Project Description

Project 1

The most feasible project is creating theme music for an ongoing, original, hand-drawn comic series. This series, named Tian Yu, was created by a Chinese artist, XinChang Yin. I convinced him to include me as the primary music producer in his project. My primary focus is to depict the narrative contour and accentuate the story’s tone. Therefore, dramatic contrasts among sections will be required. Thus, the time duration is 5-6 minutes. The goal is to produce a display video accompanied by the theme music.

This project is expected to be released as a commercial manga series. Thus, I will keep producing impression scores for each chapter beyond this assignment. This prepares us for being animated in the future.   

Collaborators

Project Preview

Project 2

The second project is promisingly scoring a short animation from other Universities. The preferred elements are 2D and fantasy style. To seek opportunities, I will attend the animation fair at Leeds University in February 2026. At the same time, I will propose my showreel to my friends who study animation or film in China and the U.S. After this is determined around February, the composition and arrangement will be finished within 1-2 months, and any post-production will be completed after that.

Rationale

Value/Market viability

Project 1

Our vision will mainly focus on the Chinese comic market. The Asia Pacific Region held the largest comic book market, which had a share of 58.99% of the global market in 2024. Regarding the future trend, the CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) is 8.7% from 2025 to 2033. Therefore, the Asia Pacific comic market is still growing vitally. However, most proportions are from Japanese Manga and American comics, according to the 2024 Global Market size share diagram. China has accounted for only 13.9% of the global revenue (Grand View Research, 2025). Hence, it’s valuable to contribute to the growth of the Chinese creative industry and reinforce the value of Chinese culture.

My work will help promote the comic on online platforms. Mr. Yin found it was difficult to find suitable background music for uploading his finished chapters, whilst it was ineffective to display visuals solely.

As a result, our Tianyu comic project is valuable for injecting energy and inspiration into the revitalizing Chinese entertainment industry by becoming part of the cultural development stream. At the same time, my contributions help the propagation and future animation of the Tianyu project.

Project 2

There are tremendous developing values in the global film and animation market, as shown above. Producing short films or animations is often the first step before entering a professional film career. Therefore, it’s valuable to gain a reputation and profits from displaying our work on the streaming platforms. Moreover, the final product will become a strong part of our personal showreel, thus helping me apply to media composition and production careers.

Completion viability

Methodology

Production Approach

All methodologies below apply to both projects, as they primarily require similar skill sets.

The first step is producing a convincing showreel. The majority of the clips should include music written for moving images, with a total duration of around 4-5 minutes. This would balance out the lack of information and being tedious (Drane, 2019). According to the serial position effect, the best works should be placed at the opening (primacy effect) and ending (recency effect), as well as developing to a climax around 2/3 of the duration, to obtain the greatest impression (Simply Psychology, 2025). The deadline will be the end of the Christmas Holiday on 25th January, which aligns with the completion date of my recent tracks.

My current skill set enables me to accomplish both projects. Regarding the production ability, I have learned and practiced the recording, mixing, and mastering techniques for 2 years. Therefore, the sonic quality, balance, and spatial relationship of instruments and voices can be achieved to a satisfying level. Below are some of my best previous recording/mixing works.

My production workflow will include 4 stages: Planning and preparations, Composition (motif creation, harmonic structure, musical form, and instrumentation), Arrangement (detailed harmonization, orchestration, and clean up for a fair copy), Mixing (dynamic automations, spectral balancing, tone shaping, dynamic processing, and space processing), Mastering (loudness maximization, spectral balancing, sectional dynamic shaping). This workflow will ensure consistent production quality and efficiency, hence timely completion.

Despite the motif design and post-production. My weakness lies in arranging for the synchronisation based on the theme, narrative, and actions of the given images. To gain practical experiences and improvement, conducting arrangement practices based on analyses of musical form, instrumentation, and harmonic structure, while incorporating tutorials/masterclasses, is essential. The primary focus will be on the decisions of parallel sound (matching the actions), suitable harmony, instrumentation, and the ability to avoid distracting the performance (Birchfield, 2023).

Reflection&Collaboration Approach

To overcome these learning challenges, a consistent and practical learning routine will be implemented. Every 4 weeks will primarily focus on two aspects. Therefore, in arrangement week, the mixing/mastering practice will be replaced by arrangement sessions. Daily schedules would be flexible based on my daily workload. All productions will be based on Cubase 14 on my laptop. Furthermore, to enhance the learning outcome, I will discuss and receive feedback from Bhupinder Chaggar (Mixing hub per week), Paul Baily (Mastering hub per week), and Declan Davis (arrangement class every two weeks). Those improvement approaches will ensure consistent improvement on production quality and practical efficiency, hence, timely and high-quality completion

Furthermore, Kolb’s cycle will be extensively applied throughout the process every week. Kolb’s reflection cycle consists of four stages: experience, reflection, abstraction (abstracting the issue’s pattern), and experimentation. This practice has been adopted since my high school, which has been significantly effective for problem-solving and self-improvement. Evidence will be provided as records from my handwritten diary. This reflection approach will ensure the execution quality of production flow and practice routine, hence, quality-ensured and timely completion.

To ensure consistent communication, I will conduct meetings every one to two weeks. This can prevent me from procrastinating and deviating from the project vision. Due to geographical distance, both project meetings will be online.

Those production, improvement, and reflection approaches will result in promisingly high-quality and timely completion.

Reference/Inspirations

Project 1

Project 2 (Undetermined)

Time Management

All work for assignments, master application portfolios, and remote jobs is carefully managed by applying retrospective planning. This method deconstructs the works into precise steps, which prevents procrastination caused by uncertain workload and time estimation, as Parkinson’s Law suggests we tend to expand work to fill out the available timeframe (Association for Psychological Science – APS, 2025). Most detailed daily and weekly plans will be handwritten.

