Fourth Wing Animatic: Project Oversight

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Daily Flight with Tairn and Andarna by emilyedraws
 
After putting my foot down and making the decision to create the Fourth Wing animatic at the beginning of the trimester, I realised that I needed a lot of collaboration for this project. I started with writing down a list of who and what exactly is involved. The scene ‘Threshing’ that I’m creating from chapters 13-14 requires five characters with voice acting, a cinematic score that provides the sense of atmosphere and a script. My main collaborators are Charles Inopiquez, Ben Blommestein and Aaron Wilkes, one audio student and two film students from SAE. Additional collaborators involve Ethan Morse (one of my friends who has done professional voice acting), Henry Schultz and Dane Keckley who voice the main characters.
Project stakeholders are people that are actively involved in a project that can positively or negatively affect the outcome of its implementation or completion, impacting the results as well as each of their team members (Downar, 2018). As I have so many collaborators, it is essential that I consider them as my stakeholders, including my mentor Tim Kitevski who is my pillar and guidance to keep me going with this project. I should also mention my peers (being other students in class) who are offering their feedback and ways I can improve on the quality to the best of my ability.

Thanks to the interdisciplinary effort, I’ve already received all the material I need from my stakeholders, so now it is my job to implement their work into mine. I am pleased with the results and now it’s up to me to hold accountability for whatever work I need to do moving forward with this project. Accountability is the obligation for an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and disclose the results in a transparent manner. (Kulakov, 2024).


As I am progressing through the storyboard, I will soon reach the point where I convert it into an animatic. There may have to be some more communication between the music and film students whether it’s alterations to the cinematic scores or voice acting, depending on how I go with the timing between each frame. If I am to hold accountability for communication with my team members, I should ask myself if I have talked to them and kept them up to date, their mindset for doing the jobs, and depending on their attitude; how will I handle it? (Solarity, 2015). I need to make sure they understand their tasks and how it will affect the final result. I’ve had to ask the voice actors to do a few revisions before sending me the final pass so their acting matches how I envision the scenes, I don’t want anything to feel too out of place. Creatives should know exactly how each sequence would pertain to the overall storyline, which in itself contained “the essential composition of shots and sequences” (Culhane, 1983)(Hart, 2008). 
The same can be said for the music, I’ve requested to change a few instruments so it’s not overbearing to the voice acting and flows fluently with the sequence of panels.

Another thing I had to do is cut down my scope for the project, I need to be accountable for the final submission. If I take on too much work, the whole project will just fall apart. So what was three different scenes that would take over ten minutes, changed to one scene that’s estimated to be between five to seven minutes long. I hope that if I manage to cover the main part, I can use the additional scenes as a stretch goal or further work on it after the trimester. What is also important to coincide with my workflow is time management, I need to organise and apply the time to my workload. By doing this, I’ve been recording my process with a gantt chart, time tracker and setting up milestones (which can be seen broken down in the gantt chart). I’m the one responsible for my output and must be aware of my actions that could make or break the result of this animatic.




References
Hart, J. (2008). The art of the storyboard : a filmmaker’s introduction (2nd ed). Elsevier/Focal Press.
Kulakov, M. (2008). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK© Guide). Project Management Institute, Fourth Edition. https://everhour.com/blog/accountability-vs-responsibility/
Roeder, T. (2013). Managing project stakeholders : building a foundation to achieve project goals. Wiley. http://www.123library.org/book_details/?id=96785
Wojciech Downar. (2018). Identification and mapping of project stakeholders: criteria and methods. Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces, 187(1), 165–179. https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0011.7370
July 30, & 2015. (2015, July 30). As a Project Manager, How do You Effectively Hold People Accountable? | Solarity. Solarity.com. https://solarity.com/as-a-project-manager-how-do-you-effectively-hold-people-accountable/


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