Making of Intergrated Practice/Creative Collaboration: Week 1: 29/9/18: Briefing

 For week 1 of year 2 we were introduced to a new module called Making of Intergrated Practice but we later learned that this would be integrating another new module named creative collaboration. Essentially the modules would be our first team based project which focused on campaign lead team animations.  I personally felt this module seemed a simple one as we would be placed into no more than teams of 5 and each bring a key skill in animation to the table be it concept art, editing or storyboarding.

However, our tutor Annabeth informed us that we could also negotiate with other courses in the university such as digital graphics, fashion and even digital media, this was a principle that would be expected in industry based projects reaching out to certain areas such as art or sound departments for example. This to me made sense as the animation is only one part of a project and that sound editors and other areas would be needed.


The modules would consist of two elements, the Intergrated practice would essentially act as the team blog for the team project rather than a conventional blog, we needed to film and document each area of the project from our areas of expertise in the animation project. Whilst the creative collaboration module focused primarily on our team doing the work itself. This I felt, was rather confusing if we needed to do separate entries for each module on our uni blogs but Annabeth informed me that the intergrated practice would be the blog in visual detail and not need the blog posts but would still be needed in creative collaboration.


We were shown an example of what animation theme we would be doing, and it was a chosen campaign on a issue personal to us be it global warming, deforestation or even the values to us.


However we would need to be careful about when doing the animation as what we use in our work could be considered sensitive or hurtful to the audience. In addition it could influence the audience the wrong way such as if a character was stuffed into a washing machine a child could get the same idea as there's a difference between fantasy and reality.


Essentially the first two weeks of the project focused on finding teams to assemble but once our teams were assembled we would then set to work. The deadline for our work would be 11th Jan 2019. I felt this was plenty of time however we were told there would be a screening of our work on the 14th December before our Christmas Holidays and it would be shown to people of industry which made me a little nervous.


I did have a few concerns in terms of the team, whether if I would either have to assemble a team myself or hope to get chosen by a team. I remembered from creative play that our team didn't do much well and hoped I could learn from that.


However what caught my interest was the After effects workshops which was the format we'd be using and it seemed the perfect opportunity to learn new things to help me further advance my understanding of motion comic animation.


I could make sense of our work being assessed by industry based experts as they can deliver helpful feedback and may help us refine a few things over or before the holidays started.


What I found helpful was knowing that the two modules would coincide with each other saving the trouble of doing separate blogs and allow us to explore more of the behind the scenes aspect of animation. However I still have a few concerns I may have to address with Annabeth such as the full details on what we would be approaching.


In conclusion what I've learned today was the way the two modules would be laid out and the prospect of bringing our individual skills in animation to the table, just as we did in the live brief work for Trans Pennine. I look forward to how this module progresses and what I may learn for my own personal development.


In future I shall look at the power point presentations before the sessions and break down the information to get a basic idea of what we would be doing for our projects.