Contingency Assessment

Potential Threats	Countermeasures
The visual quality of the video might be unprofessional. This year, the revenue condition of my boss’s art education organization is unpromising. I’m not sure if he can purchase a professional camera or hire a professional photographer.	Besides shooting with his phone, I’ll at least convince him to buy a second-hand camera. Since we will record part of his creation process, I’ll also ask him to buy a camera stand to stabilize the screen.

Potential Threats	Countermeasures
It’s possible that my showreel won’t impress any peer directors. Therefore, I might not be able to hold the role of animation composer.	I will use the documentary project as a replacement. This project is my childhood friend’s semester project, which is about “behind the scenes” of short film production. He’s going to hold the cinematography and editing roles, while I assist with the composition and music production roles.

Budget/Funding

No extra expenses are required despite the current hold of Laptop, DAW (Cubase 14), VST instruments (Kontakt, Eastwest, etc.), plugins (Waves, UAD, etc.), and access to recording/mixing gears and rooms of the conservatoire. Approximately less than 100$ per minute of music could be earned for both projects as an inexperienced student composer (Raksha, 2025).

Evaluations

As the market share data suggested, our target Chinese comic market contains great commercial power. Therefore, the Tianyu Project has great potential to grow while introducing creative vitality. My contribution will assist with the online promotion, which increases the mass exposure and the possibility of being noticed by comic publishers. Most importantly, great personal career value can be gained. The accomplishment of both projects enriches my portfolio, which benefits my career application.

Those values generate motivations to overcome unexpected challenges.

Concrete measures will be executed to complete and accomplish. First, regarding the insufficient synchronisation skill, I will conduct a regular improvement routine. Despite that, both projects are within my range of production and composition ability. Second, retrospective planning is applied to break down challenges into feasible phases, therefore making timely completion within the 8-month timeframe viable. Third, to propel efficiency, Kolb’s cycle will be applied extensively during each 4-week practice period. Such reflection and adaptation of practice will improve efficiency consistently. Thus, accelerate the production process and increase viability. Finally, to consistently reassure the production orientation, periodic meetings will be held every 2 to 3 weeks online. This communicative process will helpfully adapt our project plan and improvement system. Hence, shielding the project vision and ensuring project feasibility.

Peer feedback recognized the primary limitation is exceeding workloads (Appendix A). Despite the Tianyu and animation projects, I also have to manage the 25-minute specialist and two film music projects, a 3-track Master application portfolio, and various essays. My countermeasure is removing distractions (eg, phone videos) and focusing on executing production practices with consistent reflections and adaptations. I’m willing to maximize the quality while at least completing both projects. The first project can provoke more motivation since, as a comic enthusiast, I appreciate those fascinating works. Therefore, I might place more energy and focus into this project, although balance will be ensured in both projects.

In conclusion, considering the great commercial and personal career value, my music production skills, and execution of practice routine system, retrospective task management, Kolb’s reflection cycle, and consistent meeting routine, it’s highly possible to accomplish a satisfying result for both projects. Hence, both projects are valuable and viable to be accomplished.

Bibliography

Birchfield, Christine. “Sound in Relation to Picture”: Medium, 7 Aug. 2023, medium.com/@cmb7110/sound-in-relation-to-picture-f860dc33c1b5. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Brzeski, Patrick. ““Ne Zha 2”: One-off Hit or Beginnings of a China Box Office Recovery.” The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Mar. 2025, www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/china-blockbuster-ne-zha-2-box-office-recovery-1236163602/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

Drane, Robert. “Composer Showreel – Part 1 – Film Scoring Tips.” Film Scoring Tips, 21 Oct. 2019, filmscoringtips.com/composer-showreel-part-1/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.

“Global Earnings of Chinese Milestone Animation “Ne Zha 2” Hit 13 Billion Yuan.” News.cn, 2025, english.news.cn/20250222/300e02d88d1c4592aeaf70b06b5b59bb/c.html. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

Grand View Research. “China Comic Book Market Size & Outlook, 2033.” Grandviewresearch.com, 2025, www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/comic-book-market/china. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.

—. “Comic Book Market Size and Share | Industry Report, 2033.” Grandviewresearch.com, 2024, www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/comic-books-market-report. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

Lang, Robert. “25 Highest Grossing Animated Movies of All Time.” Deadline, 20 June 2025, deadline.com/gallery/highest-grossing-animated-movies-all-time/ne-zha-2/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

NHS. Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984). 2022.

PricewaterhouseCoopers. “PwC China: China’s Entertainment and Media Industry Grows Steadily: Industry CAGR Is Expected to Exceed the Global Rate over the next Five Years.” PwC, 2024, www.pwccn.com/en/press-room/press-releases/pr-311024.html. Accessed 21 Oct. 2025.

Raksha. “Music Composer Prices and Commissions – Twine Blog.” Twine Blog, Oct. 2025, www.twine.net/blog/music-composer-prices-and-commissions/. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.

“Serial Position Effect (Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966).” Simply Psychology, 19 Apr. 2025, www.simplypsychology.org/primacy-recency.html. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.

“Sound on Sound.” Soundonsound.com, Sound On Sound, 2025, www.soundonsound.com/techniques/tunes-toons-writing-music-animation. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.

“Trying to Get Ahead? Plan in Reverse, Study Suggests.” Association for Psychological Science – APS, 2025, www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/trying-to-get-ahead-plan-in-reverse-study-suggests.html. Accessed 28 Oct. 2025.

Appendix A – Peer Advice