Room for Improvement
Self evaluation is critical for skill development, especially for animation. Working on the final film, as well as seeing my classmates’ films, I was able to assess my skills and realize which areas I need to develop in the most.
- Visual Styles and Language
For my final, I decided to pick a safe visual style that I knew I could create and finish just in time for the deadline. However, it would’ve been more of a learning experience if I picked a style I’ve never done before. Deciding on a visual style is not one of my strong suits, and I don’t have the courage for experimentation, especially when there is a deadline. But after seeing some of my classmate’s work, I realize how important it is to get out the comfort zone, and try out different art styles for animation.
2. Perspective
I believe perspective is an overall hard skill to obtain. And although I do have some scenes that play with perspective in my film, I need to develop my understanding of 3D objects and foreshortening in order to successfully create perspective.
3. Dynamic Scenes
I’ve always been interesting in watching dynamic scenes that have a lot of camera movement within them, rather than adding it during post production. It takes quite the skill to play around with characters as if they’re 3D in 2D space. This skill also requires the understanding of shapes and how to draw them in all their angles.
4. Facial Acting
I love facial acting, and it’s something I want to develop myself in. I find it amusing how character performances can be translated successfully just by facial acting.
5. Transitions
I realized I have a lot of “cuts” in my animations. Learning how to create clever and creative transitions will improve my animations.
6. Storytelling
Storytelling is an important pillar of animation. Based on my final film, I notice that my storytelling skills could be leaning more into the weak side. This is something I need to develop in as well.
7. Being on Model
My rough animation is always better than my clean ups because I don’t have to worry about being on model as much. For my final film, I think my characters change designs so much, which is why I need to develop in being on model.