A quick Update on what I have been up to

 I  think it's pretty obvious that I haven't been too productive as of lately. After all, I haven't even posted a blog in a couple of weeks. To be honest, I have been pretty uninspired and overall overwhelmed with a lot of things. My sleep deprivation is also for sure not helping me at all, and I haven't been able to manage my time very well when trying to keep up with assignments. I don't think it's very healthy to continue these bad habits, so I have decided to adopt some new routine changes to hopefully get back on track with my project.

One thing I have recently noticed about my routine is that I don't have any separation between work time and relaxing time. This is of course extremely unproductive as I will waver in between working and doing something else very quickly, never being able to get into the groove of working. To fix this problem ill be trying to adapt to a new routine that will hopefully help me fix this problem. I usually eat lunch at around 3 p.m, so I think I should dedicate at least 3 to 4 hours to working after that. If I can get enough of my work done efficiently in those hours, I should be able to dedicate at least some time for relaxing afterward. From then on my sleep schedule should be fixed along with my work habit problems since I can form a clear separation between work and life.

I hope that as I take up these habits I am able to get back to working efficiently and creatively. Creative burnout is a problem I am already plagued with due to all the other activities I do that require me to put in a lot of creative input. A lack of sleep and an overwhelming work to life balance really don't help to solve that, but maybe things will get better from here. 

Lets Talk Software

I talked a little bit about 3d animation in one of my last blog posts, so now I just want to show and explain a little bit about software and how it can be used to create a piece of 3d media.

In the world of 3d, there are multiple programs that could be considered "industry standard". These programs are highly robust, allowing you to make almost anything you desire. Perhaps the most popular and widely used across the industry in studios such as Pixar and Sony Animation is Autodesk's Maya and 3dsmax. While Maya and 3dsMax are fantastic programs, they are mostly used in very big projects with hundreds of collaborators, making them cumbersome to work with for a solo artist. They are both also ridiculously expensive, a single license costing upwards of 1600 dollars a year.

Exemplary work done in 3dsMax

Due to the aforementioned facts, I will be using a different program, one more suited to solo creators that has recently taken over the 3d artists landscape. This program is none other than Blender, an open-source 2d and 3d Animation Program. With the nature of it being open-source, this means that it is completely free to use for anyone, meaning I won't have to worry about paying for expensive licensing. Not only that, Blender has recently gotten some of the most mind-bending and shocking features that almost no other program has, even ones like Maya. As I said, it also acts as a 2d Animation program, meaning you can combine the 2 techniques quite easily. In my opinion, this makes it the perfect program for my film Opening.

Exemplary Work done in Blender

Now of course this doesn't mean I should just limit myself to this program alone, after all, many programs have to be used in the 3d Production workflow. For example, you might create a texture in Photoshop and then import it into your general 3d application to work with. You will eventually render out your result and put it into a compositing program like After Effects. 

If you want to check out any of the work that I have done using blender, ill link two of my pieces here.

https://vimeo.com/manage/453317567/general

Group Talk

Today I sat down with a couple of my peers and we all presented to each other what we were thinking of doing for our film openings.  Even though I have been struggling with time management and overall working, now I can see that almost all my other classmates are in the same boat. Getting together with them also allowed me to give some input into their films, and I feel as though I was able to make an honest impact in their projects. Even though I wasn't able to present to my classmates, just talking with them about their projects helped me think a little about mine. Honestly, I am feeling a lot better about where I am at with my project now, and I hope that I am able to talk with this group again as they were all very nice and collaborative.

Lets Search For Inspiration

My day has been pretty tough, so we are gonna keep things simple. I'll just be talking a little bit about style and what I found while searching for inspiration for my film. I think I would like to focus heavily on visual storytelling, so I'll be looking for that first before coming up with my story. 

While thinking about my film opening and what kind of topics I would like to tackle, I thought it would be cool to focus on more surrealist and existentialist themes. It's something I relate to and am deeply fond of, but I haven't ever made a film that tackles the topic. I think this is the perfect opportunity for that, so I got to searching on Pinterest for some inspiration. 

I put together a little collage of images that are inspiring me for my film.

Atmosphere

Characters

Scenery

I'll definitely break down more about the overall style of the piece in a later blog post, but for now, I'm pretty happy with the direction that my mind seems to be taking with this.

3D? 2D? Ah who cares, I just like moving things around.

