Week 1 Elements of Mise En Scene / Camera animation
Understanding what aspects Mise En Scene include:
- Settings & PropsCostume
- Hair & Make Up
- Facial Expression & Body Language
- Color/Lighting
- Positioning of characters/objects within the frame
World-Building：
- Location & Era (past, present, future)
- Cultural Influences
- Laws & Beliefs that govern the world
My 3 previous ideas：
- A girl finds herself in a strange dreamscape, wandering alone until an unknown darkness begins to chase her. Just as she reaches a dead end, a giant black-and-white cat appears, saving her and carrying her away from danger. She rides on its back, fleeing through the shadows until they finally break into the light. When she wakes up, she realizes she is back in reality—and the cat is gone. As fragments of memory resurface, she understands that the cat in her dream was her beloved pet, long since lost. The story explores how dreams can preserve emotions beyond memory, revealing that even what is forgotten may find its way back.
- In a future world, the dead choose between digital immortality or true oblivion. Meng Po guides those who erase their data, leading them to the final room but never crossing the threshold. A translucent woman arrives, wearing a silver bracelet with a glowing bead. After drinking Memory Soup, her form stabilizes. As they walk, memories appear—scenes of her life, a man by her side. One photo shows the Qing Dynasty, the same man fastening the same bracelet. At the door, she steps inside. Meng Po hesitates, then follows. In a white room, the woman’s final memory unfolds—a hospital, the man placing the bracelet in her palm. She touches the bead and it dissolves into light. Meng Po exits. A new soul awaits. She straightens her robe and offers the cup. Beneath the bridge, data streams vanish into the abyss.
- On a misty night in the Southern Song Dynasty, a young woman enters a hidden Ghost Market. Lanterns flicker as silent vendors watch. At a lone stall, she reaches for a silver tael, but a black mist coils around her wrist. A hidden charm repels it, and a knowing chuckle lingers in the air. At dawn, the town wakes as if nothing happened. But in her palm rests a blackened copper coin. A soft footstep behind—she turns to see herself, identical and smiling. Without hesitation, she lifts her parasol and steps forward. Faint ripples fade on the stone pavement. A voice murmurs: “The world drifts like a passing cloud; when the dream fades, a thousand years have gone.” “世事如浮云，梦醒已千年。”
Week 2 Establishing your world
Consider these settings for constructing a world: history, geography, and ecology
Once world ideas are fleshed out, create sets and props that enhance the story’s environment.
Creating Simple Scenes and Props
Basic Compositions in Maya
Storyboard1: Mengpo
Storyboard2: Cat in Dream
Storyboard3: Ally
Week 3 Telling stories through the camera
Creating establishing shots is essential in storyboarding, Previs, and layout, as they set the scene before moving into closer shots. They help the audience understand the location, whether at the beginning of a story, during a location change, or at the end of a journey. To enhance composition, the rule of thirds should be applied, positioning the horizon line at the top or bottom of the frame for a balanced visual effect.
Moodboard
I chose the Mengpo story as my FMP idea, and started to do some basic compositions in Maya.
Refined Storyboard
Week 4 Establishing Characters
This week, we focused on character creation and storytelling through animation.
Defining protagonists and antagonists, understanding their motivations, and making characters compelling through depth, flaws, and actions. Since the animation may lack dialogue, characters must be introduced visually using gestures and body language, following the “show, don’t tell” principle.
Feedback:
- need more guidelines in the background for the character
- more frames for some shots when the main character walking
- get rid of the controllers
Week 5 First draft second feedback
This week I remade the shots from last week and finished the first half.
Feedback:
- Shot 1 – Character posture needs to change.
- Consistency is important! – walking shots
- camera angle needs to change to show Mmengpo’s face before she talks to the dead girl.
- When Mengpo is in front of the dead girl, make her just finish her walk (showing that she is already extremely familiar with this process)
Week 6 Animation analysis
This week, I revised the shot leading to the last room. In the previs, the memory windows do not show the two modern scenes and one Qing dynasty scene.
