Evaluation

Evaluation

For the first task  of this assignment, as a class we had all chosen one animation company or animator from a list and then done research on what they do. I had chosen to do research on Aardman animations as I knew off some of their work. Aardman animation are a company who specialise in stop motion animation such as morph and chicken run. Doing research on them would allow us to get some ideas on how these companies had created there animations and the techniques which they had used to create the animations which would help us create ours. It had shown us what makes a good animation. Also looking at the animations which they had created had helped me come up with my idea on what I would like to create.

For the planning of the animation I had started off by writing down ideas which I could use to create an animation and once I had a solid idea I went on to the next stage which was to expand on it. I wrote down all the iconic movie moments which I may use in my animation and talked about what I would need to create it as well as how I would do it. Secondly I had created a mood board putting all my thoughts and ideas on such as props backgrounds characters and so on. I then went on to create a story board as it would allow me to know step-by-step how I would create my animation and keep me on tracks

We then moved on to creating our character and sets which we would animate. As a class we had started off by creating an armature with help from our teacher showing us what possible things you could do with stop motion animation. After starting it most off the class had given up on it as they weren't interested in making it however me on the other hand, I had decided to continue making it as I thought with the armature a could create something amazing as with stop motion animation anything you imagine is possible to make. Creating the armature had taken me a lot of time to do. After using wire and metal joints to create the skeleton I had moved on to make the head, hand and feet. It had taken me time to do as I kept on starting over because I wanted it to look perfect. After I had made the body parts I added paper mache to make it hard so it don’t lose its shape. This had wasted some time as I had to let it dry overnight. I then moved on to the next stage which was to add sponge to it to make it 3D. Adding the sponge was hard as I didn’t know what size to cut it so it took me a while to get the hand. Once the sponge was added I had moved on to add the tights which was the skin off my character which impressively I had done really quick. Once my character was completed, I had moved on to the final stage which was to paint it in gold paint making it look as much as an Oscars trophy as possible. The paint had taken a day to dry which had used a lot of valuable animating time. Creating the armature wasted a lot of time as I didn't know how to make it and needed a lot of help from my teacher however he wasn’t free that much so I had to wait till I could get hold of him if I wanted to proceed to the next step. Once I completed the character I moved on to create my set which was simple as I took a box I found lying around and added black sugar paper creating a completed stage.

Animating the work wasn’t as hard as I had got the hand off making a stop motion animation in the past trials I had. However creating my stop motion was slightly difficult at times as there were parts in my animation I had to keep my character bending backwards which was really hard and time consuming as  the character kept falling over which made me have to start over. Other things  which were hard was when trying to get the character to sit from the transition between him standing an him sitting it kept on dropping too fast and it was really hard to keep it in position without holding it up with something. This was also time consuming and wasted a lot of my editing time. I had used iStopMotion to create my stop motion animation. The software was easy to use and I had got the hand of it really. Editing the footage was also very easy and fast as I had many previous experience editing using final cut pro to edit footage such as when making a music video or when creating an ident. I had added sound to my video using final cut pro as well as some transitions between the clips.

When I had shown the final animation to my class I had a mixed variety of feedback. Some of the negative feedback I had gotten was that some people had no idea what the concept of the animation was and what was happening in the animation. However most off the people who felt this way were people who never watched many movies and for those who did watch movies, they were quick to pick out what movies referenced. More negative feedback which I had gotten was that the movement of the characters at time weren’t so smooth which made the clips hard to understand. Also, they said that the way the text was used wasn’t good and was poorly placed and colour was bad which could have been clearer. On the other hand I had received positive feedback such as the editing was good such as the sound level being clear and level throughout and transitions used well. More feedback I had gotten was when I had asked where it is most likely to get screened most people had said on a YouTube ad before videos such as movie trailer and videos. I agree with what they said as a lot of people would be able to see it. Another question I had asked was about the aesthetic qualities and they said that it didn’t look so good because the way that the character had moved was not so good and was shaking a lot and also the pace was not consistent throughout as some parts were really slow and some parts were really fast. When asking them about the creativity put into the animation most had said that a lot of creativity was shown as they saw the amount of effort put in and also the overall ideas was well thought of and unique. This also goes for the story line as once I explained what was going on many of them had said that the story was really good however the animation could use some improving on. I think that the overall feedback that we had gotten was really helpful and I agree with what they had to say so if I was to get another chance at making the animation I would improve on those factors.

Overall I think the overall animation had come out well and as I had planned. From doing this assignment I had learned many things about animation. For starters when doing research on Aardman I had learnt how they had created their animations and the processes they went through to complete their task. This had helped me when creating my animation. If I where to get another chance at doing this I would manage my time better and also improve on some parts when creating the animation.