Collaboration: Reflective Statement

Overall, for the project itself I feel that the outcome came out very well and I’m happy with what we made in the end. I liked how we curated and placed the world within the story and I think overall it worked to support the theme of the talent show, despite the fact I was also worried that the concept would over run the initial prompt of “failed or forgotten superhero’s”, but I'm happy that overall it didn’t provide and issue and that we were able to make the project into something different from what the prompt suggested. 

The way we organised the project overall, was because we were a pair we decided that by dividing up the children and their skits as  it would be more suited than just giving each other a scene, that way we would have more control over how we wanted the skits to look and if the project was too long of if we needed to make any last minute changes, we could do that without up hauling the entire project or impacting each others work. This did end up working quite well as, especially near the end we needed to cut and get rid of a few of the children scenes if we wanted to make the deadline, so we were able to make those edits and not compromise the overall outcome of the project, as well as re-shoot some scenes in the animatic and then use those scenes individually rather than editing it all together after the re-shoots so it was make sense in regards to the whole story. The only issue this layout had however was that it meant that we didn’t  get to see how long the scene was overall, and so couldn’t tell until the final edit what we might need to trim down or if we need to add anything else to meet the time limit (which luckily we didn’t) so if I could change anything its that we should of have tried to pull together at least one of the re-shoots into a consistent scene so that we could get a better idea how long the overall project would end up coming to. 

The style itself came from a mixture of a place of convenience and a stylistic choice, which I was very drawn to after it was suggested because it was one of the aspects from my Fantastic Voyage project that I liked the most, and felt as if I could make the most from, so I ended up taking the reins on that side of the project, even down to making the props for the characters and the props in the scene to make it look more interesting. This did lead however to me getting a bit concerned with the scene and me not uploading it to the blog until the last possible minute which I feel lead heavily to the camera issue, as no one had access to the file but me and so couldn’t see the issue as well, so I do wish I would had the confidence to upload the file sooner which I feel could of have helped to get rid of that problem easier as well.

The 2D format itself, in regards to the feedback we got I feel came mainly from some of the earlier feedback that we received regarding making the superhero world as transparent as possible, which I feel In particular that I took on more seriously than I thought, as I felt that we had to make it so one way (so either the kids do have superpowers or they don’t) that I ended up transferring that onto other elements of the project, such as the static camera and the 2D format of the project and so never considered the idea of moving the camera or having the world have a 3D elements when the kids interacted with it. 

But the world itself I also feel played into that aspect as our main concept for it was that it was designed by the children and so thats why the set was so messy and scratchy, and why the props and sets where so flimsy, to play into that cheap, ill designed idea which we also tried to incorporate into the skit, with one of the strongest ones being Michael Jordan (the basketball one) who’s skit was meant to be that he was so confident he could shoot the basketball into the hoop, that he didn’t realise it was cardboard, but still tried to make it work anyway, even when the flat basketball wasn’t working for him. So even though I do accept the feedback on that, I don’t think the idea would have ever crossed our minds because the concept and the skits relied the 2D format and how it worked in the world, also I would have felt that the sudden change to 3D wouldn’t have worked, because there was no in universe reason for it to occur and way for it to happen. The camera also plays into this as well, as we imagined the set to be a pre-recorded show reel of the auditions, so we didn’t see any reason for the camera to move or to change shots, which also did end up working against the animation. Overall I think that some of the decisions we made within the world work, although some like the camera we could of have changed to make the animation more readable and not become an overall hinderance to the project. 

In terms of work, I do think we worked well as team and was able to divide up the work well enough to make it successful, while also meeting the deadline at a realistic pace. We decided that it was easier to divide up the roles of director and producer for the sake of convince, and me and Vincent met up regularly enough that we understood what was occurring the project enough to provide feedback and make immediate changes if we needed to. The only criticism I would give is that I felt a third party option would have been helpful, especially around some of the decisions, as mine and Vincent have quite similar options and maybe a third, more divided one could have hoped us to achieve some of the more obvious flaws in the overall project. 

In terms of my own work, I think I learned a lot in this project, in terms of myself and also in Maya as well. One of the stronger ones regarding how I work compared to others and my temperament working in groups, one of them being that I am more resistant to change then I would like and I do have a habit of taking control and then immediately getting over worked and irritated about it constantly, which did happen in this project, so thats something I will try and take into premise, as well as taking a step back from animation, which I tried to do by balancing the say with writing my essay, which I felt helped a lot as I was able to take my time on some of the animations and also take a step back and see where some of the major issues where coming from. I also got to learn more abut locators in Maya, using time-warps on my animation (which was a very useful tool),  and had a quick introduction to NCloth, which although frustrating a times I am happy that I got to at least see in this project as a I feel it will help me prepare for using it in the future. 

Overall I am happy with how the project turned out and despite the small changes and improvements I am pleased with how much we managed to produce as a pair and what we ended up making.