Week 10 - Final touch ups

Above is the play on tour with our animations that were created by our group, as you can see my swimming animation made the final cut, and i feel looked good on the large screens behind the plays. 

I was lucky in that most of my aspect ratios were correct so did not need any last minute adjusting unlike other members of my group, so i spent this session and week helping others fix their aspect ratios.

During this project we did has a problem with one of our classmates who went AWOL after a few weeks and we failed to get in touch with him at all for the rest of the semester, so it was up to my classmate and i to do his scenes for him. My classmate charlie really pulled through and worked insanely hard to get his scenes done, as well as taking on the leadership role. While he did an amazing job, he could have delegated me some of the scenes our classmate had left us as during this week i was pretty much out of things to do and wanted scenes to help pad out my portfolio for the hand in, as i felt that i could have done more this semester to help my fellow classmates, but felt that i wasnt given enough to make that much of a mark on the finished product. 

I really enjoyed working this project, i feel that it gave not only me but my fellow classmates a taste into working for real life clients on a live brief. I feel that i worked well with my team, especially during the initial weeks to help generate ideas for the overall aesthetic of the animation. I feel that my input into the concept design and research really helped mould the entire overall look of the piece, something that i am particularly happy with.

Although it wasn't without its grievances, one thing i really enjoyed doing was learning a new program that i hadn't tried until this module, that being Adobe After Effects 2018. I had many quirky features that other programs that i am used to using just dont have. The module was a success at least for me as i enjoyed working for a client, as well as learning a new program, something that will without a doubt help me in the future when it comes to future modules and will even hopefully help me further my career as i will be a more versatile animator.

As mentioned before one problem we did have with this module was our classmate dropping out on us with no notice, leaving our team with a lot of work at the last minute which lead to a lot of stress. However as a team we pulled through, which was another important lesson this module has taught us. Teamwork.

Another thing that this module taught us was that not every client will be easy to work with, while i have nothing against the drama department, i feel that the information they gave us was lacklustre, and in addition to this their communication on technical aspects of the play were very poor, which lead us some very last minute changes to scale, aspect ratio, and even redoing of scenes. I feel that they did not understand animation and the creative process behind it, as they were asking us to do so very much in such little time at the end of the project, (for example, having me completely redesign the walrus scene) something that we were barely able to manage and had to put aside other modules to make sure that we finished our projects in time.

That all being said, i was not surprised that this was the case, i have worked with clients before, some excellent and other not so much, i feel that having a poorish client will actually be beneficial in the future as it has taught us to adapt well and not be caught off guard when things change and communication breaks down.

Despite all of this, i am happy with the work i have produce for this brief and am excited for my next client brief this coming semester.