'Bear' Animation Week 7

Cast your mind back to last week when I said I was taking on a gigantic 250 frame shot? Cool, well this week I finished it (fanfare please)! I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d get it finished this week and at some points it felt never ending, but today I managed it and I’m super pleased with the result. It wasn’t only the longest shot in the film, but also one of the most important ones, so there was an added pressure there as well.

Besides that, I wasn’t able to complete any more shots in full, though I did start another one which I’m a good amount (scientific term) of the way through. Next week that will be finished and then I’ve lined up a few smaller/ easier shots which I’m looking forward to animating.

Below is another one of those progress screen grabs from my DaVinci project (orange are the completed bits, ref footage underneath). I’m very happy with where I am in the project in terms of how much I’ve currently completed. Outlines finished by the end of May-be?! I would be extremely happy if I can achieve that.

Being as I’ve not got a lot else to say this week regarding the project progress, I thought I’d share some ways in which I’m staying motivated whilst animating this project. These may useful to anyone else reading this taking on a similar task. Or if not, then I guess you just get an insight into my life and my working methods!

• Firstly, I try to keep in mind the ‘big picture’ at all times. What I mean by this is that if I am feeling a little lost or unconfident in the project, I remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing. For me, this is along the lines of: if I keep going I’ll have a completed short film in several months which will be an ambitious piece of work which will show who I am as a director/ filmmaker and the types of stories I want to tell. Which is one of the core reasons for making what I’m making in the first place. I revert back to this every now and again and it injects some new energy into what I’m doing.

• In addition to the above, I selected a story which I was really excited about and a film which I want to see. So I’d say even before you dive into something like this, ensure it’s something you want to make for your own reasons, not for anyone else(s). It’s easier to keep going on a project if you’re excited to see the end result and something which means something to you. Not saying every film needs to have a serious message or deep meaning (films don’t), but I’d say it needs to mean something to you as you’re the one making it. This is more of a choice to made early on, but an important one as you’re most likely going to be sitting with the project for a long time. If it’s something you don’t feel enthused about from the off, you’re going to lack the motivation to complete it, if things start to feel hard mid-way through.

• On a smaller, more day to day scale now we’ve got the big, overarching ones out the way, I have a strict but sensible work schedule. ‘Strict but sensible’??? Yes! I mean by this is that on the days that I have allocated to work on my film, I aim to get between 6-8 hours of animation done (7 or just over is ideal) and I don’t go over and don’t work weekends or evenings. Of course there are exceptions, but on the whole, I try to stick to this. Why? Burnout avoidance and trying to achieve a comfortable work/ life balance and putting time into the other things football I enjoy doing in life. At the end of the day, this is a self initiated project and whilst I am determined to see it through, I am not going to let other aspects of my life and my mental health suffer for something which is essentially arbitrary. It’s also a sustainable amount of work to do in a day, whereas 12 hours is not and I bet I’ll get sick of the project pretty quickly if I were to do that! Plus, on a creative level, if working whilst tired and unenthusiastic, my work will suffer as I’m not giving 100%. I bang on about the importance of this a lot in these posts, so I won’t go any further, but you get the point! Breaks and that are good!

• On an even smaller/ granular scale, I play back my work a lot when working on a shot. This is as a reminder of what I’m making and that each line I’m drawing is contributing to something in the film. It can feel a little monotonous at times, but playing it back breaks this up a bit and really gives me the motivation to carry on working as I’ve seen what I’ve achieved so far and makes me want to achieve more. This is especially apparent if working on a shot I’m not that confident with as it’s quite complex for example, then playing it and seeing the progress makes me think ‘oh yeah, it’s not that bad actually!’ and gives me the boost to carry on. Or at least most of the time!

• Finally, perhaps a fairly superficial one, but reminding myself of the amount of time, effort and money I’ve put into this project already. Why would I want all of that to go to waste and have nothing to show for it? I just wouldn’t. So if all the other reasons don’t work, then knowing that I’ve wasted several months and a fair bit of money will definitely be a motivating factor, if nothing else!

That’s all for now, I think. Hope it’s been useful and/ or insightful! See you in the next one xo

'Bear' Animation Week 6

Admittedly, progress has been fairly s l o w this week. This is down to having lost a day due to the bank holiday, as well as spending a couple mornings editing my football photos from the weekend. So I actually ended up working just two full days, with extra hours slotted in where I could.

So with this in mind, I only finished two shots, plus started a third which I’m around 75% of the way through (maybe more, but it’s really hard to judge)! And this one is a biggie- we’re looking at 250 frames. So once this one is done, then that’s 20 seconds of the film chalked off already. I’m hoping for around no more than two more days spent on this one.

