Surviving Your Animation Thesis: A Post-Mortem of My Own Short Film
Something I realized shortly after completing my thesis is that I never found any resources, guides, or other students’ experience when creating their thesis films.
Spending your senior year crafting a short film is a universal experience shared by animation students worldwide — yet when I started work on my film in May 2018, I had no idea what I was in for, or what to expect. A year of your life working on one project that lasts only a few minutes…where do you start, what should you watch out for, how do you organize everything?
For that reason, I wanted to offer my own experience, advice, mistakes, and everything in-between so that other students feel less afraid to tackle their films this coming September and beyond. If you have not already watched my film, I recommend doing so before reading this article.
A Note
Maplewood is a 3DCG film created solely by me as a student at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Although a lot of these thoughts and strategies will apply to any animator, some of the technical talk will only really apply to 3DCG films. And you may also be part of a team for your film, where some parts of the film you don’t have to worry about.
That said, I believe most of this article will be useful to any animator, as just hearing someone else’s experience can shed some light on creating a thesis as a whole. But all parts are labelled, and there are plenty of notes for 2D and stop motion animators out there.
Also, most films usually go through three stages: Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production.
- Pre-Production: Developing ideas, setting limits, designing/creating/rigging characters, and storyboarding. (Summer and first semester senior year, so May to December 2018.)
- Production: Animating. Creating final art and backgrounds after designing them in pre-production. Sound effects and music. (Second semester senior year, so January to April 2019.)
- Post-Production: Editing, compositing, effects, color correction, checking for mistakes, releasing your film and marketing it/submitting to film festivals. (I edited my film throughout the production stage.)
I’ve also split this article up into those stages, but I should note that I spent far more time in pre-production than I did in production and post-production, which is normal for stop motion and 3D animators. 2D animators should spend much more time in production, with maybe only one or two months in pre-production.
With that, I hope you enjoy.
Pre-Production
May to December 2018
Background (and Burnout Advice)
In May 2018, I completed my first 2D animated short film, Baby no Diaper.
I didn’t really enjoy making it even if I’m proud of how it turned out. Storyboarding and animating the rough stage of the film was fun, but I really hated clean-up, coloring, lineart, and so on, which also took the longest.
This was my first thought I had about my thesis: “There’s no way I’m spending a whole year doing this.”
So, I didn’t. Obviously, that doesn’t mean your thesis shouldn’t be 2D. What I mean is, if there are stages in your film you don’t enjoy much, you should consider designing your film to avoid them or mitigate them as much as possible. (This avoids burnout!)
In the same vein, design your film so that it emphasizes parts of the process you enjoy. My teacher and mentor, Tammy Dudman, described a thesis film as akin to a “business card” for employers, in that it represents everything you’re good at. If you really love backgrounds and environments, maybe that could be the focus on your film. Your love for those parts will show! And it gives your film an obvious, immediate purpose for existing aside from being created to graduate.
If you’re in your senior year, you should already be intimately familiar with that parts of the animation process you’re not a fan of, and the parts you’d probably spend your entire career doing.
If you’re not familiar with what part of the animation process you enjoy, consider spending part of your film’s development figuring out what you enjoy and trying things out. Maybe you could complete a short clip or spend some time on new processes you haven’t yet tried. This is exactly what I spent my last summer doing.
For me, I wanted to explore the idea of creating a 3D short film, but I had almost no experience in rigging. (The process of getting a 3D model ready for animation.) It’s a very hidden part of 3D film development, but extremely important and unskippable — no animation happens until your characters are rigged.
I figured I would spend the summer learning some advanced rigging and seeing how it goes — if I didn’t like it, then I’ll design my film so it’s less important.
I loved it!
Maplewood ended up cementing my love for 3D, and in particular rigging. There’s something about the problem solving and technical mumbo jumbo that scratches my brain in ways 2D animation never did. I ended up rigging for several months straight without any burnout, and actually ended up somewhat disappointed when it came time to animate.
However, if you’re doing work for your thesis over the summer, you should work on something that doesn’t require critique. I was primarily learning how to rig over the summer, and this was a time-consuming, technical part of the process best done early.
