Evaluation and Reflection

Throughout this unit I have tried to constantly assess and evaluate my work through my blog posts. This unit has been a completely new experience for me since I haven’t worked digitally before and I think through reflections on my blog I have been able to show how i’ve handled it from start to finish. Now that it’s almost time to hand in I think it would be particularly beneficial to me to reflect back through my work and evaluate my process and final outcome.   

From the beginning of this unit I knew that I wanted my work to take the form of a narrative. I really enjoyed the narrative unit and this was something that I wanted to continue to build upon. I thought that creating my narrative for this unit would be so simple and I would have it out of the way so I could rush straight into animating my ideas. This wasn’t the case however, during my first meeting with my tutors on this unit they pointed out that because I was so nervous about getting into the animation process that I was overlooking and forgetting what had made my narrative so strong in the previous unit. After that meeting I went away feeling a little disheartened but actually if I was being honest with myself I knew the original narrative I was intending to use wasn’t good enough. When I went back to look at my narrative I really tired to look back on and remember everything that had worked for me in the previous unit, and that was using narrative theories (in this case I mainly looked at Todorov) to influence and support my narrative. Using this theory gave my narrative much more depth and made it a lot stronger. Also adding an underlying message or moral to the narrative made it work even better for children and later turned out to be what I plan to discuss and take in the the St Thomas More primary school with me. So it just goes to show rushing in blind and nervous wasn’t the best way to start and going back and doing it properly, I think personally, made the narrative supporting my animation a million times better.

Throughout this unit I did a lot of research in pretty much every aspect of my process, since this was all new to me I wanted to learn and grow as much as possible from this unit, and I think it really shows on my blog where I research into different digital methods and then used them to influence my own practice. I tried to fully immerse myself in working digitally for this unit although my initial characters and sets were created by hand which is how I work comfortably. I took myself out of my comfort zone though by scanning in or photographing my initial designs when they were in the early stages and then built on them digitally and I was honestly really happy with the outcome. I wanted to try a lot of new techniques within this unit to really push my practice so another thing I decided to try was creating sets, that I then photographed and edited digitally, for a final outcome. This was also something I hadn’t ever tried before and I thought worked well, however if I was going to use sets in future work I think I would take more time creating them and adding more detail, mine were really basic and although they worked for my simple outcome I think it would have been stronger if I made more of them and add more detail.

About halfway through the project I had only produced just over 6 seconds of animation. I was really pleased with what I had achieved so far but I was concerned about the length of time is was taking me to produce such a short piece of animation. I had all the initial time consuming processes finished however, such as creating my character designs and sets, so my concerns were unwarranted and the rest of my project moved at a good pace. One thing I brought to this project from previous projects was my time management. Having a action plan right from the start and  planning my time as efficiently as I could from start to finish with this unit and it really kept me on track. Also around this time I had my second critique with my tutors, The feedback I received was really helpful in moving my animation beyond the 6 seconds I had already created. The main things I needed to work on was adding sound to my animation and also considering story space, not just having all my frames looking in on the characters from side on. I set to work on creating story space through creating new storyboards so I could see where a different perspective would work well. I also did research into how viewpoint changes in other children’s animations and I think that really helped me in deciding where to use viewpoint to make my outcome stronger.

Once I added sound rendering my videos started taking a long time and in some cases caused my laptop to crash. I did all of my project in sections so I was worried that if it was taking so long and I was incurring problems with rendering one section of a video how long it would take when I started to add all the sections together to create my final outcome. There was an easy solution to this problem however which involved me reducing the image size of each of my files (and making sure they were all the same size so that they flowed well when played as a stop motion animation) and although this was an easy solution and helped tackle my rendering issue it was extremely tedious and time consuming. When using techniques I have learnt in this unit in the future I would definitely make sure to check the image size as I am working to avoid having to go back and resize hundreds of files. 

