This week’s session introduced research frameworks and different approaches to research design, including qualitative and quantitative methods. We discussed how research questions can influence the methods used and how different frameworks can help structure an investigation. The lecture also highlighted the importance of developing a clear research problem rather than starting with a broad area of interest.
We were also briefed on the Draft Literature Review assignment that will be submitted later in the term. The assessment requires us to propose a research question, outline our objectives and begin building a literature review supported by academic sources. Nigel also asked us to upload potential research ideas to a Padlet, which was useful as it encouraged everyone to start thinking seriously about possible thesis directions.
Alongside the lecture, Nigel shared a series of videos about research frameworks by DrJ Thesising 101. Although research design can initially feel quite abstract, these resources helped break down the purpose of frameworks and how they can be applied when developing a research project. At this stage, I was still refining my interests, but the session made it clear that choosing a topic is only the first step; the challenge is developing a structured approach that can support meaningful research.
This week Ting introduced Project 1, which she described as a test run for the Final Major Project rather than a complete proposal. The idea was to focus on one element that we wanted to explore and develop it into a polished outcome. She showed several examples of how previous students had approached the project, whether through developing a visual style, testing a workflow or planning their portfolio. I found this reassuring because it removed the pressure of having to know exactly what my FMP would look like and instead encouraged experimentation and focused research. Since I had already been thinking about my FMP, I immediately began considering how I could present my ideas and what aspect would be most interesting to explore further.
We also continued working on facial poses, but this time using live reference instead of model sheets. I found this considerably more challenging than the previous assignment. The model sheet expressions were already stylized and exaggerated, making them easier to interpret, whereas real facial expressions are much more subtle and complex. Often I found myself struggling to identify what exactly made an expression work. Small changes around the mouth, eyelids or eyebrows could dramatically alter the feeling of a pose. Although I struggled initially, the process forced me to become more observant and taught me that facial animation is less about copying individual features and more about understanding the relationships between them. By the end of the exercise, I felt more comfortable analyzing expressions and translating them into appealing poses.
I also continued refining my “Heavy Object / Change of Mind” shot. Taking Ting’s feedback into account, I focused on improving the movement of the centre of gravity. One issue she repeatedly pointed out was that my COG would occasionally stop moving entirely, making the character feel stiff and disconnected from the action. At first, the idea that the COG should almost always be in motion was difficult for me to understand. I had a tendency to treat poses as isolated moments rather than parts of a continuous action. To improve this, I spent time studying reference footage and adjusting my blocking to ensure that the weight flowed naturally from one pose to the next. Although it was frustrating at times, I gradually started to understand how even subtle shifts in the hips can make a character feel more alive and believable.
This week’s heavy object version
Looking back, I noticed that many of the topics we have covered over the past few weeks are beginning to connect. Whether it is camera movement, facial posing or body mechanics, the common theme seems to be that animation is less about moving controls and more about observing life. The more I rely on reference and think about why people move the way they do, the easier it becomes to make creative decisions rather than guessing. I feel like I am slowly becoming more patient with the process and spending more time planning and analysing before jumping into animation.
This week’s lecture focused on facial posing and what makes expressions feel appealing and organic. Ting emphasized concepts such as asymmetry, shape, connectivity and maintaining volume, explaining that perfect symmetry often makes faces feel robotic and lifeless. One idea that stood out to me was that expressions should not be created by simply maxing out controls, but by thinking about how muscles influence one another and how the whole face works as a connected system. We also looked at how subtle changes in eyelids, eyebrows and mouth shapes can dramatically change the emotion being communicated.
After the lecture, Ting assigned us the task of recreating facial poses from a model sheet. Although this reminded me of the golden poses exercise from first term, I found facial posing considerably more difficult. With body poses, large silhouettes and lines of action often make the difference, whereas with facial animation the smallest adjustment to a single controller can completely change the appeal of a pose. Initially, many of my expressions looked awkward or too symmetrical, but after spending more time experimenting and referring back to the lecture notes, I gradually started to understand how to create more organic poses. The experience taught me that facial animation requires a much higher level of observation and subtlety than I had expected.
