Week 8

When Push Comes to Shove

As we brought up in the previous blog post, this week was our team’s Halves presentation. We had to present to our faculty and peers everything we had worked on up to this point, and give a clear idea of our roadmap for the second half of the semester.

Since we were so involved in the product up to this point, we ended up in a mad dash to get the presentation locked down and ready to go. It was a challenge and we wish we could have had more time, considering we’d been set back the previous week by illnesses. In just a few days, we had to polish our teaser and rig, finish our 3D animatic, get the presentation slides clean and good-looking, and rehearse until we knew our material front and back.

Our approach for halves was primarily to focus on how we iterated over the course of the semester. As our faculty instructors told us, many people outside of animation think that creating is as simple as bringing something into 3D and pressing a button to “make it pretty,” so we needed to illustrate that it’s an incredibly multifaceted process. Since we had completed a single shot for the film, we recalled how big animation studios will do behind-the-scenes where they break down a shot and how it is built over time:

With this in mind, we worked on slides that would reflect that kind of iteration and the trial and error that goes into making a scene look and feel the way you want it to.

Ultimately, we got a positive reception from our faculty and peers, and they seem excited for our future prospects. We feel a weight off our shoulders for Spring Break, but also recognize that when we get back the pressure’s on to live up to these heightened expectations.

Last but not least, here’s a look at the teaser we unveiled at Halves: