CWC Ident

Evaluation:
I think that we didn't manage our time as we quite should have when the task was first given to us on the first week. But as soon as we came up with a stable story line/concept, on the second week, we were then able to get to work and manage our time effectively by starting our pre production work such as our audio pitch, story boards etc. I would rate a 4 to my group members, because they all contributed equally well to this project. There were some delays as some group members arrived late, usually I’d come in on time so I start off without them to not waste time. That however, did not affect our work. I would rate myself a 4 aswell, I think I contributed well to the project. I definitely fulfilled my role as I managed to finish all my pre production work as well as my post production.

I think that our CWC ident answered the creative brief very well. We combined Claymation as well as cut out animation together to create our ident. We tried to represent the college to its potential as we used pictures of students that come from different race backgrounds describing CWC in one word, then at the end putting all the students together; suggesting that CWC is a place of unity, fun, multiculturalism, but most importantly one of the best places for education. Every aspect of my work was pretty much fulfilled as we ended up creating a successful ident for our college. Everything worked out well better than we expected.  

I would say the only aspect of my project that I didn’t work out well is the lighting. The quality of the camera was rubbish and made our final ident look a little less professional and more amateur. We did try using a different camera, but unfortunately the format wasn’t working. In the future I would definitely try harder fixing the camera quality issue.

Judging from the feedback I had received from my peers, most of them mentioned how it was unique and liked the whole concept of the words coming out of each student’s mouth. Pretty much all of them were positive feedback. One did mention how we could have improved the light, which I agree with.

Overall, I’m proud of all aspects of this project, and how smoothly everything went. It was a fun and exciting experience. I really enjoy working with the ‘iStopMotion’ software, as well as with the editing ‘Final Cut Pro’. I also liked how the music complimented our ident and was in sync. I’m happy with my group members and we all worked well together throughout this process.

Storyboard

CWC Audio pitch

Mind Map for Ident

Claymation Animation Evaluation

The process of claymation starts by making your own claymation character. In this case we had to create our own Morph. When you have made your clay character, you are ready to create your animation. By sticking to your concept, you start to move your animation character and take a shot, move again and take a shot and so on. It's pretty similar to cut out animation process. By achieving this, we used the 'iStopMotion' software. After you have finished, you can then decide to edit, add sound effects music etc, to make it sound and look much more effective.

Morph is an animated plasticine stop-motion character. He was produced for the BBC by Aardman. It was significant to the success of Aardman because it was his first ever successful TV commission.

The animation me and my partner produced was well cut together. We stuck to one story line and the movements of our characters appeared smooth. The only negative things are the lighting; we could have used a better camera alongside a better angle.

The limitations of claymation are that it takes a long time to make especially if we're making more than one morph. Furthermore, as I kept moving parts of my Morph character, e.g. arms legs, it would start to break off which was annoying. I also found it frustrating for my Morph to stand up straight without falling.

The strengths I found with claymation and cut out animation is that they don't have to look perfect or look good, as long as there is a good story line and sound effects to it. With claymation you can do so much more than cut out animation. Such as certain movements you can do with claymation but not cut out. Claymation also looks much more effective as it is 2D. Having said that, cut out animation is also in some ways better than claymation because the process is much simpler, as all you'd have to do is cut out pictures and think about a story line.

Claymation Animation

Evaluation for cut out animation

Cut out animation is a technique for animation, used with cut out pictures from magazines, fabrics, newspapers or even drawings. The process of cut out animation is pretty much simple and easy. By using a camera, taking single shots of your cut outs, and moving them around and taking another shot and so on, putting the shots together then makes it look like they're moving. By using a simple and straight forward software called 'iStopMotion', I achieved this technique. It's also a fun software for people who like creating animation videos.

Terry Gilliam was one of the pioneers for this animation technique. Terry Gilliam was the animator and director of Monty Python which wass extremely popular in the 70's. Monty Python animation consisted of Gilliam’s imaginative mind by using loads of odd pictures, sounds and backgrounds mostly from the Victorian era. Till this day, there are loads of TV shows, films and music videos that still use his technique.

Examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PTDv_szmL0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5r_iOFipfE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg

The positive thing about cut out animation is that you can let your imagination run wild and do pretty much anything random and put them together and would still look good. The negative thing about it is that you can't make it appear 2D, with 2D cut out animation; you can see more than one side. As much as the process is easy and simple, it requires a lot of patience, as moving cut outs bit by bit and taking shots in between can be a little irritating.

My cut out animation went well, and I’m happy with it. I tried to throw in random things and make it a little humours. What I would change about my animation is that I'd make it appear smoother together than it is, because now it just looks like several different clips, doesn’t stick to one story line, also, I would change the camera quality to make it look a bit more professional.

Comparing my work to the professional one, I can proudly say that I understand the basic idea of cut out animation and I've stuck to it, although I still need practice sticking to a story line and smoothly putting them together like Terry Gilliam did.