HOW TO BE A VILLAIN: FINISHED FILM

Below is the finished version of "How to be a Villain".

I had a good experience serving as the director and key animator in this project. Despite having some animation experience under my belt, having completed an FDA course and working in these types of group projects before, it's a humbling experience to come out of this project and still seeing there is much to learn. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck7agCHVxSM

I'm somewhat happy with the film but somewhat annoyed about some decisions that I made in the story-boarding process, such as some shots being way too fast for the audience to properly catch and absorb. I've learnt that when working in a group with anybody, everyone has to be equally as organised and on the same page. Physical interaction between members of the group are of the most importance when it comes to group synergy in my opinion. I don't like using Skype conference calls as a replacement for meeting in person as I believe that some key pieces of information can be lost in translation through the computer screen.

Another thing I learnt, is that for the type of animation this is, being a video tutorial and all, having a voice actor is critical. Considering how late into the process it was before I realized we might need a voice over, we were extremely lucky we managed to find one in time.  It would have been a very dull and confusing film I think if we didn't have one and i'm not sure how I ever thought that having a silent subtitled animation with lots of fast paced movements would have worked at all.

Lastly, there were some changes that were made. The biggest one being the removal of the borders. This was actually an accidental discovery, but as I was playing around with the video in Sony Vegas, mistakenly hid the layer which had the interface and realized that the film looked FAR better without it. I have no idea why I was so fixated on having it there to begin with. I think I thought that having it there would make it look more appealing and interesting or something. Or maybe because it made it like a game and a short film at the same time? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm glad I realized this sooner rather than later.