final evaluation
introduction
My project task was to create a piece of work to showcase the skills I have learnt over this course. My intended audience for this project was young adults and teens, with the aim to create a narrative animation piece that could cover a more serious topic in a more lighthearted way. The theme I had chosen was news and media, with a focus on how easy it is to drown in a sea of media and current events. This was chosen due to my own experiences during the lockdown and the addictive nature of ‘doom scrolling’ I found myself falling into. The pandemic didn't seriously harm my project, I’ve had adequate resources at home and the necessary skills to do it. But it definitely negatively harmed my motivation and self-drive, staying at home and working from home for so long created a disconnect between school work and personal projects and downtime. This made the self-motivated study more difficult, especially towards the end of the project. Additionally, the
college’s IT outage due to the cyber incident had a similar effect, going on campus less meant less chance for collaboration and feedback from peers and the lack of sociability made the motivation issue worse. Despite this, I’ve tried different ways of getting myself to focus.
research:
production
The most difficult part of the production process was my lack of motivation and procrastination. This gave me very little time to finish the animation. Most of the frames were drawn in one coffee-fueled sitting in the middle of the night and the rest a couple of hours later, still empowered by caffeine. Despite this, readjusting my plans made it possible to be able to produce a more cut down film. The most challenging part was refining the frames which were more difficult because had drawn the guides very roughly and in more dynamic poses which was a good challenge. I think the shading went well, I liked how the colours were tied together and some atmosphere was made. I also liked the sketchy pencil aesthetic I ended up with and the very pastel colours which made it look more cohesive and whole. The end card with the title of the animation was fun to draw, I tried to make it look like an old MS Paint window, but with the pastel colours, I had planned to do the notifications and popups I liked.
finished product:
My original idea from my pitch was a narrative animation about media and news, I had outlined a much, much longer story that has over the weeks shrunk to a small moment in the story. I still think the section I made showed a difference between different types of media and the character’s reactions to it. My intended audience is YA/ teens I tried to communicate to a younger audience with pop culture references like the band posters and character designs and the themes of news and fans. Overall I think I managed my time not as well as I could have. In the beginning, I underestimated how long the planning and research work would take and I had less time to work on production which resulted in my animation being more like a polished animatic. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing and was the best way I could tell some of my story with the little time I allowed myself. Still, I would have liked to make a smoother and more polished animation, this could be improved by drawing more in-between frames to make the animation feel less clunky. I would like to improve this skill in other projects by being more realistic about my goals and have more time to work on the production. Overall, this project has taught me to be flexible and realistic with plans and to set achievable goals and now I know going into the next year, to make a smaller goal so I will be able to achieve it. If I could change my work in the beginning, I would have tried to make a concept before the FMP began so I didn't have to spend so long thinking and planning what to make.