Animation evaluation worksheet:

embed this in your EVALUATION page so it can be read clearly.

2 3:3.2 Evaluate the effectiveness of design and research tools, methods and skills to develop ideas for creative media production

5 3:3.1. Analyse the effectiveness of solutions to an audio based problem in creative media production.

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Animation evaluation/reflection questions

For this task, take your time and think about your experiences of this assignment.
You must answer ALL of these in order to pass this section.
Your answers should be at least 2-3 lines long for each question in order to pass.

Task 1/3: Reflect on your own research. (U2 3:3.2)

This is about the three worksheets you did as well as anything you have added to your production blog by week, such
as learning about Phonemes, facial structure or anything else you feel is relevant.

On my first attempt I didn’t really research much as I wanted to try and create something that
wasn’t copy and pasted or traced on to my stage. So, I used my creativity and skills I had
learnt over the years to create a background, colorful clouds, and an odd-looking sun. This
didn’t really help me as the sun and clouds where pictures I found online and I just traced
over them as I really wanted to get to the lip syncing part of the animation. Annoyingly, it
didn’t matter what I like or did like as I lost everything and had to start from scratch again.

In my opinion, this was helpful as it got me to research different styles of backgrounds and
different styles of suns and clouds. But as time went on when creating this design I started to
not like how the characters didn’t work with the background and the sun looked out of place,
What did you use from your so after finishing everything, I scrapped the whole project and restarted.
research that helped you?
My final attempt and research for that final project, was my favourite destination I made. I
research more in to the background and looked at certain pictures from movies and animated
clips to see what every background looked like and I used what I found to create a short and
simple backdrop with not much style and colour shades to the scenery. I created my sun and
cloud from scratch as I wanted them to be designed by me and not something I had found, I
used ideas from others around me and I was encouraged by their styles and I added it to my
own style, therefore creating something with more of a cartoon image. I wanted to add more
to my animation, so I created different scenes showing different shots of the world around
the sun and cloud project and then the camera pans to the main scenes. I researched
different intros to animation movies and most of the ones I saw had a scenery shot before
they introduced everything else.

The first time I created this project I spent the whole day creating a certain mountain
background to what I thought would be a considerable layout of what I wanted to create.
Sadly, though I lost it on the computer, this made me realise that I could change my vision on
what I wanted my work to look like and I went on to research different backgrounds for my
stage. I traced certain mountains and valleys, whilst also keeping to a certain style in my
colour format, this was to make it look more realistic and less cartoon.

In my opinion, I didn’t like my choices and each week my ideas would change, and I ended up
tracing a lot of work from the internet and not actually drawing something from myself. So, I
What did you discard and why?
changed my idea on the last week before hand in, as I wasn’t happy, and I looked around at
others and theirs all looked like they hadn’t traced or copied what they had found on Google.

Overall, my final edit and design looks more unique and more cartoony than my second
attempt, as I decided on my third attempt to go back to my very first attempt and keep it
looking like I had draw everything and so that it didn’t come out looking copy and pasted. I’m
proud that I changed my mind as I don’t think it would look like I accomplished anything if I
stayed with my second attempt.
 Next time I’m going to be more proactive on my research and planning, this is to make sure I
What else would it have been have the correct items to start my project. This is also a chance for me to figure out what I
more useful to know from your want to create and what I want to make as a final project. This is helpful to remember as it
research if you did it again? will inspire me to think ahead on projects and think about what I am creating, and the
outcome of my opinions should come out being positive and not be negative.

Next time I wish I to take more time in finding out my Primary and Secondary research and be
more ready to create something than to change my plan every time something went wrong
or didn’t look right.
How would you find this out
(P/S/Q/Q)?*
If I wanted to find out something that the internet couldn’t help me with I would ask the
teacher as he will be able to describe in more detail about how to do a certain style or
cartoon.

*primary/secondary/qualitative/quantitative

Task 2/3: Reflect on your own design, practical skills and build. (U2 3:3.2)
This is about the practical skills you learnt each week. Feel free to go back over the Animation Teams channel if it
helps you remember. Answer each question, including any relevant screen grabs.

To create my project, I looked through some of the practical skills that we were taught before
starting this project and I have chosen to use Stop – Mo, Motion Tweens and Lip syncing.
These where the main three I believe work the best in creating a short animation movie. For
my final attempt, I wanted to try something new, and I wanted to learn how to Pan or Zoom a
camera in adobe animation. I decided to research on how to achieve this as I’d never known
how to create a Classical Tween and I’ve always wanted to create a Zoom in an animation.

With Stop-Mo I didn’t really use it that much but I wanted to add it in somewhere so I created
a new scene and I Motion Tweened this Air balloon going across the screen and in the
foreground I designed this bumblebee doing a loop to loop over to a flower. Each shot I
What did you use from your created was Stop-Mo as I wanted to make it flow smoothly towards the flower so that it
practical skills lessons that helped added more to the scenery. To do this I did a Step by Step, keys, extremes and breakdowns of
you? the bumblebee doing a flip so that it showed people viewing how it got from one location to
another. Then inside the onionskin layer I lined up the different bees and made sure that it
moved slowly in different frames, so that it all matched up together.

