The Library at Bucks - easy to use! |
Research and development for a largely practical project (such as a short film) has three main stages:
Bucks Library - in the Gateway Building |
Stage 1 - Research: Identify the work of other artists whose work is relevant and which you like and admire.
This should first of all be done in the library, browsing books on animation and visual effects. There are three main sections in the library that Animation & VFX students will want to access. These are:
- 006 Computing - 3rd floor
- 741 Comics - 4th floor
- 777-778 Animation and film - 4th floor
Stage 2 - Analysis: Identify what it is about the work you have selected which is especially good.
Is it the design, the style, the colour, the editing, the music? What makes it really work? Break down the key characteristics so you can make your own creative choices. Every artist who ever lived stands on the shoulders of his or her predecessors - none of us can create in a vacuum.
Stage 3 - Development: Finally, start to imagine the style and visual themes of your own project, drawing on the work you have already done.
What characteristics of which projects are you going to incorporate into your own? What colour choices will you make, and why? What editing style do you favour? Thinking about these things will automatically make your work stronger, because your choices will be more deliberate and less random.
At Bucks, research typically forms 25-50% of the value of any assessed project. We want to know what you've done and why you've done it, and what are the creative choices you've made yourself.
To see more about how to research your project, watch this fifteen minute video below:
Step 4 - Make it academic.
Your research document is not a school report. You need to learn certain basic skills like, how to compile a bibilography (that's a list of relevant books). You also need to get to grips with inline citataions, known as Harvard Referencing. Referencing statements of fact to their source material is the basis of academic writing. If you haven't mastered this by the time you leave university, then we have both failed at our job.
To find out more, and brush up on the main things you need to get right, watch the 15 minute video above.
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