evaluation – Year 1 Projects

31st October 20234th November 2023

Week 6 – Evaluation & Further feedback after presentation

Within this rotation, we learnt how to use after effects to create a self portrait sequence.

Due to the fact that the past animation I’ve made involved very abstract shapes and concepts, this time I want to create something with more physical form and meaning. Thus, I created the rat. After some sketches and thinking, I believed that the rat has the most similar characteristics that defines me in some sense (such as smelling food or hoarding items) I also thought that having an establishing animal with it’s real life characteristics sets up a predetermined expectation out of the audience in some sense. I mainly used rounded shapes inspired by the character designs in “Bluey” (analysed in previous posts) and the Disney standards to evoke a softer and friendlier feeling of the rat. Also, with some inspiration from the tutor Jess’s works, I blocked out the colors for all the shapes without any strokes and created something fun and light-hearted rather than emotionally deep sequences.

Learning from the problem encountered during the stop motion rotation where I rushed the screen time by trying to fit in many elements in 5 seconds, I only picked 2 main actions for this sequence so that I can hold onto some frames longer for the audience to fully interpret before it moves on.

For what went well, I think I successfully managed to tell a convincing story with a beginning and an end – with a personally appealing art style of After Effects. It didn’t feel as cheesy as I thought it would be, but still managed to capture the emotion and feeling based on people’s feedback and ideas during the screening. I think the way I structured my production process was very time efficient and effective – as I first started animating the main positions of the characters, and then going in and adding secondary actions and details afterwards. I loved how the texture at the background doesn’t exactly distract the viewers, but added to the comic-like style of the rat. Having it boil brings out the form of the rat as well.

However, to improve upon this further I think I’d try to expand on the rat’s expressions in the beginning. I made it very interpretive to the viewers by just having it eat the cherry. I could’ve have it react to it in some way before it spins out into oblivion. I think that when it was spinning as well, I could’ve animated the arms and legs moving before I made it spin since now, it was harder to track the movements as it was spinning. Maybe next time I could also create a personal character with proper character concepts rather than just drawing a generic rat.

Feedback I Received:

The feedback I got were mostly positive, where they said the rat felt very alive and that the color scheme was overall visually appealing and that the timing has a good rhythm. I should’ve time the sounds better as there was some confusion on whether the sounds are made from the movements of the rat or the cherry. So I’ll fix it a bit before submitting it.

Overall, I really liked using after effects, despite at times it being very complicating and fiddly.

23rd October 202312th November 2023

Week 4 – Storyboard reflection and improvements

During the week, we analyzed different types of compositions and storyboards to aid us in formulating our own little story. Within the rotation, we made 2 different stories.

Cafe dispute storyboard evaluation:

For my longer storyboard, I personally enjoyed the story concept. I drew each frame consecutively without much precise planning. Since my cafe dispute is a literal argument, it’s much better to figure out the flow of what’s gonna happen next – which worked quite well. It was quite difficult to have more abstract experimental things going on within my story without having the readers be confused. Following the brief, I stuck to very simplistic character designs with basic shape language just for the readers to differentiate who is who. That made me focus more on the compositions and camera angles than the characters themselves.

For what went well, I think that the use of colors in monotone really helped to bring out the form of the characters from the background. It really helped to establish the bursts of colors and energy when it went into the imagination phase. I think that if I managed to animate this, I could even stick with the color palette I used within the storyboard itself. I also liked the use of arrows within my scenes just to show the flow of the camera if it’s not static.

To improve, I think I should’ve made the frames similar to the aspect ratio I’m working with, and keep them mildly consistent – since when I tried to make an animatic out of the frames, it was really difficult to line everything up in the same position. When I was getting feedback from this storyboard, I didn’t get much feedback on improvements due to time, and the ones I got were quite positive.

3 panel storyboard evaluation:

For the 3 panel storyboard however, I got some feedback where I should redraw the middle frame with the boy and the child, since the boy pointing made it feel like the camera pan-ed over to the boy’s perspective rather than them growing further. Overall, I think these simplistic story panels where nothing much changes makes the viewers focus more on the little changes that happen rather than the complexity of the scene.

I have improved this storyboard with a second draft, where instead of pointing in a direction, the boy is just pulling on the mother’s shirt. I also changed the colours within the storyboard so that it’s more clear with the background through using complementary colours rather than mixing up a colour palette with similar tones from one another.

