Creative Media Animation Project – Term 03 2011
Mr Andrews
Post Production reflection/evaluation:
Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.
· Discuss whether your final animation clearly reflects your original concept and planning and describe any elements you had to modify when creating the project;
Yes, I believe that the film, especially at the end, clearly displays the message I was trying to show... That its okay to be different. It also reflects on a shallower level the original idea of a colourful person with personality making its way through the world, changing the way people look and perceive things.
· Explain how your animation skills developed during the project (i.e did you become more efficient?; did the quality of your animation improve?; did you have to use a variety of techniques? etc);
My animation skills at the beginning were very poor and it did take a long time to film and capture the scenes, I had quite a lot of difficulty at the beginning trying to make the characters walk without a limp or as Emma puts it 'Swagger'. By the end of the animation I was capturing a lot quicker and the movement was a lot less dodgy, (this is actually hard to tell as I may, or may not have filmed the scenes in a random order :P). I did use a variety of techniques, such as just using the standard stop motion, I also used photoshop for the stars transfer thingy, which took a looong time because I had to save each layer individually - I probably could have used some special technique that did the saving thing automatically... but it such a thing exists I have yet to see it.
· Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during the animation process. These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty using the editing software etc;
As mentioned in previous posts I did have a bit of trouble with not saving the soundtrack and having missing storyboards, but what I have not mentioned was that some files were corrupt and could not be opened which caused me to have to restart that particular scene, thankfully I did not do the silly mistake of saving everything in one file because if that was the case I would have been doomed and would have failed this assignment. For programs such as Garage Band I didn't know how to use them at the start with efficiency and know some advanced techniques but as I played around a bit I began to know it quite well, I now know how to change the audio levels for a particular track for a certain amount of time. After a bit of tinkering I found out how to do that on IMovie as well.
· Explain whether you made effective use of storyboards and planning to streamline the animation process;
The storyboards were good for the basic idea but after a while you learn to take that basic idea and turn it into a complex idea without changing it, you also learn that you can't just stick to what the script says because there will be certain obstacles blocking the path sometimes and you have to change the storyline slightly to accommodate the unexpected obstacles.
· Describe any time-management issues you had during the project and describe the steps you used to improve in this area;
For several stages of producing the film it took quite a lot of unexpected time, in order to finish everything on time I had to take the sets home and build them over the weekend, as well as film with them over the weekend. We hadn't realised the time it would take to create the characters so when we had free lessons we just worked on the set and building the characters. By the end of it I could build a character in my hands without even looking down. :P
· Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like a whole term worth of work);
I think that the work on my blog doesn't look like 1 term of work... BUT that is because I haven't uploaded all of the animations but I will now, also stopmotion animation doesn't look hard and when you watch it, it is over quickly but when you actually film it you realise that it takes a lot of time. At the beginning of the term when I had just started the animation I usually got around 5 seconds per hour... Sometimes not even that....
Discuss your feelings about the production task:
· Are you satisfied with the final result?
I am very pleased with the final result as it is pretty polished and it displays a clear message.
· Did the animation process require more/less time than you had thought?
Filming that animation took a lot more time than I expected and it was certainly to a different standard than I thought it would be, I guess growing up with Disney films was bad afterall. Not just the filming took a lot of time but the polishing and building the sets also took up a lot more time than I thought it would.
· Would like to change any aspects of your final project (style, soundtrack etc)? If I had more time I would probably polish the soundtrack a bit more and I would have double checked the subtitles to make sure it was all the same.
· If you could start the project again what would you do differently?
When I answered this question before I said I would not have a partner but I know regret posting that because although the previous statements I had made with that comment are still valid, having a partner was good because we got everything done on time and we did it all at double efficiency.
