Major Lessons

Here are a few of the major lessons I've learned on this film (some of these are from other posts but deal with it lol).

-I know what I'm capable of accomplishing. My final project is closer to the scope I originally pitched at my first midpoint review. I was even told by some that it was impossible for me to do what I said I would do. However, with a lot of hard work and determination I was able to do it!

-Working from home was a really smart decision and I saved a lot of time by being there. However, I never wanna work from home again. I need the physical travel time from work to help my mind adjust to relaxing at home.

-Technical skills, including animation, rigging, compositing, and directing all improved as a result of this project. In fact, I enjoyed directing a lot.

-Get people to work on your project that actually care and believe in it. And let them have some creative leeway in their particular field of work. It helps others feel like they have ownership in the work, and that helps them to produce much better results. Some of the work I got from my team was way beyond my expectations, and much much better than if I tried to do it myself. I am really thankful for all of my teams' help on this project.

-Don't carry the burden alone. This one also pertains as to why I wanna work in a studio. Even though I had a team, most of the project was my own work. Thus, I was responsible for myself for way too much of the project, and it caused a lot of unneeded stress. In a studio setting, there would be more people to help carry the burden with me on a project, and that would definitely help to mitigate the stress of leading a project.

-Forcing creativity when you don't have it. This is perhaps the most important lesson I learned from this project. There were many days where I woke up and didn't feel inspired to do work. However, with a deadline for this project, I somehow had to FORCE myself to be creative each and every day. I believe this is something every artist has to go through, and that the solution is also different for everyone. For me, I constantly keep myself stimulated with animation and film related media, whether it is a podcast, a commentary, some music, a Youtube show, a news article, or anything I can possible find to surround myself with creative media. This constant flow of content helps to inspire me to keep working toward being creative, and also distracts me from the negative thoughts of not working. Now I am able to work much more often and confidently than I could previously, although this is a thing I will continue to work with in the duration of my career.

-To help mitigate stress, delegating tasks to a small work schedule can help give direction each day. Whether or not I actually could follow a schedule, I was able to more easily focus on one task at a time, and not think about all of the other tasks that needed to be accomplished concurrently for the film. Schedules help reduce the idea of the whole project as an overwhelming goal. This is a lesson I am still learning.

And that's about it! Overall, I had a great time worming on this project! Thanks for reading!