Layouts
I did around 30 of the shot layouts, primarily the characters and props, but I helped with a few of the cameras. While I did not draw any of the storyboards, I helped to come up with many of the cameras angles and pushed for stronger and more dynamic compositions. I used to take film classes at my high school and community college, so I do I have a strong love for camera compositions and how each frame should have a meaning.
Layout Demo Reel
For the layouts stage of the film, I helped as much as I could. I was part of the team that came up with the story and while I did not draw any of the storyboards, I helped to come up with many of the compositions. One of those being shot 16, the dolly-zoom of the hallway. I took inspiration from movies like "Jaws" and "Vertigo" when it came to that shot. I was not the one that went into Maya and created the camera, though I was the one to give feedback on it so it could match the storyboards more accurately. I did around 30 of the shot layouts, primarily the characters and props, but I helped with a few of the cameras.
Production
During the film, the leads would do some of their own production work, alongside what the production assistant would do, to keep everything as updated as possible. It ended up being more convenient for us that way, instead of having to constantly contact the production assistant to update our charts when shots would be completed.
This is one of the schedules created during the animation phase of the film. We had some rig issues which put us behind schedule and we were still doing animation during our post-production class. Due to that, one of the directors created a schedule with close deadlines. I did not create this initial schedule that's shown, but I did work with the directors to come up with the dates and then maintained and updated it throughout the weeks we were still animating.
This is a Gantt chart I used to keep track of the film's animation progress. It was created using Google Sheets. I kept track of who was animating what shots, and if there were multiple people per shot I also noted that down. I had different options to show if a shot was unassigned, assigned, WIP was handed in, notes were given, and then finally an option for approved. There was a section to the right side where I would leave any notes to remember, like when a prop was missing or the animator only needed to adjust one last thing before it was approved. The only part I did not do was fill in the column for "Shot Description," since one of the directors wanted to do it. I had a counter to the side that noted how many shots were approved, still in progress, or not assigned. That way, during our weekly leads meetings, I could update everyone on where we were at all times with the film.
Other than being the Animation Supervisor, I was also the Compositing Lead, since I have experience with editing in After Effects from other films I helped and my past film classes. This is the Gantt Chart I created in Google Sheets to keep track of the compositing. While it may come off as a lot, with all the different colors, it's the way that made the most sense for me visually to see the separate criteria. I organized it in a way that would make sense not just for myself but also for one of the directors who was helping me the last few days of production. I also had to make sure that it was easy to understand so that the TD could double check frame counts before rendering and which shots needed to be re-rendered.
Throughout the entire time of the film, from when the leads and I all came together to come up with the story all the way to the day I exported the finalized comp of the film, I was contacting artists from every department. When animators would join the team, I would send them a variation of the message shown in the image on the left. I would tell them what was expected and when they would need to turn in work. I gave them links for where to turn their work in and also links to any important documents they would need.
Since I'm a little paranoid about losing files, I had 2 external hard-drives to back up the film on. At least, all the files that had to do with animating and compositing. The rest were taken care of by the production assistant. Since I had all those files, I was also the one that set up how they would be organized, that way anyone who needed to use the hard-drive, could find any file they needed. In the animation folder, every shot had it's own individual folder, which had subfolders for the iterations of maya files and the exported videos. The compositing folder had all the after effects and premiere files, seperated into subfolders labeled by date. Shots had their own individual folders, with subfolders that were split into storyboards, movs, pngs, and exrs.
Animation
I was the Animation Supervisor for "The MenHeim Clinic." I had a team of 30 animators, not all at once, and was in-charge of making sure the characters behaved in a way that was consistent and true to their personalities. I gave notes and feedback to the animators on a regular basis. Outside of my job as a supervisor, I was also an animator, and worked on multiple shots for the film.
When it came to the animation phase, with notes and feedback, it was most convenient for myself and the directors to work together, since it was a lot of work for one person to handle. One of the director's is a 2D animator, so we would split the notes with her doing draw overs of what I would explain in words in the comment section of SyncSketch. I focused a lot on trying to get smooth and fluid movements and also making sure the characters moved and reacted in ways that would fit their personalities.
I did a lot of my own animation work as well. I worked on around 16 to 17 shots in total. Of those shots, 7 of them were ones that just needed to be cleaned-up, the keyframes and breakdowns were already there from prior animators, they just needed to be put in spline and cleaned-up. That's actually my favorite part of animating a shot, the spline and clean-up phase, as I'm one of those few animators who really enjoys the graph editor! The rest of the shots though, I worked on all the way through. I shot my own reference videos, did all the keys and breakdowns, and the spline passes till it was finalized. It was a lot to manage in a short time but it was a lot of fun! The video on the left is of just one of the multiple shots that I got to work on.
Compositing
My other role for the film was Lead Compositor. I had the most experience with After Effects, from helping composite other student films in the past. I had a small but dedicated team of compositors, many of whom had little to no experience editing, come together to edit the entire film together in only a few days. It was a huge learning experience, for both myself and everyone else involved.
I was very specific in how I organized the AE folder. Every scene had it's own folder with subfolders for every shot. Those subfolders had all the rendered work, which were of MOVs, PNGs, and EXRs. We used the PNGs for the "potato version," where we would edit using the PNG sequence and then replace that footage with the EXR version. For After Effects, I had a master version and a back-up master version, which both contained all the shots split into pre-compositions. Each scene had it's own AE files as well, which would contain only those specific shots, and I would use those exports to replace the scenes in the master copy. There were some shots that were too large for the computer to process when in the scenes AE file, so those ones also had to have their own AE file. It's probably noticeable by now, there were a lot of files and they were going to a lot of different people all at once, so organization was very important and it was my responsibility to make sure we had every file and every export in it's specific location.
When it came to editing, I got to learn some new effects and some faster ways to do things within After Effects. One of the biggest challenges was taking an exr sequence and splitting those into different layers using the cryptomatte effect, since it was decided that there wouldn't be any render layers. I was also the one who taught the compositing team if they did not know how to do certain effects. We had a lot of volunteer help from some of the members on the film team, most of whom had never touched After Effects before. I got to teach them how to import the files, create maskes,do color correction, add in vignettes, use the cryptomattes, adjust the exposure, and a lot of other different tools and effects. It was a challenge and I had a lot of fun getting to teach others something that was completely new to them!