But storyboarding, animatics or character designs you should not finalize in the summer. It’s okay to start developing these ideas early, but you shouldn’t be too attached to anything you create that hasn’t been properly shown to others and critiqued.
Although I started modelling and rigging my characters early, the characters I was using had come from an earlier assignment I did in 2017, and had been critiqued by other students and teachers.
At the time, I figured that using characters that were already developed and critiqued would give a good jumping off point for rigging and development. It’s a super simple design too, which suggested a simple story: a lumberjack bear living alone in the woods.
“Keep your idea simple” is some of the most important advice I can give to anyone starting their thesis soon. You don’t have to keep it as sickeningly simple as funny cartoon animals, but I recommend resisting the temptation of telling the story you’ve been dying to tell.
I did have another idea before I settled on Maplewood’s characters: a more abstract, dream-like film that follows a single character named Luna floating through landscapes that represent her fears and anxiety.
She’s from a bigger story that I do want to tell someday, but even then, I set limits for my thesis and used nothing from that story but her design.
There will come a time for finally showing the world your favorite characters and your expansive world building, but the majority of your thesis isn’t spent on that. It’s spent on the technical parts, the process of making it. Therefore, your film should be based on that first, with the actual idea and story second.
As you develop your idea, I seriously recommend browsing student short films, as it sets realistic goals and can give you a sense of what’s possible in a thesis film. My primary inspiration came from the short film Allisk8r by Anna Prado, one of my favorite short films, regardless of it being a student’s thesis.
I didn’t think it was realistic to create a thesis film that mixes 2D and 3D beforehand, as I thought it was primarily the work of smart technical tricks. But after Allisk8r, I realized a lot of what makes a 3D film look 2D is a matter of art and design rather than technical specifics, and it instantly felt possible to take my own 2D animation background and apply it to a 3D film.
It’s also short, sweet and simple: two dinosaurs in a feud. It’s entirely driven by its expressions and characters, and tells its story with no dialogue. No lip-syncing needed, no exposition. Your idea doesn’t have to be as simple, but it definitely gives you a lot more time to focus on whats important.
You shouldn’t be afraid to message the creators of short student films you love either — I messaged the creator of Allisk8r about a technical aspect of the film, and they responded with the same excitement over 2D/3D mixes in CG films. If the short film was created in the past few years, chances are the student is happy to talk about their own work. And in an odd twist, eventually Ringling students starting their own 3D thesis also messaged me, and I happily shared my own process. Just be respectful and patient.
Once you have an idea, keep developing it. Don’t ever settle on the “eh” — don’t ever settle on the “good enough.” Keep revising and developing the idea until you’re jumping out of your bed in the morning ready to work on it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re working on, you won’t do yourself, or your film, any favors. Ask questions, take critiques, keep developing until you’re excited.
This is also a good time to start visualizing how you want the final film to look. Don’t stress over finalizing the look just yet — much of that will come later. At this point, you just want a basic idea of how it might look in the end. Even if you’re worried about technical challenges or don’t have a clue how to achieve a certain “look”, ignore that for now and draw it.
If you’re not much of an artist, as some 3D filmmakers are, that’s okay: gather inspiration together that conveys the visuals you want for your film on a site like Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.. Get it in one place and put it together. You can more easily narrow down how you want your film to look when you’re looking at one big swathe of inspiration. I did a small Pinterest early in the film’s development over the summer.
If you plan on doing any compositing or effects as well, now would be a good time to give those a try. For example, if you wanted your film to have a vintage VHS look, you’ll want to try out some ways of how to get that effect. You want to be familiar with what that process is like so you can be prepared for any hangups caused by effects and editing.
Having the characters and some visuals in mind, I started developing my story in September, and began work on the animatic.
Developing The Story
To me, a lot of idea and story development is looking at the idea you already have, taking it apart, and putting it back together. What do you find appealing about the idea? Why is it that way?
My initial idea for the story was incredibly simple: Maple keeps appearing out of nowhere and won’t leave the bear alone. She’d appear when the bear opens the cupboard, when he has his back turned, and so on. Some of this appears in the final film during the first minute.
But eventually this didn’t feel like enough — I wanted to tell a deeper story than that, with a clear three act structure. I took apart the elements of the story I already had and tried to find reason and logic to them, and started asking myself questions about the story…
Why does a bear live in a cabin in the woods?
The answer to this lead me to the film’s second act: all the animals in this forest have a home and a daily routine. Dead simple, it’s funny animals — but it immediately lead to the idea of a tiny grandma squirrel with her home inside a tree, and a fish living in the river with half his house submerged.
This also created a new role for Maple — she’s now the weird outsider in this world, and the focus of the story shifted to finding out who she is and why she’s here. From here, I started storyboarding, and found another important lesson: Your story is not perfect. It doesn’t matter how good at storyboarding you are, how long you’ve been writing the story, nothing matters until it’s critiqued.
Critique is your best friend at this stage. Many of the specifics came as I storyboarded and presented my work for critique from other students. You should always, always listen to critiques, and polish your story to the point that nobody is asking any questions.
Your story should completely and utterly speak for itself. If you find students are confused or concerned about specifics in your storyboards, by God, listen to them. You don’t have to follow their suggestion, just try and figure out why they are asking that specific question. Don’t ignore them, especially early on.
One of my biggest breakthroughs in the story actually came from Ru Kuwahata, co-director of Negative Space, who was a guest at our school reviewing student thesis films. Originally, the relationship between Maple and her father was more complex, with Maple running away from a hunting trip with her dad. The Hunter was not introduced at all until 3 minutes in, and the posters had Maple on it instead.
But this created confusion with some students, and I instantly knew something had to be done when Ru was confused about the story and pointed out a critical flaw. She had a few suggestions on how to fix it, but she was clear about why she was confused rather than emphasizing her own suggestion. (And putting the hunter on the posters instead of Maple was all her.)
There was also an earlier version of the story where the hunter was attacked in the end by the animals that Maple and the bear had met along the way. Another student and friend, Jack Seber-Merolla (watch his film!) made a suggestion that completely rocked my core: there should be some kind of “understanding” between the father and Maple. Again, it’s not the how, but the why that is important.
Storyboarding Tips
While your thesis storyboard is mostly created for your own use, you’ll be showing it to fellow students and teachers, and possibly even employers as part of your portfolio. Your critique will waste valuable time if you’re spending it explaining the storyboards. Here are some quick tips everyone working on their storyboards should know:
- Animatics aren’t comics
Comic panels are moments frozen in time, while animatics move forward in time normally. Any movement or action is done entirely differently in each medium. Think in terms of actual time instead of moments in time.
Avoid certain visual language that makes more sense in comics too, like text or exclamation points. Remember that the final product is animation, and you should be showing your animation in a simpler form.
2. Camera is king
Here’s the order I usually follow when drawing a storyboard:
- Camera
- Composition
- Pose
- Expression
- Everything Else
Cameras can key the audience into character motivations and scene emotions, by location, angle and composition. Consider the camera like it was its own character. Also, as a bonus, audiences feel really rewarded when they know what’s happening before its explained, which is usually caused by the camera giving them their own perspective into how to feel.
3. Keep the audience’s eye in mind
Your audience’s eyes move around instead of taking in the entire image at once. Keep in mind what the audience should be focusing on in a shot, then focus your composition towards that with lines, movement and details all focusing in on what’s important. If something happens that distracts the eye from the focus, it might pull your audience away from something important!
4. Draw fast but take breaks
Draw fast. Draw faster!
You can convey a lot of emotion, energy, and atmosphere in simple, fast drawings. And you should never get attached to your storyboards either, as they can and should be thrown out the next day in critique.
But take breaks. If you can’t get a drawing out the way you want, get away from the screen for a bit and come back later. Any time I was having trouble with a storyboard, it came out way faster right after a break than if I tried to force it out from a dozen failed drawings.
