NOTES 503 Creative Directory and Lead Animator roles

Personal Notes

As this project has progressed, I've found that my role in the group has been very centred due to the character designing role that I took to.

As the character designer, my team were worried that the styles wouldn't be consistent, so quite late on in the project, I was appointed Lead 2D Animator. 

I think that in this role, I have been very on top of knowing what shots need to be done; who is doing what and making sure people understand what they need to do for when. I also think I have been okay at my creative directions. My issue being a leader is that I struggle to tell people to move quicker and tend just to self complain - which is why I didn't choose a role in the first place. 

Despite this, as the creative team goes (myself and Ayesha), I've found that we have been able to clearly discuss what needs to be done between us, and have good creative discussions to help each other. Such as, me taking over her wedding background, and relying on her creative input to replicate her style. Or me sketching out her background for her to help plan the concept art - and discussing how to merge different people's ideas of the huge living room set up for the 2D so that it will work for everyone's needs. 

I think my role has mostly been reassuring the team that we are doing okay - whether that has been taking other people's work loads to put them at ease, or just tell people they're doing a good job. 

To fix the consistency problem, we decided that I would take a lot of the shots that involved people, and Naomi and Ayesha would take the shots of the clock, bottle smash, and the moon. We also decided that as Act 3 Part 1 is storyboarded all in one shot, that we would split the scene between the three of us. Ayesha will animate Sandy; Naomi will animate Lilith burping, and I will do the burp and line work over everyone's work and colour. This may be a lot of work for me - especially with 2 weeks left - but I seem to have a lot done so far. 

My next moves are to either start rushing Ayesha's background design or help her with it - I think I might do the latter, being her roommate, I know a little more in to her situation and I think she needs support more than pressure. I'm glad that my central role right now kind of helps me understand people's situations so that I know not to push too hard.

My main worry for the project is that I might be taking a lot of my work in to my own account and not really putting it through other people in my rush. But with so much work, I don't feel like I have a lot of time to edit. I do keep people up to date when I've posted things using our discord - but I don't push for a response - and if I get one then I try to fix or keep what they like. I do keep what I'm doing very loyal to what I wrote in the storyboards; what we said in discussions and what is in the shot list. I just need to focus on maintaining the character's personalities and styles.