The final film

   For this project I thought of a fairly simple yet effective style film. Over the past few weeks, I have been working with Joey Greet and Conor Jacobs. This project started off really well. I had good working chemistry with my team and there was strong communication matched only by their eagerness to work. When we originally started I was going to share out the animation with Conor while Joey handled backgrounds and clean up. However Joey stated she wasn't comfortable with clean up and requested to be put on the animation instead. For the first week I asked each person just to familiarise themselves with the character and reach a point where the drawing felt natural. Unfortunately I don't think they listened as the drawings I received were inconsistent making more tedious work for me during clean up.

Everyone was working at a calm and steady pace making sure nothing was left out and no mistakes had been overlooked. This, however, did not last. On the last week before Easter break, I requested that both Joey and Conor send me a few finished frames every other day, over the course of the holiday. This meant I could clean up at my own pace and not be overwhelmed by the whole 20 seconds at once. Despite my reminders through emails, I received no work from either of them meaning there was no work for me to do. I was confused and frustrated at the sudden change of attitude from each of them. It didn't help either that I had a pre-booked holiday with my family which meant I wasn't around to offer support to my team.

By the time I got back I still hadn't received any work and I was starting to get really annoyed. We only had two weeks remaining and I had yet to see a single finished scene. I also learned that Conor hadn't even started his work and didn't even have the required software. I felt like my team were just lounging around doing nothing and whenever I called them on it or asked to see work, I got high-tempered replies or excuse after excuse, and yet they still wouldn't show me the work.

When I received the work, after three weeks of waiting, I was unimpressed and worried with the amount of work actually completed. This now meant that during the last two weeks, when we should have been finishing the film altogether, we were still just finishing the initial animation and only just starting to piece it together. It also meant that clean up now had to be rushed and we had no time to edit the film with Adobe After Effects. Fortunately we had some outside help from Zoe Cheale and Daniel Escobar, who were happy to help. We were granted an extension as well, and with that we were able to finish. However I feel disappointed with the end result knowing it could have been so much better.

What angers me most was Joey's attitude towards me during the last week. She became unresponsive and ignored the things i said but later complained that I wasn't communicating. She also went behind my back falsely accusing me of stealing work even though I asked her in advance if it was okay to fix just one scene. I feel it's unfair to suggest that I just ignored my team and expected them to do it all alone, when I tried really hard to make sure everyone was ok.

Unscrew of Minerva clean up

Clean up on sly walk given to me by Conor

Character body 3/4 angle turn around

Character head back view to use with 'Sly Walk' scene

The snowman collapses shortly after the robot walks away

Using the same snowman animation given by Joey, I then then added the walk cycle 

Snowman collapse clean up

Robot walk cycle clean up

I've cleaned up the body and legs as well duplicated and reversed the arms to give a flowing motion

Finished arm drop with snowman present

Snowman design

Arm Movements Clean Up. 

The Animation is getting there but I am disappointed with how this project turned out. Although my groups communication has improved and the works getting done now, I'm frustrated that I haven't once received the work I asked for when I asked for it and that only now at the end am I just starting to see the animation. This work should have been done before easter! As a result the work has piled up and I now have to many frames coming at me to clean up in time.
I also don't appreciate being accused of not communicating with my team despite my constant attempt to help or share out the work and my continuous reminders to include me if they're having issues.

Robot movement reference

Robot Style Referance for my group members

Character Body Cut Out

this will make clean up faster and easier for the whole group 

Walk cycle Clean up

This was my walk cycle but it was made clear that the timing and spacing was wrong so I passed to Zoe to fix the legs and general movements for me and I then cleaned it up 

Robot Kick

Finished Backgrounds

Character scarf redesign

Background Concept

Character Turn Around


I've chosen this design for my robot not only because the Iron Giant style appeals to me, but the limbs structure will hopefully make it easier to animate by using the joints as pivots.

Animatic

Storyboard