We’ve been working on the LIAF project for just over a month now and I’d like to say it’s been going pretty well! It’s been a tough balancing act between delegating work out and maintaining personal control over everything, and it’s been hard to switch gears from how I normally work, but I’ve been enjoying the experience.
My primary role outside of directing has been keyframing, inbetweening, and a little bit of cleanup (which I’ll be doing more of, but I’m trying to prioritise the animating over cleaning up right now).
It’s been a bit of a wild ride – constantly unsure of whether shots are working, asking for others to look over the work to work out whether sequences read well, that kind of thing.
On top of that I also took it upon myself to compile edits of the animatics, merging new shots into it as we develop keys and roughs, add in my own sound design (recording some of my own audio and sound effects but also grabbing some royalty free stuff off the internet), and writing a song for the short. It’s taken a little while but I eventually got the song to where I wanted it and I hope it fits the piece – I only know how to make really messy stuff but the film is all about chaos anyway so with any luck it’s appropriate.
this is the song here it is you can listen to it here click the play button
Directing in itself has been a unique experience. Right now I’m not sure if I really enjoy, and if I am enjoying it I know for sure that I need another go at it to work out how I should be working. Pipeline for me is something I don’t normally worry about when I’m working on my own because I know how disorganised I am and I can juggle things as and when, but keeping tabs on two additional people’s work while trying to maintain that consistency against my own stuff has been a challenge! I’m very grateful that my two team members, Chris and Sofia, have been unreasonably forgiving of my shortcomings.
With all that said, we’re slowly looming toward the deadline and I think we have a good grasp on reaching it. It’s coming up so fast and we still have a fair amount to do but I think once we’ve got everything lined up we’ll be able to move fast and get it ready to show.