Maplewood’s Animatic
Above is the full animatic for Maplewood, dated November 2018, with some early music by my composer Jason Fujita, and placeholder free music by Kevin Macleod. There are a lot of differences to the final film, but most of the changes were made in the production stage where I didn’t feel the need to change the storyboards.
One thing to note about my animatic is that at this point I knew my film was a mix of 2D and 3D, and therefore I limited my camera to mostly side views. In your animatics, I recommend you use the camera more to your advantage.
Bringing the Characters to Life
In 3D animation and stop motion, a “puppet” of each character needs to be made before any animation happens. The puppet should have everything you (or your animator) need to fully convey the personality of the character — how they move, talk, walk, and so on. In hand-drawn 2D animation, you don’t need any puppet, but you should still consider everything here while animating your character.
So before going any further, we should stop and take a moment to analyze exactly what our character needs and how to achieve it. Look past the design for a moment and think about how that character would actually move. You could ask yourself a million questions, but all of them lead back into one simple question: how do I convey their personality?
Maple is young, curious, and hyperactive. The main aspects of her design are her long coat, long hair, loopy noodle arms and legs, and large eyes, with her hat brim acting as her eyebrows.
When creating the puppet for Maple, these were the most important aspects to keep in mind, and the puppet should keep these features as faithful to the drawings and concepts as possible. Everything else is secondary.
Any “tests” or “studies” that can narrow down specific aspects of your characters are good tests. How they lift a heavy object, how they look angry, sad, etc., how they walk and run. The more you do, the better. One famous test that comes to mind is all the characters in Big Hero 6 sitting down, seen below. This is well after the puppets are completed, but there are a lot of specifics in how they enter the room, take the chair, and finally sit down, that show off their individual personalities:
Your character was also not made in the vacuum of space — it’s inspired by other characters you enjoy in media. Take a second to analyze the inspirations that make your character and the kinds of personalities they have. Maple in particular was especially inspired by Goo from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, and somewhat by Dee Dee from Dexter’s Lab. Both have that hyperactive personality (although a bit extreme), but also the way they move is similar to how I wanted Maple to move.
Even the hunter’s character design was directly inspired by a minor character that appears in just one chapter of the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court. I really enjoyed how his beard drapes over his shoulders, and it was something several people commented on as a memorable feature in the hunter’s design.
From here, determine how you make those characters a reality and start planning. Much of Maplewood’s development was learning some of the advanced rigging necessary for what Maple and the bear’s puppets needed. I don’t feel the need to get into the technical details, but this video below briefly goes over many of the specifics:
By the end of December, I had two rigs mostly completed with all the features I felt I needed. They still needed color and textures, but I could animate and move them around. Moving into the Production stage, I began strategizing the best way to organize files, manage my time, set expectations and ultimately how to complete the film over the next few months.
Production
January to April 2018
File Organization and Pipeline
Maplewood had a ton of files to keep track of, from models, to textures, character rigs, backgrounds, scenes, renders, and so on. Keeping everything organized was the only reason I was able to finish my film on time. This goes beyond just keeping files in specific folders. You really don’t want to be in the final weeks and not able to find a specific file.
What you need is a “pipeline,” that is, a process for starting and finishing every scene until the film is complete. This will totally depend on the kind of film you’re making, and may not even matter to stop motion animators, but just try and think about how you will create each scene from start to finish. Here’s my own development pipeline:
After completing the animatic, I added a timecode at the bottom and red scene codes in the bottom right.
The timecode is exactly as it looks like, and is mostly for syncing the sound and music with my composer, but having a timecode onscreen also helps you sync your own animation to your animatic. The number to the far right of the timecode is the frame count of that second, so the above screenshot is the 23rd frame of the 46th second in my film. Since animatics are mostly still images, this lets you keep track of which specific frame your timing is on.
The number to the right is a scene code, and was entirely for file management purposes. “A” means “Act,” and the number following is which act the film is in. “S” means “Scene” or “Shot” and the number following that is which shot the film is on. So the above screen shot could be called “Act 1, Shot 5.”
