Final Cut

My partner and I have finally prepared a final cut for our animation. We had some major time constraints on the animation witch resulted in what appears to be a half put together animation. Not only was there a time issue, neither of us have been trained to deal with large flash files. There are many areas that can be improved and if we were better prepared could have organized our plethora of layers in scenes. That was one of our approaches to speed up production but we couldn’t fully execute.

A lot of work has been put forth by both myself and my partner. We had a vision for the animation that seemed almost out of reach. We both agreed that executing a short movie was introduced too soon. I feel like we should have been better prepared before tackling a short movie.

My partner and I prefered to have much of our animation executed frame by frame considering our animation was a little complex. We were lucky to be able to turn in a finished piece. My partner and I could have focused more on the intricate work, but following through that plan of action could have resulted in a very rushed ending.

In the end we our both happy that we were able to pull off the animation, maybe not to the extent that we had hoped for, but we did finish.

Finishing Up the First Cut

The first cut has been so much work and it’s not even finished yet. My partner and I have met 3 times this past week aside from just working on the project ourselves. We have been meeting more often, because this first cut requires so much work and we need to stay constantly updated with eachother’s progress. The problem is that we are both full-time students and work part-time, so it is extremely hard to find a small gap in our schedules to meet. Well aside from our efforts, we are nearly complete.

We have animated and matte painted about 4/5 of our animation, and we are scheduled to meet again this morning to finish up. Our progress is decent and I wish we had more time to execute this project. When my partner and I met yesterday we focused matte paintings because I had finished a decent portion in animation already and I needed some of her paintings to fill some of the gaps I left open for her. The scene that we have to do is the sword fight, and it just so happens to be a busy scene in our animation that requires both our attention.

The First Cut

The first cut is currently underway and I’ve made significant progress. My partner and I will be meeting again later this week to put our animations together. We both agreed to execute certain portions of our short movie where our own character appears more often. I have completed the title screen, the scrolling background with the binocular movements, and when Scuttles makes his escape. It sounds like just a few portions, but at least half of the animation will be frame by frame if time allows.

There has been a little bit of a problem with how my partner and I have been executing our drawings. The way I’ve been carrying most of the matte painting is that I’ve been drawing in illustrator and then bringing my work into flash. I feel like I can draw much quicker in illustrator and I’m much more familiar with the tools for object drawing as opposed to using flash. My partner hasn’t had an illustrator class as of yet and draws in flash. There is nothing wrong with drawing in flash but our colors maybe slightly off considering we are both using different applications. That would be my main concern, also that we are not constantly working side by side to compare color usage.

When my partner and I meet, our main goal is to refine any uncertain animations then combining our separate scenes into one.