This week’s lecture expanded on story structure and introduced several different narrative frameworks, including the Three-Act Structure, the Hero’s Journey, Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, the Five-Act Structure and Kishōtenketsu. Ting also discussed the hierarchy of narrative, explaining how individual shots and scenes contribute to larger sequences and ultimately the story as a whole. What I found most interesting was seeing how these different structures all attempt to describe the same thing: how characters change over time. Although each framework approaches storytelling differently, they all emphasize that stories are built around transformation rather than simply events happening one after another.
After the lecture, we received feedback on our “Hunter to Prey” assignment. Ting understood the story we were trying to tell and generally liked the piece, but she gave us several suggestions to improve it. She felt some shots were cutting too quickly, preventing the audience from fully digesting the information. She also pointed out that many of our camera moves felt too linear and mechanical. Rather than moving at a constant speed, she encouraged us to introduce slow-ins and slow-outs and, more importantly, to think of the camera as a character. Instead of being a passive observer, the camera should react to the events happening within the scene and communicate emotion through its movement. This feedback changed the way I thought about cinematography. Previously, I had viewed camera movement as something functional, but Ting made me realize that it can be expressive and have its own personality. Throughout the week, we revisited the animation with these notes in mind and made adjustments to improve the pacing and staging.
Alongside the project, we also had a self-study component focused on constraints in Maya. I really enjoyed working through these videos because, as someone who primarily uses Blender, I still find Maya’s interface and workflow confusing at times. Learning about constraints and parenting helped demystify some of the software and made me feel more comfortable navigating it. Although these are relatively basic concepts, they felt like important building blocks that would save time in future assignments. It was reassuring to discover that many of the concepts I already understood in Blender existed in Maya as well, even if they were implemented differently.
Towards the end of the week, Ting introduced the next assignment, “Heavy Object / Change of Mind”. The goal was to use acting and body mechanics to portray a character unsuccessfully interacting with a heavy object before ultimately deciding on a different course of action. This week was mainly dedicated to planning, so I spent some time thinking about possible scenarios and gathering reference material. Rather than immediately animating, I focused on understanding the weight shifts and physical effort involved in lifting heavy objects. I also began collecting video references that could help with posing and timing. Having learned from the previous assignments, I wanted to spend more time preparing and observing before committing to animation, since good acting and believable movement often come from careful planning rather than trying to solve everything inside Maya.