Puppet Master

As we've drawn closer to the end of the semester I have had to re-evaluate the amount of time I've been spending on this project. Having the Gantt Chart completed and visible to all members of our team has allowed me to step back from management and trust them to follow the chart. It has not been followed perfectly, but having the structure visibly set has helped motivate the team to complete their work on time, as it is visible to everyone when they are falling behind.

Given the success of it, I have been able to focus on more production based work, rather than high level management. in the past couple weeks I have been progressing through the Rigging pipeline, learning how to rig specific characters and add unique controls, blend-shapes, painted weights, set driven keys and more. I finished up our three major character models, and have completed my first character rig to a point that I would be happy with it in the final film.

If you know anything about me though, you might know that I am not a rigging expert. I have never been interested and never bothered to learn more that the very basics of it. I am only taking on the role because, of course, nobody else would, and I could rely on myself to get it done. I have needed a lot of help from my professor Brett, and he has brought me nearly up to speed with everything I should need to know to finish the rest of the rigs, the only limiting factor at this point is time.

Beyond my production work, we also have an update on the situation with our teammate. The teammate that we have had attendance issues with managed to miss 8 meetings she was expected to be at within the span of two weeks. We did not see her for two weeks. Nearly every single time, she let us know she wouldn't be showing up at the very last minute, or apologized afterwards and didn't say anything before hand at all. It escalated to a point where she left team members waiting around for hours and bailed on them at the last minute with complete disreguard and disrespect to their time. This team member was sent an email expressing our concerns with her attendance and detailing our desires to have her commited to our team as we valued them and their work. They responded and we set up a day to meet and discuss the situation, and they did not show up. They have continued to not show up to nearly anything and are clearly un-interested in co-operating on stronger basis, so we have refered to our Production Documentation. When a person does not show up they forfeit priority on work, and their voice in matters discussed. They have been reduced to a very small role in our production as we do not have the power to remove them or reprimand them, and the rest of the team has continued their efforts to make this short film happen.