Evaluation of animation In terms of the genre of my animation I think it is a mix of different genres as my animation has a comedy aspect but also has some action in it. Our animation also included some sought of politics/political angle, this is because I think the animation is funny and it has action because of the fighting scenes in the animation. It has some sought of political element because it is good helpless person/blob stands up to the evil powerful person/blob, which is what happens all over the world. You can tell one of the genres of my animation is action because of the iconography of the pens, and pencils being used as weapons in the fighting scene to create action. Due in the focus group my audience said that they liked the use of comedy and they thought the animation was funny. They also mentioned about the blobs fighting each other it points at the iconography of an action film. The style of my animation I think is a mix of two main elements comical/funny and child like. This is because we tried to make the animation look funny by having kind of Tom and Jerry type cartoony violence, which would appeal to adults and older children. The animation also looks child like in terms of the feel of it and the way it looks as it reminds me of morph, which is a kids program. Also it is childlike like bagpuss where it is jumpy because the children watching it wont really pay much attention to the movement. I think the colours and the persona of the characters also affects the style of the animation because red, blue and green are quite child friendly colours and they are also associated with safety. The persona of the characters are also child like because in kids programs there is usually some sweat innocent helpless creature that gets bullied by a strong, evil bully type creature but our animation is a spoof/satire because the creature fights back against the bully and wins through violence which isn’t very child like. The people that answered the questionnaire also said the style of the animation was funny and conventional. One person in the focus group said it appeals to children and I agree with this to an extent but it only appeals to older children as it is to violent for younger children. The narrative in the animation is pretty clear its predominantly about a bully character picking on a victim character that is weak and helpless but in our case the victim fights backs and wins so its got a morale to the story good over comes bad but in a violent way so it’s a spoof. The narrative can also be looked at more simply as just 2 blobs fighting each other. The focus group said the narrative was good, funny and understandable, I agree with this because I think the animation was funny as you don’t see two blobs killing each other every day and it was understandable as the story was very basic good v evil and good wins. In terms of characters and there personas I think we have represented them well as it is clear that one character is a bad character and is a bully and the other one is a victim who is very venerable and is a nicer character. I think is also quite clear that my evil character is angry and in a bad mood from his facial expressions where the other character looks happier and is in a better mood. We can tell why the evil character bullies the good character as the good character looks funny when he smiles also the good character is physically weaker then the bad character and is seen as an easy target. Our focus group said they could tell the difference between the two characters in terms of one was good one was bad however they did
highlight the fact that they both killed each other. Someone in the focus group said it was like the characters went on a mad killing spree. The stop motion animation technique that I used was Claymation this was because it made it easier to achieve the animation we wanted to make. As When our animation was violent and pens and pencils were being stabbed through our characters this technique helped as they were easy to remodel and the placticene we used wasn’t that hard so the pens and pencils pierced the characters bodies easy. The technique of Claymation also helped with our narrative as it was about two fiction characters in an art classroom and you would find plasticine in an art classroom so this helped form the basis of our story line. The stop motion technique we used also helped define our target audience, as we knew this sought of animation was aimed at children and adults if it is violent like our one was. We took the idea of south park where they used an animation that is used in kids TV shows and they turned it into something that was aimed at adults through the content they used, that is why when it first came out it shocked people and they thought children couldn’t watch it. Our focus group said the technique we used was good because it was easy and simple to create the cartoony/animation violence we wanted with stabbing and other violence as the placstacine was soft so they said it was a good choice to make. They also said it was good because it was easy to remodel and keep changing the facial expression so this was very useful as we could try and make it look as realistic as possible when they were stabbed by making an angry face. Someone in our questionnaire said the animation technique was good because it made the animation run smoothly throughout. I agree with this comment to an extent but I think there are other factors that make the animation run smooth e.g. no camera shake and higher fps so there is less gaps in the movement. The technical qualities in our animation wasn’t to the best standard but it didn’t matter to much because the animation still worked well and when you watch it your so focused on the story and humor of the animation that its not that noticeable. The animation is quite jumpy a bit like bagpuss but the jumps aren’t massive, but this works, as it’s a spoof and satire of a children’s TV program. The camera moves and shakes quite a lot and I think this could be improved the next time I make an animation. The sound is in sync and the sound is appropriately used as it suits the animation e.g. when there’s a stabbing movement there is then a stabbing sound to follow. The sound track is also appropriate as our animation is like a children’s TV program and the track used is catchy and child like it is a typical sound track that you would get in a TV children program. The sound track does not help you understand the narrative as such but it does help you understand the genre and once you seen the animation 3 or 4 times you can tell the music is actually quite sinister. The lighting in the animation is not consistent this is due because of the shadows that were cast over the table in the animation. The lighting on the wall where there was no shadow was very consistent. But as the shadows kept changing and some shadows were darker the sound was very inconsistent. The animation was quite consistent in terms of the shots used and in terms of how the characters moved and in terms of the pace of the animation. The majority of shots were in focus except for the first few frames in the animation but this was because we were adjusting the camera. Our focus group said some of the strengths of our
