I decided to sit out Bradley's annual 24 hour animation challenge (the "12-12"), for concern that I would lose my weekend time to work on my capstone film. But that decision came with some fear of missing out. So this Saturday, I became the first ever senior to show up to the 12-12 contest to work independently on my capstone, while aiming to support the actual participants.
For anyone who happened to find this blog, but isn't immersed enough in the animation world to know what I mean, let me explain here. Basically, the goal of a 24 hour animation challenge is for a group of students to collaborate as a team to direct and animate a little short film (think 20-90 seconds in length) under a 24-hour time constraint. On 24 hour challenge days, the animation room at Bradley basically gets turned into a slumber party-tons of junk food, movies all night, cozy objects abundant while sleep is not! While the sleep deprivation might eventually a take a toll on one's focus and quality of their animation, it makes for a fast-paced and fun opportunity to mix with one's classmates while crunching out a potentially portfolio-worthy project from start to finish.
Want to see an example of what gets made? In 2022, my team Goat Boat placed 13th out 300 in the official 24 Hour Animation Contest with this film!
Anyway, my role changed drastically in comparison to past challenges. I'm more used to being right in the center of the action as a "team captain", who typically contributes animation while at the same time, offering direction and technical help to the rest of the team as needed. While without such responsibility this time, I still wanted to make sure that I was giving back in return for being allowed to occupy this unique and chaotic space, full of enablers to make me go werewolf mode on my film. So I came armed with 3 big bags full of all my coffee and tea supplies to share, and a readiness to offer my words of encouragement. I really enjoyed getting to walk around the room and have people show off their work to me!
I spent my productive hours animating the ghost cat's walk and run cycles! It's so nice to finally have both cats' walk and run animated, ready to implement into my rough cut, and viewable side by side for comparison. It also finally appears I'm starting to get my stride with tails, after months of considering them the hardest part of the walk cycle.
