For me, this module has been a lot about discovering the process behind animation and specifically documentary animation, with an emphasis on finding my role within a team of people. My intention was to make the most of this opportunity as we had a lot of people behind the project, and had the potential to do something exceptional with the time we had. Working in a group like this made it so I was able to discover how I work in a group environment on an important project whilst also refining my time management skills and my capacity to communicate effectively. It also presented the opportunity to take on the role of director or some form of lead. Allocating this role wasn't something we discussed as a group and attempted to do, but I found that sometimes decisions had to be made quickly to make a quicker progression throughout the project. Furthermore, having someone to suggest the next step helps a lot in terms of making it less like a discussion and just moving forward.
Dividing the work in this way meant that we all had to adapt and learn as we went along. Fortunately, due to the project length it was quite forgiving in terms of rectifying mistakes. The biggest problems I faced throughout the module was making sure everything worked in a cohesive and organised way. For example, making sure that work was prepared so that the next person in the pipeline could complete their section of the work and essentially making sure everyhing ran smoothly. In addition, as communication was so vital to the project it was important everyone had a voice and maintained a good level of morale as the project progressed. There were times where we prioritised the project much less than we could have and thus made it more difficult for ourselves when we resumed work. I believe if I had prior experience with working in this way that I could have been better taking on the directorial role within the group, but undertaking this brief has definitely given me valuable experience in this area. Despite this I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed working with Gavin and Callum, and ultimately we all contributed a lot to the successful completion of our animation. We were able to manage the workload relatively well and distribute the different tasks in a steady way to develop a good working process. I think something that helped us solve the brief was that everyone involved was encouraged to utilise their strengths. Given the format of pre-production, production and post-prodction, we were able to allocate individuals to one or two of those areas so that we could all work in a way we were most profficient. This in turn allowed everyone to learn from one another, whilst also making sure we produced high quality work. There were many occasions over the course of the brief that I felt like I needed to step up and work harder than I was doing, to ensure I didn't bring the quality of our groups work down.
I think if my group and I had more time to refine and experiment further with the visuals and the animation as a whole I think there is a few things that I would have liked to change. When we started the project we had several ideas for approaches that could have been quite nice to see tried out, however due to time constraints we were unable to do this. If it had worked however, it could have meant having other mediums and techniques incorporated into our animation. As well as this, I believe it would have been beneficial to the animation to include more movement using the method of cutting out still frames of an object and sequencing them together to create a moving silhouette, as when this was applied it was quite successful. Dur to conflicting priorities with other modules it meant that we had to think carefully both as individuals and as a group when prioritising work. This meant we had to take every opportunity to meet and discuss the work produced and progress made. If we hadn't taken the opportunities we had earlier in the project it would have been much more difficult to meet the deadline. Despite not using any particularly new techniques for this project I was able to revisit various pieces of software and explore some new functions within them. For example, the use of vector images in Adobe Illustrator and preparing assets for laser cutting. I also used Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop at different stages in the project. Other software I used includes ApS Ethos or laser cutting. In this sense I was refining my knowledge of processes I've used previously and I believe overall I've learnt a lot that I didn't know previously before I began this project.
I think now the process is complete I'm relatively happy with the outcome, and I think our documentary is an example of a piece that is much greater than the individual parts that make it up. As together the music, visuals and narration work quite well. I didn't use anything I hadn't used before to make the animation, and I think for me, all of the learning was done outside of the making process. I've improved a lot in areas such as scriptwriting, team work and collaboration, organisation and thinking about the audience the work is intended for. It has been a good experience in this sense, and working with people who have different strengths to you is also a good way to learn about other areas of the process. In addition, this has furthered my knowledge of the way collaboration works and in a sense has been another introduction to the way collaboration works in industry. Overall, I'm pleased with the work I've put in and produced during this module, however if I had committed more to the module earlier on I may have been able to do produce a much stronger iteration of what I did. I'm hoping that I can build upon what I've learnt throughout the entirety of the module across all areas and apply it to other types of work I do in the future.
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