The most important use of these scene codes was I would name my files after them. It was extremely easy to keep track of which scenes were what files, both in my head and on paper, and when you eventually edit and put your film together, your files are named in order.
There’s a balance in how long each scene file lasts, though. I usually had a new scene code for a major camera shift, like a new angle that would require a new background. But this ended up being a bad idea for some scenes, especially if you need continuity between two shots. For example, the campfire scene (3:32–4:07) had five unique scene codes. But there was a lot of continuity between each shot, with the campfire being a central focus of the shot, and both characters sitting down with their marshmallow on a stick. I ended up having one file with the characters sitting around the campfire, and saved five unique scene codes from that.
Production started by creating these scene code files for every scene in the film, starting with a “base scene” that had everything I needed for each file. In particular, this “base scene” contained:
- Three windows or “views” that contained 1.) my animatic, 2.) a locked camera used as the final “look” of the shot, and 3.) a free roaming view to manipulate my rig’s controls from any angle.
- Both of my main character rigs, referenced in
- A directional light, the main type of light used in the entire film.
From there, I would save the file and name it the same as the scene code of the shot I’m working on, and then start working. In 3D animation, each file started in the layout stage, where the animation looks absolutely goofy:
This stage is just about getting the timing of each action, the basic poses, and some background placeholders. Within Maya, I would sync my animatic to the current scene code, and then copy the timing and poses from the animatic into 3D. After a month of work I eventually had the entire film in this state.
If you are doing a 3D or stop motion film, don’t jump straight to animation. Get your film in this stage first — in stop motion, I recommend remaking your animatic with your puppets, even if you’re using the wire armature or stand-ins. You need to test the limits of your puppets in the 3D space compared to your 2D drawings. There are lots of surprises you’d never realize.
As an example, I had a scene where the bear lifts his axe to chop wood, only to find it disappeared off-screen as he lowers his arms. But I soon found that my puppet couldn’t reach his arms that high…how do I tell this joke in the 3D world? Instead, I had the axe disappear behind his head as he raises it — problem solved.
With a file for every shot in the film, I could then put together the whole film in this stage, and I don’t have to worry about syncing or timing any shots when I start animating. Below you can watch the first three minutes of the film in this layout stage, created in February to March 2019. Some of the timing is off, but the basic layouts were there and eventually synced in the final film.
Upon completing a scene, I would render it as a sequence of PNG images and put it in a folder named after the scene code, then render the PNG sequence again as a video file. It’s important to have a full quality, uncompressed render of every frame after completing it, rather then holding onto compressed video files. Finally, I would replace the layout scene with the completed scene in my video editor.
In addition to this pipeline, I kept a folder for each major component of my film, with sub folders for each smaller part. The Models folder, for example, had a folder for the bear, Maple, and the hunter, with all of their rigs, models, and textures inside each. I had a folder specifically for the animal characters in Act 2 called “2DCharacters”, as they required some special care to create.
Since the render that came out of Maya was the final look of the film, there was no extra step in this pipeline. But I recommend you experiment with additional effects, editing, and compositing. For example, a friend of mine, Jhonatan Lechar, has a really cool style for his upcoming film, where he renders the character separately on a 2D drawn background, and puts them together afterwards. (Give him a follow!)
One last file management tip: if you are working on a Windows computer, I highly recommend the program “Everything”, which lets you quickly search for any file on your computer much faster than Windows’ default search. I use it probably more than any other program on my computer, even File Explorer.
Speaking of everything…
Backup Everything
A wise man once said “There are two types of hard drives. Dead hard drives, and dying hard drives.” That wise man was my department’s studio manager, Adam Savje, who has probably seen many fallen hard drives in his time in the department. Working at my college’s tech center as well, you wouldn’t believe the amount of students I’ve seen that kept everything on one crappy external hard drive that would break if you coughed on it.
Back everything up.
I really can’t emphasize this enough. You need to back up all your data. If you’ve done any work on your thesis already, you should back it up right now. And you should back it up in multiple ways, not just automatically. Here are all the backups I did:
- Maya’s automatic backups: Every ten minutes Maya would save what I’m working on as a new iterative backup. I can’t count the amount of work that was saved by loading a backup from just a few minutes ago.