From a narrative point of view, the memory scenes in these windows reveal the connection between the woman and her lover – a cycle of separation and reunion. The bracelet is a visual symbol that connects the three moments.
Week 7 Second Draft
This week, I finished the shots of the interior of the final scene room. Unlike the outside world, this space is empty – pure white and without distractions. The woman’s most precious memories play out here, revealing the moment her lover returned the bracelet to her in the hospital.
Feedback:
- consistency – show how two characters change their places in some shots (left & right)
- higher camera angle – when Mengpo opens the door
- camera angle change – in the room
Week 8 FEEDBACK/DEMO
This week, I re-edited the first half to make Meng Po’s walking more fluid and coherent. Initially, her starting position was changed, which resulted in this part not being smooth enough.
I also adjusted the angle of the over-shoulder shots of Meng Po and the dead girl.
Continuity editing ensures consistency in a film’s storyline, location and time. Continuity errors can break viewers’ suspension of disbelief, but minor mistakes may go unnoticed. The 180-degree rule, proper perspective shifts, and camera movement are all essential factors in continuity.
Week 9 Finishing touches
This week, I polished the remaining shots and added the final shot – Meng Po restarting her work as an AI guide. This final shot is crucial to reinforcing the cyclical nature of her existence.
To enhance the impact of this moment, I adjusted the rhythm of the final scene. The brief pause before Meng Po leaves the camera gives the audience a chance to reflect on the opening ending.
Final Previs
Week 10 Advanced Body Mechanics Planning
Pantomime – performance where the story is told through expressive bodily or facial movements
This week focused on the fundamentals of planning and blocking for body mechanics animation. Clear staging is essential, each shot should have a single, readable idea supported by camera placement, prop interaction, and character action. Cameras must remain static; no animated cameras are allowed.
Blocking is described as the “skeleton” of the shot. It begins with strong key poses that define the storytelling beats. Animators are advised to work in perspective view rather than the shot camera to ensure the pose reads well from multiple angles.
Key blocking techniques include:
• Reusing similar poses with slight variations in translation or rotation to save time.
• Including rough hand and finger poses early for overall silhouette clarity.
• Prioritizing key poses and breakdowns over detailed timing.
• Avoiding overreliance on reference timing in this phase; focus instead on clarity of poses from thumbnails.
• Switching between IK and FK as needed—e.g., using FK for airborne movement to avoid gimbal lock or overkeying.
My Idea: A person is seen fleeing in terror, desperately trying to escape from something. Panic consumes him as he runs until he suddenly trips and falls hard to the ground. As he looks in fear, he realizes… it was just a tiny flea chasing him.
Reference:
thumbnails plan:
changed reference:
Week 11 Advanced Body Mechanics (Blocking)
Blocking Plus, which builds directly on the initial blocking phase. Rather than jumping straight into spline mode, animators are encouraged to stay in stepped keys and refine their blocking by adding more complexity, clarity, and rhythm to the poses. The goal is to push storytelling further before entering the final polish stage.
Key techniques in this phase include moving holds and copied pairs.
• A moving hold is a slight motion added during a static pose, such as subtle breathing or micro-shifts. These prevent the character from appearing lifeless, as complete stillness in 3D can feel unnatural.
• Copied pairs are a method of achieving moving holds. Animators duplicate a key pose and shift the copy forward in time to maintain the pose while allowing small adjustments in spacing. This helps extend the life of a pose without flattening the timing.
breakdowns： transitional pose between two key poses that clarifies how the motion progresses
arcs：the curved paths that body parts follow，which is critical, especially since most natural motion in animation involves rotation. Arcs define the path of movement and contribute to fluid, believable animation. Well-planned arcs can distinguish amateur work from professional-quality motion.
This week, the blocking pass was completed based on the new reference footage. The focus was on clarity and storytelling through full-body expression.
Week 12 Advanced Body Mechanics (Spline)
Week 13 Advanced Body Mechanics (Polish)
Spline phase, which follows after completing Blocking Plus. At this stage, the shot should already contain all key poses, breakdowns, moving holds, overshoots, and copied pairs. The purpose of splining is to transition from stepped keys to spline interpolation, allowing the animation to move fluidly between poses. However, this transition can often make a shot look worse before it looks better, especially if insufficient information has been given to the computer during the blocking stage.
