Stop Motion Animation Evaluation
On completion of my stop motion project, I pinpointed the main aspects that I found successful and that of which I could have done better. My initial intention was to create a drama/adventure type animation, as I based my idea on 3 toys that came to life on a shelf. I combined movement of the camera with stop motion to create a cinematic style piece, I based my animation on toys in order to target my younger audience, who would essentially be interested in watching something to do with adventure. At the same time, including, slow, progressive pans and dramatic music between the breaks of scenes I believe I was able to keep my audience engaged. In addition, my animation had to be gradual in pace as I learnt from my inspirations that this was what made a good drama styled video. I chose not to include any narrative simply because it would take anyway from the concept of the animation and also disengage the majority of my target audience. Although at the start of my animation, I use a question to immediately capture the attention of the audience, which allows them to keep on watching. Essentially, the rhetorical question allows the audience to wonder. However, due to the length of the animation, I wasn’t able to include every aspect of the concept I would have liked to. With more time I would have shown more expression through the characters movements, although some of the toys parts were not flexible. Based on my questionnaire feedback, the dramatized aspects were clearly portrayed. I used the technique of stop frame animation with toys from the hit movie ‘Kung Fu Panda’ I found it more of an advantage to animate these toys as I didn’t have to re shape or remodel them as I would have if I had used clay. The fact that the toys were solid already, made it easier from me to rotate and move the toys fairly quickly. Whereas Wallace and Gromit used clay for facial expressions. I f I had more time, I would have definitely spent more time adding sound for my characters. I ensured that the technical and aesthetical aspects were up to a fairly professional. I found and located my toys in the correct environment I was after, which was a medium sized shelf with three sections. The overall quality of the images and footage blended really well as I used a high res camera being a Canon 550D, this allowed for high quality pictures to be taken at a very fast rate and the aid of a mini lamp made sure that there was no film grain due to poor lighting. This in turn made the animation more appealing as pleasing to watch for the audience. Compared to the Xbox commercial, I believe my footage was at a close enough standard, possibly because we have used the same equipment. Nonetheless, the picture and sound quality was very good.
However, before making my final animation, I conducted a trial and error to find out the best settings on the camera and how much lighting I would need. Generally because the animation would be set and shot when there was limited on no daylight at all, this was because It would tie in with the concept. Without sufficient lighting, the quality of the final picture would have been really poor. I believe my target audience were children, as there were no sophisticated tendencies within the animation, however the fact that is very dramatic and interesting, it would also appeal to adults because of the professionalism involved in the shots. Children can relate really well, as their young minds to tend to fantasize and imagine things, which is essentially the central focus of this animation.