Introduction
This blog post is dedicated to the Production Management category of the B2 Creative Project brief. The Production Management category includes a SWOT analysis section and a Scheduling section.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and is used to help manage a person or company’s projects and targets. For this brief, completing a SWOT analysis on my own project will help me to decide how I want to approach creating it and also help me to be aware of anything that could be detrimental to my progress in creating work for the brief.
- Strengths – The major strength in the film project I am working on is that it is in a 2D animated format. 2D animation is my personal strong suit, and this means that I am familiar with the processes and techniques associated in creating 2D animation. If my project was in a format that I am not as familiar with (for example, 3D animation) it would take longer for me to produce as I would have to learn new techniques and skills as I am creating the film.
- Weaknesses – One weakness of my project is that I have chosen to animate in a frame-by-frame style, meaning that the process of animating is longer as I am drawing every frame by hand. In the future, I would consider making 2D animations using motion graphics in after effects, as this process is much shorter and would give me a finished product more quickly.
- Opportunities – An opportunity for where my project could succeed would be because of this same fact that it is animated frame by frame. I feel as though this process of animating allows me to create animations with as much detail and meticulousness as a static drawing, and hopefully viewers of the animation will be able to appreciate the effort and time put into the illustration and style.
- Threats – One potential threat that could affect my project would be that I don’t currently have Photoshop (the software I am using for animation) at home on my computer. However, this threat can be addressed easily, as I am sure that I can install Photoshop using my Confetti license and log-in.
Overall, analysing the above factors has helped me to consider what I need to do in order to get my project finished by the deadline on the 24th February.
Scheduling
This is a Gantt chart that I created in October 2022 to show a schedule of the work that I completed for Pre-production and Theory and Research sections of the brief. Both of the sections cut off at the week of their individual internal deadlines – the deadline for Theory and Research was on the 18th November and Pre-production was on the 9th December.
For the pre-production section, I knew I would need a longer period of time to create concept art and story boards, as when I am drawing and sketching I am meticulous, and it often takes a long time. That is why I allocated three working weeks to each of those tasks.
In the theory and research section, I gave myself three weeks to write the case study blog post, and this was because I wanted to include a lot of detail and explanation – working towards a higher grade.
Reflection – Beginning of Term 2
The following is a reflection of the work I have completed so far for the Creative Project brief.
As of 4/01/2023, I have completed the Theory and Research and Pre-production sections of the brief.
The theory and research section includes my subject, client, production formats and case study research in their respective blog posts and I think that over all, researching different related topics to the brief helped me to develop my ideas for different animated projects into one fully fledged idea that I was then able to expand upon in the Pre-production blog post, and develop further into a whole animation.
The Pre-production section of my work includes blog posts for generating ideas, a project proposal, target audience profile, concept design work and a pitch. In these different blog posts I was able to create moodboards, concept art, sketches and storyboards with design justifications and a dedicated synopsis of my idea to help plan my final animation. The project proposal and pitch allowed me to practise my presenting skills, at the same time as giving my tutors an overview of my project and the work I had done for it up until that point.
The only thing I would say that I needed to improve on in that body of work would be to manage my time more efficiently, as I completed some work quite close to the deadlines for those sections of the brief and it would be preferable to me if I could have everything finished in due time so that I could move onto the next section of work easier.
Going forward, I have to complete the main production of my animation, as well as this Professional Practise section of the brief which I have started with the writing of this reflection on 04/01/2023 at the beginning of Term 2.
As for the production of my animation, I will begin that the same week I am writing this (week beginning 02/01/2023) and finish both sections, the Production and Professional Practise, by 10/02/2022.
Completing the work in clear stages has helped me to plan for the production of my animation effectively – I have completed all of the other outstanding work for this brief, and only have the production and post-mortem left to do outside of this production management blog post. This means that I can complete this work within the month without having to rush, or do multiple pieces of work at the same time as I have already completed most of it.
As mentioned previously in my SWOT analysis, I have downloaded photoshop at home and am using it for my project.
Adding to My Gantt Chart
On 05/01/2023 I expanded the Gantt chart I made in October to now include the remaining work I have to do for the following weeks before the deadline on 10/02/2023. This work includes the production of my animation for the brief, as well as the professional practice section of blog work which reflects on the work done to produce the final animated short.
Here is the link to the full chart:
Conclusion
Over all, this blog post shows how I have managed my work for the B2 Creative Project brief. The Production Post-mortem blog post in the same ‘B2 Professional Practice’ category shows a reflection on the animation that I produced for this project.