Today is the final stage of our “The Herds” project, and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Looking back on the experience during this period, it feels like a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs, but overall it was smooth, at least we achieved most of our goals.

At the beginning of the project, I proposed to use layered paper-cut stop-motion animation to present the story. Although most groups chose modeling, our group unanimously felt that paper-cut animation might be more interesting than modeling and skeletal binding. I was responsible for the initial ideas, research, paper-cutting and coloring, filming and editing. I remember that during the first discussion, everyone was quite interested in my proposal, but the instructor seemed a little worried about the technical difficulty. However, we decided to give it a try.

I was impressed by the first shot test. We arranged the scenes in layers, and when the camera moved, the effect was pretty good. Although the frame rate was a bit unstable, at least we could see the effect we wanted. At that moment, I felt that our method was right, although it could be better.

However, there were also many difficulties in the project. The most troublesome thing was that two team members were absent for a long time due to illness, which increased the workload a lot. Another team member and I had to share more tasks, such as paper cutting, coloring and filming. It was a really tiring time. We had to spend a lot of time in school every day, and the efficiency was not high. But we also learned how to divide the work and communicate better.

When editing, I found that the frame rate of some clips was not smooth enough and looked a bit stuck. After watching the test clips, the instructor just laughed it off. But I can understand it. After all, this is our first attempt at paper-cut stop-motion animation, and there are indeed many areas that can be improved technically.
Now that the project is coming to an end, I began to reflect on this experience. Although the layered paper-cut stop-motion animation is technically challenging, it adds a unique visual language to our story. If there are similar projects in the future, I will pay more attention to time management, break down the tasks more carefully, and avoid rushing at the last stage.

Overall, this “The Herds” project taught me a lot – not only technically, but also teamwork and problem-solving skills. Although the result is not perfect, at least we tried our best and achieved the basic goals. I hope to do better next time!