My only real disappointment with this unit is that I haven’t been able to go in before deadline for a viewing with a primary school. The other day I rang around primary schools and spoke to a few head teachers about going in to get feedback from both pupils and teachers on my animation. Unfortunately it is SATS week this week meaning I couldn’t go in. I have been told by St Thomas More primary school however that if I meet and show the head teacher my animation before hand that I will be able to show my animation (if the head teacher deems it suitable) over the next few weeks. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to do this before I hand my work for this unit but it wasn’t something I originally planned to do when dedicating time to different jobs in my action plan, meaning there was nothing I could have done to avoid this. I do still intend to go into the school however to help my practice personally as I think it would be a really valuable experience.

Over all I am really please with myself and proud with how my animation has turned out. Since the majority of this project was all completely new to me I am pleased with what I achieved. I hope that over the course of this blog you can clearly see exactly just how much I have learnt and how much this unit has helped me develop and push my practice. I had never really even thought of displaying and creating my work for a screen based outcome before but it is definitely something I would always consider in future now, even if not creating animation. Through my research for this unit as well I have become increasingly aware how important it is to have an online presence and I will definitely take this across with me to help develop my work further in the future. I was terrified by this unit when we were first given our brief and really didn't want to do it, but I have enjoyed it so much and I learnt more on this unit than I think I have done on any previous units. I hope this shows through my work and development. 

Final Animation

Today I finally finished my animation with the sounds and credits finished and added. I was lucky with this project that I planned every step out before bringing it all together meaning I didn't encounter too many technical difficulties. The main issue I had with my work was the time it took everything to render and a few of my frames were different sizes meaning it didn't flow well. Theses issues were easily solved however by making all the images sizes the same and making them all small enough to render in less than hour (before it was taking hours to render and kept making my laptop crash.) Overall I am really happy with how the animation has turned out, I think it will work well with my target audience both for entertainment and educational purposes.    

End Credits

I wanted a nice way to finish of my animation so today I worked on creating some end credits for it. I used hand drawn lettering like I did with the title of my book for the narrative unit. I've kept it pretty simple but was pleased with the outcome. 

This first video is a test I did for my final credits. After watching it back I didn't feel like the movement of the dog flowed very well and seemed to reach one end of the screen before jumping back to the other side. I decided to fix this but adding more stages in the dogs steps and now always having him constantly on the screen at the same time as the text.

This second video is my final outcome for the credits. I feel like it flows much better and i've kept it as simple as possible. All in all i'm pleased with the outcome.

Technology and Children's Learning Styles

While considering using my animation within schools I began thinking about it's educational properties. Obviously my animation is basic and aimed at young children however it does have an underlying meaning that leads me to believe that if execute properly animation could be used as a learning tool for young learners in a social environment such as in a classroom or even at home with parents. 

The first thing that sprang to mind was different learning styles within children. This is something that has become increasingly popular when looking at the education of children and in particular young children. There are three main types of learning styles that have been mentioned repeatedly and emphasis put on how tailoring these learning needs to each particular child can enhance their learning capabilities. 


The following article looks at learning styles in depth, showing positive points and concerns with the theory. 
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2153773
One of the concerns is that within education we don't simply use one teaching method, visual, kinaesthetic, or auditory but infact use all three at once. This is a valid point but I think that with animation you could cover all three to keep the needs of each child in mind. An animation used for learning with younger children can cover all these basis. With my animation for example the first obvious learning style is that it is a visual tool. A tale is visually shown from start to finish and this would make it easier for a visual learner to work out the moral of the tale. Kinaesthetic learners enjoy interaction and working in groups, with my animation the children are engaged in the story as it is shown to them almost like a cartoon keeping their interest which they could then discuss in groups to work out what they believed the moral is. This means they get the interaction which aids their learning best either in the classroom in a group or even at home with a sibling or parent, encouraging learning through discussion. Finally with auditory leaners it is claimed are usually musical,  they learn easiest by hearing things. Within my own animation there are a mixture of sounds, an ongoing song and sounds of different aspects of the story that I have sourced myself from the internet e.g. a dog barking in the distance. A way that is suggested for encouraging this type of learning is to get the child to dictate a story to you, this could be achieved through my animation as they child watches and hears the sounds they could dictate to another pupil, teacher, parent or family member their version of the story and have it written down to read back and aid learning that way. Since I intended my animation to be entertaining with an underlying message I didn't take into account so much learning auditory, however I think it could still work for this type of learner and for example if this type of learner specifically was the intended target audience animations could definitely work to aid learning in young children, especially since one of the criticisms of the learning style theory is that young children aren't best able to self evlauate how they work best an animation shown to them with an underlying message could help parents and teachers through discussion or reading the child's interpretation work out how they came to understand the underlying message and which learning style they used to work this out.

