We are halfway through the semester now, with a little bit under two months left to complete our films.
Here is the formative update (finished scenes, scenes in progress and animatic on the timeline with the updated soundtrack):
It's getting more and more serious and I am starting to feel more pressure. Especially because I know that I will not be able to finish the film if I continue with everything as it stands for now. I think that I have made really good progress, and I am happy with how it is all coming together, but the workflow is rather time consuming and I have too many scenes which include quite complex animation.
My solution is to shorten the film by a few scenes where possible. I have already identified two scenes in the beginning that I can cut out, as well as shorten the transition from bus to nature and some of the ending. My plan is to alter the animatic to see if the story would still work (I believe it might actually make it more clear), and show it to people for feedback.
Something else that could help me in the process would be the help of people from the younger year groups. Delegating some of the workflow, such as for example the effects animation like the smoke or the character fill, could help me save a lot of time. I pitched the idea to some third/first years at the Wednesday screening yesterday, but so far I have not gotten any response. Renata, from second year, previously expressed interest in helping me, so I will ask her directly in the coming days. It might also be useful to put up a post on Teams. But I understand that people have their own films and projects to work on and might be too busy to help me out. That is why I should also look into ways I could shorten the workflow together with Mike.
I have also met up with my sound designer Andy over Teams and it was a very good start to our collaboration. We discussed the project and decided that it would be the best if he assembles the different sound assets and I can put them together later on. I'm super excited for this, as I think the sounds are what will really bring the animation to life. I'll update him as I continue to produce more scenes and shorten my animatic.
I have further started working on more backgrounds, its a fun change from animating!
