Self-reflection and project evaluation

Year 9 Creative Media Animation Project – Term 03: Mr Andrews

Animation Unit: Self-reflection and project evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

·      Are you satisfied with the final result?

Yes, I am satisfied with the final result. As my home had been broken and I was able to re-use that lost time and made my animation better. I also feel like my animation does look like 19 weeks worths of work.

·      Did the animation process require more or less time than you originally thought?

The animation took much shorter than I expected. I thought this animation would stress me out, and I wouldn’t have been able to study for other subjects. But by planning my time and utilizing the time during lessons, was enough to film my animation. The photo shopping did take a bit longer, as I did have to Photoshop most frames, to make my character’s mouths move, as there was a lot of dialogue throughout the animation.

·      Would like to change any aspects of your final project (style of animation, the concept etc.)?

I think if I had a bit more time I could expand further about Annie’s background stories and possibly make a sequel, about how Annie’s new friends feel once they come to school with Annie. I could also edit and make my story’s message and storyline a bit more obvious, as I think my storyline isn’t too obvious to the readers.

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

I’m not 100% sure what I would change, because I do like my finished product. I think I could alter my storyline a bit, and maybe make it make more sense than what it is now.  

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 has turned out the way you imagined?

My final animation did turn out the way I wanted to. However, I think my extreme zoom out could have been a bit better, as it isn’t too extreme. I think that my photo shopping of the crying and mouths were pretty good and looked quite realistic. Overall, I do think my animation project did turn out how I imagined it as it exceeded the potential I thought I had.

·      Discuss whether you had to modify any elements of your original concept and planning to create your project;

I had to modify some shots, as it didn’t look right or it was too difficult to film. For example, I had to limit the height of my extreme zoom out, as I didn’t want the environment around my set to be seen, as I wanted to keep the illusion that this city is real and are not random LEGO people walking around in a city set. I didn’t want to give the same affect as the ending of the LEGO movie did, where it ends with the father and son playing LEGO.

·      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 animation techniques? etc.);

I had only used iStopmotion once and I wasn’t very good at animation then, as most of the videos I made were very jerky and unclean. I think my skills have definitely improved. During the assignment, my quality of animation did improve as I found that, as the term progressed my animations looked a lot cleaner, smoother and a lot more professional. I also noticed that my knowledge of Photoshop has improved, as I know a few more tools, like ripple effect and how to use actions and how they are helpful.

·      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, problems exporting etc.)

Problems and difficulties I faced during this assignment included, props getting broken, images stretching and some little technical issues. One of my big problems was definitely when my images stretched, as I had filmed the scene on the DVC PAL setting instead of large that did make the images a bit stretched. However, I did not use these images in my final, as I thought it would ruin my whole animation. Another big problem I faced was when my LEGO house broke, when I had planned to finish my assignment in that lesson. The broken house didn’t affect my time management too much, as I had already reserved a computer for the weekend. It was still a bummer, as I did not have the same lightning equipment I used in previous scenes. I also faced some small problems like when my extreme zoom out looked terrible and I had to re-film. I re-filmed this scene twice and it was one of the hardest scenes to film, as it needed the most planning. I ended up with a pretty good zoom out scene, that I am very happy with.

·      Explain if you made effective use of storyboards and scene planning/breakdown?

I didn't use my storyboards as much as my shot list. I lived off my shot list during my animation, as it told be the angles and what would be happening in each scene. I found the storyboards not too much help, but it did assist me with visualizing what my animation would look like. I did do a lot of planning for my animation and it took me a while to make the story line and breakdown each scene and plan what would happen in each. I also planned a lot about what materials (Claymation, LEGO) I would use for my characters and set. 

·      Describe whether your planning assisted or helped you to focus during the animation process;

My planning did assist me during my animation process, as it did give me an idea where I would be up to in each week. As I said before, my shot list did help me a lot, as it outlined what I needed most. My planning also made me think of new ideas I could use for my animation and made my storyline a lot better.

·      Describe any time-management issues you or your group came across during the project and describe the steps you took to improve in this area;

I didn’t have a lot of time management issues, but one thing that did put me off track was my broken house. It did stunt my planning, as I did plan to finish the animation in that lesson and Photoshop and alter my animation on the weekend. I decided for the future I would not keep fragile items in the media room, as some younger girls could break my set.

·      Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection 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);

All together I have done about 31 blog posts over these two terms. I think this is more than enough work, as we were only required around 19. My reflections do outline some problems I may of faced that lesson and some processes I have gone through while making my animation, like my mouth moving process. My assignment is around 2mins, which looks like a good length for 19 weeks of work.

·      List any other software skills, animation techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned during the project.

I enhanced my Photoshop skills and iStopmotion skills. I learnt that the desaturation slider is a handy tool to use in iStopmotion, instead of desaturating each image separately in Photoshop. In iStopmotion I learnt how to export and import images and I also learnt how to use the new version of iMovie! I learnt how to put special effects on voices, crop videos, sound and add titles into films. I never use iMovie and this animation project helped me enhance my iMove skills which WILL help me in the long run. I may want to make a film about a trip I take and thanks to this project I'll know how to! A short cut I learnt would have to be the actions in Photoshop, which may help me in the future if I need to desaturate a bunch of images or do something similar to them in the future.