Year 9 Media Arts Animation – Term 04 Mr Andrews

Task 4: e-pub, commentary and poster self-reflection and evaluation:

Part One: Discuss your feelings about the e-pub, poster and commentary task:

1.    Are you satisfied with the final result?

I am satisfied with the final result of my iBook although I probably should have added more content to it.

2.    Did the e-pub require more/less time than you originally thought?

It did require more time than I had originally thought.

3.    Would like to change any aspects of your final project (layout, links, images, video and audio content, colour scheme etc.)?

I would like to change my colour scheme and images as I feel like I could have been a bit more creative with the background images.

4.    If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

I would probably choose a different layout/template for my iBook because I don’t think it suited my project as well as it could have.

Part Two: Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

1.    Discuss whether your e-pub and poster have turned out the way you pictured them?

My poster did turn out the way I pictured it, but my iBook wasn’t as candy land themed as I wanted it to be.

2.    Explain whether your e-pub and poster clearly depicts the style of your animation and describe some specific design principles that you have used to achieve this;

I think my poster and iBook definitely depicts the style of my animation. I decided to use lollipops and mirrors in my iBook because they are the main symbols throughout my animation. 

      Describe any problems or technical difficulties you encountered while creating your director commentaries in Garage Band. These may include; sound or video issues, corrupt or missing files, difficulty using the iBook’s Author or Garage Band software, problems importing/exporting files, etc.;

I had a bit of trouble using garage band at the beginning as I wasn’t very familiar with the app and I hadn’t used it that often so I didn’t know how to do some things. I also struggled with exporting my audio as it wouldn’t export onto my laptop from my computer at home.

4.    Did you have all of the necessary resources to complete your e-pub and poster or did you have to create new materials?

I did have to create new materials such as the lollipop image I used in my iBook and I also had to add more to my title page using Photoshop.

5.    List the steps you used to plan and develop your project;

First I choose the template I wanted my iBook to be and choose the questions/information I wanted to be in my iBook and in my audio.

I then used Photoshop to develop and create my title page and wrote down the overview for each scene.

I then answered some question for my film evaluation and began to decorate my iBook more. I changed backgrounds, fonts and added my media/videos into it.

6.    Did you use content-lists, flowcharts or other documents during the planning process;

I used a document that kept all my ideas and questions that I was going to answer in my iBook.

7.    Clarify any time-management issues you encountered during the creative process and describe the steps you took to improve in this area

I had a few time management issues whilst creating my title page for my iBook so I ended up borrowing a laptop overnight so I could finish it in Photoshop.

8.    Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection throughout your project. i.e. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs and think about whether it looks like a whole terms worth of work);

I haven’t done much reflection work and I could have done more for this term.

Animation Unit: Self-reflection and project evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

·      Are you satisfied with the final result?

I am not as satisfied with the final result as I could be.

·      Did the animation process require more or less time than you originally thought?

It required a lot more time than I originally thought.

·      Would like to change any aspects of your final project (style of animation, the concept etc.)?

I would like to change the background images for our animation to make it more interesting and exciting by possibly making some of the objects move around the screen.

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

I would do the animation backgrounds different by making them more complex and exciting for the audience watching by adding more to them.

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?

In terms of the photos taken I am overall happy with our photos in our animation but I think our background animation could be improved a lot more.

·      Discuss whether you had to modify any elements of your original concept and planning to create your project:

I would like to change the storyline of my original concept maybe by adding an animated character to the background that could interact with bella, such as a gummy bear that could have moved around the screen and interacted other objects.

·      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);

I became more efficient using Photoshop during this process, with making photos  transparent and cropping images as well as being able to add background images to my foreground images. And I feel like I have really developed and added to my photo shopping skills.

·      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.)

During the beginning of our project we started importing our iStopMotion images to our background images in Animation Ish. When we were supposed to be exporting our background animated images and putting them into photoshop with our images that were taken with bella on iStopMotion. We had to restart this process of putting the background images and images with bella again because if we had of continued doing this the process on Animation Ish it was possible that our file would have corrupted and broken from being too large.

·      Explain if you made effective use of storyboards and scene planning/breakdown?

I don’t think we could have planned our animation as well as we could have as in the beginning we hadn’t decided how long each frame/shot would be for our animation which makes it difficult when it came to creating the actual animation as we didn’t know how many frames we needed and how long each scene was going for.

