Through this module I have developed skills in project/time management, set building, studio lighting setup and post production for digital media. This project was set out to be a simple stop motion animation for a TV ident/spot, however it turned out to be more demanding than I anticipated, which forced me to expand my skill sets through out this project.
I felt I have applied all my skills effectively, but there are always rooms for improvements. I think I've developed my skills further in project management for pre-production and post-production, Visualising concepts via mediums such as story-boarding and floor plans, anticipating the animation process takes time, I have given us enough time to develop and prep for production but finding more time was needed during post production.
2. What approaches to generating work and solutions to problems have you developed and how have they helped?
I learned to act quickly upon ideas with animation, because the actual making process always seems to take longer than anticipated. We encountered numerous problem during the animating process, especially with set building and lighting, we had to build devices and props to animate the objects and it was very time consuming being a stop motion animation. We had to simplify and cut out some of the original ideas we had in order to compromise with the deadline.
I developed a work flow to keep all digital files organised, all pictures were named and filed for easier processing when importing to after effects and final cut. I thought that for a live competition brief it's important for the final product - the ident to be presented so it stands out as well as showing behind the scene workings. Being a digital media it was difficult to show all the works on a print based A2 board therefore I designed a simple DVD menu and organised the contents to showcase all these digital work with a canvase.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I find that I can quickly visualise my ideas to show on screen and look for effective solutions to my problems. At the beginning of this project we had a clear vision of what we were trying to achieve, and I found that I can quickly come up with solutions for producing the visual effect that's needed. I have learned to make decisions quickly and be more proactive with the development process, which resulted in giving myself more time for realising my visual solutions and making things happen more quickly. Being more decisive has become my strength which I have benefited from this project.
Working with a creative partner also demanded me to communicate and manage work loads efficiently, spiting work loads focusing on both our strength.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?
Even though I did allow myself more time by making quick decisions early on in the project, I still found myself getting lost in the software, more research on the problems would have helped avoiding spend many hours experimenting with elements which stopped me in my tracks.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
- I would like to be more in-depth with my development of ideas, I felt with this project I forced myself to produce work quickly I over looked the development stage, which I feel if I worked more in detail I could've benefited more from it.
- I would like to be more organised with my work flow and getting a better work habit, instead storing ideas and findings in my head, I would like to put them on paper and screen more in the future.
- I would like to learn to be more organised with design for digital, as I felt this is the area in graphic design I would like to go into, I want to improve my skills as well as effective working habits, digital media requires well structured thought process and work flow, which I see can benifit me in other area of design.
- I would like to be more prepared for crits, I felt that I was never really ready at crits, I struggled with showing my development and getting the useful feedback I required. I would like to plan ahead more with crits and try to get the most out of them in the future.
- I would like to be more efficient with time, this issue with time comes up every time, but I felt my time management has been the best as it had been so far, I was able to complete work within my own sets of deadlines, but there's always room for improvements in this area.
