Final Major
Project Evaluation
In this report, I am going to
evaluate everything to do with my project, from planning to do this project at
the beginning all the way to the feedback I received. I will also self-criticise
my advert in the conclusion.
For the Final Major Project, I had
the leniency of using whatever software I wanted as long as I knew how to use
it. I decided to use Adobe Flash as I have a lot of experience animating in it;
using graphic layers, masks, tweens, eases and tools. I was then pitched with
projects that I could do. One particular idea was from a member of the IT
Marketing Agency (ITMA) who wanted an Avengers style advert to portray their
message to the IT marketing world, each having a super power that would help
clients in certain ways. I decided on doing this project because I felt that I
could make an effective advertisement for the ITMA and at the same time, enjoy
making it too.
I began thinking of concept designs to come up with for my animation of the characters I felt affected the ITMA’s message the most. The characters I chose were the Super Strength power and the Power of Flight. Personally, these powers affected the message the most as one talked about using a method called multi-channel marketing, and another was split testing marketing messages.
My concept designs of the Super Strength character involved a man with a triangular shaped body with a lot of muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. I wanted to create this first superhero from my imagination and use little to no reference from other existing superheroes. For flexibility, I created another design which incorporated Mr Incredible from Pixar’s “The Incredibles” as I felt it relevant to the project. This design had the traditional mask with no pupils look. I had found that this particular design was the best personally because of how effective it looked.
Next, I made from imagination my concept designs of the Power of Flight which was a sleek female character that would fly around at incredible speeds. My first concept focused on super heroines in cartoons as they looked appealing to me. I had to make another concept again for flexibility, and so focused on comic super heroines from the DC universe.
After I pitched these ideas to my group, they gave feedback on what I need to improve before pitching to the ITMA. They commented that I had to change the proportions of the female character to make it look more appealing, and also fit in with her superpower. They also commented that the storyboard made no sense as they felt it didn’t link with the super hero theme. Taking their feedback on board, I had improved my character designs as it was very important that I had got everything for my pitch right, giving the clients comfort of me animating their advertisement.
A week later, I visited the ITMA at their office to pitch what I had been designing. When seeing the character designs and storyboard, they were absolutely happy with what I came up with and commented positively on the designs, saying this is what they need for their company.
After Christmas, I got back in touch with my clients asking for a script to help narrate the animatic that I had to produce within the strict time limit for the project. The original script outlined what kind of message they wanted to tell their clients but had too much information in for a story. After asking them if I could manipulate the script by shortening it down and keeping the most relevant messages, they agreed for me to do this as I expressed that I needed to keep the animation brief.
Once I had an animatic, I then pitched it to my group who gave me very positive feedback, noticing that I took on board their previous feedback. I needed to figure out what style I was going to do my animation in. I was advised to do a motion comic style due to keeping it within a strict time, and how relevant it would be. I knew that the style of motion comics were done mostly in Adobe After Effects by adding 2D layers in a 3D environment, but I had little to no knowledge of how to do that.
To start my animation, I copied over the elements of my animatic over to my animation which helped me to create my characters in Flash. This was so I could get the accuracy of my characters, keeping the successful elements I had made. To make the characters, I used the pen tool, circle tool, square tool, and line tool. This was because, personally, free drawing in Flash was going to be tricky and it wouldn’t feel as strong.
I had voices recorded for my animation from some of my friends who responded to a Facebook post asking for help. Originally I had four voice actors, but one did not provide the voice in time; which lead me to use my voice from my animatic for one of the minor characters.
Whilst producing the animation, I had taken in consideration of using some principles of animations, including arcs, squash and stretch, easing in/out, follow through, exaggeration, appeal, anticipation, and timing. These would help to make the animation look affective, even though it was a motion comic style.
Finally when I had finished my animation, I then exported the sequences, with voices, into .MOV files and imported them into Adobe Premiere, to which I then placed the soundtrack together and additional sound effects, finishing off the project. I had then produced a questionnaire for people to evaluate, getting positive feedback with areas I could improve on.
I began thinking of concept designs to come up with for my animation of the characters I felt affected the ITMA’s message the most. The characters I chose were the Super Strength power and the Power of Flight. Personally, these powers affected the message the most as one talked about using a method called multi-channel marketing, and another was split testing marketing messages.
My concept designs of the Super Strength character involved a man with a triangular shaped body with a lot of muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. I wanted to create this first superhero from my imagination and use little to no reference from other existing superheroes. For flexibility, I created another design which incorporated Mr Incredible from Pixar’s “The Incredibles” as I felt it relevant to the project. This design had the traditional mask with no pupils look. I had found that this particular design was the best personally because of how effective it looked.
Next, I made from imagination my concept designs of the Power of Flight which was a sleek female character that would fly around at incredible speeds. My first concept focused on super heroines in cartoons as they looked appealing to me. I had to make another concept again for flexibility, and so focused on comic super heroines from the DC universe.
After I pitched these ideas to my group, they gave feedback on what I need to improve before pitching to the ITMA. They commented that I had to change the proportions of the female character to make it look more appealing, and also fit in with her superpower. They also commented that the storyboard made no sense as they felt it didn’t link with the super hero theme. Taking their feedback on board, I had improved my character designs as it was very important that I had got everything for my pitch right, giving the clients comfort of me animating their advertisement.
A week later, I visited the ITMA at their office to pitch what I had been designing. When seeing the character designs and storyboard, they were absolutely happy with what I came up with and commented positively on the designs, saying this is what they need for their company.
After Christmas, I got back in touch with my clients asking for a script to help narrate the animatic that I had to produce within the strict time limit for the project. The original script outlined what kind of message they wanted to tell their clients but had too much information in for a story. After asking them if I could manipulate the script by shortening it down and keeping the most relevant messages, they agreed for me to do this as I expressed that I needed to keep the animation brief.
Once I had an animatic, I then pitched it to my group who gave me very positive feedback, noticing that I took on board their previous feedback. I needed to figure out what style I was going to do my animation in. I was advised to do a motion comic style due to keeping it within a strict time, and how relevant it would be. I knew that the style of motion comics were done mostly in Adobe After Effects by adding 2D layers in a 3D environment, but I had little to no knowledge of how to do that.
To start my animation, I copied over the elements of my animatic over to my animation which helped me to create my characters in Flash. This was so I could get the accuracy of my characters, keeping the successful elements I had made. To make the characters, I used the pen tool, circle tool, square tool, and line tool. This was because, personally, free drawing in Flash was going to be tricky and it wouldn’t feel as strong.
I had voices recorded for my animation from some of my friends who responded to a Facebook post asking for help. Originally I had four voice actors, but one did not provide the voice in time; which lead me to use my voice from my animatic for one of the minor characters.
Whilst producing the animation, I had taken in consideration of using some principles of animations, including arcs, squash and stretch, easing in/out, follow through, exaggeration, appeal, anticipation, and timing. These would help to make the animation look affective, even though it was a motion comic style.
Finally when I had finished my animation, I then exported the sequences, with voices, into .MOV files and imported them into Adobe Premiere, to which I then placed the soundtrack together and additional sound effects, finishing off the project. I had then produced a questionnaire for people to evaluate, getting positive feedback with areas I could improve on.
Whilst doing this project, I have
incorporated a lot of techniques from my previous flash animations and took in
consideration of what I could improve for the next time I produce an animation
again. I feel that I could have done this in After Effects, nailing the motion
comic style on the head. I had thoroughly enjoyed doing this project and feel
like it was a successful piece of work.
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