FMP Evaluation

 

Research

During my research, I went to the Power Up exhibition in the Science Museum, showing off many consoles like PS1 and many of the older consoles such as arcade machines. Seeing them, gave me the idea for the arcade machine scene.  I created the Stone Age part of my animation from imagination and a little bit of research, as I didn’t want it to look like an actual Stone Age. I wanted it to have a more cartoony feel like my characters have. I struggled to find the appropriate research.

In my animation I wanted to include a scene, where the Neanderthal was painting on the wall of the cave they lived in, like the Cayeux cave paintings. However, I couldn’t seem to find any simple designs and a model cave that they used to live in. I also did not like any of the styles I found, as they were not what I wanted them to look like.  I looked on the internet and in the following  books:

Jayne Pilling. (1997) A Reader in Animation Studies. 1^st Sydney: John Libby & Company Pty Ltd.

Roger Sears. (1999) Cracking Animation. 2^nd United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson Ltd.

Kenneth Powell (2003) Games Design under a Lens. 1^st United Kingdom: Merrell Publishers Limited

Many of the Pink Panther episodes inspired the art style of my characters and how they  are created, as well as the simple way in which they are animated, i.e.the animated characters on top of the background and minimal detail. The choice of colour palette, e.g. mainly pastels, pinks and purples, is also due to the Pink Panther inspiration. Like the Pink Panther, my characters are also almost silent.

Planning and Time Management

I finished on time, because most of my animation was fairly simple to edit together, however, I could have added in more, if there had been more time. I used cut scenes to explain what is happening. Originally I was going to draw out every frame of my animation because of the limitations of my skills on Animate, having only learned it recently. 

For the most part, I stuck to my action plan, however towards the end, in order to stay on track, I ended up doing everything including sound, editing and creation of backgrounds in one day. In hindsight, I should have allowed more time for the sound and background creation. I also could have started learning Animate earlier on.

Developing and Modifying Work

Originally, I wanted the boy to get sucked into a computer because of a virus,  however, in the end, I decided that didn’t make sense.  Therefore I changed  it to him getting a time traveller watch instead. In total I experimented with three ideas: the original one was the virus, then the watch and finally the idea I favoured, was that it was all a dream, although I was a bit concerned that this idea was overused in animations. I chose a simple title, as it is catchy and clearly describes the story.

My ideas were not very varied, however, I feel they were all achievable for me to do. I spent many hours working on idea generation and I feel it was an adequate amount. When experimenting with colours, I created a mood board to see what colours were used by the animations, which had inspired me and which added a new depth to my animation.

My original plan had been for the boy to fall off the cliff and onto a lot of spikes, however, I did not have enough time to animate this and also felt it was not very appropriate, so instead he just falls off the cliff.

During the final processing of my animation, it dawned on me, that my animation was lacking a lot of diegetic sounds, so I created these by recording them on my phone. I used my imagination to record hand tapping on a key board when the character hits the keyboard in the arcade scene. In the same scene I created a sound for gunfire and was going to add a voice recording of the speech bubble, but had not enough time to do so.

For the music, I searched the Internet to find a piece of non-copyrighted music that I could use, as I was short for time. I would have composed my own music given the time. However, the music I picked did not sound right for the scene, as it was too fast, so I slowed it down in Premier Pro and cropped it to a part I liked, which sounded good with my animation. I wanted to find a sound for a door slamming and would have created my own, but did not want to slam a door in College. Also, the room I was recording the sounds in had too much echo, so I could not record proper footsteps. For the wind sound I used the free archive available on the BBC Sound Effects.

I chose the typeface for the cut scenes because I like it, although I believe some people might find it a bit hard to read.

Materials, Techniques and Processes

For the creation of my animation I used the following materials: Adobe, Illustrator, Photoshop, Animate, a bit of After Effects and Premier Pro (my favourite software because I enjoy editing).

I would have drawn out more of the frames, if I’d had more time.

Animate took me a while to learn and I would have liked to have been better at it.

