Final Film Link: https://youtu.be/EnrsQQSb6UE
A helpful critique a tutor said to me at the last interim presentation really stuck to me. They mentioned how I didn’t seem to stray far from my usual style of everything and that I did not go outside of my comfort zone this time. I wanted to reflect on that here since at first I didn’t think that was true.
In some parts they are correct since I usually illustrate in this ‘Anime’ style and heavily leaned into fantasy which is a generic made genre in ‘Anime’ styles. However, where I disagree with them is all of the shots and this animation is meant to push my boundaries as an animator. I had not done/choreographed a fight scene before. I had not done a turning throw before. I haven’t drawn my own backgrounds before. All of these were tricky aspects to me because I wanted to challenge myself with this project which I did.
I am pleased to say I stood up to the challenge. I am now more confident than ever that I could choreograph a fight scene and can attempt to animate it now. There are many things that I have learnt through this project and it is mostly learning to have confidence in what I do. Did I step out of my current art style and experiment with materials? no I did not but I am a more experienced in animation and what I am comfortable with doing now which is a step in the right direction.
I am also proud to still be here since, I was thinking of disappearing and harming myself again but I was able to stop myself due to my sister. Every time I worked on this film I reminded myself that she is a major part of my life and I want to stay here in this life to support her too. In fact she supported me when writing this up as well.
Another comment a tutor made that is sticking with me for the rest of my life. Is that fact that your story is something only you can tell. Meaning you cannot have someone else write it out for you or critique it and thats the only view of it thats right. They said –
‘It’s up to you it’s your film but in terms of what the gem represents as an object of desire causing conflict, and the release of the demon, the demon seems to arrive when things are resolved between the sisters, when it should come because of their conflict.
As long as you know what you want and what the symbolism represents/how you want to deliver that story’
I should definitely believe in myself more as an animator, illustrator and artist.
I did not end up finishing this film. When I look back it is mainly the fact I spent a lot of time on revising the story. This can be a double edged sword since the fact I decided to keep revising the storyline meant it took twice as long to start the next part of the film. Which was animation, sound production and background artwork. These were all delayed because of this and then left me with little to no time to actually animate.
On one hand it is good to try to revise a story that is not working, otherwise when animating it the story will seem disjointed and end up being something awful to animate for. But on the other hand time is of the essence and in an real animation job deadlines are very important to follow.
So after evaluating it is good to realise I need a balance of both I leaned too heavily into the story telling aspect that I barely left any room for the animation portion of it. I didn’t leave enough time for my collaborators Nuddhata Siamwalla and Hanifa Uddin to complete full backgrounds and soundtracks because od this lack of organisation. I will deeply reflect on this and make sure to fully plan it out next time. I will create my excel shots sheet and Gant chart much sooner in the pre production phase, even if they do change they are still readily available and will keep me much more organised in the earlier stages of animation.
The shots I was able to do rough animation for is quite fluid and I was proud to be able to do most of the roughs in the short amount of time I did have in the end. One thing I was able to gain was insight in how to actually plan out a project. In the last week I got feedback on how to efficiently create a storyline in a short amount of time.
The method follows initial concept sketches. Then taking the key ones and making Concept art story beats. Once they tell a cohesive story you put split those beats into shots and start creating an animatic from there. This method ensures the story is to the point with no filler parts. It also makes it very easy to take out parts that are not working in the later stages of animatic making since they are all go back to an origin story beat you can change those strands since they all have a solid foundation. This is a very good method.
Only downside is slotting new story beats can be difficult. This is because if those beats are already flowing well to one another adding more will mess it up. Much like my method of back and forth in my animatic’s. Therefore, the key part of this process is getting those story beats down and solid before anything else.
However, I realised how inefficient my back and forth had been at the end and how much I did not develop my characters at all, this was all told to me in the last feedback session. I wanted to just continue with the story I had and start animating again but the lack of character development really prevented me from continuing. In the end I decided to create one more Animatic which I am very proud of. The storyline is very streamline and I am proud of the outcome of the story and all that back and forth did pay off. I will continue finishing this film till the screening date which I hope to show everyone what kind of animation I really want to start doing and showing my style to the world.