Hello! My name is Emma Mell. I am an Animation student at Freestyle. I presented my Worldbuilding project from my senior year for my showcase video. I’m going to be attending SCAD in the fall as a 2D Animation Major, and I hope to pursue a career in character animation. I’m interested in pitching my own sets of stories and characters and hope to produce something with them one day.
As stated in the video, I have been developing some of these characters since 2019. Because of Freestyle, I have been given numerous opportunities to develop them and their story with the help of my teachers and peers. The most notable example of this, aside from my Worldbuilding project, is during our Narrative unit. There I created the character Mandy, who would later become Reagan.
I often picture these characters in various disconnected scenarios, so nailing down an exact course of events was initially challenging for me. Even after the project reached its conclusion, I continued to work with the story into something I was satisfied with. For this reason, my original treatment and pitch are now a bit inaccurate. While writing the treatment, I wanted to focus on making the way characters met each other feel natural and wanted to avoid contrivances. I didn’t want it to feel like the story was forcing characters together, but instead, emulate the random-chance factor of real-life interactions.
We were also tasked with creating a reel featuring our best pieces of animation from our time at Freestyle. I’ve always been interested in 2D animation, so I was a little nervous coming into Freestyle. I had never really attempted it before, but I quickly found my footing. When it comes to 3D animation, despite my preference, I wanted to give it my all. I found myself enjoying the ease of keyframing but generally disliked having less artistic freedom and how finicky Maya could be.
More than anything, my time at Freestyle has helped me become more confident in my artistic pursuits. The fast-paced atmosphere can be overwhelming and stressful at times, but ultimately it has helped me become a more efficient worker. The amount of resources Freestyle provides to its students cannot be understated. I am extremely grateful for how many opportunities I’ve been given by the staff and the encouragement I’ve received from my peers. I had never really felt at home in my local artist communities until Freestyle, and I will cherish the many friendships I made in my two years here.