Evaluation

Over this project we have explored a number of animation techniques: storyboarding, flip books, pixilation, pose to pose.

I think my skills, to say this is the first real practice of animation, have improved. I’ve learnt how to refine and do a storyboard and I now know how to create a storyboard that I, and the people I’d be working with, will understand. I also got better at working in thirds and staging and also tried to make each scene have different view point and include camera action so that the shots in the animation wouldn’t be the same. My drawing skill may need to improve more, but I think I just need to get back into drawing more often which the OUAN404 will help me with.

I enjoyed the flip book task, I think for them to be better I need to work on my arching, I think I got the hang of easing in and out, the more frames you have the slower the animation will be. Also got the hang of squashing and stretching, I think I should have explored further with other shapes rather than just with the ball, But I understand to exaggerated the squash and stretch to make it look good and give it some character.

We also did pose to pose, which was kind of carrying on from the flip books but working on punch paper and planning out the key frames before we started. This was more effective as when doing the flip books, I did a quick plan then jumped straight into it, with pose to pose, I planned out the key frames then those in between, and used punch paper to trace over and it was a lot more accurate. I think my pendulum worked well, it had an arc, it had easing in and out and it was planned.

Next we did pixilation, as much as I love doing this, I need to plan out what I’m doing a lot better. I always end up with less frames than I had planned, so in future I’m going to plan, plan, plan. I thought I planned well in the Apply pixilation, as I tested the whole thing first, then went back knowing I needed more frames. For some parts especially in the beginning of the pixilation and end, it worked well, but in the middle it all goes too fast to understand. I also think I just need to plan my time better and do more testing. Even though I spend a morning testing and an afternoon doing the final thing, this still wasn’t enough time for me, as I wanted to go back and refine things, but my actor had gone home and it was now dark so the lighting will have changed, making the pixilation a bit mixed matched. I’m going to sick will it though, because I do like the process of stop motion, I just think I need to learn from my mistakes and practice more.

We also had a number of tutorials I was already familiar with illustrator, after effects and Photoshop. But learning how to actually animate was new, but I feel like I picked it up all pretty quick and can use it in the future. Flash was something new and I didn’t think I really got the hang of using it, but if I want to work mainly with stop motion, I may not even need to use it again.

Overall, I learnt a lot about the basics of animation, and feel confident abut creating future animations using the techniques I have used.