Category: PRODUCTION PRINCIPLE

Next Station: HEAVEN

For the OUT OF YOUR HEAD section, our group completed the work Next Station: HEAVEN.
In terms of results, it was a very successful group effort, as evidenced by the rave reviews we received at the screening. But for me, the challenges I experienced during the process were even more valuable, as they gave me a lot of valuable experience.

From the moment the collaboration began, there was constant friction between the four members, and my personal ideas were compromised step by step in the process. Because each member has a certain level of competence, it became almost impossible to unite us in our thinking.

The first kind of conflict is over the type of story. In the preparation stage, some wanted to write a fantasy story, others preferred a love story, and eventually someone had to give up their idea. In fact to this day I still hold a grudge against the story that was eventually adopted, believing that it was not the best choice as it was clearly too complex a storyline for a mere 20 seconds of animation.

I think animation of different lengths is inherently determinative of its direction, and a 20-second animation should convey a simple and straightforward idea more than an elaborate plot, and in this case we clearly didn’t plan well and chose the wrong direction in the preparation stage, so much so that the final finished product conveyed too much information to the viewer in a short period of time that they couldn’t handle, which is something that must be reflected upon.

In order to improve, I think I must refer more to the artistic expressions of other animated works of the same length at the beginning of the project as a way of refining my completion of the storytelling so that it can be better understood by the audience.

The second conflict came from the group’s inability to make a sensible plan and get it in order. As this was the first time that a team of up to four people had worked together, the group did not initially know what they were good at, nor did they have a proper division of labour and schedule. For example, the character design, after a few changes, was assigned to a member of the team who I now think is not suitable for it, but until she delivered the finished product I mistakenly thought she was very good at it.

Likewise, the team member responsible for the first original painting was overly efficient and overburdened herself with work that didn’t satisfy everyone, which led to a lot of re-coordinated and drastically revised shots later on. We were still discussing the colour scheme of the character designs until the day before the deadline. This chaotic way of working left a deep psychological shadow on me.

I think in order to improve, it is important to clarify the work schedule of each member at the beginning of future group assignments to ensure that members are clear about what they are good at and what they need to accomplish, to reduce the burden and to speed up the work, and more importantly, to produce better animation.

The third type of conflict arises from differences in working styles. This problem can be described as an extension of the second type of conflict, that is, the problem of extreme disorder at work. In the early stages, the four of us worked with three different drawing software packages (Photoshop, CSP and Procrate), which made it extremely difficult to pass work projects between members of the group and to make handovers. I had to spend a lot of pointless time converting files to a format I could use before working on an original drawing produced by one of the team, ironically my files were just as difficult for the others to use.

In order to improve, I think it is necessary to promote a unified way of working in the next group collaboration and improve the production process in different parts of the process to further increase efficiency and reduce pointless waste of physical and mental energy.

Overall, while this group work was broadly satisfactory in terms of results, the huge number of issues that arose during the process could never be ignored. I think there are very few things that can be done by strong individual ability alone, as we cannot always do the work alone when we enter the animation industry in the future. Having a proper plan and following our respective divisions of labour to get the job done is the right way to work as a team.

Finally, to the ever-surprising Stop Motion section! Frankly, of the first four basic courses, Stop Motion was the one I was least interested in at first, but after finishing this section, I realised how much I had enjoyed it.

Firstly, it was the first time that I actually worked in a group with my classmates to complete a project (Elephant & Castle? That’s not an example I can refer to).

The two-person team was not easy to come by and the process was difficult as we had almost no previous experience with Stop Motion.

But despite this, we tried and challenged many things we would not have thought possible in other forms of animation and ended up with some amazing results.

The project based on the DC hit JOKER is still a bit underdeveloped, but Trip to the Moon has become a project I am proud of. I would venture to say that Stop Motion has been the most enjoyable and surprising part of all four sessions for me.

After the intense work of 3D animation, the next part was the relatively easy storyboard, which for me was more challenging than the efficient work because of its demand for wild ideas.

Or rather, the session often requires me to capture a fleeting experience of inspiration: whether it’s remembering a funny story that flashed through my mind or drawing a picture of a stranger I saw on the street.

For me, this session was probably one of the most challenging. I have to admit that the way I’ve always worked has always been the type of thing that needs to be polished over time, and moments of inspiration don’t come very often for me.

But after this two-week session, I think I have honed and improved my skills in this area to a greater or lesser extent.

At the end of the enjoyable 2D animation session, the challenging 3D world launched itself at me.

There is no denying that 3D animation is one of the hottest yet most difficult forms of animation in the world today, and the sheer volume and detail of the work is a deterrent to many. Despite this, I am still very enthusiastic about it.

Prior to the course, I had briefly studied 3D animation using Blender for a while. But working in Maya was a new experience for me and I had to learn it from scratch. I did my best to get to grips with it.

In terms of timing, 2D was the first course I was exposed to in my first year of BA Animation. In the first week of this course we tried to use AE and PS to create simple animations of a small ball falling and a scarf flying.

As I had previous experience with these software, it was very easy to create.

In the second week, we officially moved on to making our own independent 2D animation.

Based on the four background music tracks that were distributed, we were required to create an animation of around ten seconds. For this project, I chose a lighter piece of music to create an animation similar to a beer advert.

What inspired me a lot was the promotional film for the Gobran Arts Festival and I was impressed by the strong vitality and youthfulness they showed in the film. So I also wanted to make a film that would be energetic and surprising.

The result is “Beer&Beer”. The title is based on a Japanese gay film in which young male lovers often sing this over a beer.