- Google Drive backup: Specific folders on my computer are automatically backed up to my Google Drive account, my thesis folder being one of them. This also includes Maya’s automatic backups.
- Physical backup: I have an internal, desktop hard drive in an external enclosure, used only for taking backups. These require a power source, but last much longer than external hard drives. I backed all my work up to this every month. An external solid state drive is also not a bad idea, as the lack of moving parts prevents damage.
Again, BACK EVERYTHING UP. PLEASE.
Sound and Music
Sound is by far the most important component of your film, even more than animation. Bad sound is distracting, or worse, annoying — good sound lets your audience enjoy your animation and hard work without worrying about anything else. Do your sound early! Don’t leave it until the end!
Whether you have music or not is up to you, but it certainly helps. For Maplewood’s music and sound, I teamed up with the great Jason Fujita, who worked with me on my previous short film, Baby no Diaper. He did an amazing job and my film wouldn’t be the same without it.
If you are collaborating with someone else for your music and sound, set deadlines for both yourself and your composer. Give them expectations. Tell them you expect to have a cut of the film by the weekend, and deliver that. Ask if they can deliver some rough sound by next week. Jason was fantastic at delivering on deadlines, despite working on several other great films at the same time. (Like Steve Ly’s Cock Fight and Erica Machida’s Musubi.) He later redid my sound design for the final release of the film in May too.
Time Management
This is easily the biggest worry for most students starting their thesis soon. How do you manage your time? What limits do you set? What do you sacrifice to complete the film?
While I’m incredibly proud of how my film turned out in the end, it falls short in some areas, particularly animation. I spent a little too much time rigging and experimenting, and decided to sacrifice some of my animation to polish the visuals. Actually animating the film only took a month!
I made this decision after evaluating the strengths of what I had already made, and building upon that. People responded really well to how the main characters looked, and I decided to focus my time on visual development over the animation.
But I could have managed my time a bit better and set more deadlines for myself. I probably spent less time on animation and more time experimenting on features for Maple’s rig that never saw the light of day, which is a shame.
Something I did that helped manage expectations and time is a big “laundry list.” (This strategy is thanks to the awesome Steve Subotnick, my teacher for Baby no Diaper.) I wrote down every single little thing needed for every shot in the film — every thing I needed to model, draw, etc. for every shot in the film. Be sure to include sound effects as well if you are doing your own sound.
This forces you to evaluate everything needed, almost like a shopping list, and mitigates any surprises that might happen. I tried to picture the scene playing out in my head and write down what the characters are holding or interacting with, and make any notes of anything I might need to add. For the scene with the business fish (A2S7, above), I specifically noted that the car door has to open, and the chassis should rock back and forth as the fish enters — not something I would have considered otherwise.
I did my task list within Google Docs, but other animators and fellow students I’ve seen create spreadsheets with percentages, bullet journals, sticky notes on a big board in front of them, all sorts of ways. Anything that gets you to sit down and evaluate your film inside and out.
Although I crossed stuff off my list as I went along, I eventually didn’t really need to as I got closer to the deadline. It’s just the act of writing it all down that gets it in your head — once that’s done, don’t worry too much about keeping track of it when you’re crunching.
You can take a look at the full document by clicking here.
Final Visual Development
I didn’t quite know how to create Maplewood’s look until I started experimenting and trying different things. Being my first 3D short film, I was definitely concerned I would run into some technical problems with Maya, or that I would be limited on some of the visuals.
However, it ended up being much simpler than I expected it to be, and I didn’t really run into anything serious. Because my 3D skills are mostly self taught, I wasn’t really familiar with more advanced 3D rendering, so I mostly used my 2D art abilities as a place to start. It’s really the old saying of “write what you know,” except for art. Don’t be afraid to try things out.
I was also limiting myself to visuals that render in real-time — that is, the final look of the film is what I would see as I was animating it, rather than a simplified version that needs to be rendered once complete. This saved a lot of time as most 3D films take some time to render, and my college does not have a render farm like Ringling; if I had gone a more traditional 3D route, I would have to complete my film several weeks early just to render it.
