Experimental Animation Evaluation

Experimental Animation Evaluation

Introduction

This document contains the evaluation of the experimental animation project. Within this document I will be evaluating both my work process and the final product. The project began on the 30th September 2015 and have had one and a half months to complete this project. This involved creating a thirty second experiential animation and a ten second E4 sting linked to the experimental animation we created.

Body

I started with initial research and ideas by watching other experimental artist's work and experimented in my own ways.  Initially I had no clear idea what I wanted to do; therefore I produced a number of stop motion tests to generate ideas. This is because I wasn't clear on the medium of my experimental animation or what it would be about.

From this I began to focus on a particular area with the help of a particular artist:

From this artist I started to research the human body in motion and try to capture that motion in just a few lines or simple shapes. To make it an experimental piece I would make each frame appear abstract but once the images played in sequence it would clearly show a person dancing.

I started by creating rough tests of people dancing in loops such as a ballet dancer and tried to capture their movements in a few lines. However, during the testing I felt this was both: too similar to the original artist's work and that it didn't feel experimental enough. Therefore I continued to generate other ideas through mind maps and rough tests.

I wanted to stick to the idea of capturing motion in a few lines or basic shapes because I felt that this had the most potential and I didn't want to spend too long on generating an idea. Therefore I thought of the idea of capturing motion in animals as the animal kingdom have a wide range of diverse movements that define and identity individual animals.

 

From this I started to mind map and plan the different animals that would be within the video, I had to ensure that the animals were diverse enough to make them each unique within the video. what I mean by this is that I didn't want all the animals to be land animals or for all of them to be flying. To have a wide variety of animals such as land, sea and airborne animals allows me to express the diversity of the animal kingdom through their unique movements. Therefore I chose these animals to be within my experimental animation: a Bird (pigeon/dove), spider monkey, Gorilla, Frog, Elephant and cheetah. This I because I believe that each of these animals have their own unique movements that make them identifiable and the range is diverse enough to not be generic or repetitive.

 

I then researched the movements of animals by watching reference videos of their movements and trying to capture their key poses in my drawings. I found to look deeper into an animals movement and how their own bodies were designed for their unique movements.

 

Next I created their draft outline, what they would look like as just lines and tested each of their movements. I did this by using pencil and charcoal and scanning each image into the computer to be put together using Photoshop. I chose to use charcoal because I believe it creates very organic and natural lines which I felt were most appropriate animating animals in motion. I then evaluated each of these tests and animatics and began production on the experimental animation.

 

I started with storyboards and plans on how the experimental animation would look and how long it would take to create. I always find it important to plan any production because it is easier to follow a plan or list and review your progress during production. therefore you can meet micro deadlines and ensure you are able to complete the task before the final deadline. I did this by splitting the experimental animation into sections for each animal and each significant movement. This made the work load easier for me and easier to manage my own progress. unlike these tests I did not tests these sections until I put all of them together because I felt that this would make the animation unpredictable and more experimental rather than planning very movement and managing every single aspect of the experimental animation as that would make the animation less experimental.

After that I scanned the frames into the computer to be finally put together using Adobe's Flash and Premiere.

 

I found however that the scans were not perfect and had been alerted, most of the scans had smudged with blue colour streaks across the page. Others had completely deformed as the scanner scanned the image incorrectly and some images weren't scanned at all because the scanner would scan two or more images at once.

Despite this I chose to still use these 'corrupted' scans because I believed it added something to each frame because not two scans were the same and added motion to the images. This made them more interesting to watch and made them even more experimental.

I then compiled the images together in Flash, and then added the soundtrack and title in Premiere.



Conclusion

Despite the number of issues I had with the final product I am happy with the overall result of the product and my work method. This is because I managed to produce the final piece before the deadline and that there were unexpected results. This is because I like the odd results of the scanner 'corrupting' the images and adding both colour and motion to each image within the animation. From this I found that I should expect the unexpected and to not always reject unexpected results as they may not always be a mistake and could be an improvement instead.

However I would still improve both my work and the process in a number of ways. Starting with the final product I would: change how each animal moves to exaggerate their unique movements further to make the animal more dynamic and interesting to look at rather than just observing how they move. Therefore I would observe and then improve through the drawings. an example of this could be; I would add squash to the elephant's walk to exaggerate and emphasise the elephants weight.

I would improve the work process by: testing each section after I had created them. this is because despite the unpredictable aspect as I mentioned before, it has hindered the quality of the overall animation. As I have mentioned in my blog and evaluated each section, I did not know the result of the animation until they were put together. Therefore I would test each section before I progressed to improve any aspects that were lacking. This would improve the overall animation and if it were experimental I would experiment in other aspects whilst maintaining the quality.

I conclusion I am pleased with the overall result and process, however there are some areas I would improve a number of aspects.