[Extended Practice]Short reflection

I have quite a few thoughts during this stage of the production.
1) I wish I spent more time on storyboarding, considering composition, layout before drawing the final storyboard. Obviously I did not considered well enough so that there are some timing issues and scenes change during the production. Although there are no rules saying you can not change your plan half way through, schedule might be interrupted. In my case it is fine because I am working on my own but it should not happen that much if working in a team.

2)What I would like to improve this is use of camera angles and layout. I was doing PPP research and at the same time stepped back from animating and watched quite a lot of professional animations from different studios or just from internet. I noticed that my animation is very compact in comparison. It might be a problem happens to immature animators that trying to pack so much in such a short time. Problems I am facing is not only translating Cantonese into the international language, in this case animation, but also create this intense atmosphere. Sometimes I feel like I am too constricted with getting the realism in the animation so that quite a lot of moves and actions are limited. There are many examples on vimeo showcasing how space can be changed when characters are in their 'mental world'. 

3) To much information in a scene. I need to learn to simplify a scene, not only talking about environment but the art of showing where the characters are.

For instance, a scene from Behind the School Bag 2015 by Nic Ho uses only a door and a toilet to show where the characters are not even adding sink or mirror. Remove anything not needed, simplify the set to extreme. The problem of my animation is that no all the buildings are needed...so why not thinking about get rid of some in some close up shots?

Nevertheless, I also learn to appreciate my work a bit more. It is quite impress to finish a 2.5 minutes animation by myself in three months with other things going on. Considering the time limit and the 'workforce', I should be proud and treat this animation as good practice and reflection.