Considerations regarding further education

Personal art style:

Through this grad film’s practice, I found that I still have a lot to learn, such as my ability to tell a story through images and camera language is still lacking, as well as my mastery of software. Of course, these can be learnt with time. What I have noticed more importantly is that my thinking skills need to be guided in more different directions.

Also I have been more influenced by Japanese animation since I was a child, my current drawing style has unconsciously gravitated in that direction, thus losing some of my personal style of expression.

Using different mediums to tell stories:

I hope I can explore more different possibilities in the future by making animations through different artistic mediums and materials.

For me personally, I am not very interested in purely experimental animation, such as abstract animation with no clear storytelling, which are very beautiful and richly artistic works, but I am more inclined towards storytelling animation. I am now a bit tired of the traditional 2D animation (special Japanese genre) with its electronic painting art style, although I am still very willing to watch these works as they are well developed and worthy of learning from.

However, if I were to produce my own work, I would like to do so through other ways of expression: using mixed media, or watercolour, ink, charcoal, gouache, etc., or even incorporating my own camera work into the animation sequences. I have only used these mediums in illustration, but in the future I would like to try to incorporate them into animations.

Educational considerations:

Although going straight into work may have increased my skills of the software exponentially, I have to say that working on projects is really the fastest way to progress. But it’s also a double-edged sword, and it’s possible that my thoughts will solidify into a business mode where I may not think about whether a new ‘try’ would be more interesting, but rather consider the risks and costs and ensure that the output delivers benefits first. In a way, I’m a bit scared of this happening because my ability to be downwardly compatible with these projects is not yet there, rather the projects always take the lead in guiding my thinking at the current stage.

So I might consider continuing to delve into a certain direction and going to a university to further my studies.

I did some researches, a few schools I’m currently considering are:

Aalto University (Finland) https://www.aalto.fi/en

• Film Editing – Film and Television, Master of Arts (Art and Design)
• Game Design and Development – Art and Media, Master of Arts (Art and Design)
• Film and Television Producing – Film and Television, Master of Arts (Art and Design)

Gobelins Paris (France) https://www.gobelins-school.com/

• Master of Arts in Character Animation and Animated Filmmaking

National Film and Television School (NFTS) （United Kingdom） https://nfts.co.uk/

• Master of Arts in Directing Animation
• Master of Arts in Editing

Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design （Sweden） https://www.konstfack.se/en/

• Master’s programme in Visual Communication
• Doctoral Programme in Art, Technology and Design

Unfortunately, because of late consideration, I basically missed out on applying to all the above schools. So I plan to apply for a PSW visa after graduation, work for a year to gain some experiences, and then consider further study. :’]