Post Mortem
ANM230
For me this trimester felt very unsatisfying both in end product and learning opportunities, I feel like my time was chewed up doing pre production and bits and pieces for a project I wasn’t getting enough out of. After bringing up these points earlier in the trimester I do understand why it’s turned out this way and I’m trying not to dwell on what I think the course should be like and accept the reality of it by looking forwards, to my major project for next trimester and take the best of what I did learn from this tri into what I do next tri. I already know that the pre production work that I’ve done this trimester has helped me improve my overall skills in animatics and storyboards which I know was a process I was struggling with in studio 2. I wasn’t heavily involved with the post production work for the project as that was the time I had been given to work on my 2D end credits but I still got a lot out of watching the process the other guys went through to get it done, I feel like I know more than I ever have about whats involved in post production, what it entails and what some of the major problems to look for are, I know that will help me in my major project because that has always been something I lacked, knowledge on how to clean and polish a finished shot for it to be viewed by an audience.
I’m glad we were able to deliver a final animation from start to finish, even though it had a lot wrong with it I think there’s something to be said for having it all animated and a decent effort at finialising in post production. Out of my personal contribution I think the 2D animation I did manage to complete was at a good standard of work, it had things wrong with it in terms of fitting the story and acting choices and what not but the actual animation I thought turned out well and was better than I have previously been able to accomplish.
I think there were a lot of breakdowns in communication that could have been avoided by better management skills and better respect. I think one of our major downfalls were due to team members thinking their work had been handed over to another person and then not following up or making an effort to make sure that person had been able to finish it resulting in situations where both parties had thought the other person was doing it and the work has fallen through the cracks. I think this is easily avoided by taking a keen interested in the success of the teams project, if your invested in making sure your team is doing well you will take an active role in knowing what is being done what has been done and what needs to be done.
I needed to make more time for myself to get the things I really wanted to get out of the project done such as my 2D animated scenes. It felt as though I was doing a lot of work for the project and trying to be a team player as much as I could and then when it came to the stuff I really wanted to get right I was out of time trying to cram it in the last few weeks very rushed. I think this could’ve been avoided a lot of ways that would make the course better in my opinion but the main way I could have made sure this didn’t happen personally would be to plan a smaller deliverable or put it higher on my priority list than my other project work.
Going into the future I think I’ll take a lot of how this project turned out into how I plan for other projects, a lot of knowledge on scope is a main thing i see being useful as my upcoming major project was going to be about the same scope I definitely see that being an issue as the group will be smaller in my major project and I am the only one animated as appose to this project where four people where animating scenes.
Group work is always going to be difficult because everyone has their own ideas and ways of doing things but in order to work and produce something worth while you have to accept other peoples ways of doing things and compromise mutually to reach the set goal. I think we did that to the most part and I feel I contributed a lot to where the project was steering along with how the group was progressing, I try to make sure I’m active in any group chats that our team has so that I’m in the know with the latest on progress and workflows.
As an individual I felt that I communicated well within the group and was actively participating in discussion, conflicts and decisions. Making sure I’m on top of my workload and others are handling theirs well also. The main thing I would change about my involvement in the group would be my continued problem of working through the night, I always find myself toward the second half of the trimester pulling all nighters resulting in me being late for class because I’m exhausted or I get to class and my attitude and mood suffers and that can effect the moral of everybody in class, I think I do it so repeatedly because in a way it works, my work gets done in that night and i don’t let anyone down by having incomplete work but that’s not a healthy workflow to have as a default way of working. I need to get better at working in the day time productively. For next trimester I plan to implement methods of making sure I’m more productive in the day time, saving me from feeling as though I need to work through the night, such as turning my phone off during set working times in the day so I’m not distracted, closing none work related tabs and programs on my computer when in set working times and asking my partner to respect my set working times.
I think with these corrections to my workflow I can be much more productive in my projects and have a much healthier state of mind.