Evaluation
In this evaluation I will be discussing each step I took in this current project, I will talk about problems that I faced and how I would overcome them next time. I will be explaining my idea and the steps I took in planning my final piece and I would talk about my research skills.
The first part of this project I had to pitch two ideas to my tutors. Throughout the Easter break, I looked at different pieces of text but I was unsure as to what my idea would be and I was hesitant at picking random text. Once I had chosen my text I thought of some ideas on how I could show this in a visual form. I looked at different ways of portraying this piece text, I decided on an animation and I was going to turn the meaning of my text completely upside down. My chosen text was a very positive and happy piece of text I decided to flip the narrative to a more negative meaning so that I can be more of an interesting story. I chose animation because my chosen text was based on a classroom so I decided I will create an animation for my final piece.
I had trouble forming ideas and planning because this was my first time doing an animation when I pitched my ideas to the class I had the feedback from my tutors about combining my two ideas together and sticking to my original idea of flipping the story from positive to negative. So I recreated another story that merged my two ideas together but I was still unsure about how I was going to plan towards my final piece. I feel that I could have improved on my planning and structure of my ideas by talking to my tutors and by not over thinking my ideas. I will look to improve this by looking at different approaches to implementing ideas, I will also combat my creative block by reading more creative story books and find more ways to keep my ideas than overthink them.
In my tutorial I spoke to kelvin about my animation and the difficulties I was facing, he gave me the idea of doing a shadow puppet animation which then gave me the idea of using shadow puppet animation to portray the part of my story. The idea of using shadow puppets was an interesting idea and something I have never attempted, I decided to go with hand drawn animation combined with a projection of shadow puppets. So I looked into the history behind shadow puppets but I was still having difficulty putting my ideas down on paper , my story was quite simple and I eventually drew my storyboard and wrote my script. I will improve ideas by writing my ideas as soon as they come and not think about them too much, I will also brainstorm more often.
I used the laser cutter and thin plywood to create the puppets the laser cuttings took some time, which resulted in my final piece being completed later than I expected but the shadow puppets came out pretty well I used paper pins to attach the arms and the body. I used clear tape to sticks other parts together. The wood that I used to make the shadow puppet was very strong and sturdy. I would learn from this process by planning my ideas and find out when the laser cutter room is available. Either way, I got my shadow puppets shadows completed in time do my final piece. I would improve my timing by being on time for everything and to take more notes on my ideas
I had to find a room so I can film the shadow puppet scenes and get them out if the way, that was a difficult task because nearly all the classrooms were taken so I booked ta studio which had a lot of room and plain walls so I could project the shadow puppets. I did some tests on how the shadow puppets would look in front of different backgrounds. I thought that doing tests helped me to distinguish the background that I am going to use in my final piece, it was also a good way for me to see how the shadow puppets look in terms of brightness and how sharp they are.
I recorded the sound through my Dictaphone and I edited it in adobe audition. I needed the sound to be a deep voice which resembles the teacher in my story. I would also need sound effects like footsteps, door opening and a group talking. Overall I think that is an important aspect of film and animation and I felt I did quite well with editing sound and placing it in sync with my story.
All in all, I felt my work wasn’t that bad I felt that I could have improved on my research skills and the implementing of my ideas. I felt that if I did not think too much about my ideas and how I was going to present my ideas I would have got a clear and firm idea earlier into this module. My storyboarding and visual work can have improved by learning new techniques, reading books and drawing out the ideas that I have. The fact that I have not done animation or shadow puppets this module has been a good experience for me to try different styles and techniques. To conclude this evaluation, I feel that I could have done better on this module however I felt that I did well towards the later stages of this module.