As speculated last week, I have pretty much finished the majority of what I can animate for the while, without filming further footage. There’s little point putting the screen grab of my tracking spreadsheet up this week, as to be honest, not much new stuff was done- there were only a couple new shots completed.
I exported the film thus far on Thursday morning- so that was a combination of all the animated shots, coupled with the animatic/ storyboard. So it was about 50% animated and the other, just static images. And I was not happy. The story felt extremely disjointed and didn’t make an awful lot of sense. I honestly felt like giving up and/ or scrapping it, or making something else with the footage, or changing direction completely. All of which, I appreciate, are pretty drastic measures!
But it was great to have picked up on all that at this current stage, rather than having filmed and animated everything as per my storyboard, only to realise that many shots would need to be cut and it would have been a whole lot of time wasted. Some shots which I had already animated I have deleted, but luckily it’s not been many and some, I’ve been able to salvage/ repurpose in different areas of the film.
This feeling of disappointment after the export has sort of been a ‘blessing is disguise’ (I hate that term, but not sure what else to call it) if you like. It’s made me become more critical (in a good way) of the story I’m trying to tell and made me have a lesser attachment to certain shots/ scenes/ scenarios which I had liked previously and wanted to keep in for one reason or another. This can only be a good thing. I really want the film to work and tell a good, relatable and cohesive story, and with such a strong desire to achieve this goal, I have been happy to cut/ change/ edit my film, until it satisfies my aim of creating a solid short.
Since exporting, I’ve been extremely ruthless cutting scenes and shots which don’t work/ fit and had a bit of a rethink how I can go about the rest: mocking up several scenes and writing/ sketching out what else needs to be done. After having done this, I feel a lot better than I did about it the other day, knowing that the film does hold potential and if I put in the hard work, then I can turn it around. I’m going to give it a bit of a break over the weekend, while I go and enjoy some football watching, taking my mind off it all and come back tomorrow morning with fresh eyes and a fresh mind.
Come on Flora, you can do it!!
Remember I put an outlines clip up last week? Well I decided to give it a mocked up temp background, so I could stick it on my socials (still in two minds about how much I want to be engaging on Instagram these days, but whatevs) and also kind of take in and appreciate all the work I have put into it so far. Which shouldn’t be glazed over- creating a film by oneself like this is no small feat! It also gives me a glimpse of how my film could end up looking once complete and acts as a little motivational tool to encourage me to carry on and keep at it, especially when you can see some sort of results/ reward for what you have put in.
I can’t lie, I was pretty nervous in the lead up, but that all settled down once I started performing. And I’m quite looking forward to going again- not just for the performance side of things, but also because it was such a nice event. It’s also given me a good reason to start writing again- if I can aim for one new poem each month (as it’s a monthly event), then that would be excellent…
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