The Live Project has been a very frustrating and disappointing project in many aspects for me, but at the same time, it’s been equally satisfying and rewarding in others. I am disappointed in my lack of completed work to show at the close of this project; I feel I should have completed at least 2 of the 5 suggested animations put forward in my proposal form and original rationale. If I consider the first 4-6 weeks of the project, this overlapped with other work commitments and deadlines and therefore I didn’t kick off with a strong start and as a result projects died out and I became frustrated at how little drive I had for producing work that I had set myself.
This is when I stepped back and thought about whether I felt animation was my main practice or if I was just dragging out a phase of something that I had previously enjoyed doing. I set myself a single animation to complete within the last 3 weeks of the brief, and would use this experience to determine what I really wanted to do.
I started to push myself to learn more useful areas including becoming more confident in Photoshop and using a graphics tablet, learning the technicalities of animating in stop motion, including how to use a camera on Manual mode; setting aperture, shutter speed and white balance relative to the lighting set up in my makeshift studio spaces. These processes made me come to realise, perhaps I’m not actually ready for the 5 animations I originally put myself down for, and I would be best completely mastering the very basics, rather than taking leaps and keep falling ten steps back.
Other elements throughout the project including the Artivism community project, the Community Projects Workshop run by Nick and the animation workshop day at Cockburn College of Arts, all started to open my eyes to how I can use my work and interest in animation in other ways. I’ve always been a keen learner and love becoming completely involved in something that I’m excited about, these opportunities have made me consider how teaching or sharing my interests with others can pass this on and I can still learn in the process too. I found it so rewarding spending the day at Cockburn and being involved in motivating and working with children and sharing with them something that I enjoy.
As well as gaining from the experience at Artivism and Cockburn, I have also started to bridge some connections, which have already proved positive. I have an invitation to spend more time back at Cockburn running further animation workshops, which are in the process of being organised before the summer holidays. Other networking opportunities and contacts have been positive in respect of my work and some have offered to give advice and ideas on future work I take on as well.
I have experienced briefs failing throughout this project, but I’m slowly learning not to be put off when things go wrong. I am much more aware of networking and work experience opportunities and becoming more confident in taking them on. I have researched plenty of upcoming animation briefs, festivals and competitions and will keep them in mind over the Summer, as well as my plans for my hand made crafts. Looking over this project as a whole, it has become much of a learning curve for me and I feel will act as a spring board for a strong, focused start to the third year.
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