Discuss your feelings
about the production task:
· Are you satisfied with the final result?
Yes
I’m really happy with the outcome of my animation because over the past two
terms I’ve put heaps of effort into drawing and finalising every scene, so I
think the effort has definitely paid off.
·
Did
the animation process require more or less time than you originally thought?
I
was actually really surprised with how I didn’t finish too early but haven’t
had to stress about not being able to finish. My final animation was fully
completed one week before the actual due date, which gave me plenty of time to
adjust the soundtrack and make sure everything was in place.
·
Would
like to change any aspects of your final project (style of animation, the
concept etc.)?
I
don’t think I would change any aspects of the final project because I feel as
though everything in the storyline fits in well and I’m happy with the drawings
and movements of the characters. Even though we’ve had ages to work on our
animations, I wish we still had more time! I’d love to add in some more scenes,
especially ones closer to the end.
·
If
you could start the project again what would you do differently?
If I
was to start the whole project again, I might choose to have a different
storyline with completely different sceneries to draw. For example I might
chose to base my animation on an African Safari, which would contrast a lot
from an underwater theme.
Sometimes I found it a little hard to always move objects up and down or
side to side as if they were bobbing or swaying in the water. So if I started
to base an animation with the story occurring on land, this may save time
because I wouldn’t always have to make everything move.
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?
I
think my final animation has turned out to be better than I had imagined
because one, I have never been able to draw whatsoever so I was really surprised
with the amount of objects I actually drew, and two, everything fit together
really nicely. When I was planning this animation at the start, I was worried
about the storyline not running very smoothly from scene to scene. However not
that it is finished, I can say that I do think each scene fits in well and
there are no awkward scenes that don’t really join onto the previous one.
·
Discuss
whether you had to modify any elements of your original concept and planning to
create your project.
I
didn’t really have to modify too much of the original concept and planning to
create my animation. Some scenes I had to cut short and others I had to make
longer, so everything tied together in the end. However I wanted to have one or
two more scenes at the end where my fish swims into his reef and all the other
fish are so happy for him to have found his colour again.
·
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.
My
animation skills definitely developed during the project! I was a really big
novice at the start because I only really knew how to draw one frame and kind
of make it link onto the next. I was kind of familiar with the program however
because in past years I had worked with it. I pretty much only knew how to use
onionskins, how to trace on a picture and how to change paint colour, erase and
fill. I slowly taught myself how to be more time effective with these tools and
with Mr Powell’s help, I quickly learnt how to use layers, send objects behind,
duplicate frames, add keyframes and exposures, use the transform tool, export
each scene to QuickTime and last but not least add a soundtrack in Garageband. Especially
as Term 3 progressed my time management skills greatly improved. A scene that
once took me maybe 3 or 4 lessons could now only take me 2. Longer and more
detailed scenes still took a much longer time but for the shorter scenes, I
could effectively manage my time so I wasn’t rushing at the last minute.
·
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)
I
encountered several problems and difficulties during the animation process.
These included:
·
USB’s
freezing and quitting out because my animation was taking to long to
save/import
·
Files
not opening
·
Files
going missing
·
Forgetting
how to work a certain aspect of Animationish
Although these
were all really annoying and impacted my time, I got through them eventually
and was able to get back to work. For the USB issues, this mainly occurred at
the start of the
project because instead of saving my animation to the desktop,
I would save it to my USB. This
took forever and often resulting the loss of
some files or files not being able to open. At one
point my whole completed
shark scene somehow deleted form my USB so I had to start this
scene from the
beginning. Looking back, this wasn’t actually a bad thing because after making
the scene once I knew what worked effectively and what didn’t really. I was
able to draw better
sharks and the movements had more flow and weren’t as
jagged as they used to be.
·
Explain
if you made effective use of storyboards and scene planning/breakdown?
I
think I did use the storyboards and the planning/breaking down of my scenes
effectively because I wasn’t stressing at the end because I had no time to
finish my project and neither was I working on one scene heaps longer than
another because a really big scene wasn’t split into two.
·
Describe
whether your planning assisted or helped you to focus during the animation
process.
I
think my planning did really help to assist me focus and manage my time
effectively during the animation process. Whenever I felt as though I was
moving at a snail’s pace, I would look back to my storyboards and take a mental
note of how many scenes I still had to do. Most of the time I was actually
sitting in a good position with my time management so I was really worrying
over nothing.
·
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.
As I
mentioned before, I didn’t really encounter any time management issues
throughout the two terms we spent animating. If I did feel a little bit
stressed for time, I would look back to my storyboards. This helped me plan how
many lessons I should work on per scene, which ended up being effective because
I finished my whole project on time.
·
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)
Compared
to our avatar unit, I personally feel like I’ve put much more effort into my
blog for the animation unit. At the beginning of the project, I made it my goal
to write a detailed reflection for every lesson, and if I could, I would always
include a screenshot of my progress. I stuck to this goal and think my blog is
pretty up to date with all of my progress over the past two terms.
·
List
any other software skills, animation techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned
during the project.
I’m
pretty sure I have mentioned all I have learnt while doing this project, but
overall I’ve learnt so many of Apple’s shortcuts such as command c (for copy)
and command v (for paste) which if you add up every single time I’ve used them,
they would have saved me so much time! In general I’ve also just learnt how to
manage my time effectively and that the more you put in, the more you will get
out :)
I can’t not say
I haven’t enjoyed making my animation. Although it has been a very long and sometimes frustrating process, I’m so happy and proud with my final outcome.
I’ve learnt many computer skills that can help me later in life and have a
really cool animation that I can look back on and watch for years to come.
ThankYou Mr Powell!!!
