Week Six: Chipping Away

As in chipping away at the work, like a tiny bird chipping away at a giant mountain, a sparrow using his beak to reduce K2 to a spec of dust.

Ok, that was a little dramatic and this project isn't going that slow; and it's certainly not as futile as that. But animation is a fairly slow process. I've been working on the same scene, comprised of several different shots, for a couple of weeks now, and the end of the scene is almost upon us. Finishing a scene feels like a minor accomplishment. To go back to a mountainy reference, finishing each scene can be viewed akin to conquering a foothill on the way to reaching the ultimate summit of the films completion.

And each shot in a scene is a small achievement in itself. If a scene is akin to a foothill, an individual shot would be akin to a waypoint (I guess). And between each waypoint you have the individual steps of 1) planning the scenes composition; 2) creating the key frames; 3) adding in the inbetween frames; 4) drawing in the lip sync; 5) colouring in; 6) adding the shading for a superior look. And then usually step 7) making the characters blink as you realise they all have wide eyed stares. Oh, and then on some shots 8) camera moves.

And those are the simple steps.

My point is, each step, as labourious as it maybe, is a further step towards completion. Occasionally you might stumble, or try to rush ahead and place a foot wrong, when you should be going slow and steady. But you're always moving towards the summit.

Until next week folks.

(this weeks blog was really going to be a simple entry about the steps involved in making each scene, but I got carried away by metaphors. Think I got away with it though...)