An article I found that really simplified these learning needs for me was on the BBC website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/schoolgate/helpfromhome/content/2howchildrenlearn.shtml 
Looking at the criteria for each of the learning styles and ways to encourage this type of learning has supported my idea that animations and screen based illustrations can be used to enhance children's learning. For example an illustration or animation would really help a visual learner understand something since it aids them to be able to visualise the situation. Having this method of learning available online would mean not only would the child be able to interact with it in the classroom but parents could also access this online meaning they could discuss it with their child and aid learning more at home. 

I believe as children are becoming more increasingly used to using computers in their recreational time and animations are usually associated by young children to cartoons it is also a good way to keep children's attention and make learning not seem like such hard work but fun. These are all things I am going to consider when taking my animation into the classroom at a later date and seeing how my target audience responds to it. Including how the teacher thought the children responded to it.

Showing my animation

Unfortunately since friday morning I've been really unwell and haven't made any real progress on my project. Friday and today (monday) I tried ringing around primary schools in the area to see if I would be able to show my animation to the students to get feedback and find out any changes I might need to make before my hand in on friday. Due to it being SATS week I have been unable to go into any of the school this week before my hand in which I am really disappointed about, however a school I worked with from my previous narrative unit have agreed that I can go in next week at some point to show the head teacher my animation and once she has approved it show it to the Year 1 and 2 classes. I am aware that this is after my hand in so it won't affect my end grade but after emailing my tutor sharon I've decided it is still a valuable use of my time and I want to keep the relationship I have with the school for any projects I need help with next year so I am going to show them my animation regardless of my grade for this unit.

This has left me at a stage now where I am not entirely sure what to work on over the next few days to improve my animation for the final hand in. I think I am going to work on ending credits for the final animation and sort out a questionnaire to give to both pupils and teachers to get their opinion on my final animation to help me further my work. I am also going to write up my own evaluation on how I feel this unit has helped my practice and discuss what I have learnt, because this project has really been a massive learning curve for me and I have really enjoyed it.

Creating a final outcome

Today i've finally finished with all the tedious naming and numbering files for my animation and have added sound to create this outcome. I think having the sound makes a huge difference to how view the animation and I am pleased with the progress I have made throughout this unit. I plan to upload it online to see what reaction it gets, as it's quite hard to be objective of it myself having stared at it and it's progress over the past month. Hopefully showing it to an audience will help me realise any important changes that need to be made. Ideally I would like to show it to my target audience of young children but i'm not sure I will be able to with the time I have left for this unit but we will have to see. 

Bringing the scenes together..

Today I started bringing all the different scenes I had made together (without sound to begin with) and now all the file sizes have been reduced it was a lot easier to render longer animations. However I did have a long and tedious job of numbering my files in order to create a stop motion animation and I had a few issues with there being gaps in my sequences at points. I have finally managed to bring it together, I think successfully, to give me a final outcome. Here are a few of the stages from my work today...

The next stage of my work is now brining my animation together with sound. I also need to add credits on the end for the music and other things at the end of my animation. I wasn't sure exactly about copyright issues with using someone else's music (The "you've got a friend in me" cover I found earlier on in the unit) so I did what I thought was right and messaged the artist of the song I wanted to use. I agreed to add her name to the credits at the end and she seemed really pleased that I wanted to use her song which was really nice. 

