I hate bumping my own thread like this, but today's livestream was a bit of an eye opener and I feel like I really have to share the lesson I learned.
The idea was to have a solid base to work from for AJ's video, in contrast to Shine which felt as if I was stabbing in the dark, yet trying to make it work instantly. So I "got my act together" and set out to be organized!
I wouldn't try to get everything perfect from the get-go, but would work on the video in multiple passes, iterating and refining things until they would get my stamp of approval.
Results would come in quickly, I could react to them and build on them as I went along.
Today I got an interesting result which was the realization that Shine actually DID have a strong concept to draw from and that the stabbing in the dark was actually taking place with
this project.
Shine was actually well defined from the start: bold colour scheme, rectangular shapes, kinetic typography and silhouettes. Assets could be made quickly because I knew exactly just what size my creative sandbox was: I had a clear idea what the constraints were.
I was in a comfortable position for pretty much the entire process and didn't have to stop and think what to do next. Production took long, but I could just keep working.
With AJ's video I've been doing that constantly... I don't have a vision, a strong visual identity to go for, I actually have no plan or organization. RIght now it's Applejack and... stuff happening... sort of.
I don't know where it's going, when it'll end or anything.
So I thought about the processe so far and found out that I've been paying far too much attention and energy to trying to do things radically different, making myself blind to everything I actually did right.
In doing so I skipped a couple of very important early steps: jotting down notes in my notebook while listening to the music non stop, collecting different clips of AJ to start with, et cetera, et cetera.
I think I stumbled on a negative outcome of "Trying to do things differently with every video": there's a point where you stray too far from what you know. I found it and I got stuck.
Important lesson right here I feel. Now, this doesn't mean I'll just dump everything I've done so far and start over, but I am going to take a step back and look at it from from a conceptual point of view before diving back into production.
My mind's in a weird place now...
--
Next to all of that, which I realize is a lot now that I'm processing it, I got to work on iterating on one of the existing shots:
Before
and after
It's still missing something red!
by Isaak (?) » Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:41 pm
), but hopefully you can make it on saturdays since I think saturdays should be easiest for most people to mess with schedules.
jumped up from least favorite pony position after Cutie Pox, because I realized the reason I didn't like her was the hat. Now that I realize that, I appreciate the character a lot more.
