Randle Smith's 3D Animation

The process of creating a short film with fellow Drury student

Randle Smith is currently a senior with and balancing a lot of things on his plate to prepare himself for that daunting day in May where he and many other Drury students walk across the stage, receive a diploma, and be pushed out into the real world.

For Smith’s senior project, he needs to complete a 3D short animation that is entirely created by him and showcase what he has learned over the last four years. It’s hard work, but Smith seemed optimistic and excited about the project.

The story he is writing is about a character who arrives on a planet with the purpose of restoring the nature back to life on it. When he arrives, he is met with an evil entity to scare him from his goal of bringing life back to the land. The character goes up against the evil being but is unsuccessful out of fear. He looks to the stars for answers when he realizes the answer lies within himself and must sacrifice himself to preserve the land and bring it back to its once beautiful world again.

And while I am paraphrasing the story, there is much that goes into a animation with a real, unique rounded character in such a limited amount of time. It’s a story of overcoming fear and metamorphosizing into something beautiful to save the land. For Smith, every second matters in order to create the vision he has for this project.

The hardest part of the process, Smith comments that it is definitely the time aspect. He says he will also have to sacrifice something in order to complete the animation in time for graduation: his free time.

Smith needs to animate every movement in the story and while he is confident with this abilities to complete a successful story, it is incredibly time consuming to not only create movement for his characters but make a unique alien-like being who has personality and characterization in the story.

But Randle Smith is up for a challenge, and I have no doubt that he will be successful with this project and other projects after his time here at Drury is complete.