Overall, I really love the storyboarding process and hope to somehow turn my storyboard into an animation of some sort.

Feedback I noted down during the presentation

20th October 2023

10 Photography Homework

For this assignment, we were tasked to take 10 pictures of our surroundings that didn’t belong to us.

I decided to document pictures of the newspapers abandoned on the train. During my transports to University, I noticed how there were newspapers in the tube everywhere – despite never seeing anyone read them. It didn’t seem like it belonged to anyone, since if they were bought, they should’ve been taken with their rightful owner. I haven’t seen newspapers sold anywhere either so it was a mystery that they are even there.

As I kept capturing random encounters of these papers, I started to catch some glimpses of the headlines, and reading what generally had happened within that day – and documents history in some form or another.

During the discussion of my pictures, Jane noted that I could take this on further and make it into something more meaningful. Something that can spark either a historical or political statement.

In the moving image aspect. I envision something experimental, with the flashing headlines within the newspaper, or where the images within the paper becomes alive. Another idea that I’ve brainstormed was to actually take these newspaper, and cut them up into a DADA poem. This idea was based off of the previous discussion we had within the class with David Bowie’s song machine BBC NEWS SITE that spews out random words to turn into a song. We came across this topic when talking about Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (1917)

Overall, it was quite an interesting take on an idea I can pursue later onwards in the future once I have the techniques and tools to visualize my idea.

8th October 202321st November 2023

Week 2 – Evaluation & Feedback

I’ve collected feedback within tutors, class mates and also my relatives outside of University as well. In this post I’ll document the feedback, and a final evaluation of the rotation.

FEEDBACK FROM PEOPLE:

A group member’s helpful notes during the discussion:

With this feedback, I should slow down the movements of the star and prolong it’s frames next time.

Feedback from another group:

For these feedback, I think the only feedback that is semi related to my work was the comment about the lines, since I also included them in a part of my animation.

Feedback from my parents:

They told me that this part in my animation should be somewhat slowed down. But I think that if I slowed that particular part in post production, it looses part of the grungy choppy flashes of colour and texture. To respond to the sound, I wanted to feel as if the animation is hard to catch up to with a lot of things happening at once. But I think I could’ve still added a few more frames to establish it.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:

A few artists and notes I took whilst discussing my part with tutor:

There was a few points that were discussed that got me thinking.

QUESTIONS I WANT TO EXPLORE:

How much control do we have over the project and the outcome, do we need to control everything rather than be experimental? Would it loose some parts of the magic if the sync didn’t happen unexpectedly?

When I was being very experimental by cutting out literally any piece I could, would I have lost the structure I was mainly planning on making? Or would I make something completely different, special and improvised?

ARTISTS INSPIRED AND LINKED TO MY WORK:

I looked into Selina Trepp’s “Working the flow” where the motions of the figures runs consecutively all at the same time. I wanted to make my part look quite dynamic and vivid in the composition.

WHAT WENT WELL:

We were consistently practicing our teamwork and communication skills even after dividing up workload. Despite all of us having different skill levels in English, our team managed to create something with a balanced contribution and with a somewhat clear understanding of how we would execute this plan.

Since I had some experience in stop motion prior to this, I wanted to focus more on the extent of how I can play around with the timing, textures and elements to make the sound feel more vibrant and alive. Using the responsive sketch we had made before, I took elements of this and turned them into multiple thumbnails which helped me understand how many ways I can structure elements and transitions. During the group discussion, since we were a big group, we reached the conclusion of dividing up 2 workspaces to get work done twice as fast – but have enough continuity in the backgrounds to merge them together. Since I was the person starting halfway, I had to configure a lot of backgrounds and placings to match the first team’s and also make it easier for Jacob (the person going before me) to transition his work to mine.

Rather than cut out specific shapes that I was going to replace at specific times and frames, I made things easier for me by just cutting out shapes that felt right to me, and keeping the structure loose. This gave me freedom to completely do what I want during the shot.

IMPROVEMENTS:

To improve, I could try to make a more precise and structured work rather than trying to improvise everything completely. I could also preplan the exact pieces I need instead of making extra bits and pieces. I think we could’ve also communicated more as a team whilst working on our parts so that in a way, we could integrate each of our parts together in the same time.

Overall, this was a very interesting experience and a great start to working with a team.