Final scenes

Today I finished up my final scenes. I just wanted something to finish the animation off nicely and return my narrative to a state of equilibrium and I think i've achieved that today. The main challenge for me today was getting the dog animated and walking but I think it went quite well and this is what i've created over the corse of the day ...

Final scenes

Today i've been working on the final scenes for my animation. I still have just over a week left of this project and this is definitely the stage I wanted to be at. I still need to add sound and bring all of the sections of my animation together to create a final outcome. I also need to add a title scene and closing credits but with a week left I have time to do this. Another reason I wanted to be at this stage with a week to go is that Ed is offering tech support next tuesday and wednesday, I needed to be at this stage of brining everything together so I could go to Ed if I hit any difficulties in the last two weeks of my project. I've already had a few minor issues with the animation side of things, for example I didn't realise that some of my file sizes were two big and this meant it was taking forever to render the videos and half the time causing my laptop to crash. I've reduced the file sizes so now I don't have this problem anymore and the next issue I will tackle is making sure ALL my file sizes are the same for each section so when I bring them all together in an animation it will flow nicely and not take too long to render. 

So here is what I have been working on so far today (the beginning scenes that will introduce my narrative and link it to the wood scenes I created earlier on in the project)  

Animating new scenes

More Scenes

Today i've been working on a few more scenes to bring together the beginning of my animation with the end of my animation. Using the same techniques as before so they all work together I created my scenes using scanned in hand drawn images edited on photoshop with textures over the top.   

Back to the beginning

I've gone back to the beginning of my story boards and started working on the opening sequence of my narrative. I've used the same techniques I did previously and created this sequence on photoshop. I will go back and add sound to this once I've developed it more.

Bedroom

Now i've made a fair bit of progress with the end half of my animation I wanted to go back and focus on the beginning, which means starting by creating the bedroom scene from my story boards. here is what I have created so far.

Another Video with sound trial

Adding Sound

I've been aware that I haven't shown much work with sound. So today (although it is lovely and sunny outside) i've been working on adding sounds to different clips of my film. This obviously isn't how the finished sound will be it's just to practice adding sound and different layers of sound to my animations.

closing credit sound

I've started thinking about sound a bit more and I wanted some uplifting music for the end of my animation when equilibrium is stored and I found this cover by Alanna Matty and think the 1st 34 seconds would fit perfectly from the second the dog is revealed to the end credits. It might be a little bit too long so I will have to trial it out soon. 

Animated Dog

Dog Scene

Today I have been working on the scenes where I introduce the dog to the audience. I have started by making the dog seem like a wolf and creating fear. I drew out my character positions from my story boards and then worked on the using photoshop to create my animation. Unfortunately I have been having trouble with creating my animation this way (the more frames I have to more it's been making my mac crash which isn't so good) so for now I am working on animating a few scenes at a time and will bring them all together later on once I have spoken to ed and found out what the problem is (I think it's possible the programme i'm using. So for now just to show the progress I have been making I will show you just the scenes I have worked on today...

Test Animation

This afternoon I have been trying to sort out creating a scene with perspective and viewpoint in it. I was struggling for a while trying to combine my images and set with the textures. Since we are looking down from above on to the character (although still at a slight angle keeping it simple for a younger audience) I know the texture behind him should probably be one of the floor, so I tried out a few variations but something didn't fit quite right to me.

It was at this point that I started adding darkness into the work. Since it would all be in shadows beside the little bit of light provided by the moon I thought making my work darker would solve this nagging feeling I was having that somethig didn't look right. And I was pleased with the outcome.

I really liked this outcome where the background was so dark it was almost black but you could still see a tiny bit of the texture through. I'm not sure which outcome I think would work best but when I start adding them to my animation I think it will clear it up for me.