So then why 3d animation? After all, It's most likely easier, less time-consuming, and overall a more relaxed workflow to film this in live-action. Well, I wanna discuss a little bit in this blog post why I have chosen the medium of 3d, and how it will ultimately benefit the production of this piece.

With the situation, we are currently dealing with, I am absolutely mortally terrified of going outside, and I doubt I wouldn't have to if I were to do this live-action. I think it would also just be very difficult to make an entire film opening without having a crew to assist with lighting, acting, camera operation, and more. The thing is over years of working in the medium, 3d animation has become a key part of my toolset that I can comfortably and fluently work with. With this in mind, I should be able to stay inside and not have to worry about catching any sort of crowned virus. If I need any line recorded, I can ask friends and family if they can help out with the project, and if I need any sort of texture or asset for my film, that shouldn't require me to come in contact with anybody.

3d animation is something that is deeply important to me that I would love to pursue as a career. Getting the chance to work on a large-scale project to add to my overall portfolio will help me to develop my skills, apply to college, and possibly break into the industry.

The medium is also just highly underrated, and something that can be used to tell more than just family-friendly stories. There seems to be this misconception about the medium in where general audiences believe that its only purpose is to tell stories that will have lively, round, and overall fun characters for the entire family, but this could not be further from the case. Throughout the creation of my film, I wish to address this problem and show audiences that Animation in general has the possibility to tell stories that are much more complex and intriguing. 

Not only that, the actual techniques of 3d Animation can be implemented in more ways than one, for example as background art for pieces mainly focused on 2d, or as block-ins to later be filled in. This means that even though I will most likely be focusing on producing a piece in 3d, I don't have to be shy about experimenting with other interesting techniques if it fits the story I try to tell.

I hope I was able to layout a good case as to why Animation as a whole is an interesting medium that can be used to tell important stories, and why it should be used for my film.

Let's see what I can do

 Alright, everyone, we made it. The big project we all were waiting for is finally here, and with that, I will be taking you on my adventurous journey throughout it. Over the course of the upcoming eight weeks, we are to produce an entire 2:00 film opening about any fictional story we want to create. This sounds like an incredibly underwhelming task to overcome, even more so when choosing to go alone like I'm doing, however, I could not be more excited as this is the exact type of project that I like to work on. At heart, I believe that creativity cannot and should not be rushed, so when we are given the opportunity to finally work on a long term project, this gets me completely revved up and excited. 

So then what are my plans? Where am I going with this? and what will be my thinking throughout these upcoming weeks?

Well to answer these questions, I would like to break down my creative process into three simple and not necessarily chronological steps. 

Ideation

Ideation consists of mainly gathering inspiration and references from different places and letting my brain form those concepts into new ideas. After all, nothing is truly original. If you are to ask any successful creative where their original ideas come from, they will never tell you ideas pop into their heads for no reason. Human minds are extremely effective at taking differing pieces of information around them and merging them into new thoughts, eventually forming what we all know as an idea. Due to this fact, during the creation of my Film opening, I will be making sure to constantly be consuming content related to what I want to create so that it ultimately stimulates and helps to form new and creative ideas in my head. After ideas are formed, I am able to document them(most likely here) to keep track of where I am and how the story I am creating is shaping out. 

Creation

Creation can be a broad topic, but it really just boils down to me creating some piece of media to get closer to my end goal. Creation will usually follow after Ideation, but it can sometimes help to breed new ideas itself. During creation, I will be sitting down usually for longer periods of time so that I am able to truly get in the zone and create as much as I can for that time. Lastly, creation is a very messy process, so I will most likely have a lot of rough drafts and scenes that still need to be worked out.

Finalization

Finalization mainly consists of cleanup. After working out a rough scene, draft, or script, I will most likely leave it and come back to it a day or two later with a fresh perspective. This allows me to review my creations from an objective and unbiased point of view so that I can make changes I'm sure will benefit the piece.

Closing Statements 

Lastly, I want to make one thing very clear. This opening will be in some form of 3d animated medium. I am a 3d artist and animator that has worked on short projects similar to these before, and I believe that my 8 weeks of taking on this project will be drastically different from the majority. I will be explaining why I am choosing to go this route and what it means for the future in my next blogpost, but for now, all I want to say is that I am thrilled for what these upcoming weeks hold and very eager to see how I can challenge and push myself to be even greater.