The best visual style for your thesis is something you can do fast, but still looks unique. Try and experiment with your visuals and push it in directions you don’t expect, and don’t settle on your traditional methods. If you come up with something that looks great but takes a while, simplify it. Mess with it until you can do it fast.
Maplewood reuses a lot of art assets throughout the whole film, particularly trees. I drew 6 trees and made pretty much all the backgrounds with them. They were great filler, and I was able to twist them around to create unique compositions. I also reused these trees for Act 3, which is set at night, and adjusted the palette to be darker blue and purple. Palettes and limiting your colors is probably one of the most important ways to give your film an identity, so I recommend starting there if you’re trying to give your thesis a unique identity.
Crunch (The Final Weeks)
Imagine I’m sitting backwards on a wooden chair, like I’m talking to you about the birds and the bees.
Don’t crunch.
Okay, maybe crunch a little. Crunch within your means. If I’m deeply interested in a project, I tend to work 24/7 on it, so I don’t personally mind crunch.
And in the final weeks of your film you will probably end up crunching to get it done — if you feel you can take it, it’s fine. Listen to your mind and body and make the right call about what you can finish in time.
But don’t stay up all night. I only pulled one all nighter in Maplewood’s development, and that was to finish it the night of the deadline on April 30th.
No matter what you do, you’re not cool for staying up all night to finish something. It’s unproductive, unhealthy, and dumb. If you stayed up all night to finish something, your work was probably worse and completed slower than if you just worked on it with a good night’s rest.
Post-Production
May 2019 and Beyond
Editing and Quality Checks
There is not a whole lot to be said that hasn’t been said already. Be sure to keep your file specifications the same throughout — stick to 30fps or 24fps, 1080p, etc. Try to keep your film uncompressed until the final cut, and hold onto the uncompressed files.
I edited my film together using Adobe Premiere — however, I could have easily also put it together using the free Davinci Resolve, as there’s nothing in particular I did that can only be done in Premiere, and the interface is nearly the same.
Most of the film was edited as I went along, replacing the animatic with the layouts as they were completed, and replacing the layouts with the final renders when those were completed. You will probably end up doing this too if you are collaborating with other students, composers, or showing your work for critique.
As you edit it along and render your film out to show others, keep those files and mark them with the current date. It’s good to keep track of how much progress you’re making so you can evaluate when you’ll complete each stage of your film.
You should also watch your film, or finished clips, with friends and students. If anyone points out any mistakes, fix them. That means they’re obvious and distracting. But don’t sweat small mistakes that only appear for a couple frames, or if they’re outside of the focus of the shot. It may be time better spent polishing and improving your film in other areas.
By the way, this is the point where you’d do any visual effects you need for your film — I didn’t need any myself for Maplewood.
Promotion and Marketing
When your film is done, nothing will matter if nobody can see it. You should get the word out, set a release date, and promote it. Give your audience an expectation of when they can see it.
Most of Maplewood’s marketing and exposure actually came mid-development as I posted updates and short clips. People really like to see behind the scenes work — a number of things I posted from Maplewood attracted thousands of likes and retweets.
You should post what you’re comfortable with though — if you feel you don’t want to clue your audience in some of your methods, you don’t have to. In fact, making your audience wonder how you achieved a certain effect can be tantalizing.
Submitting to Film Festivals
You should always submit your work to any film festivals you can — you will probably hear this a lot as a student, and there’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said. Check out this excellent article on submitting your work, containing pretty much the exact same advice every teacher I’ve had has given me for the past three years.
I will say that I put my thesis film up online earlier than most students would, and some students feel that they should let their films run in film festivals before putting it up online. This is up to you. I’ve only had one festival deny my work because it was online already, but I felt I was already receiving the attention I wanted by putting it online early anyways.
I’ve submitted to about 30–35 festivals, all of which are still making their selections. I don’t expect to receive any responses by late July, August at the earliest.