If I hadn’t made much progress on the big shot, then I don’t think I’d be that happy with how I’m doing, though I feel breaking into this one is another fairly large hurdle tackled. Like I said, hopefully next week I’ll complete it quite early on, then I’ll be able to speed through some of the easier ones. I like to work like that- after a hard/ long one, I give myself fun/ easier one(s) to do as a reward!

Football season is unfortunately drawing to a close now, so after a few more weeks, there won’t be as much to photograph, meaning May should be a mega productive month on my animation (at least I hope so)!

'Bear' Animation Week 5

5 weeks in- wait- whaaat?! And progress is going very well. I'm actually loving what I'm creating here.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I've been placing the completed clips on the timeline in DaVinci- which you can see in the above image (I have labelled them orange so I can clearly see my progress). I've actually completed around a third maybe? It's kind of hard to tell from looking at that, but I do reckon if I squashed down all the orange bits to one side, it would probably make up one third.

Again, I didn't have a full week animating due to a couple of other events/ commitments, but I did manage to get five shots completed, almost finished a sixth and started another two. So a little down from last week, but I completed a few difficult shots which inevitably took longer. So even though in terms of quantity what I produced was lower, I feel I made some really good progress regardless.

I feel tackling some of the harder shots was down to having attended Cardiff Animation Festival at the weekend, leaving me super inspired and giving me a bit of a boost. It was amazing to be immersed in animation for four whole days- whether that be watching shorts, speaking with other animators or attending Q+A's (I did pretty much everything)!! Animating on my own in Preston where there isn't much of an animation community is sometimes fairly lonely, so being in an animation centric environment for an extended period felt brilliant and inspiring.

Above is an image of the Q+A I participated in (I'm the one in the yellow hat!) talking about my film '04111311' which screened at the festival, alongside several other talented animators/ directors talking about their own work. Laura-Beth Cowley was interviewing for the brilliant Skwigly online magazine/ podcast as part of one of the 'Animator's Brunch' events.

Talking of festivals, Manchester Animation Festival has been putting on monthly screening events at Chapeltown Picture House, Manchester. They screen around 75 minutes of well curated short films, with plenty of time for networking/ mingling- whatever you want to call it! I've so far attended all of them and they have been thoroughly enjoyable- would highly recommend if you're an animator based in the North West. It's been great involving myself more in the animation community here up north- I am now confident enough to attend these kind of things and to be honest, I wished I had started earlier!

I think that's all for this one, ready for a long bank holiday weekend (I probably should have mentioned that earlier so you don't think I'm going mad thinking that it's a Friday or something)! I'll of course be watching football (and lots of it)..!

'Bear' Animation Week 4

Those eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that I didn’t post one of these on Saturday like I have been doing each week since this project started, because I knew this week I would only be animating for two full days, therefore wanted to group this week with last week. The reason why? I am heading to Cardiff Animation Festival and I am extremely excited!!! I honestly can’t wait to be in a cinema again watching loadsss of short films with fellow animators and having (hopefully) a brilliant time meeting lots of new people and surrounding myself with all things animation over the course of the next four days. And also getting to see my film ‘04111311’ on a big screen with a proper sound system and an audience- exciting stuff.

But, before all the fun begins, let me enlighten you with how ‘Bear’ is going. This week I completed eight shots and made good headway on a further two. So I matched last weeks efforts.

I’m still really enjoying it, though it is a big film- it feels like it gets bigger and bigger the more I complete! Sometimes it feels like I’m making really good progress because I’m getting a lot finished, though other times it feels like will this even be complete within two years (hyperbole, of course, but sometimes that’s just the way I’m feeling).

I’ve just got to keep chipping away at it (in which I am) and even though I do have some internal deadlines, I don’t want to burn myself out or overwork myself for some dates which are essentially arbitrary. So I’m not going to panic yet- if I find myself ‘slacking’, then I will have a strong word with myself, but if I’m doing between 6-8 hours of it a day (like currently), then I’m not going to be complaining. It will get done when it gets done and the last thing I want to do is compromise the animation for the sake of an arbitrary deadline. I appreciate these things are good to have as they keep you on track, but again, I don’t want to break myself (or let other aspects of my life suffer) over something which isn’t ‘real’. It’s also extremely hard to judge how long things might take before starting a project, especially if it’s on a scale I’ve not worked at before.

I’ve actually got a special treat this week- yes, it’s another clip! I thought before starting animating, I’d be posting clips more frequently, but I actually want to keep most of it back, at least until I make a trailer/ teaser when it gets to that stage. So these will be quite sporadic, but they will be here when I post them!

Peace xo