Additionally, I used more Motion Tweens in this project than Stop-Mo because in my opinion,
it needs more Motion Tweens to get the character over to a certain spot in a certain time in
the audio. This links with lip syncing as sometimes when the character moves you need to
add the mouth along with it, so that it talks and walks. This was a challenge as I’d only just
achieved lip syncing and now I was making a cloud move whilst it was leaving the stage. I
mainly stuck to moving characters on and off stage instead of getting them to do certain
positions as I wanted my animation simple and not to over the top.

When looking through all the practical skills I have learnt I decided not to add in perspectives
and colour palettes, this is because I wanted my animation to stay as a solid animation,
because I thought that if I created a perspective on my project I would have been worried
that with to much detail I wouldn’t have finished everything in time.
What did you discard and why?
I would have added in a colour palette as it could have been helpful to use when trying to
remember what shade was used in that scene. But again if I added loads of detail to the
characters and the scenery, I feel like I wouldn’t of been able to complete everything because
I would be finishing off the minor details.
 If I had more time I would have added a colour palette to be able to quickly move between
colours and this would confirm that the colour I am using is the exact colour that I used on a
different scene. I would have also included more of a different shot to the different scenes,
What would you now include and
for example I would have created a close up on the sun and cloud on the introduction so that
why?
the audience have a clearer shot on what they look like up close. I also wanted to create a
different shot to when the cloud was approaching the sun, just like a high angle shot from the
suns point of view.

The main two practical skills I would like to revisit are Lip Syncing and Motion Tweens, this is
because I feel like it would be helpful to recap on how to make it move more smoothly and
What practical skills would you make sure that it is in line with the audio. The reason I would like to learn more about Lip
like to revisit if you did it again? Syncing is because I feel like I could improve on lining up the audio to the correct timing of
when the character speaks, also I would like to know the different mouths us use for the
different letters.

I would really like to learn about how to make my character Move more like a person. For
example I would like it to walking using it legs and showing the animation of its legs actually
Are there any new ones you think moving up and down, to expand on that I’d like to learn how to control my character and
would be useful for this project? make it Eat, Drink, Ride a bike or Swim. This would make my animation more realistic and
more professional, as it would help me to develop my skills further so that I can achieve more
in creativity.

If I was to compare my example with a professional example I would say that my crowd of
How does your final animation
people remind me of the peanut movie characters. This is because of the head shaping and
compare to professional
the certain style I have used to make them look drawn. One thing I would need to focus on is
examples? Give at least one
the timing of Motion Tweens as everything on the screen appears and disappears quickly
positive and one thing you would
which doesn’t work with the audio as they end up rushing what they are saying and they go
focus on improving.
off the screen before finishing their lines.

Task 3/3: Reflect on your audio ideas and work. (U5 3:3.1)
This is about the audio skills you learnt each week. Feel free to go back over the Animation Teams channel if it helps
you remember. Answer each question, including any relevant screen grabs.

When looking through my practical skills I noticed I had to use Lip Syncing and to improve my
Lip Syncing skills I had to attempt to connect the audio to the character talking. This helped
What did you use from your
me to then add my own sounds to the animation, which made me focus on developing my Lip
audio skills lessons that helped
Syncing skills. I had to find different sounds online and also create my own sounds to be
you?
added into the animation, this was a challenge as I wanted to find and create the best sound I
could, to be able to use in the project.

When using these sounds, I decided to not add in any Sound Effects, this is because I was
worrying about time, and I really need to focus on getting the Lip Syncing to sync with the
characters mouths, so I chose not to add any effect to the voices. Also, to save time, I
What did you discard and why?
believed that the audios didn’t need to be edited. I discarded other edits of my voice as it
didn’t sound easy to edit with the Lip Syncing and I also didn’t like how it sounded, so I ended
up creating a couple attempts.

Even though I didn’t like the idea of using Sound Effects I wish I had add some to me shouting
‘SUN!’ as I would have changed the volume on the audio so that it didn’t sound loud on the
What would you now include and actual animation. I wish I had taken the time in my placements on the timeline, but instead I
why? added the audio on top of another audio and in my opinion it doesn’t sound right. I would
have also liked to have added an effect on me shouting ‘BOOOO!’ at the cloud as yet again I
didn’t place it quite right on the timeline and it was louder than the other audio.
 If I’d had more time I would of loved to experience the use of Foley and Instruments into my
animation, as I would of loved to of created my own music for the beginning of the project
What audio skills would you like before the Sun and Cloud appear. With the idea of Foley I would of liked to of created my
to revisit if you did it again? own dramatic sound using some sort of thunder clap or banging of a drum. This would have
brought creativity to my animation and next time I get the chance I will definitely attempt
Foley or Instruments.

In the background I think that I could add more noise and set the scene in a different location.
For example, I would do a city animation and add in car noises and people talking or
muttering whilst walking down the streets. This will create life into my project and it will show
Are there any new ones you think more is happening in the world around the sun and cloud.
would be useful for this project?
On the other hand, if I created my setting in the meadows I could add bird singing or animals
noises appear at different times of the animation. This will bring a different image towards
the setting and more emotions will be shown.

Compared to a professional example I would say that my Lip Syncing to the audio works well
How does your final audio and you can see that the characters are pronouncing their letter and they are moving at the
compare to professional correct time of the audio.
examples? Give at least one
positive and one thing you would
focus on improving. Although I’m proud of my Lip Syncing I also need to improve on my audio placements as I feel
like it makes the audios sound jumbled and you can’t hear the story over added audios.