Evaluation

After coming to the end of my assignment, and reflecting on my work I overall feel the process was a success. I feel this for a number of reasons as discussed below. We recently all watched each other’s work and completed assessment sheets, creating constructive criticism for each member of the group.
My personal thoughts of the assignment are that it went well. I feel the months of preparation I put into the assignment have paid off. I am happy with my initial idea and the way in which I have developed it into a story. I initially changed the style of the animation from model to cutout. I came upon this decision as using the cutout form was less time consuming, and I felt for my concept would be more affective. This decision was justified when receiving my feedback from my peers, in which all of them commented on the style in a positive manner. The style of cutout I also feel it is the most creative of the different animations I looked out. I got to draw my own characters, and it was also less time consuming in regards to making the actual models and set. I am also pleased with this result. Considering different forms of animation and ideas for my work I feel benefited me to create an overall better production. I also feel looking at existing work and story-boarding my initial plan were positive aspects of the work. During production I had no issues and I feel the process of recording went well, taking into account it was my first attempt and was completed in one day. My post production work was also a success. I found editing a sound track to be relatively simple after practicing on the software ‘Garage Band’ before starting the assignment, and putting it in sync with the video. Once the video was completed exporting the video was also a simple process.
I was also pleased with the feedback of my peers, and justify the decisions I made during pre production. In general my feedback also shows a positive trend. People think the drawings I made were ‘well drawn’. This feedback again justifies my decision to make my animation cutout. People also said that the setting in which the characters were well represented, which I also made with the cutout technique. Some people also commented on the use of color in general which I was happy with as I tried to slightly differ from the original Mario to make my own unique. My camera work was said to be good, as it reminded people of the original Mario which I wanted to do. People can instantly relate my animation to Mario, which is a good thing. The soundtrack I used was also commented on, stating that it ‘fitted well with the animation’. People found the animation to be enjoyable in general and humorous. Despite this there were some negatives, and areas in which I could improve.
I received a number of different answers in regards to the genre of my animation. This shows I could have specified the story and made the story line more and made the animation seem less generalized. Despite receiving some positive comments for the color, others thought differently. Although this was an intentional inclusion in my animation I understand that people spotted this, as it was different to the original Mario series, which I was depicting. I feel the camera work during production was not to a standard of other videos of my peers I watched. Although some of the video would have been slightly cut off once exported and ready to play I feel slightly too much was cut off, and I believe this was down to my camera work.
I feel all of the above comments were fair and that peoples opinions were well constructed and reflected my work. I agree with what people said and accept some minor things within my work people may dislike or agree with. However, I feel as whole comments were positive about my work.
Based on the feedback of my peers, I feel there isn’t much in which I could improve in my work. The majority of the comments I received were positive and people enjoyed the animation saying it was ‘humorous, well made and enjoyable’. Should I ever improve upon my work I would try to make the story more definitive. Despite it been a linear structure and the audience are clear on its start, middle and end I received a number of responses in regards to genre. I accept the genre can cover more than one topic but I think this should be narrowed down, as people seemed confused on what the definitive genre was. Despite this, the feedback shows that as a whole my animation was a success.

As seen above is my final piece of animation, accompanied with text and sound

Today I added sound and text to my animation through the program iMovie. I exported my animation into the program and added the appropriate titles and credits with the text tool. Once the file was exported I opened it in Garage band and added the soundtrack. I has to change the length of the soundtrack to fit in relation to the video. I added numerous affects to the sound so that the sound used in my work was not the same as the one I took from Youtube, this was done to avoid any copyright issues. The file then had to be converted ready to be written onto a CD. The screenshot below shows part of the process.

29/4/10

Today I had completed animated my animation. I then put my project in the program I movie. Once i was in this, I added the titles and credits to my animation. I now have to add my sound to the animation for it to be completed

27th march 2010

Today I completed my drawings, which are now ready to be cut out and animated next lesson. This includes color on the cutouts and final details added. The characters consist of Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach, a turtle and a flower. I also had to contribute to the making of the background I would be using. We had to find the appropriate card and cut it out to make the grass and sky. I then had to cut out a series of clouds with plain paper.

During todays lesson, I have come close to completing drawing my characters in preparation for filming of my animation. This involved drawing the characters, and adding color to them. After this I had to find my sound to accompany my animation, adding further to the authenticity of my recreation. To do this, I logged onto Youtube and found an example of the original Mario theme. I then used a conversion website that changed the video to an audio file. Next week I intend to start filming my animation. This should take a full lesson to complete