Crystal Gatherer Report | Page 5

Pre-Production Inspirational Research Once we had returned from our Christmas holiday, the class pitched their work. When I pitched my idea for my FMP, I was given good feedback. For my FMP, I chose to create a short film of a girl collecting crystals into a box, unaware that a bear was going to attack her and steal it. Dan and Mike has given good feedback, suggesting that short films are good for FMP but it is a rarity nowadays and most of it consist of a lot of people working on one project and not being able to finish it on time. However, I was determined to do this project as it was something that could help me explore my roles as a Character Animator, Modeller and Concept Artist. In fact, I had suggested that I would be rigging the characters I needed for my piece as it was also another role I was interested in, yet was unsure if I had enough time to do it all. Dan had suggested not to do any rigging as it is a very lengthy process when a person has to model something, rig it, and then animate it. I took his feedback into consideration and started on the planning stages. When I was planning on what to pitch, I was looking through a variety of animation and caught one that stood out the most. ‘The Present’ was an animation piece portraying a relationship between an amputated boy and dog. (Frey, Jacob, The Present, 2016) (Fig.1) 5