Introduction
For Freestyle Seniors, the Zenith project is a way to take all the skills from our elective class that we’ve learned throughout our time at Freestyle, and using them to create an ambitious final project of our choice.
For my Zenith project, I decided to create an animated short. I’ve been fairly settled in this choice since last May when we got to see the Zenith projects of last year’s senior animation students. I noticed that only a few students had opted to create animated shorts, but all of the shorts were really impressive and clearly had a ton of effort put in. Seeing all the work that the seniors had put in, I was really inspired to make an animated short of my own. I began planning for my Zenith in January of this year, creating concept art and storyboarding, but I ended up scrapping that work when I realized the story I was working with may be a little ambitious considering my limited work time.
I ended up landing on a simpler premise that I felt was a good balance between being a challenge and actually feasible time-wise. The short follows my cat, Poppy, and I as we get sucked into the TV, with hilarity inevitably ensuing.
Process
To create my short, I began by storyboarding out the different scenes. I realized pretty early on into the process that this was extremely time consuming and not the right method for me, so I ended up just jumping into the animatic process.
I sketched out every scene, making sure to highlight any major points of motion that I would have to include in the final product. I had originally intended for the short to be longer, but after the animatic process took longer than I anticipated, I ended up scrapping the second half. If I revisit this project, I’ll probably try to finish this part of the short, since I had it all planned out, I just didn’t have time to finish it.
After making the animatic, I started working on line art. In order to mimic real motion on static scenes, I would redraw the same line art three times and put it on loop.
After line art, I began the coloring process, which I tried to keep pretty simple, as the deadline was approaching. Once all of the coloring was completed, I loaded up all of my footage to After Effects and synced it up with the song, and then I was done!
Undoubtedly the 21st century skill I improved on the most was self-direction. I am unfortunately a serial procrastinator, so I went into this project with the intention to put in as much effort as I could in order to have a finished product that I was proud of. I set specific times for me to work throughout the day and worked for hours uninterrupted, which probably doesn’t sound very impressive, but for me this felt like a really big accomplishment, and I’m ultimately really proud of how much work I put in. The skill I improved on the least was probably social and civic responsibility, mostly because my project is pretty lighthearted without a deeper meaning besides being cute and silly.
Final Product
Reflection
I believe this is my most successful Freestyle project for a couple reasons. For one, I came in with a set goal of what I wanted to accomplish, and I was able to do that. In a broader sense though, this feels like my most successful project because of the work process I had creating it. The narrative animation projects we’ve done in class have all been collaborative, which were all really fun, but they weren’t entirely mine. Even my explorations project, which was individual, didn’t feel like my project because I was using rotoscoping and not my actual art style. This project was incredibly refreshing because it felt personal to me, as I was literally drawing myself, in my own art style, and created a finished short all on my own. Throughout this entire process, no matter how much work I was putting in or how long I spent working, I had a ton of fun, which in my mind is the marking of a successful project.
If I could do this project over, I would try to more accurately allocate my time. I went in thinking I would be spending most of the time on planning and then breeze through the line art and color, but then it ended up being the opposite and I had to make some cuts to my plan in order to finish in time. I think the most meaningful thing to take away from this project as a whole is that when you enjoy the art you’re creating and have a good time while making it, it shows in the final product.