Dim Progress Check #6 - “Finally Moving Forward”

We have finally gotten our story to a comfortable enough spot to move forward. 

We received feedback from our professors that encourage us to not repeat the mistake of halting everything to focus on one aspect of our short. Up to this point, everyone would stop their progress to contribute to the area of focus, but moving forward this will not be how we operate. 

Our team has been divided into a few main teams, including art, 3D foundations, and story. I have dedicated most of my time to story development, but our art team (led by Kathryn) has worked on concept art for our characters and keyframe illustrations. Andy, Ian, and I have focused on solidifying our shot sheet with descriptions and assets per shot. Arturo, with his swift output of assets, has been collecting them into a single set while Ari has been blocking out our characters throughout their various redesign phases. 

Our goal heading towards the end of the semester is to have a new concrete 2D animatic and numerous keyframe illustrations. We haven’t decided on how meetings during the vacation will work, but with a solidified 2D animatic and continuous communication, those of us who want to contribute to our short over the Summer can. 

Personally, I feel like this whole project in some ways has been one step forward, eight steps back. It felt like every time our team felt comfortable with an aspect of our story, a piece of feedback or deep reflection would throw us back to the drawing board. Truthfully, I wish we had more than essentially what we started with at the beginning of the semester, but in many ways we do. We are more confident in our story’s ability to be a coherent story, and that to me is incredibly important.

Act 1 of our story