Animation Evaluation

Animation Evaluation

Here is my final completed Esting

             
I first came up with the idea for my E sting when researching other E stings. I tried to come up with an idea that was funny and would appeal to the E4 audience. I thought that it should involve a character that thought they where really good but ended up failing in some way. I remembered the tale of Icarus what I was taught about in middle school. this story is about the son who flies to close to the sun which ends up being his demise as his wings begin to melt and he falls to his death. I thought I should have a character that wouldn't fly too close to the sun but instead do different tricks while flying through the air and eventually over does it. Let me start off by saying that I am not the biggest fan of my E sting. I did not comprehend how much detail something so small like a ten second stop motion animation clip needed. This is the reason I think it looks very amateur and for lack of a better word, lazy. I also think that my animation in general should have been smoother as I  think it is very jumpy and not fluid enough to be taken seriously as an E4 E sting. I also rushed making the set as I was seriously running out for filming time for my animation. I think the main problems with my E sting where my time management and not paying enough attention to detail. I screened my animation to my peers who had a mix of positive and negative comments towards it.
Positives
People thought that the animation had 'nice movement'
Some thought that where the camera is situated was a good way to show the character flying through the air.
Some thought that the very rough look complimented the effect that it was just simply a child's play set.
Negatives
Some thought that my E sting lacked imagination
Some of my peers didn't think that the spiral part of the animation was done very well, they thought it was jumpy and wanted it to be smoother

Survey Results

For a broader amount of audience feedback I sent out a survey using the website survey monkey. It was very beneficial for me to send a survey out because it allows me to get the points of view of more people in my target audience and allows me to draw accurate conclusions on what people think about my E sting.
The first question I asked was simple and to establish whether my survey audience actually know what E stings are. I asked "have you ever seen an E4 E sting before". Here are the results I received.

This shows that most of my audience had in fact viewed and E sting before which didn't surprise me as most of the people I am in contact with view E4 on a regular basis. Most of the people in my email list are my age which fits the demographic for E4.

For my third question I asked whether this E sting was instantly recognizable as an E4 E sting. here is five of the responses I received:

These five answers vary from good to bad. one of the people who say yes say its only because of the E4 logo at the end which is a little disappointing to me as if it takes until the end of the video for people to realize that it is an E4 E sting then i haven't accomplished what I set out to do. I do wish that the person who said the last comment had put a reason but that's just a flaw in making an online survey like this one.

The next question I asked was 'What did you enjoy about the use of clay'. Because clay is a rather unique and and interesting way of animating. Clay is rather aesthetically pleasing and it is held in quite high esteem as everyone has heard of Wallace and Gromit. These are two of the answers I received: 

Both of these responses are positive. one of the most important things about stop motion animation is making it as smooth as possible. so the top comment is very important to me as I must have succeeded in making it smooth. the second comment lets me know that people appreciated the narrative of my E sting and enjoyed said narrative.

Skipping ahead now to the question about the narrative of my E sting. specifically, my question was "what did you like/dislike about the narrtive of my E sting" although the E sting is only 10 seconds long it is still very important because this is one of the main reasons the viewer will engage in. Here are some of negative viewpoints I recieved.

As you can see, the main issue was the mise en scene took the viewer out of the narrative. I regret that I didn't spend as much time as i would have liked to. if i had more time i would have used real sand and would have made the sky a lot more detailed. Although these reasons are valid, they do not directly address the narrative so these are not overly helpful. Here are some of the positives i recieved for my Esting:

The flying of my character was one of the things that my
 audiences enjoyed most

Most of the viewers seemed to enjoy the fun, upbeat quality of my E sting. Making it fun and enjoyable to watch was one of my main objectives. I then asked about the technical aspects of my Esting, asking; "do you think my animation flowed well?" here are a few of the responses.

There are a few mixed responses here however I think that the flow of the animation was one of the stronger points of my E4 E sting. This is the part of the animation that gets a little bit jumpy however.

My final question was "In general what do you think could have been improved in my E sting". I tried to have more of a general question for my last to just get a general feel of peoples reactions to my E sting. here are a few of the responses;

All of these opinions are very valid and i will be sure to take them into account when I make my next stop motion animation project. Especially the comments about detail as that is something I really need to improve on as I believe the detail really lacked in my E sting.

I think I have learnt a lot of lessons for this project. possibly the biggest lesson I have learnt is that I do not like the idea of working in animation in the future. I don't think it is for me because it is too small and fiddly. I think to be good at something like claymation you need to have a bit of artistic flair to make the characters look good. I have never been overly in to animated works in film and now I know that I would not really enjoy it when i'm behind the camera in animation as well. that is the biggest lesson i have learnt. In terms of working to a brief I found it quite nice that the rules are set out for you,I didn't think of them as rules really I just thought of them as guidelines that assisted me in coming up for my E sting idea. In terms of meeting the brief I believe that I have done rather well and would be quite happy to work with briefs in the future.