Premise: Reflective Statement

This project was the first time that there was true creative freedom in the year, this was great because I could really get stuck into something that I wanted to do it proved difficult to begin because of some issues creating a solid idea which was born out of my personality. Due to this, I found that my feedback on everything was always that it seemed I was on the outside looking in on my projects. This was something I found incredibly hard to comprehend because I never felt like this at the time, looking back a little older and wiser I can see that my ideas circled around an obscure desire to have a story steeped in the genre of horror. about eight weeks in I finally figured out the story I wanted to tell, which was born from experience when I was young of my grandmother scaring me during a power cut. After the script had all the kinks knocked out it took me from the easter holidays until the finally crit to produce concept art, orthographics, character designs, the prev-viz 3D set and the final pre-viz.

During the project I found through feedback and progression that I didn't know what I needed to know, which led on a personal quest of knowledge, I read books, watched documentaries and studied the art of horror in film to gain a better understanding of how to create good horror, I think it helped because I could then apply what I learnt to my animation (even then I still needed to change things) I feel it was maybe a case of thinking too much on it and not allowing it to grow naturally, I think I find this very difficult, however, its very much my nature to be overly critical of my work when I care a lot about it. Overall I felt once the idea took off it grew quickly and is now in a good place in which I can begin to build on in year 3.

Script:
I felt that I reacted well to feedback regarding the state of my script and tried my best to work on guidance provided to me, I think that without that I would have had a rather weak script and therefore a weak pre-viz,

Character Design:
I worked with the idea of creating nightmares, and squishy little, innocent characters, but finally settled on a caricatured version of myself for the memory which the animation is based around. I went through many iterations quickly in photoshop, the symmetry tool really came in handy and allowed me to progress in a direction I felt was positive rapidly, it also led me to learn more about caricaturing and how to draw young characters, the clothing designs went through much public opinion and I finally ended up with two characters which look remarkably like their human counterparts. I finished the orthographs for them to create 3D models, I learned that afterwards they weren't correct and it became quite hard to read and had a level of guesswork was needed which was much too high. The experience has taught me a lesson about drawing and being mindful of what shapes I am drawing and how they will correspond to a front and side view.

Environment:
The environment was based on the layout of my grand mothers bungalow originally, which eventually turned into something which no longer looked like that space and instead had a basement which was a bedroom in an effort to make it a bit weirder, in my mind, it was that particular thing that sparked the idea of the layout. I think my decision to model a basic set paid off because it allowed me to create a space for a 3D pre-viz in which I could set my thoughts free for others to visualise. I feel my lack of drawing skill wouldn't have been enough to get my point across. It also allowed me to understand the space I will be working on for the next year, it now doesn't feel so big and I think I can do it quite quickly.

Final Pre-viz:
I think the whole thing happened very quickly once it took off and the end result could have been improved if the eight weeks it took to get rolling has been used to add to it, however it is possible I needed that time to exhaust my mind of generic ideas in order to get to the thing which it became. I liked how it went, but there are still alterations which I need to make, I need to strip out some content from the middle and make more room for suspense and to create a smoother camera. finally, I need to work on the ending to create an ending which the audience isn't suspecting. I think It worked well for what it was and I managed to sell the idea for what it was.

I think it could still do with some work, I'd like to say its the perfectionist in me but I think selective perfectionist is probably a better term. I tend to put an endless amount of work quickly into things that I care about and believe in, I think the biggest piece of feedback which I have received which seemed to have hit home it simply to stop avoiding the thing I'm not very confident with and do it.