Major Project Reflective Statement

After taking some time to reflect on my project, I have many thoughts and feelings about how the submission went. My submission was not what I wanted it to be. I'm still feeling disappointed in the outcome, But I will continue to work on the film and refine and fix it.

I ran into multiple issues with the project including my entire Maya program corrupting less than a day before the deadline. I felt frustrated that my submission went the way that it did, but I’m still proud of myself that I managed to submit something and wholeheartedly tried my best. There are many things that could be improved for my project. The film itself was not completely finished. I managed to get to animation done, but I was unable to render the Toon line for a small section of my animation, And was also missing some VFX. I completed my making of document and I think I managed to achieve my goal of making a more refined document despite struggling a little with graphic design. I was unable to take renders of all my shots due to my maya program corrupting, but I also understand that my time management was partly to blame for this. I also managed to render some turnarounds, but not all of them. 

So many things have gone wrong during this project and I wish my hand in could have gone differently. I wanted to celebrate finishing the project, and although I managed to hand something in, I wish I could have achieved more than I ended up with. Thinking more positivity though, I am proud of myself for handing in what I had and for being able to make what I have made.I really enjoyed collaborating with Alison to create the music, and I enjoyed animating and I love the story of my film and that I’ve managed to successfully convey the message I wanted people to understand when watching my film. I went through so many challenges trying to make the 2D Toon shader style work with my film, and I think I managed to achieve results that I’m happy with. I started this course absolutely terrified of Maya, and although I still have so much to learn, I’ve made so much progress since my first year of this course. I’ve gone through a bit of a journey to get to where I am today, and despite being disappointed with my submission, I am still passionate about finishing the film and refining it to be a film I am truly proud of. 

Drawing The Line - Major Project Submission

Render Example:

The Concept:

The concept of my major project film follows themes of self identity and gender. I wanted to use this platform to express my own journey with self identity; how you shouldn’t change for other people, and that happiness comes from being yourself. The story follows an artist drawing out a new faceless character, the design of which I wanted to keep simple, but challenge myself with still making it an emotional and expressive being. We follow the artist and creator trying to change the way the character ‘Sketch’, outwardly appears, cycling through three alterations of appearance. These are symbolic of hyper masculine and feminine features, only making ‘Sketch’ angry and upset at being forced to change to suit the artists aesthetic desires. As the story continues, the sentient ‘Sketch’ attempts to redraw themselves, conveying that they were happy with who they were to begin with, and refusing to change just to simply fit into the physical gender binary that the artist is trying to box them into.

Goals: 

My goals surrounding the project focussed on telling a coherent story that was able to be understood without spoon-feeding the audience the plot, using only music and visual animation to evoke the themes and events. At the heart of the film, I wanted to ensure that the story was solid and that the viewer could comprehend the themes; understanding my story without having to rely on spoken word. In terms of technical ability, my goals were to get the 3D animation completed, as well as including samples of 2D effects in softwares outside of Maya.

Outcome: 

Having to complete my final major project during the Covid-19 pandemic has proved to alter the expected outcomes. We were given priorities to follow which included the ‘Making-Of’ booklet as well as the animation itself. 

Within these circumstances, the expected outcome I set for myself was to create a professional ‘Making-Of’ document that raised my level of professionalism and moved on from the sketchbook theme I previously designed during the Minor project. The animation itself I wanted to have completed and have the Toon line rendered, but not having the facilities to do this whilst in lock down presented a series of time consuming issues. I set myself the expectation of also having a set of rendered/ play blasted turn-arounds for all the different forms of the main character.

Minor Project Submission:

http://noahgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2020/01/minor-project-submission.html

Premise Project Submission:

http://noahgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2019/05/premise-final-crit-presentation.html