From what I know, many Sheridan and CalArts students also put their thesis films online almost immediately after graduating. One of my teachers, Steve Subotnick, has also mentioned he puts his work online immediately, and has no trouble getting his work into festivals. The decision is yours.
The Post-Graduation Crisis
It’s summer. But I’m not returning to college in September.
Oh no.
Aside from the impending doom of “get a job,” these past couple months after finishing my film have definitely been some of the strangest. I’ve received far more attention that I ever have for my work, but I’m still figuring out how I can expand upon that. I loved making Maplewood, but it’s left me confused on exactly what I want to do as a career.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this post-graduation crisis, so let’s think about this together, stream of consciousness style. You got this far in the article, after all.
My main takeaway from Maplewood is that I loooove 3D. I went literal months straight just burning away the day working on my character rigs. If I can do that for the rest of my life and get paid for it? I’m set.
I started Maplewood with only a curiosity about 3D. I was pretty sure something would go horribly wrong and I’d learn not to bother with making a 3D thesis film. “Oh well, maybe I’ll try it after I graduate!” Now I want to do it for the rest of my life. Never be afraid to try new things.
I also started noticing lots of little things in 3D films. If you’ve ever done 3D animation, you should try watching Toy Story again. I probably watched clips of it a dozen times this past year. It’s a total mixed bag of animators who had no idea how to make 3D animation look good, and totally natural, brilliant animation. But once you start picking up on all the little things in films, you can start avoiding and improving on those in your own film.
Yet, because it’s my first 3D film, I’m left with Maplewood as practically the only major 3D work in my portfolio, aside from small projects. There’s a crushing feeling somewhere inside me that I should backtrack and do more 3D exercises, as though I was back in college doing assignments. But I also need to find work, and I don’t really have time to do those assignments.
I’ve felt at a crossroads for the past few months on three career paths I want to pursue: 3D Animation, Rigging or Art Direction. But there’s no clear winner.
If I pursue art direction, I feel like I can stand out and my work is unique. Maplewood received most of its attention from its art direction. But it’s not quite as “safe” or “employable” as the other career paths. However, in the middle of Maplewood’s development, I did receive an offer for visual development for an animated series based on a popular children’s toy. The deal fell through, (I was extremely close to signing an NDA and doing an art test when they decided to move on) but it shows there’s some “market value” in my art direction.
I really love rigging — as I mentioned earlier, I was almost disappointed to finish my rigs and move on to animation. But at the moment I’m really a beginner, and I still have a long ways to go. I have a few mutuals who are excellent at rigging and are in college specifically for technical direction. I also feel the need to learn more coding.
Finally, I love 3D animation and I started creating a 3D film specifically for the animation, only to love most of the other process. While I feel I could be a solid, natural animator and make a career in it, I don’t know how much I would stand out, and I need a lot more in my portfolio for it to work.
I’ve also noticed there’s serious competition in the 3D animation world from AnimSchool and Animator Mentor students, who have massive, high quality portfolios completely focused on animation. Spiderverse’s animation team was an army of excellent online school grads who were mentored by animators who worked at Pixar, Dreamworks, etc..
Maybe I’m overthinking it! Maybe it’s cathartic to hear someone else going through this crisis, or maybe its scary. Maybe you can figure it out earlier than me and get a headstart from these thoughts. I just want to be transparent, open, and real with anyone about this part of the game. You’ll finish your film, graduate, and wonder what’s next.
But I’m sure I’ll figure it out soon and look back on this section thinking “Why did I write all of that?” Maybe I’ll come back and make an edit.
Closing Statements
While all of this is my own advice and thoughts that may not apply to everyone reading, I hope just hearing someone else’s thoughts after they’ve been put through the ringer makes it all just a little less scary.
If you have anything you would like to add, questions, corrections, concerns, please email me at davidoneacre@gmail.com.
I’d also like to thank any friends and fellow students who graduated alongside me. I’m nothing without those who critiqued my work and helped me along the way, and many of the advice and thoughts in this article only exist because of them. The same goes for my teachers, colleagues, and those I met and made friends with along the way.
Thanks for reading!
