Making a Plan: Schedule for Cambridge Portfolio Project

    At this moment in time, my excitement is starting to build as I know have a basic idea as to what my film opening is going to be. Even so, there are still some things I need to put in place before they can be put into motion. I am not one to go into such a big project without a plan, as the process can be quite messy and more overwhelming than it has to be otherwise. If my film opening is going to be animated, then this is sure to be a long, meticulous journey. Not to mention keeping up with this blog, which is paramount to the final grade. With all of that taken into consideration, I have put together two documents to help guide me through the Cambridge Portfolio Project.

    The first one here is a comprehensive step-by-step breakdown for just the process of film opening itself called “Steps to Success.” It does not include the blog postings and research. Like I said, animation can be difficult, careful, and precise, and has its complexities different from live-action. So it only seems appropriate to have a space for that alone, and this should be very helpful to me over the following weeks.

Steps to Success: Making an Animated Film Opening

Step 1: Preparation

• Come up with an idea of the storyline. This will help to give me a clear idea of what kinds of characters, backgrounds, music, and sound effects I will need to create and design going forward.
• Choose what style and software to animate in. You cannot begin animating anything if you don’t know how you’re going to do it. For example, if I wanted to do 3D animation, then I would need to find a software that supports that like Blender.
• Start designing characters and backgrounds! It cannot be stressed enough that having a firm grasp of what your character looks like (their dimensions, accessories, and features) is a massive advantage when bringing them to life. Character and background design is also important for narrative reasons, as it can help to visually communicate things like setting and genre, or personality and backstory. In the production process, drawings used to convey your early ideas for a film are called concept art.
• Make a storyboard that will act as the blueprint for the entire scene. A series of quick drawings, it is the most basic outline for an animated sequence, and very important to tell you what is even going happening in the scene. 

Step 2: Animation

• Make an animatic, or a rough animation referring to the storyboards. Drawing the keyframes, or the most important positions that make up the characters’ movements, helps me know where the characters are relative to the setting around them and how they will move as a whole. Then, I can go back and draw the frames transitioning into each pose to make the movement even smoother and realistic (this is called inbetweening). Animatics usually just have rough sketches of the background and characters. The intricate details such as facial expressions are not necessary here!
• Draw the backgrounds. Every animated scene needs to have backgrounds, otherwise the characters will be moving around in empty space. You can also incorporate mise-en-scene and important story elements here. While you could animate the characters first, for more complex things like a full film opening, it is advantageous to begin with backgrounds so that you know just where to place your characters as they interact with the setting. 
• Go over the rough animation with clean lines. This is where you need to really draw the characters in their final designs and proper dimensions, with all their fine details. Though this can be quite difficult, that is why we have animatics. You can see the position the character is to be in and draw right over it.
• Color in those drawings. This has to be done frame by frame, which is a bit grueling, but color is one of the most important aspects in animated films.
• Add the shading and lighting to make the characters look dimensional, and like they are actually in an environment and not just in front of an image.
• Put in any finishing touches that might be necessary.

Step 3: Post-production

• Do some composition for the video. For animation, that means not only deciding how close or far the camera should be from the subject, what should be in or out of frame, where the subject should be relative to the set, and how the camera moves, but also putting all the visual elements together: backgrounds, character animations, lighting.
• Add in audio elements. This includes music, diegetic or not, sound effects, and voiceover. It should be perfectly timed with what you see on screen.
• Export the video! From here, you just need to choose what video quality you want the scene to be in, and the best format for it.

Below is a schedule that lists the weeks over which the project spans, labeled with the dates, and telling me what I should be working on everyday in order to get it all done in an efficient amount of time. This schedule mostly exists to ensure that I hit all the marks for where I should be as we progress towards the due date, and don’t fall behind. The schedule will definitely be edited; plans and ideas change, and problems occur, especially with creative endeavors. But I am going to try and follow it as best as I can.

    Overall, these two documents together will help to make the project feel much more manageable. Though the work ahead is still daunting, having a clear structure and timeline gives me more confidence going forward. I know that this plan will likely change as the project develops, but it provides a strong foundation to build off of. As I move into the next stage of the Cambridge Portfolio Project, this schedule and step-by-step breakdown will be essential in keeping me organized, motivated, and staying on track.

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