In hindsight Adobe After Effects would probably have been a more suitable program for my animation, but as I find it difficult, I used Animate.

The Final Outcome

I chose an Animation, as I thought I would enjoy this project the most and am happy with my final project and feel it fulfilled the requirements of the brief. However, if I was to do another project,  I would definitely change what I created. I would have preferred making a short film, as I enjoy the editing and the filming process. To be honest, I underestimated how complicated the animation process would be and it did not help that I am a beginner at Animate.

However, this experience helped me to improve my animation skills and taught me that I need to spend more time thinking about a project and how to realise it. I also need to be realistic about my abilities and start planning and structuring the project earlier on, so I do not run out of time at the end. In future, I need to build more on my strengths.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following worked well for my project:

I feel the choice of music is appropriate and fits the animation as do the sound effects. I like the story line and included the scene, where the man is mean to the boy, as children and young people can identify with this. Time travel is also a good subject in my opinion.

I feel I could have improved on the following:

The overall look could have been improved, i.e. I could have drawn out more scenes and created more sound effects and made a longer animation.

During the course of my studies and especially working on this project, I feel my animations have improved and become more sophisticated. My editing skills have also got better. I think I have got better at sound effects and finding suitable music and I now have a better idea of where to look for resources.

Conclusions

If I did this project again, I would do a film instead. However, if I was to do another animation, I would get better at After Effects first, so I could produce more complex animations.

This project taught me how to use Animate. I also got better at matching sound and music. I learned that good time management is very important, so one does not have to rush a lot of things at the end.

FMP Mood Boards

FMP Background

I like all of my backgrounds as they are all pretty simple but display what needs to be shown

FMP Research

Project Proposal First Draft

Project Proposal Draft 2

1980s Games Arcade

The 1980s was what some people call “The Golden Age of  Games” as many of the first games that start it all. The era saw the rapid spread of video arcades across North America, Europe, and Asia. The number of video game arcades in North America, for example, more than doubled between 1980 and 1982 from 4000 to 10,000 which is a pretty large amount due to the newness of games. The original Pac-Man was created in the year 1980 and was an instant favourite and has kept its fans still today. Donkey Kong was then created in 1981 were Mario (the famous character) was first seen. Leading to the creation of Mario Bros in1983. However a very famous game called Frogger was created in 1981. Like the first version of Crossy Road.

1980s Fashion

1980s clothing styles for men included acid washed jeans, jean jackets, parachute pants, high top shoes and T-shirts. Unless, of course you were in the preppie crowd. Then you wore Izod shirts, probably with the collar up, dress pants and penny loafer shoes. Accessories were big and gaudy. Necklaces were layered on and had large pendants and medallions. Earrings were long and dangly. Purses were huge or small – no reason not to take it to extremes in both directions. Hair for men and women was long, tall and wide. In short, blow dry it out, use a lot of hair spray to hold it and you were good to go.

Stone Age

The period began with the first stone tools, about 750,000 years ago. Some groups of people were still in the stone age into the 20th century. They also killed animals for food and clothing. They used animal skin for their shelters. The Stone Age is divided by archaeologists (people who study relics) into three sections: Paleolithic (“old stone”), Mesolithic (“middle stone”), and Neolithic (“new stone”). Pottery was invented during the Neolithic Stone Age. The next age was the Bronze Age were people found out how to smelt ores for metal.

2D Animation

Day And Night

A good example of 2D animation is The Flintstones Opening Theme which was the intro to the very famous cartoon, The Flintstones created in 1960 and has had 166 episodes which all focused on a Stone Age family and there many problems and everyday activities. The style of the Flintstones is very clear to understand what is happening due to the crispness of the actual characters and the backgrounds. The backgrounds are only 1 layer but give the feeling of depth and make the characters seem as they are actually there and not placed over the top. The outfits and props use I think it a mixture of both modern day times like cars shown in the trailer and also the Stone Age clothing being very simple and only one look (depending on the gender of the character).