Overview

The goal of this project was to support a second-year student complete her final animation. During this period, we mainly focus on the pre-production of animation which includes character design, character pose and expression design, background design and storyboarding. The team consisted of three members, each with a specific role in the project.

Roles and Responsibilities

In this project, I was responsible for creating the shadow monster and the background character inhabiting the animation.

In the beginning, I didn’t really get what should the shadow look like, and what kind of horror it should be. So I start to find some references that could give me some inspiration. Then I tried to make a different version of the shadow and asked Trina to give me some feedback and choose her favorite one or two. After that, I can make my concept more specific.

Also, I need to create the initial storyboard for animation based on the given script. I would say it’s a quite big job for me because the storyboard is quite important in the whole animation process. Creating almost half part of the storyboard gives me a little bit of pressure, but what I can do is just try my best. Actually, storyboarding was not as difficult as I thought. I used my phone to take lots of references from different angles and it goes quite well.

Finally, I discussed with Trina all my work to ensure the concept, characters, and story were consistent with the project goals.

Industry Relevance

I think this collaborative project has both similarities and differences with the industry.

Similarities lie in the emphasis on communication among different roles. Those responsible for different aspects of the project need to communicate regularly to ensure that the project is moving in the right direction.

However, one difference is that industrial projects tend to have stricter time constraints and division of labor. You must work within the specified time frame and scope, even if it is in an area you may not enjoy. In contrast, this collaborative project allows us to be flexible in choosing the areas we excel in or want to try. We simply need to express our interests to the second-grade students.

Success and Challenges

One of the biggest successes that I gained through this project was I built it on someone else’s idea. Since I’ve mostly done my own work in the past, I have a pretty good idea of what I want and how I want it to look. In this project, I need to constantly communicate with people to achieve the effect they want to achieve. Through setting specific deadlines and using collaborative tools to stay organized our team was able to collaborate effectively and overcome challenges related to technical issues and time constraints.

Since we have other assignments at the same time, it is a challenge for me to balance the time allocation between collaborative projects and individual projects.

Utilizing Course Skills

I utilized the skills I learned in my coursework in several ways. For example, I used the silhouette design method and other design principles from the character design course to create the shadow monster inhabiting the animation. Also, I used their knowledge of visual storytelling to create an engaging and emotionally resonant storyboard.

New Skills and Techniques

During the project, I learned to use some technological means to support our animation. For example, I learned how to use go Pro to shoot references from the first-person perspective for animation production. You can even project the GoPro camera footage onto your phone so you can check the size and Angle of the picture.

Storyboard