Final Thoughts

The last Saturday, before the class officially breaks for the Summer, our class had some special guests who'll be viewing our final projects for the first time and giving some feedback on how we could improve our film. The feeling excited the night before, finishing up the project, and feeling good about where I was able to come to, sort of dipped a bit as I received some beyond expected critiques. There were a lot of useful things that I was able to take away from the feedback although I didn't expect some words to hit harder than they should. Perhaps it was my incompleteness of one of the vital scenes that threw off the continuity and clarity of the entire film, but I've learned that they found a lot of parts to be problematic, right to the core of the animatic. They said that maybe I shouldn't have had Griffin reading the book because it gives nothing to the main plot. But a part of me wanted to push for it even more because Griffin is a dear character of mine, and he certainly loves to read as a part of his nerdy personality (He is a writer in my eyes after all). If I had the chance to improve on my film, it would have to be finding a way to make the book reading more cohesive with the plot. But actually, I guess the one thing that really made my stomach sink was the comment that my film was just a "prettied-up animatic." Like come on, we are only students, not professionals... But to be honest, I think I can see what they mean by that. I guess in the end, I felt really upset and unmotivated but also appreciative of this wake-up call that hey, I still have ways to go. 

BUT, I should just take the hard-to-swallow parts with a grain of salt, as my classmates have reassured me, and I shouldn't give up on my work and continue to do my best. And I will say, I really am proud of myself for being able to push through it all in the end. (For a super busy and stressed out college student at least.) I'm glad I had friends to fall back on when I need it the most. 

(I've realized just now that my production schedule has definitely seen some drastic changes due to me wanting to fully complete a scene before moving on to the next. So it should look something more like a little bit of everything each week instead of, for example, all the backgrounds or roughs at once here and finished up there... I'm not sure if I have it in me to go back and fix it up but you can see the gist of what I've done through the blog. And rest in peace, scene progress chart. I hope that will not be the death of me. T.T)