Retrospective
Our time with Broom Cupboard comes to an end and now it’s time for me to reflect on our journey.
It was cool.
When we started Broom Cupboard, we wanted to create cool portfolio pieces centered around stories. Naturally we did a 3D animated short because that’s what we all did when we first met. From then on, we tackled all sorts of artistic mediums such as games, 2D animation, interactive web comics, and even theatrical projection animations. I’m extremely proud of us and the amount of work we’ve done in the past year. It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by where we met weekly. Not only to talk about our projects, but to eat, laugh, love, and sacrifice an elbow or knee to Xing.
I think we were extremely fortunate to work together because we welcomed the idea of work life balance. We all respected each other’s time and wanted us all to succeed and enjoy life. So if one of us were to go on a vacation for a week or two, we could count on each other to carry out their tasks or shuffle around responsibilities. When we were under crunch time stress, it helped a lot knowing that we were all suffering together :D. Kidding. Our crunch times were relatively tamed compared to the industry, and I think we kept each other sane by simply being there.
From the breadth of projects we worked on, I think one of the biggest take away for me is the importance of a producer/director. It’s very helpful to have someone be the point of contact for the vision of the project. We had several different producers/directors throughout our adventures, and I can appreciate the different styles of each of them (although they’re generally the same). I also appreciated the fact that the “producer/directors” were ultimately our friends, and we can always share our minds freely with each other. Overall, the collaboration with everyone was very relax because we were so comfortable with each other.
One of my favorite projects to work on was Egg Toast. It was fun and relaxing to animate whatever we wanted (related to hot pot) and to come together in the end for a short piece that showcased all of our talent. Although it was less collaboration between each person, it was nice to see everyone’s animation side by side at the very end.
Another project I really enjoyed was Feathers and Teeth simply because it was brand new territory for me. Animating set projections in After Effects (in 2D) and translating it into a 3D physical space was a learning process. But once we got the pipeline down, we made some kick ass special effects. One of the most satisfying part of this was to see the audience’s reaction to our animation during the play. I remember seeing someone in front of me burying her eyes into the arms of the person next to her because she was genuinely frightened. I have to give a lot of props to the sound and light designers of the production who enhanced the moments.
One project I wish I had more time to work on was our game, We Are Fantastic Architects: The Were Glitch Project. We had such an amazing story written out with a heartfelt message. I wanted to have everything done but it turns out we were a bit too ambitious with our scope. Hopefully one day we can remaster the game with additional gameplay and a battle royale mode.
What’s next for Theo?
As much fun as it was to work together as a team, it’s going to nice to have my personal time back so I can work on personal projects. I think I want to get back into 3D animation and one thing I want to work on is a game I’ve been planning for the past few years (pending title: Tales of Aura. Hopefully this doesn’t conflict with the Tales series that already exists…). I might start a blog documenting my progress later, but for now you can just find me streaming random stuff at https://www.twitch.tv/theoryfa
Feel free to ask me any questions and chat there. I’ll probably be playing a lot of Tetris or something. My other goal is to be MLG in Tetris. Yeet.