Reflection On The Week (17): Starting Monday 20th January

Week Summary

Reflection on Practice - For this module this week, mainly I've just been thinking about how I might structure my final presentation due to the relevant workshops and seminars we have had this week and last.

Advanced Production - The team meeting this week was very productive, we all gathered round a big piece of paper with post-its in hand and brainstormed and drew out the rough storyboard. This was a very quick and useful way of working out the story and flow of the film. It also allowed us to clearly see the 'chapters' of the story and divide them off equally to one another to draw more neatly for the final storyboard, due next week.

Going Live - Made a lot of progress with this project this week, I produced a good amount of research and references for each of the assets and look of the film, through using Pinterest and then compiled images into themed Moodboards. Also made a paper sculpture, which should help the team with reference of how to maybe produce the 3D model for one of the assets and also how the texture might look.

Monday 20th Jan
Programme Meeting:
Discussed what we all need to have done for the first Going Live Milestone deadline - Moodboards, animation references, an animatic and storyboard.
A storyboard should be finished by the end of the week, and a 2D animatic by the end of the week after.

Afterwards we had a class meeting for Going Live.
Discussed the story idea again and then broke it up into detailed shots to help with the storyboarding.
I'm going to be putting together some moodboards and animation references for the different elements of the story idea. Pinterest may prove very useful for organizing this!

Tuesday 21st Jan
Finished a variety of moodboards today for Going Live, which detail research and inspiration for different aspects and assets for the project.

Wednesday 22nd Jan
Today's workshop seminar for the Reflection on Practice module included discussing the 5 presentations we listened to last week.
We also discussed how to phrase our research questions for practice-based research. We are essentially examining and questioning our own work as it's about advancing our own practice.

Spent the evening constructing a paper sculpture for the Going Live project which should help for inspiration for the 3D modeling and texturing.

Thursday 23rd Jan
Going Live Meeting:
All the moodboards I put together were pinned up to the wall and presented the paper sculpture I had made.
Discussed the setting up of a specific group blog for this project.
Make the 2D storyboard presentable and annotate with descriptions and dialog.
Try and meet the milestone requirements but go one step beyond.
Anything that's a technical challenge, notify and there will be a tailored workshop to suit.

Team Meeting:
Discussed Aesop's Fables, reviving an old method of storytelling.
Watched a Ted Talk by Andrew Stanton, which covered some useful information about story telling and audiences. What he was talking about also related to some of my research module, so it has been useful for that also!
Discussed what the target audience would be for our film - families, pet owners. Would definitely like our film to be something that everyone can watch.
Had a look over the very rough post-it storyboards. Moved post-its around and drew new ones, trying to condense the whole story as ideally we don't want a film that's over 2 minutes long:

Divided up the rough storyboard so each of us have equal amounts to redraw. I will be storyboarding the 1st biscuit stealing sequence.
Also decided that I would edit together these post-its into a rough animatic to see how long the film roughly is at the moment.

Friday 24th Jan
Rigging workshop with Sang: Click here for relevant blog post link