animation were the sound track and movement. Someone in our focus group said it was jumpy but it wasn’t really jumpy to the extent that it would distract someone from the narrative of the animation. Someone also said that they liked the special effect of the blood coming out after the character was stabbed they also liked the props that we used. The focus group also liked the sound, as it was in sync. Someone liked the soundtrack used as they thought it fitted well with the theme of the animation and the action that was happening. When I asked the focus group about our technical weaknesses people said the lighting and camera movement. Another weakness and problem someone picked up on was that when we panned across sometimes we jumped back to the same place again so they suggested not jumping back to the same place again. They also said the camera movement was shaky and it was out of focus on some shots. In terms of aesthetic qualities I think the animation could have been better however it wasn’t to bad for our first ever attempt at animation. I think there was a good variation of shots e.g. we used long shots, medium shots, close ups, and pans. However the camera work wasn’t great as at times the camera was shaky and at time the camera wasn’t straight so we got part of the table in shot, which we didn’t originally want. The aesthetics were slightly better as the models looked realistic which gave the animation a bit more of a professional look. Some of the shots are also slightly out of focus however the majority of them are in focus so in that respect it doesn’t look to bad. In terms of colour, contrast and brightness the aesthetics are quite poor because the lighting is not consistent through the animation. In the animation the shots tend to differ between light and dark mainly due to the shadows and because of the poor lighting the colour of the models were also affected. As if you look at the colour of the models they are very saturated and they look under exposed. They would look better if they were a bit brighter as bright colours appeal to young children. When we conducted our research like our focus groups and questionnaires our audience picked up on the same sought of problems, e.g. some of the main points they highlighted were the shakeyness of the camera and the poor lighting due to the shadows. If we were to make another animation I think we need to focus more clearly on these things. In terms of our creative qualities within the animation I think we did very well because I think we can up with a mostly unique original idea and we developed it collectively together with mostly our own input. Sure there are animations out there for young children about little blobs however I feel we were one of the first group of people to turn an innocent children’s TV program into a crazy episode of cartoon violence. I also feel that we had a huge hand in developing our characters personality and we constructed the very first foundations of what their personas are wholly built on. Traditionally there is always a good guy and a villain but we capitalized on this so instead of character being nice and harmless which is stereotypical, we gave our character bob a twist my making him look almost helpless but really he was able to stick up for himself even if it was in a violent way and not many TV shows can say they did that so I would argue our idea is original. When we conducted our focus group people did say that to an extent our idea was original but the idea about two cartoony blobs people said they had seen that a few times before and it wasn’t uncommon but they did like the way we made our characters violent as they though it was humorous and a different take on
children’s animations. The focus group was right, as I have found an animation that is very similar to our animation however none of our ideas were based on this animation, as we had never seen until our teacher found it after we finished the animation. The animation was called ‘Pib and Pob’ and it was very commercial like our animation but with a mix of animation and violence however it is much better then our animation. The ‘Pib and Pob animation uses a voiceover like our animation to add humour to the animation. The background lighting of the animation is very consistent and the exposure is right unlike our animation however they did spend a lot more time and money on it so I think we did do quite well for the resources we had. The fps with the ‘Pib and Pob’ animation is also higher then ours so the movement is a bit more fluent and it looks more realistic however this doesn’t matter to much as our animation is basically a parody of a children’s animation and some small children will watch it and they are not as observant as older children so if our animation was a bit jumpy it wouldn’t matter. The narrative in Pib and Pob is very basic like ours and the characters are introduced in the animation similarly to ours this is done as little children don’t have very good long-term memories so they don’t forget the characters names. The narrative is kept basic, as it is in ours so it doesn’t confuse little children so then they understand what is going on. Pib and Pob are almost identical to our animation except its less graphic because it’s actually aimed at young children. Our original concept and idea was also built around morph as we liked the comedy aspect of morph and we also liked the animation technique because Claymation is easy to remodel and move with placstecine. Its also helpful as you can get multiple different colours. So in reality we oh most of our idea to the morph animation as within out it we wouldn’t of been inspired to create the sought of animation that we did.