Major: Reflective Statement

This project has been amazing, but difficult. I spent most of it still struggling with visualising the end result, and it wasn't until the end that I felt I could make the film I wanted to make. Choosing something personal has made me want to represent myself well, but it has also been challenging. Particularly listening to my own voice repeatedly, talking about something difficult, was difficult at times. I need to finish or adjust lots of things, and I also need to be more organised. I handed in more work than I thought I would have ready, but I wasn't ready to put it all together.

I will continue to work on the animation, and finish the lip sync properly. As well as organise and expand on my making of document. One thing I am excited to work on now, is sound design. The music, composed by Jeffrey Wang, has really brought the film to life, and I can't wait to fill it in with some sound design.

I have found many technical challenges, but I have also found myself excited to solve the problems. I feel much more confident with Maya now, and excited to improve my skills and learn more. Looking back to where I started three years ago, I think I have come a long way. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, aside from make something colourful. I also wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it at all.  I have found that I enjoy many aspects of the animation pipeline, and that I can seeing the results of each stage is satisfying. I still love drawing and coming up with ideas, and have learned that I also love the technical aspects, particularly rigging. And, although this isn't finished, I have made something I'm pleased with, and it is colourful!

Minor: Reflective Statement

I am pleased with how my film is progressing - I can see the path from my current position to my complete film. I have found some parts of this project very challenging - particularly with getting the flow of my film set.

My abilities in Maya have improved a lot this past term. I know that I have been slow, but I can feel myself speeding up and I am pleased with what I have made. I have been able to successfully translate my drawings into 3D, my model looks the way I want it to and the texturing has really helped bring my character to life. Figuring out the toon shader for my model was tricky but rewarding and my confidence in terms of using my knowledge of Maya and figuring out problems has grown a lot.

I am aware that I have not completed all of the things that I set out the finish for this submission. I had intended to complete a pre-viz and the facial rig for my character. At one point I considered creating rubber hose rig in addition to the main one. After changing my audio and rethinking my film, I realised that I didn't wouldn't need this.

I have found developing my story to be the most challenging aspect of this project. Even though I was pleased with my output from Premise, I struggled with taking it further. I haven't made a pre-viz, and I will need to do this quickly and effectively to create my film, but I have made some steps towards it.

After many attempts, I am much happier with my new audio. Having started to experiment with combining 2D and 3D, I now know what I want for this film. My 2D effects concept shows how I plan to use 2D animated backgrounds and character animation to show feelings, without needing to make physical changes to my character's body. I will continue to build on this and link in the animated textures I have been experimenting with in Maya. Working across different software and with elements such as displacement maps, that don't show until rendered, has meant I need to keep a strong image in my mind of how things will work together. It is exciting to see the results of this begin to appear. As I have not finished my pre-viz, I have also not made a shot list or reached out to a composer.

At some points in this project I struggled with knowing and committing to what I wanted and needed to do to make this film work. I didn't stick very well to my schedule and I spent too much time on things that I already knew how I wanted, rather than on the harder task of pushing new ideas.

I am pleased with the work I have completed, though I wish I had done more. I had expected to become better at working in Maya but was still unsure how well I would be able to deal with the technical challenges - I remember being frustrated in the past at not being able to realise my concepts in 3D. Throughout this project I could feel my 3D skills improving as they were tested and I am excited to continue producing this film and learn more as I do.

Premise: Reflective Statement

Being able to come up with and develop an idea from scratch has been amazing, difficult and intense. The intensity came from several place. One of the main things that has been a lot is covering something so personal. I found it emotionally draining, but also emotionally exciting to explore ways of sharing something so personal with an audience. Also, developing an idea without a given starting point is a different way to make something than previous projects. There has been a lot to learn about what makes a strong premise and how to develop that premise in a way that keeps that.

I have taken some of the steps I mentioned in my presentation and added in points about changing the narration, adding sound design and thinking about all the different assets I will need. I need to consider what I need to do next and as the project goes on to make this film work.

- Continue working on animatic - stronger shots/expressions/timing

- Play around with different narration options

- Start exploring sound design

- Begin thinking about all the different things I will need to model and rig, start organising and considering which things will need a full character and which parts will just need part of the character.

- Name my film. I really feel like there is something simple but effective just out of reach here, and digging deeper in to the narration will help me find it.

I still need to work on planning project tasks more efficiently, in terms of accurately estimating the time and effort a task will take. For example, I drew my storyboard/animatic out in a strange order, drawing out all the body first and adding in faces afterwards. This made it take longer and also made it harder to create good expressions. Also, formatting the storyboard took longer than I expected and I need to properly consider the time needed for certain tasks and the best order to do them in.

I often do things one at a time as well, focusing too much on one task, which can make something I enjoy seem tedious. I have let film reviews and the magazine article slip and know that it is important to look at what makes other films work and to be aware of the industry. I think this is to do with poor planning and getting too stuck on one aspect of a project. There are lots of different aspects to making an animated short and I need to plan my time in a way that allows me to get stuck into something, but also give the work and myself a break by working on other parts of a project. 

I have a big job to do with sound design, which is something I know I haven't put huge amounts of time into in previous projects. I do enjoy sound design and I think this is a symptom of the problems I mentioned surrounding planning.