·      Describe whether your planning assisted or helped you to focus during the animation process;

Our planning helped us during the animation process as we knew how long each scene was going to be and how each background image on animation would have looked (roughly) according to our storyboarding.

·      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;

We had time management issues in our group when one member was away during a lesson and we missed filming/animating time during class. We also found it difficult to manage our time as sometimes we couldn’t borrow a laptop to take home over the weekend to work on our project as they were all borrowed out.

·      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);

I don’t think I have required adequate amount of detailed reflection throughout my project and I think I could have done a lot better on my blog work and reflections for each week throughout the term.

·      List any other software skills, animation techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned during the project.

I have learned how to add two images together in Photoshop and cropping and making images transparent as well as using specific tools and methods such as the magic wand tool, duplicating and flattening images, transforming and more. I have also learnt how to import and export images from iStopMotion to use in Photo shop. 

Problems we have experienced

Some problems we have had over the course of this term include:

• We used Animationish to put our photoshop photos in instead of converting the animation to Photoshop, this was a problem because our Photoshop photo files were too big to use in Animationish so it was very insufficient and slow.
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•  We've had problems with organization this term working on our project because o some days when certain members of the group were away it meant that we couldn't work on filming or on certain projects because we didn't have the work/usb during class
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• We didn't write down exactly how long each scene/shot goes for in our finished animation so we didn't know how many shots should have been taken during our filming process

What's going on this week

This week in Media we are working on completing all our photos that we need to take on iStopMotion behind the green screen. We have one more scene of photos to take and we will be working on filming this during lunchtimes and afterschool time. We are running a bit behind on our our assignment so we will continue to try and complete all our iStopMotion photos/shots during this weeks lessons and including after school time.

Green Screen Original Photos

Above are some of the photos we have taken on iStopMotion that we need for our animation. The photos will be taken out of iStopMotion individually then we will make them transparent in Photoshop. We still have once more scene to film on the green screen then we can make them all transparent in Photoshop for our Animation.

First Scene of Project

Above is our first scene of our Animation project, we have completed our animation background on Animation is we now just need to convert the background images to Photoshop as well as our iStopMotion photos.

Photos taken with iStopMotion and made transparent with Photoshop

Below are some photos we have taken of one of our group members in front of the green screen in iStopMotion that we have made transparent in Photoshop. 

iStopMotion/Animation Assignment

So far we have completed nearly all our scenes in iStopMotion and we have one scene left to film on the green screen and then to transfer and transform into PhotoShop so its ready for our Animation. We will finish our iStopMotion filming next lesson and then we can start to focus more on changing and altering the photos in Photoshop and adjusting our Animation. I will soon get to upload a video of our first scene completed for our assignment.

Media Prop/Object List For iStop Motion and Animation-ish

Below is my groups prop/object list that we need to complete our iStopMotion and Animation Task

Animation-ish:

Scene 1 (Falling scene)~

·      Draw clouds

·      Draw the red licorice road

·      Draw a brown sign

·      Draw a marshmallow

Scene 2 (Walking scene) ~

·      Draw red licorice road

·      Draw lollipop trees

·      Draw the balloon lollipop

Scene 3 (Balloon/Lollipop scene) ~

·      Draw the balloon lollipop

·      Draw clouds

Scene 4 (Rainbow/Pot of gold scene) ~

·      Draw a rainbow

·      Draw a cloud

·      Draw a pot of gold

·      Draw a mirror

iStop Motion (Pictures):

Scene 1 (Starting scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Hand Mirror

·      White wall

Scene 2 (Falling scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Green screen

·      Green screen lights

·      Camera to plug into laptop

Scene 3 (Walking scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Green screen

·      Green screen lights

·      Camera to plug into laptop

Scene 4 (Balloon/Lollipop scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Green screen

·      Green screen lights

·      Camera to plug into laptop

Scene 5 (Rainbow/Pot of gold scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Green screen

·      Green screen lights

·      Camera to plug into laptop

·      Chair/Chair cushion

Scene 6 (Ending scene) ~

·      Bella’s Pajamas

·      Green screen

·      Green screen lights

·      Camera to plug into laptop

·      Chair/Chair cushion

·      Pillows

·      Hand mirror

·      Note saying ‘Thank you for visiting’

·      Lollipop