Evaluation

I uploaded what I think is going to be my final animation onto youtube after making the changes highlighted in the Crit.


I am very proud of my work, and I love my visual style (I think Illustrator work is probably one of my strengths and it made sense to apply it to this project.), I think my idea is very strong and imaginative although I'm worried that the concept itself is a little convoluted its supposed to be viewed as something light and something fun, because reducing our carbon footprint is such a serious topic matter it needed something light and fun to make it seem like less of a daunting task. This lightness is also congruent with the brief which specifies a lighter general message (the animation should focus on what we can do to change it not necessarily on what we are doing thats causing global warming). The animation principles that I've used are subtle- theres the characterisation on the hamster - giving him thoughts which references the principles. I've also utilised humour which is initiated through the lightheartedness and the concept- a hamster powering a light. As well as this there is of course the cartoon element although my visual style is more complex than basic children's cartoons.

Its the first time I've used After Effects so I have kept the animation simple, however now that I know the basics of the software I would love to add some more complicated effects and movements into my animation. I really really like the After Effects software and I had a lot of fun making my animation. Its was easy to use and reminded me of Photoshop so it seemed more familiar to me. I generally just stuck to transform keys although I did apply a stoke mask to certain bits to make them draw themselves in and ventured into the mirror tool and drop shadow tool to help really elucidate my paper hand-drawn theme that was heavily inspired by the Paper Planes animation. By in large I can't wait to explore After Effects further.

Using compositions made making my animation much easier because it enabled me to group everything so I didn't have to work with hundreds of layers, although putting it together at the end of the project did mean that my timing was very tight. Which could have been rectified by sorting out the timing specifically beforehand. Despite this using compositions actually helped to organise my scenes a lot and gave me more of an idea of what transitions I needed when and where.

If I could change anything I would introduce some more complex effects using After Effects but I think I would also really hammer out my timings to the second before animating, I used my animatic as my basis for my timing and made my compositions generally to that length, however I don't think my timings were specific enough in this and although I'm pleased with my project and like the timing (after I made the post crit changes), it was very tight when creating it and even now I wish I had half a second extra to allow my end to breathe.

Despite this I do really like what I've made, the animation is fun, and I had a lot of fun making it and I look forward to making more animations in future.