To kick start the 2nd Term we collaborated with the MA Writing students to produce a short animatic from the brief we had been given. We had to gear our piece towards a dramatic narrative that had was based upon a fairytale. We got to work with the writing students to come up with ideas and a base story. In the end we somehow wound up with a story based upon the title, “Goldilocks and the Three Gay Bears” giving us a light humoured direction. This approach meant we broke most boundaries between the writers and us and set us off on a positive start.
The kind of artwork style we would have liked for a finished animation
This is the storyboard that Oddne produced giving us a great base to spring off and give the team more of an idea
My role within the project was Producer. My heart sunk a little when I got assigned the role as I wanted to try my hand at something else. However when I looked around the group it made sense as it was blessed with talent that were far better in the roles than I could have been.
1st Background sketch and artwork I produced
I knew what the role would entail after having the same role in the 1st year for the Hayle project. This would generally follow: getting the best out of everyone on the team, so that we could produce the best animatic together, in the short space of time we had. Also sorting creative issues and trying to make sure everyone knew what they should be doing at all times whilst delegating roles and keeping the team working as a team.
2nd scene I produced from Jakes Sketch
I have started to become a much more organised person as I give myself a lot to balance on a day to day basis so this role gave me a chance to test my time management. I know I am not naturally organised so it was a challenge. However I knew this role would also entail filling in and around everyone, to keep the project running smooth. I am not outstanding by any means in any part of animation, but I know I can do any job to an acceptable level and this would help. Communication is another part of being a producer and I think this is one of my main strengths, as I believe I am easily approachable however I think In future I would need to be clearer with the team.
3rd Background As you can see the look that we were going for was extremely fairytale like from the outside to lure the audience into a false sense before entering the cute log cabin.
Initially I do believe that everyone knew what their role was and where we were headed. However as the project got running at pace it was difficult to make sure everyone was keeping productive and working to overlap the work, so we could build an animatic, it got the better of me towards the end in some respects. However as our team was made up of sociable and talent people the team worked really well together with everyone who turned up carrying out their roles and helping within each others where needed.
Though I was designated roll of producer for this project I still managed to dabble heavily in the project. I made sure that everyone had their key roles and I made up the numbers on parts; such as backgrounds, base character poses (before handing them over to Holly to make sure they had a similar design throughout). I also carried out basic research to get the feel for the interior and exterior backgrounds.
On the final day I oversaw as much as I could of the animatic whilst concentrating on getting my parts sorted. Matt and I spent a lot of time trying to sort through files to put together into the animatic and this was a major downfall in the organization which I take responsibility for as role of producer but I have found out for next time
Most sketches went for Goldilocks went through Holly to maintain consistency
Parts that didn’t go according to plan was problems such as people not producing their work on time due to late arrivals, meaning others were held up and wasting valuable time or having to change roles such as myself to fill in were needed. This also meant that our animatic had less impact as it became more of a coloured storyboard and I did not leave Matt enough time to focus on his main role of post production as he was helping elsewhere. On the upside the comedy we got across throughout our animatic was successful, in both the scripting and the aesthetics. The designs also have the potential to be quite strong if taken further.
Above Left: I set this background for a member of the team however they failed to get the whole scene to us on time so I had to do a rush job on it to put it into the animatic. Above Right - One of the gay bears designed by Jake
Working with writers I found from this experience, amazing. It takes a lot of stress out of your position as you can bounce off each other whilst knowing that they will finalise it and take the ideas and make them better than you could have imagined in a shorter space of time. This allows you to be clearer about what you are trying to create. We seemed to have an understanding of each other whilst not overly interfering in each other’s roles. After this I would definitely collaborate with writers in the future especially to help finalise my 3rd year project script.
Improvements on this project if I were to carry out something similar would have been a more solid angle towards the brief. As well as this I would add movement into the animatic in a crude way just to get the timings closer and feel of it further established whilst finishing the sound. Part of the reason this didn’t happen was down to the file managing which was a definite learning curve. Also files for a project this short need to be easy to composite together. In future I would either specify this as a role to someone or have the designers do this once they have finished their character pose for example.
Overall I learned from this project that collaboration brings together some really creative designs and ideas as people bounce of one another. Whilst I also realized that time really cannot afford to be wasted and every decision has to be decisive in order to get a finished piece. To conclude, though at the time the project was stressful, I really enjoyed the experience.
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