REFLECTIVE STATEMENT

In this project I was tasked with the objective of making a 3D Previs which means mockup
animation about three items given to me by random. These items were a hotel a toolbox
and a stuntman.

To make this Previs I first had to generate ideas and then do a script with the treatment,
logline, stepout line and premise. These were to make sure my story was fully explained
but could also have the same information even if it was minimized so basically a summary.
I then thought of the designs of my three items making a moodboard of each object to
use as reference for my actual designs.

I then drew up sketches picking the parts that I liked from my piece. From this I finalized
the sketches and explained why they looked this way along the color scheme that would
suit it. Next I researched storyboards because I had no clue what they were but I needed
one for my story so I used reference and broke down my story into sections. I’m still very
confused about them but at least it’s better than not knowing what they were at all.

After my storyboard I made an animatic which I’m even more baffled by. The animatic
had to be 2 minutes with a soundtrack and transitions so I manipulated my storyboard
into separate sections and compiled the frames into video form.

For the music I wanted to go for a light vibe because my character looked very comical
so I researched piano upbeat music that was copyright free on youtube. Then I
downloaded the sound file placed on my animatic and saw how it worked then moved on
to 3D. I really can’t comprehend the software but I kind of just guessed what to do and it
worked. My animatic made each frame last 3 seconds but my animation could not work
the same so I had to add more limb movement and camera movement to make my
previs(animation) feel in motion instead of a 3D conversion.

I’ve never got animation after numerous classes and months of it but by looking at motion
graphics I understood it because animation idents and motion graphics are exactly
identity to me because I haven’t been taught different so I was able to use my research
to make my animation more dynamic instead of holding frames still for scenes where it
did not make sense in my story.
I also used photoshop to hold on frames for when my character is having thoughts as the
movement of the animation would distract the viewer from the words from my experiments
that I did with others. Premiere has text settings so I used them with motion to exaggerate
the volume he said those words but at a slow pace so that it is readable.

Maya crashed on me a few times so I had to be innovative and use PNG’s to show the
originally intended action instead of having the file be corrupt harming the computer or
even unaccessible. I downloaded the music from my device on to my google drive
(sharespace) and returned to the campus to put it with the premiere file and I made the
music match the length of the video because the video was 2 minutes while the song
used in the animatic was longer. I then exported it after rendering it (playing it through
with a high resolution) and put it on my google drive to end the project before doing my
reflective statement and art of.

When I started this project some aspects were more difficult than others for instance :
storyboards and animatics.However, I managed to overcome my difficulties by
practising more.