That's cool, but what's it all for?

I thought a good place to start with this, might be to look at where I want it to be taking me; what am I trying to achieve with an animated short, and how is it going to help me in the quest for a career?

Ultimately, I like to think that at some point in the future I'll be working on visual effects within feature films. Although realistically I see that as more of an end goal, I'm not kidding myself in to thinking I could just jump straight in at the deep end. The general game plan at the moment is to aim for a company which will allow me to bulk out a portfolio, and explore a wide variety of techniques, styles, constraints.. all within a pretty short time period, and then see where I go from there. I don't know, I think this is all getting rather ahead of myself, who knows what is going to happen next year..?

But still, it doesn't hurt to have a bearing, and like I said - I do have a focus, VFX. So my film should contain some form of fancy effects. Probably. Not necessarily. At the same time there is a relatively short period of time to be doing all of this, and learning how particle systems work (although I do have a basic understanding) this might not be the best time to be trying to showcase it - still, it's in the back of my mind. Really I want something simple, and effective - so I should maybe start thinking about the overall aesthetic..