Evaluation (Fixed)

Year 9 Creative Media Animation Project – Term 02 2015

Animation Unit: Self-reflection and project evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

• Are you satisfied with the final result?

No, since I was drawing them on drawing apps instead of the actual animation-ish, I didn't get to see how well the foregrounds corresponded with the backgrounds. Some scenes were too short, and the overall animation seemed a little too tacky for my liking. Also, I didn't realise until later that my word scenes were all glitchy, killing off the depressing mood of the animation. I really wish to fix that next time. Maybe if I had the opportunity to work on it for 3 hours every day, I may have been available to make a better animation, but really, I didn’t have the time to. 

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

I took me too much time, to be honest. I honestly expected that it’d be easy to finish if I worked diligently, but I didn’t know that drawing scenes would take that much time. This might be because of me having to draw each and separate scenes one by one, and trying to make it look as professional as possible by adding shading and what not, but it took too much time that I would have preferred. I had to stay up all night before the due date to finish it off, which I 100% do not recommend for the Year 8’s that are going to do it next year. I really should not have made my animation this complicated. I had to take out some scenes and make some scenes less complicated because of the amount of time that I had left. I am really disappointed by the amount of time I had to work on this animation, cause I could have done better if I had more time, and worked faster to create one scene. I really respect the people that make animations for a living after finishing this unit of work. 

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

I would like to change the storyboard of my animation. When I first heard of doing this unit, I had a completely different idea in my mind. I wanted it to be about a girl, instead of a boy, and about the consequences that her family would take after she dies, and her having to see it as a butterfly because she looks into the eye of a butterfly before she dies. But I couldn’t cause I had to relate to the audiences, and more boys commit suicide than girls.  I also want the protagonist to commit suicide by jumping off a building/bridge or by cutting themselves, as that’s what the stereotypical suicide way is portrayed as in the media. In addition, after realising how much time it takes to create one animation, I honestly think that this idea is gong to kill me. 

I honestly think the style that I chose for the animation suits it well, as it isn’t childish looking. Suicide is a very serious topic, and I wouldn’t think that something like a chibi would suit it. Someone else might be able to pull it off, but I know I won’t be able to, cause I’m simply not used to that style. 

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

I would like to draw from animation-ish this time instead of drawing it on a drawing app and then moving it to the app. I never used animation-ish to draw a whole animation, excluding the practice ones. I wonder how harder it’d be to draw on animation-ish. I bet it’ll create a smoother animation that what I drew, cause I can check what I did every second. 

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?

The animation didn’t turn out like I imagined it to be, as I had to take out some scenes. I was also limited in my ability to make animations, hence, the reason why I could bend the arm to open the door and etc. I also think that the animation isn’t dark and depressing enough for people that are suicidal to relate. Furthermore, like I mentioned in my previous answers, I had a completely different storyline at the start of the unit but was forced to change it after realising the statistics of suicide. 

However, if I am judging from the storyboard that I drew later on in the term, I say that the animation turned out somewhat like what I imagined it to be. I didn’t think of a well of animation like you see on televisions, I just wanted the ones that you’d see on youtube by fellow students like me. So I guess in a way, I am sitting on the fence for this argument. The animation turned out the way I imagined, but in a downgraded quality way. 

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

Like I said in my previous answers, because of time management and statics, I had to get rid of my original idea, get rid of scenes and change some scenes. Most of all, I had to change the concept of my backgrounds completely. At first, I was thinking of drawing my afterlife in colour, but since I didn’t have time and all, I had to change mu concept so that the afterlife did not have any colours, as the protagonist “drained all the colours from his life” by killing himself. Since I had to rush it at the day before the due date because of my poor time organisation, I didn’t really have the time to do what I wanted to do, so I had to downgrade my animation by 10% or so, which I am incredibly disheartened about. I really wish that we’d get a year for this unit of project for a 3 min animation, so everyone can create their animation with their original concept. 

• 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);

Nothing really improved. We had a similar unit or work last year in Year 8. I have the same skills as last year and the same drawing skills as the start of this year. The quality of my animation improved I suppose, but that’s only because I changed the drawing style to suit this animation. However, the flow of my animation is far better than my last one, as my drawing style doesn’t change as often. I’m not sure what ‘did you have to use a variety of animation techniques’ means, but if it means the tools that I’ve used for the animation. I’ll have to say no. The tools I learnt this year are the same as last year. 

• 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.)

My animation-ish crashed about 4 times during some of my scenes. I wanted to rip my hair out. I also didn’t get the help of Mr. Powell when using the animation-ish, as I had to do all my animation-ish work at home in a day. I also sometimes did not save the drawing files, so I had to draw them all over again. My mum also put my USB in the washer, and I almost lost all my files, but luckily, it somehow survived. (The USB cap wasn’t even on) 

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

The storyboard actually made my task a whole lot easier, as I knew what to draw for each and every scene. I just had to use the storyboard as a reference guide and copy what I drew on there to the drawing program. I also knew which scenes I did not have to draw again and again, which effectively saved my time. I also kept looking back at it to see whether I missed a scene or not too, so it was like my personal checklist on my blog. If I had drawn on the animation-ish app, I wouldn’t have to do that, as all my animations would be in one place. 

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

Like I mentioned before, it helped me to see whether I missed any scenes in my animation. 

• 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;

This is really similar to the 2nd question that I answered, but I had trouble in my time-management issues as all the scenes I drew took longer than I thought it would. I could have spent more time on my animations, but I had other school works to comply on. I had to change the drawing styles for my backgrounds to effectively draw faster fort the animation as well. 

• 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);

I am disappointed in my blogs this term, as I feel as if I could have done so much better for my blogs. I didn't weekly maintain my blog like last term and left it all for the start of holidays. I really regret my choices and hope that I can do a lot better next term. This term, writing blogs was harder than last term, as I didn't really know how to explain how I drew things. It was also annoying how I had to explain the same steps all over again, as I used the same procedure for my drawings for most of my scenes. Last term in photoshop, that was not the case, as I got to use new methods every single lesson. All my blogs are not really that detailed as well, which is incredibly disappointing, as another person who's (maybe) interested in my work will not be available to understand my design process. 

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

I didn’t learn anything in photoshop. 

For Paint tool Sai, I learnt that clipping helps you changes the colour of your line art. I can drag and drop a photo into another document to make that another layer. 

Nothing in animation-ish, except the fact that moving a lot of things at once, crashes your animation-ish. 

• What are your goals for your animation in term 3? Have you learnt anything from this experience that will help you?

I would like to work more on the flow of the walk of a person, as mine came out dodgy. I would also like to learn about sound effects, and I regret not learning it at the film festival. 

• Any other thoughts you wish to share?

Even if my response kind of sounds passive-aggressive, I kind of enjoyed this animation task, and it was fun seeing what others did for their animation.