I also received feedback on my planning for the “Heavy Object / Change of Mind” assignment. Ting suggested that instead of relying on online reference, I should record myself performing the action. She explained that having my own footage would make it easier to analyse camera angles and understand the mechanics of the movement. Keeping this advice in mind, I spent the week blocking the shot and focused mainly on establishing strong key poses and believable weight shifts. Rather than worrying about polish, I concentrated on communicating effort and making sure the object actually felt heavy. This stage made me appreciate how much of animation is solved through posing rather than through adding lots of movement.
On Friday, we had a practical exercise based on the self-study videos from the previous week. Using Stitch, we had to animate the process of making a cup of tea. Although the animation itself was fairly simple, the real purpose of the exercise was to test our understanding of parenting and hierarchy. Stitch had to pick up a tea bag, place it into the kettle, carry the kettle and pour water into a cup, meaning that control relationships were constantly changing throughout the sequence. I initially found this task frustrating because, as I have mentioned before, Maya’s workflow still feels much less intuitive to me than Blender. However, once I stopped trying to solve problems as they appeared and instead planned the hierarchy and parent switches beforehand, everything became much easier. This exercise reinforced something I am beginning to notice repeatedly in animation: good planning often saves far more time than trying to fix problems later.
This week’s lecture focused on developing a literature review and understanding its role within the thesis. We discussed how a literature review should do more than simply list sources, instead bringing together different authors’ perspectives to support a balanced academic argument. The concept of the “Golden Thread” was also introduced, highlighting the importance of maintaining a clear connection between the research question, literature review, methodology and final conclusions.
One practical part of the session was a demonstration of citation management software such as Zotero and Mendeley. Up until now, I had mostly relied on online citation generators whenever I needed references, which often felt inefficient and sometimes unreliable. It was useful to see how dedicated reference management software can organise sources, store PDFs and automatically generate citations and bibliographies. Considering the amount of reading and research involved in the thesis, I can see how these tools could make the process much more manageable.
The session made me realise that the literature review is not just a background section but something that helps shape and support the entire research project. Going forward, I want to start collecting and organising sources early so that I can build good research habits before beginning the main body of the thesis.
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.
Corrected Previs
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.
This week focused on developing a viable research topic for the thesis. We discussed what makes a strong research question and looked at examples of topics that were either too broad or too narrow. The session highlighted the importance of choosing a topic that is both interesting and realistic to research.
One thing I found useful was the emphasis on testing whether a topic can actually be supported by enough research and evidence. It made me realise that having an interesting idea is only part of the process; it also needs to be manageable and backed by reliable sources.
At this stage I was still exploring possible directions for my thesis, but the lecture gave me a better understanding of how to refine ideas into a focused research question. It also encouraged me to start thinking more critically about the relationship between my interests and what can realistically be developed into a full research project.
Thursday’s lecture shifted the focus from cinematography to story structure. Ting spent a lot of time introducing the SWBST framework (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then) and explaining how it can be used to build stories around conflict and consequence rather than simply listing events. One idea she repeatedly emphasized was that stories should be connected by “therefore” and “but” rather than “and then”, allowing character choices and obstacles to naturally drive the narrative. Throughout the class we practiced this by taking simple scenarios and building them into short stories using the SWBST structure. I found this approach useful because it reduced storytelling to a clear framework and made me think more critically about motivation and cause-and-effect rather than isolated scenes.
Towards the end of the session, Ting assigned us a cinematic analysis exercise where we had to choose a scene from a film we liked and explain why its shots and camera angles worked. I chose the Peter Parker versus Flash Thompson scene from Spider-Man because I thought it was a good example of how cinematography can establish power dynamics between characters. Looking at the scene frame by frame made me appreciate how subtle camera choices influence the audience’s perception. Low angles, framing, and shot size all contributed to establishing Flash as the dominant character initially before gradually shifting the balance of power. This exercise also reinforced the connection between the previous week’s focus on camera language and this week’s emphasis on storytelling.
CInematography Analysis
On Friday, we were introduced to a new previs exercise called “Hunter to Prey”. Working in pairs, we had to create a short story that established one character as the hunter and another as the prey before reversing their roles. My partner and I came up with the story of a young man disturbing his elderly neighbour by playing loud music, only for the tables to turn when a stray ball unexpectedly knocks him down. Rather than jumping straight into animation, we spent the session focusing on the narrative and visual beats. Over the weekend, we developed the idea further, creating rough visualisations before constructing a shot list and dividing the work between us.
