Extended Practice: Lessons Learned / Post-Submission Plan

Organization of scenes v storyboard panels

The animation has been finalized for submission. There are many things to reflect upon as well as consideration for the future in regards to WHAT shall be done with this graduation film. Firstly, as evidenced by the background artist leaving, I will find a new background artist with a motivational incentive for the project, since if it gets submitted to a festival it will offer exposure both for me and the artist. Planning this in advance, all of the animated shots have been divided among separate After Effects and corresponding Photoshop files for each one. I have done this so meticulously so that when the new backgrounds are created it would be extremely easy to replace them within the After Effects files without affecting the animation or the synced and exact frames per shot. On another note, for submission the credits have not been animated. I haven't thought of any ideas for how the credits would look like, however after the final crit session on the 3rd of May I got a suggestion to make them form with smoke, complementary to the final cigarette-lighting scene. This would be another post-submission task to handle in order to finish the animation to an aesthetically-pleasing standard fit for festival submission. As for the music - all of the music for the animation was provided by my collaborators from Leeds College of Music - Ryan Scott and Harry Laird - which will be respectively credited in the final festival version of my animation. All of the sound effects were found on https://freesound.org, where every single one of them were established with the Creative Commons 0 license, fit for public domain without any attribution. The soundscape of the animation is finished for every completed scene, and omitted for every placeholder one (for the sounds mimic the movement). For any future projects I believe it would be more than efficient to develop a rubric for order of production in order to eliminate any self-inflicted obstacles - a formality that I must implement.

Extended Practice: Division of Final Piece Into Acts

First sequence of Second act - outro to animation

My animation "Pact" has turned out to be way too lengthy for a whole submission. Thus, I have divided it into several parts based on the number of acts within the script. After the crit session on the 3rd of May where I presented the animated first act, both the tutors and my peers came to the conclusion that it on its own is a self-contained film, fit for submission, and hitting right below the 3 minute mark of the module's expectation. Luckily enough, most of the animation that I did belonged to the first act and with this I successfully compiled a comprehensible piece of film. Reflecting on my practice and methods, had I made a rough animatic this would have been predicted earlier, thus preventing me from animating scenes beyond the first act (as I have, evidenced by the progress storyboard blog post). I believe that splitting the animation into pieces would also be beneficial if by any chance I pitch my animation to a network - without the ultimate death of the remaining 3 characters there is a chance to build up upon the introduction of the pact and Robert dying. Perhaps, as an example, the spirit of Robert lives within the skull and speaks to and assists the characters that are currently in possession of the ash-tray, calling for an interesting premise for an animated series. Nonetheless, I will finish the remaining acts once the first one has been completely finished and ready for festivals since even by the off-chance that it gets accepted in a future pitch, I would love to make my own trilogy of small films hence all my animations before have been single stories without parts.

Extended Practice: Art Book Design and Reflection

Upon the sudden and abrupt shift of the art book's focal point, I decided on refining it based on the entirety of the art, idea, and immersion of my animation "Pact". Previously it was supposed to focus on the pre-production if I'm not mistaken, and due to the inferred substitute it became to blog posting but ultimately not realizing its initial purpose I have decided to make it visually appealing for potential readers. Yes, it does include a myriad of pre-productive works, but only those that envelope the personal methods and techniques of how I made it (or shall make it) be what it is. With the extremely didactic After Effects induction sessions, I have learned how to use the program accordingly and adhere to the art of geometrical layout and interrelation of objects instead of just placing images and text that looks accurate solely by my eye. Finally, the art book outlines the lack of backgrounds and the need to reinvent the space and realm of the film, which would involve a more sturdy and ambitious collaboration with a background artist. Ultimately, one learns best from mistakes and it is these inconveniences that increase an artist's astuteness in who to collaborate with - artists with integrity.

I am extremely satisfied with both the printed and my digital outcome. I did not believe that my first printed design would look so immaculate, or at least in my eyes. Goes to show that along the pathway of this course I have learned profusely not only about animation, but also design, among other multimedia skills.