Assignment Write-up [2/4/13]

This assignment was DEALER'S CHOICE! We got to choose between continuing our earlier animations or starting a whole new idea using the tools that we now know in After Effects. For this assignment I chose to start another idea.
The main problem that I ran into was actually coming up with a simple idea. However, after looking at some royalty free music online, I came up with the idea of creating a narrative about a magical circus. I created all of the characters and wrote my shot list of all the scenes I needed. While scanning in my drawings, one of my classmates pointed out that the style in which I was drawing in made my characters look like they were in a coloring book. I immediately took to the idea and began rendering the characters in photoshop as a child would od in their own coloring book (albeit it is a lot nicer and cleaner but still there are certain messy parts and the markings that looks like crayons).
The biggest problem I faced with this was time management. I overestimated just how much time it would take and began to run out of it. The entire thing was supposed to be about two minutes but because of time issues and also technical issues, I decided to just make it a one minute trailer.
Some technical issues I ran into were lost footage ordeals. Once I transferred the file from my computer to the school's computer, some footage got lost and it was difficult for me to replace it because the animation began to mess up. I ended up having to cut out that scene entirely.
Another problem I faced was scaling to mimic camera motions. But I suppose that could be fixed by learning new techniques and tools.
All in all I would say that the trailer is good for the time I spent on it. I would definitely love to go back though and finish it as well as go through it with a fine tooth comb and put in the tiny movements or replacement animations that would make the actions seem more realistic.