Since our story involved dancing and exaggerated movement, I also spent some time watching YouTube videos of simple dance routines and using them as reference. This helped me think about posing and timing, and gave us a clearer idea of how the character’s movements could communicate his carefree and somewhat obnoxious personality before the reversal.
What I found interesting about this assignment was how naturally the SWBST structure fit into our story. Somebody: an inconsiderate young man. Wanted: to enjoy himself and annoy his neighbour. But: his actions eventually lead to consequences. So: the situation reverses. Then: the power dynamic shifts and he becomes the victim. Although simple, this exercise helped me understand that story structure and cinematography are closely linked. Camera angles and shot choices become much more meaningful when they are supporting changes in character relationships and dramatic tension rather than existing purely for style. This made me realize that effective visual storytelling starts long before animation it begins with understanding the story’s underlying structure.
This week’s session focused on short narratives and visual storytelling, particularly non-dialogue animated films. As we will eventually be producing our own short film for the final project, the topic felt especially relevant. One activity I remember was contributing to a Padlet where everyone shared some of their favourite short films and animations. It was interesting to see the range of references people brought in, from well-known animated shorts to more experimental pieces.
A large part of the lecture explored how stories can be communicated without dialogue. We looked at examples such as Shaun the Sheep, Flow and Animanimals, which rely on character performance, body language and visual storytelling rather than spoken words. One point that stood out to me was how common non-dialogue films are in student animation projects. Lip-sync animation can be extremely time-consuming, so many filmmakers choose to focus on visual storytelling instead. Seeing successful examples of this approach made it clear that dialogue is not always necessary to create an engaging narrative.
Reflecting on the session, I began paying more attention to how information is communicated visually. Looking at these films made me realise how much can be conveyed through staging, movement and character acting alone. As someone who will eventually need to create a short film for this course, the lecture gave me a better understanding of how non-dialogue storytelling can be both a creative choice and a practical production decision.
This week was our first lecture of the year, although it felt a bit strange because it took place the day before the deadline for last term’s submission. The session introduced the thesis proposal brief and covered potential research topics, motivations, applications and ethical considerations. We also looked at the overall structure of the thesis and what will be expected from us over the coming months.
As my main focus at the time was finishing my previous submission, the most useful part of the lecture was Nigel’s advice on formatting. He went through details such as page numbering, chapter numbering and document structure. Although these seem like small details, it reminded me how important presentation is in academic work. After the lecture, I went back to my submission and made a few final changes before handing it in.
Looking back, I did not spend much time thinking about my thesis topic yet because my attention was on the deadline. However, the lecture gave me a better understanding of the scale of the project and what will be required. It also made me start thinking about possible areas of research that connect to my interests in animation, technology and audience interaction.
Thursday’s session focused on cinematography and camera language. We discussed how composition, focus, focal length, geometry and movement can all be used to communicate meaning and guide the audience’s attention. Ting emphasized that the placement of the camera should always be motivated by what the scene is about and what the filmmaker wants to say, rather than simply choosing visually interesting angles. We reviewed an assignment she had given us over the break, which involved storyboarding scenes from The Incredibles. After analyzing the original sequences, we were asked to create new storyboards using different camera angles and shot choices based on the cinematography principles covered in class.
Towards the end of the session, Ting introduced the “5 × 5” challenge. We had to create a storyboard consisting of exactly five shots, each lasting five seconds, using only camera language to tell a story about a person in a bar. There was to be no dialogue and no facial acting, meaning that framing, composition and camera movement had to carry the narrative. The assignment was due the following day, so it required quick decision making and forced me to think more economically about storytelling. I found it surprisingly difficult to communicate emotion and progression with such limited tools, but the exercise made me appreciate how much information can be conveyed through cinematography alone.
My storyboard
On Friday, the exercise took an unexpected turn when Ting paired everyone up and asked us to exchange storyboards. Rather than animating our own ideas, we became directors of our own sequences and had to explain them clearly to our partners while animating somebody else’s work ourselves. After a short demonstration on camera rig animation in Maya, we spent the remainder of the session working on the shots. I found this process particularly interesting because it pushed collaboration to another level. Animating a sequence that was not originally my idea forced me to pay close attention to communication and interpretation. At the same time, directing someone else through my storyboard made me realise how important clarity is in visual storytelling. The exercise also gave me the opportunity to work with classmates I had not spoken to much before, making the studio feel much more collaborative and connected.