I am pleased with my art direction on this project, there were times I was unsure of how it would play out and if it would come together. I often go for simple designs with lots of colour and I was worried about sticking with the same thing, but I think this worry came from looking at what other people are doing and what I thought I would be doing when I was younger. I really love bright colours and simple designs and am often drawn to this way of representing things. I feel like I am developing a style now. For this project in particular, the intensity of the colours and the first aid vibe does help me make the impact I want to make, as well as just being something I enjoy drawing and looking at.

I have been nervous about sharing this work and worried about missing the mark, but it's come out a lot closer to what I want than I thought I could get and I can't wait to push it even further. I will look back at past mistakes and successes to make the most of the next year. I am excited to continue making this film.

Collaboration: Reflective Statement

This project has gone quite well for me, I have been pleased with the work my group has produced. I have enjoyed collaborating and have learned a lot about working in a group and producing an animation in general.

I wish I had produced a larger body of work for the concept designs. Particularly the sets, as this would have helped my teammate when he came to model them. Though I was pleased with the overall look I designed for the hair salon.

I underestimated the time needed for sound design and will need to keep this in mind for future projects. I also overestimated the quality of sounds I could record with a microphone I had, I will make sure I have better equipment in future. And plan enough time to get a proper place to record them. I need to make note of how long things take me so that I can plan properly in the future.

I enjoyed making the credits for the film and putting the 'Making Of' together. I learnt quite a lot in this area and would like to continue to develop my knowledge here, particularly as I was not as efficient as I would like.

Working with others was something I was worried about as I was unsure how I would interact with them in a stressful situation. It turned out to be easier than I expected to keep a level head and to communicate clearly when under pressure. My teammates were very good to work with and I understand that this will not always be the case, I will just keep this in mind for the future.

I would like to collaborate more in the future, I really enjoyed sharing ideas with other people. It was interesting and enjoyable to see our work come together to make something that I could not have made alone, but can see my efforts in.

Soundscape: Reflective Statement

I have learnt a lot from this project, including that I find sound design fascinating. Creating sounds in Audition has been thoroughly enjoyable and I often found myself having let hours slip by without really noticing. Learning how many different ways a sound can be changed and how mixing individual sounds can have such a drastic effect has been interesting and exciting.

I wish that I had attended more of the sound design workshops and that I had organised my files better. I find that the further I get into a project the more disorganised I become with storing and backing up important files. This is something I will work on improving, as I know it will become increasingly important to have files organised clearly. With bigger projects and more and more work in Maya I can't afford to lose any files, especially when I will be working with other people and render farms.

I hope to work much more with sound and I have added sound design to the list of things I want to experiment with in the summer. Soundscape has made me realise just how important sound is in making sure a film impacts on an audience and I am now consciously hearing things in films, music and television that I wouldn't normally have noticed. I am excited to use the knowledge I have gained in the Fantastic Voyage project, creating sounds for things that don't have sounds is a challenge and I will need to allocate a good amount of time to this task. 

FSTS: Reflective Statement

I have enjoyed this project, it has been very challenging, but I have learnt a lot because of this. Getting through to a story that made sense and could be enjoyable was a longer process than I expected and I went through a few versions. Then getting this story across on screen was also challenging. Making sure the audience would understand what was happening, without boring them, was interesting to work on. I'm feeling more confident about just getting in and thumbnailing without worrying. This allowed me to get ideas out quickly and move in directions I wouldn't have considered previously.

My time management still needs work, and I'm going to spend this reading week figuring out ways I can improve on this. I think that rather than planning my uni work separate from the rest of my life, I should try and organise myself better than a whole. I neglected some aspects of the course to focus on the main aspects of this particular project. If I manage my time better I won't have to do this, so I'm also going to spend this week catching up on things I've let slip. I know that my animatic was unclear, so I'll make sure to keep an eye on things like that in future. I'm looking forward to applying what I've learnt to future projects and I'm excited to get started on the next brief.

WIM: Reflective Statement

I have enjoyed this project very much. I am pleased with my work, I was worried at several points that it was going to turn out very bad, but some of the progress stages were just awkward and it was good to see the ideas in my head show through towards the end. I really enjoyed learning about textures and lighting and it was very interesting to see how much different textures affect a scene.

I misinterpreted the brief originally and made some very strange depressingly grey thumbnails. In future I will try my best to understand the brief more fully before I throw too much time into the work. I am also going to work on my time and project management, as I let myself down a bit with the slow periods in my workflow.

I have learnt a lot from this project and am excited to put this knowledge to use in future work.

Invisible Cities Reflective Statement

The Invisible Cities project has been very enjoyable and very challenging. I was looking forward to the project and I have learnt a massive amount both from the lessons we have had and from working independently and trying to push myself to be as creative as possible.

In my previous digital painting I have always tended towards the same blended finish and I wanted to move away from this and try new things for this project. I am pleased with the difference I see in my painting skill and the way my style is developing. I have made my largest leap in my ability to get what is in my head down in front of me in all of my time making art.

The thing I think that helped me the most in this project was doing my best to always be fully excited about and invested in the work. This really helped me to learn and I will take this with me to future projects.

I started the project working quite well but after the OGR I slowed down a little, this meant that I left too much work for the last week of the project. I do think this impacted the quality of my paintings and my 'Art Of' and I now know that I need to keep a good pace throughout my projects.

I am looking forward to using the knowledge I have gained from the Invisible Cities project throughout the rest of the course.