To avoid this, animators are encouraged to add as much intentional movement as possible during blocking.
The clean-up process should be systematic:
1. Root / COG – Start here to ensure the base motion is clean.
2. Legs, knees, feet – Refine contact and weight shifts.
3. Spine – Smooth arcs and body flow.
4. Neck and head – Adjust follow-through and overlap.
5. Shoulders and arms – Track arcs and loosen motion.
6. Hands and fingers – Final details and finesse.
Cleaning in this order prevents the need to redo previous work caused by changes in the root or center of gravity.
Week 14 Advanced Body Mechanics Finishing touches
Polish phase（ Detail Pass）：following the completion of spline cleanup.
The goal is to refine remaining elements that have received less attention—such as fingers, facial movement (especially in wide shots), props, and constraint transitions (IK/FK switching). Polishing ensures all movement follows clean arcs, often requiring frame-by-frame (on 1’s) adjustments on wrists, knees, elbows, and head.
Scene elements such as props and environment also need to match the shot’s quality. If a wall breaks or a prop is used, it should look believable and physically grounded.
Key Polishing Practices
• Apply fine motion to subtle parts like fingers and face.
• Ensure follow-through and arcs are present throughout.
• Work hierarchically: root/COG, spine, limbs, face, and fingers.
• Clean transitions and overlaps in constraint systems.
Week 15 Intro to acting – planning submission and defining lip sync
This week’s focus was on preparing the blocking pass for a dialogue animation. The session began with a breakdown of lip sync mechanics, emphasizing the importance of phrasing in connected speech. Instead of animating full words, syllables were selected based on stress and rhythm to guide mouth movements. For example, “how’s it going” becomes “howzit goin” to reflect natural speech flow.
The fundamentals of sound production were also reviewed, highlighting the roles of the tongue, lips, jaw, teeth, and vocal cords. While lip sync is not required at this stage, understanding these components is crucial for accurate future work. The jaw’s vertical motion and the lips’ horizontal expansion and contraction were noted as primary movements for conveying phonemes.
This week, an audio clip was selected featuring three repetitions of the phrase “I’m scared.” Each line builds in emotional intensity. Two reference videos were recorded to explore different interpretations of the delivery. Based on these performances, a rough plan was made to guide the upcoming blocking pass.
Week 16 Acting Blocking
This week I finished the blocking pass with a focus on the character’s mouth shapes. I spent most of the time adjusting jaw movement and lip sync to match the phrasing in the dialogue. The goal was to make the emotional intention behind each line feel more natural.
Week 17 Acting Blocking Plus
This week I remade my blocking pass based on the feedback and demo from last week. I started by adding continuous upper body movement across all keyframes, beginning from the COG and working upward through the spine, chest, and head controllers. This helped create a more natural sense of flow and weight throughout the character’s performance.
I also adjusted the mouth shape during the open jaw poses, changing it to a more trapezoid form to better match the vocal expression and make the lip sync feel clearer. In addition, I refined the eye direction.
Week 18 Acting Spline
This week, based on the feedback from last week, I moved into the spline phase and made several adjustments. I refined the eye direction by repositioning the eyeballs to make the character’s gaze feel more natural. I also added natural arm drags to give the upper body more relaxed movement during transitions.
The lip sync continued to be adjusted for better shape clarity and timing. To better observe the head rotation, I changed the base color of the hair material.
Week 19 Acting Polish
This week I focused on the final polish phase of the shot. I began by adjusting the rotation angles of the character’s body to better match the timing and rhythm of the dialogue. Along with that, I updated the arm positions to stay consistent with the body movement and maintain natural flow throughout the shot.
Minor adjustments were also made to the eyeball direction and lip sync.
After these changes, I shifted my main focus to the smoothness of the animation curves. I went through the graph editor, cleaning up the transitions to ensure that the spacing and arcs between keyframes felt fluid. Particular attention was given to the COG, spine, and head to preserve the weight and rhythm built earlier in spline.