes. However, as I had previously
in my education already gone down that route and my other ideas about
ghosts/underwater mermaids did not have any structure I decided that I needed
to consider other avenues. After the mini pitch presentation, I saw Bobby’s
Hope 3D animation pitch and thought it would be great to work with him on this
project, therefore, I approached him, and it was decided that working together
would be a good idea.
In this
project, the roles I played were Co-Director, Producer, Prop Modeller, Second Animator,
Production Documents and Editor. Bobby’s roles were Co-Director, Modeller and First
Animator.
Feelings:
At the
start of the project, I felt pleased that I would be working with Bobby and
this continued as we worked closely together. During creating and developing my
personal idea I was nervous that I had an unfinished storyline and would not
have enough work for this project. However, after discussing this with Bobby it
was proposed that moving forward with his idea was more beneficial for this
module and that his idea was more workable to turn into an actual animation.
Subsequently I felt more relieved that our project was moving forward in the
right direction.
Evaluation
and Analysis
Positive
aspects of this experience was the pre-planning work undertaken with Bobby and I
was also able to develop my modelling skills when developing the props for the
outside environment. Furthermore, after
liaising with Bobby on what we needed for props for the outside environment and
gaining a clear vision of what needed to be produced helped immensely and
enabled me to work independently to produce the desired effects. This was also beneficial for my own personal
development, whereby I was able to manage my time effectively by working to
agreed deadlines and meeting these. I
also was enabled to work with my own creative vision which supported my
personal development in a number of areas.
Firstly, I learnt how to develop my box modelling skills from prior
educational experience, whereby, the models I produced were much more
professional because the aesthetic appeared more mature with additional
dimensions, such as, trees with more intricate detail and wooden outdoor
furniture with more lifelike features like plank effects.
The
Production Bible was also more professional than previous bibles because the
pictures were much more detailed and scaled due to my proficiency developing
with the software. Background detail
appeared much more professional due to effects such as vines and also adding a
contents page which linked to respective pages which also helped with the
navigation of the Production Bible.
A less
positive aspect of the project related to the stress produced due to working
within multiple roles. At times this was
difficult due to time constraints and conflicting demands. For example, having the
task of independently undertaking the making of negotiated module to complete
producing a making of video, all the behind the scenes material, such as,
producing the Production Bible and designing the website and social media
presence. I initially decided on using a
Gantt Chart to assist with the time management aspects of the project, however,
this proved to be too difficult due to my limited experience of using Gantt
Charts, therefore I felt it would be more beneficial to diarise my time and
allocate working slots for different tasks because I did not want to spend
additional time trying to develop my Gantt Chart skills as this seemed
counterproductive and in essence not a good use of my time.
An aspect I
found challenging was trying to match Bobby’s animation style when working on
parts of the scenes which joined Bobby’s animation work. I undertook some of the walking shots in the project;
however, this was an area that I recognised I needed to develop. I felt quite confident in producing biped
animation but did not have any experience of quadruped animation therefore was
not confident in this area of work. Consequently, I discussed my concerns with
Bobby who supported me by suggesting not to produce effects with four legs at a
time, but to work on two legs together, therefore simplifying the task but
gaining the desired effect. This
approach worked well, and I was able to produce the bear in the animation and
was happy with the overall effect. It
was beneficial to have the animatic blocked out for the story to gain a clear
idea of where the story was heading.
Blocking out the characters movements made it easier to move forward
with the animation as it made it simpler to animate the characters motions by
filling in the key frame movements with breakdown poses for the final
animation.
Conclusion:
In
conclusion, for this project I feel like it went well, and we were able to
create a really good animation. I feel I have learnt a lot about the animation
process from scratch. The first thing I learnt is the importance of planning the
production. I also learnt it is best to plan out the 3D animation as a blocked-out
pre-visualisation before going into the proper animation stage and how much that
will improve the project.
I also
learnt that after producing an animatic in 3D that having the blocked out key
poses was beneficial to the animation stage because it let me connect the key
frames together to make the movement linear.
Action Plan:
I would
definitely seek out additional support when undertaking a project in the future
because at times it was difficult to meet deadlines therefore adding to the
stress levels. By seeking out additional
support this would enable the smoother running of the project overall.
With our
characters I would have loved to utilise the use of facial expressions to make
the animated story more detailed and if I had these characters again, I would find
out how to sort out the wrinkling of the character limbs when the character
moves.
