This module introduced me to some very interesting ideas
regarding key aspects of animation, such as collaboration and pitching, and
these are aspects I had never even considered before. There is also the value
of gaining exposure by doing outside briefs in my own time that I learned about
through the work I’ve done here.
The work I
managed to do for my individual practice was great for self-improvement,
exposure, and other valuable aspects that could benefit me as an animator. My Syfy brief, while I did decide not to
submit it, I learned how to plan and create pitch boards, something I initially
had a tough time understanding the importance of, and is one of the most useful
skills to know in the long run. Upon being introduced to YCN briefs, like the
Syfy one, I learned more about why those competition briefs are on YCN, since
they are failing and need something creative and eye-catching to support
themselves. This is a good method of gaining exposure, and adding to my portfolio,
by following these types of briefs. This study task also made me consider how
to respond to a target audience, as well as how to recognise genre signifiers
through mise-en-scene and colour, and both of these are important elements to
master, since I’m an aspiring storyteller as well as an animator.
I also managed to develop my skills at posing, character
design, and illustration by doing a bunch of t-shirt designs for the website,
Qwertee. I mainly made designs based on popular video games and cartoons, since
fan-shirts are the most famous ones of all on that site and therefore more
likely to win. I was able to experiment by using other people’s art styles and
seeing how my style and method of drawing translates with professionally
designed characters. I feel like my skills at drawing have increased because of
that. The poses, specifically for the “Gravity Souls” Qwertee design, came out
looking great. The character design skills developed even more, after drawing
professionally designed cartoon characters, because I picked up how and why
those designs worked in the first place.
I also
looked at a website called Loop de Loop, which posts briefs in which I have to
make animations that loop and relate to a given theme, in my case the theme was
‘Gravity’, for example, and they let people be as creative as possible with
their themes. The theme of gravity was a rather tough one to look at, so I
figured rather than plan ahead for it, I could just keep on animating and see
what I come up with as I go, which did actually lead to a bunch of surprises. I
made some very nice looking expressions that transitioned very fast yet
smoothly between each other. If I had refined it a little more then it could
have actually managed to be accepted for submission. I had to make something
for 11-second club as well, though. I actually used some of the skills I
learned from the Qwertee designs and a little bit from Loop de Loop as well, to
make a little something just to get my mind back to animation for a bit. I
actually think if I did any more animations for this website, then I could
actually build up my portfolio a lot, as well promote myself.
As well as
my individual practice, I was given the task of collaborating with someone. As
an animator, teamwork and leadership is an important trait to have, and I
believe my partner, and I, both worked well enough together to create some very
decent work. We were both loyal and understanding enough towards each other to
know each of our roles and responsibilities. I genuinely enjoyed working with
her as well. We were both had the same thoughts and opinions on our work, and
what we could gain out of it. I learned more about creating pitch boards and
presentation, and we both managed to work like professionals with our work when
we were presenting it. We also both tried a more darker and bleak approach to
animation, something we both have not done before, that is to say, and I
personally have not done something like that in a serious manner before. I
actually did this because my partner recognised my rather dark imagination and
wanted to work around that, so I’m glad I was able to respond to that.
Overall, while
this module did give me a lot of opportunities to learn new things that could
be applied to animation, I just wish I wasn’t forced to lessen my time spent on
other modules in order to work on this, as the workload was crazy. It certainly
wasn’t as engaging as the main subjects, and while I did make my work relate to
animation, it was still more geared towards stepping away from that, since
animation is such a long process it was often recommended against that. All
that is especially considering all of these skills were much better handled in
PPP and Applied Animation.
