The Fantastic Voyage Project turned out to be my favourite project so far, which I couldn't have anticipated at first, as I felt I would be unable to connect well enough with the project theme, and was very doubtful about being able to not only develop an idea for the film, but to actually take it all the way and turn it into a short film. Although I did a lot of research at first on the plant growth cycle, I feel that it took some time for me to actually have a starting point in terms of ideas/thumbnails. After realizing that I was allowed to have some flexibility and personification in the film, it made the project become more exciting and helped me be more creative, now that I knew it could be more of a story than a formative scientific animation, which was what I was nervous about in the project early on. Even after getting the basic idea for my story, it still took a while for me to really finalize elements, like characters, sets and how certain parts of the story would unfold. After the OGR, drawing more thumbnails, looking at visual references online, it brought my idea to life more and made things much more clearer. I did the concept art quite earlier on in the project, which helped me work a lot of things out, especially for when it came to writing the script and visualizing everything. As I wrote the script I really understood more on how the film might eventually look, but I used a lot of camera shots which I think is what made my animatic and film go over the time target. I did remove small scenes and shots eventually in the final production, but I think it would be difficult to bring the time down by a significant amount, due to the elements in the story and everything that has to unfold before the flight even begins. I soon realized that I had chosen quite a big idea for the amount of time I had, in terms of modelling characters and sets, texturing, rigging characters, animating and then putting them together, but it felt okay to continue as the story excited me so much that I was willing to put in lot of hours in order to produce it. I couldn't make the film perfect and there are still parts that need redoing, but I was very close to having all my shots rendered when it came to the end, which I was quite pleased with as I didn't think I'd get as much done as I did. I am going to continue on the film to finish renders and improve parts where it looks/sounds rough, but in terms of where it got to by the crit, I am quite pleased. I learned a lot of important things in Maya, although it did take a lot of time in some parts to do what I wanted, which made some shots of the film take a long time to animate and light well enough, let alone render. I've also learned that all kinds of decisions can be made and they can add or eliminate a lot of time in the film, so in future I think I will be able to think ahead into projects before making time consuming decisions. I put a large amount of time into the project, but I think it was the size of my idea that was putting me behind throughout the duration of it. Although feeling like I bit off more than I could chew, I don't think it will cause me to be less ambitious with future ideas/stories, as I think that is the thing that kept me excited ad kept me going right up until the end. Nevertheless, in future I will think about the ideas earlier on and try make small adjustments/alternatives if I think it will make reaching deadlines and perfecting things more possible in the time available. Overall, the project was far from what I expected, and excited me enough that I was able to put in all of my time despite the negatives that came with it. Working on this project has also raised my awareness of time management and the importance of organizing time across the different sections of the project.
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