I loved being as detailed as possible when it come to the world of lost Boy with particular emphases on the UVs and sets as those possessions I did own and things that were written on desks and pencil cases come from personal experience, I also enjoyed being kind of meta with the film as all I ever wanted to do from a young age was to create and to show this through Young Graeme felt like stepping into a time machine - having the bully rip apart the cover page of the art of was fun as it shows the struggle that I felt in school, and it was lovely animating the scene in the closet when present Graeme passes art with having more of the pages of the Art of littered on the desk to show that he never gave up and kept going forward with his art was enjoyable.
My least favourite aspect of this project had to be the rigging and skinning process as I had so many issues, I did and redid the pose space deformers for each character more times than I would like to say and it was really frustrating when something would fuck up and feeling like it wasn't your fault and trying to figure it out where it went wrong was tough, I had to completely redo the skeleton for Mrs Pratt when she was near completion as I had her joints in the wrong place, I also had to unbind rebind and repaint weights with all characters as the joints in them had rotations and the majority of the time the export paint weights option would produce horrendous results meaning that after correcting the placement of the joints I had to repaint the paint the weights which is so time consuming, all these mess ups have thought me that rigging and skinning is very time consuming and honestly it was something that I put off for Minor as I knew I would struggle with it, but I have learned a lot from having so many mess ups I definitely feel more confident in doing it for future characters.
I felt a tinge of apprehension with trying to find a composer for Lost Boy only because I am a perfectionist and it's kind of scary to hand the reins over to someone to bring the film to life through sound as sound is so important. It is hard to explain through words what you want the sound to be like as how can you describe what nostalgia sounds like? in the end I built a trust with Brian Freeland the composer as he understands the film and I loved it when he said he wanted to nail the ending as he said its important for the viewer to get the meaning of Present Graeme talking to his former self, I am glad that I let Brian do his thing as the sound turned out beautifully even though this is a first draft and it can only improve from here, I am confident that Brian will add an element of magic to the film through sound... I must admit I did well up when Brian gave me a chunk of the sound for when present Graeme's head pops off into the rocket to introduce Young Graeme - it really gets across the innocence and nostalgia, I am so glad that I went with Brian to do the score.
I am glad that I made a shot list for Lost Boy as it really helped me to stay on track for each shot as I had 72 in total it would have been easy to get muddled up with wondering how long each shot would last so it was handy to have the shot list next to me when animating a scene as I didn't have to worry about making a shot too long or short and then having to spend more time extending or editing a shot down in post.
Lost Boy has thought me that I want to be a director - I absolutely love messing with cameras to convey emotion and I find myself having to take a step back as I can get lost in camera movements and spend too much time trying to perfect them, I also really enjoyed the animation,
I think the heart of Lost Boy revolves around the three characters and although their animation can definitely be improved I think I have got across there persona's to a point - Mrs Pratt definitely needs more work as those tassel's are tough to animate and because of her long skirt no matter much time I spent painting the weights I couldn't get them to move right when I moved her feet - resulting in weighting everything to her pelvis which makes it kind of feel like her bottom half is too wooden but is something I can work on, The animation of the whole film still needs to be refined and can look so much better which I am looking forward to doing as I feel like I can animate now compared to the shots at the start of the film, My Art Of was rushed I had a lot more elements that I have screenshots for - rigging and skinning for example that I didn't get to include but this is something that I will work on so that it looks well when I get it printed.
I also enjoyed how collaborative it felt from Phil getting the story out of me and helping with edits to Alan helping me all the way through with Maya, to my classmates helping me with ideas that would work for the film. I am really proud of myself and my film and I honestly I found myself not wanting to do much else and got a bit obsessive with it because honestly I love my film and want to continue to make it the best it can be. I have grown my technical skills but also as a person, when I think back to the person I was in first year I think I am more confident in myself and my abilities and I know now that I will always work my hardest to see something through I just want to always move forward and take into consideration everything I have learned from the past three years into continuing to evolve creatively and personally - Now that I have the skills I need I cannot wait to take them into future projects and get those ideas and stores that I have always wanted to tell out into the open, I am exited to know that I can actually do that now :)
