For example, when I've worked in the past on a particular scene I would start then dedicate far too much time to it. I would often do a bulk of the work by hand on paper to create the roughs, then take these roughs and draw over them with fine-liner on separate sheets of layout paper, then transfer these scans to the computer where I would place them onto the photoshop timeline and add yet more in-betweens because obviously it's slightly difficult to figure out timings when your physically flicking through sheets of paper. Then once I'd added in-betweens, I'd colour each frame on Photoshop. this proved to be in of itself an incredibly time consuming task. Then finally I would render off my frames, but even in how I did this before was completely time-consuming with often turning to saving individual jpegs and dragging them and cropping them to the right timings on the Adobe Premier timeline.
I completely transformed my work style with the purpose that I would complete my full animation in time for the deadline. I was advised frequently by my peers and tutors that I should learn the software Adobe Animate CC because people around me felt it would suit my style of animating. I've found that although I was skeptical of first of the software, the people around me could not have been more right. I've been able to save a huge amount of work time with the software.
In particular I have saved a huge amount of time by not worrying about my organisation with layers, how they are set out on Animate is so simple to me and has really helped with skipping that part of the process in particular with doing in-betweens.
The process of doing in-betweens has been greatly sped up by using the software because of Onion Skinning. How I used to onion skin on Photoshop was by literally reducing the opacity of the layer in front and behind of the layer I was working on. So in that process I have saved a significant amount of time and wont be going back.
A big part of why I was skeptical of using the software was because I was aware of the fact that I am a slow learner. Once I have learnt a software, I've learnt it but learning it for me does take time and I was cautious. However with this project I was so determined to master this software after using it for a little bit of time and realising it was definitely for me that I took out the book on learning Animate CC in terms of learning it in-keeping with the twelve principles of Animation which I felt would be very beneficial.
Learning Animate CC wasn't the only thing I changed about my style of working. Instead of drawing out my neats by hand I decided that I would only draw them out on Adobe Animate and essentially cutout the middle-man. Furthermore I decided to significantly reduce the amount of rough frames I produce, deciding to literally only draw the most essential keyframes. This sped up my work flow significantly because it meant I did not need to waste as much time numbering frames and scanning individual frames.
In spite of my workflow being significantly faster on this software. I still ended up behind schedule. So why was this. I feel that learning the software even though in the long run turned out to benefit me a lot did take up quite a bit of time at the start. However I noted in a weekly blogpost further down the line that my workflow was beginning to snowball and found that in that particular week I had produced the equivalent of animation to the entirety of what I had produced before in around a month of animating. This was evidence to me that I was becoming more and more confident and comfortable with the software so of course I was beginning to find myself working faster and faster.
That to me is a big reason as to why I've ended up behind on schedule. I should have taught myself the software before the project commenced and not only should I have taught myself the basics but I should have also reached a point of which I was entirely comfortable with the software. And I wouldn't have needed to start learning the software that far in advance, maybe six weeks.
To me the perhaps biggest reason I have ended up behind on schedule with not all of my animation complete is due to the sheer scale of the project. We were advised from the start to collaborate due to the fact that with a distribution of workload you can accomplish so much more. At the start of the project I simply was not prepared to do this because I had had the idea for this project and had storyboarded it long before we were officially briefed. I had an idea of what I wanted to produce and how I wanted to produce it, I wanted to put that pressure of making the highest quality animation I had produced yet on myself and wasn't too prepared to put it on anyone else.
In retrospect, I do wish I had been more open to collaboration but I do not regret taking on all the roles myself. The reason for this is because I wanted to demonstrate that if I needed to I could so a wide range of skills. I wanted to show that while I might not be the best at it, I could at least demonstrate I had an understanding the the aspects of animation such as foley, soundtrack, background design and marketing etc. There are aspects of the animation process that are perhaps not at a level of quality I initially desired but I do not regret attempting to take them on because that is what this course is all about. This course is about trying everything and finding the aspects you are successful at and the aspects you are not.
This animation is definitely the most ambitious I have produced. It's two minutes long, that means it's the longest animation I have produced individually by two minutes. Furthermore this animation is not shaded (the last time I shaded an animation I spent two years on it even though it was only twenty seconds), it is entirely coloured with coloured backgrounds.
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