Synoptic Evaluation

For our final step of our synoptic project we have to evaluate how our project went compared to the original and how well we worked as a group. Finally I will discuss what worked well and what we would do different.

Our original brief was to have atleast three different 3D models in our project as a whole, we also must have one shot with a moving camera meaning the footage needed to be motion tracked and the last criteria was to do a matte painting shot. For our project we did do three 3D models in total, a watchtower, a drone and a robot arm. One of our first shots was a shot of London with a matte painting background which completes that criteria. The shot with the tower is tracked as it moves while the agent runs so in total we have all the criteria from the original brief.

For our synoptic management we did use a website called trello where we could do different tasks for each stage of production and cross them off when finished like a checklist, this ment that we would also have alot more motivation as we see the task list slowly go down we did Scrum meetings too which ment that our team could communicate in person aswell as trello

For myself I did use the checklist on trello to manage myself, they were split into columns for each part of the project, pre production, production and post production so I didn't have to worry about tasks that were far in the future. I had set dates until the end of each of the productions so I knew when to finish each project. My personal mindset was to do the tasks one by one so I wasn't left with lots of unfinished projects. Everyone else performed as well as we needed all tasks were done on time when we needed them.

In the future a few improvements we could make would be to get to know the cameras and be able to secure everything goes right with it. We also could make sure the tasks best suit the team for example someone who is very good at maya would do 3D modelling, we did actually do this quite well with Chloe and Emma doing 3D modelling and premiere because they are obviously talented at it, but maybe we should of switched up a few tasks.

I think that alot of things worked well for us as a group, our group attendance was perfect, people were always there to do their work or help others if needed. We were organised clearly and when we ran into an issue for example with re shoots we would simply set a new date and get on with some other work instead of sitting around complaining. 1 We came across a few issues with our synoptic, one of the issues was doing the panorama shot that we had to re shoot many times. This was at Brandon's house where we had the issue. One of the problems was the cameras, we used GH3 most of the time but some occasions we had to change camera because of all the GH3 being rented out already. When we did have the right camera we had issues with the burst shots with the brackets, we did get this working but we couldn't tell if they were overexposed until we got back so we had to re shoot. When we did we needed the camera centered and a few times it was too close to a wall or object so it could never be a good 360 shot. Something else that prevented the 360 shot from working was the wall and ceiling which would clash with other objects making an overlayed mess. We fixed this by putting tape on these sections so that ptgui the 360 software had something to track onto.

If we had to do another synoptic project then next time we could do a few things differently. I think a good idea would to have due dates for each task to make everything flow a bit easier, not that it was a problem but any additional help is appreciated. We also could of preplanned some scenes like the reflection in the hacking scene could of been done to make it easier.