For our ninth week of contextual research, we were asked to do some research into the topic of collaboration. According to Planview, collaboration means “to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something”.(1) That sounds pretty simple but how simple or easy a collaboration is or would be depends on who you are collaborating with and what their attitude is.

(2)

In terms of animation, a collaboration can happen in different ways; collaborating on an animated tv series for example. Another way animators collaborate is in the form of a MAP(Multi Animator Project), like in the picture above, which allows a number of animators to work on a single animation together.. In the example I’ve used above, 67 different animators worked on it. In each split screen, the animators had no idea what was going to happen on the other half of the screen as a completely different animator created something else for that half of the screen. It was a fun MAP to watch and oddly enough each split screen ended up sort of working together pretty well.

In conclusion, collaboration is pretty important in animation, especially in the industry where several animators would be working together not to mention every other role that’s required to make big scale animations. Those kinds of animations require a lot of collaboration and a team that can work well together to avoid any complications or arguments.

 

(1) What Does ‘Collaboration’ Really Mean? – Blog | Planview [Online]. Planview Blog. Available at: What Does ‘Collaboration’ Really Mean? – Blog | Planview (Accessed: 7 April 2021)

(2) Crowne Prince. (2019). Split Screen Stickybee | Complete MAP [Online video]. 7 June. Available at: Split Screen Stickybee | Complete MAP – YouTube (Accessed: 7 April 2021)