Animation Sequence - To Date

From the get go this project looked like it would never get completed. There was no asset list and no animatic and seemed like only 1 person; Jonathon Bonham, the director (not the Led Zep drummer) was really into this project. But I was determined not to let that stop us. During the initial meeting with John about the pitch, I got together an assets list in my mind that formed the basis of a very descriptive paragraph or two that I wrote out. And over the course of the recording sessions I've done I've also recorded some foley elements for this project.

The brief was as follows:

We were tasked to create sounds for a "1-2 minute" animation. 1. We are to create atmos for each location the little girl travels.

2. We will design sound effects for different elements in each scene.

3. We will record foley and adr (no words just crying etc.)

4. We will complete a final mix of the sounds to the final animation (not just the animatic)

Things that will be out of scope included a soundtrack, which was being created separately.

Though this has changed somewhat since week 3.

Firstly and most importantly the animatic was 2 weeks late, by their own due date they set, and what I have been given (now week 9) is missing a scene (4/5 scenes) and is currently 4:40 long.

John helped set up a meeting with the animators today, 25/7 and it was very informative as to why the project has become the way it has. First I heard that 1 member of the animation team had dropped out of the uni due to personal issues which would explain a bit. Then the other team members suggested that the project be discontinued due to a focus being put on their other works they're much more interested in. While i still can't see this project getting finished this trimester I must say It felt a little strange to hear in person exactly what I'd been thinking they would say.

So I explained my situation, about this being the only interdisciplinary project our team is working on this trimester and regardless of whether they finished the animation or not wouldn't matter but I did request that they finish the animatic and cut down on the length as much as they could. And I said how much I would have wanted this project to continue to fruition, it's a cool idea for an animation that loads of people could connect with and I explained how excited I was in the beginning to be a part of this animation.

While I'm still a little sad that the animation most likely wont be fully completed I think my words spurred the team to finish at least the animatic so that we could do an edit to something. And still have our audio contribute to John's project.

So after a little brainstorming the animation group suggested that they would be outsourcing certain things (im not an animator so I don't know what exactly) to studio 1 or 2 guys in the hopes of finishing a moving animatic by the end of this week.

All in all the project's new brief will be:

Completing a mix of the shorter animatic by the end of tri.

Incorporating all the sounds I've already recorded and designed in addition to the atmos.

The problem with this is most of the foley (footsteps and sheet ruffling etc.) wont be synced up to anything visually and will not be a great final product for our group to show off our skills as engineers.