This is my finished EStings:
Before I started taking the pictures for my EStings, I had to create the set and characters. My set was of a snowy setting with igloos and pools. I made miniature penguins to be placed in the background of the video as well as a snowman and an igloo. My main character for the ESting was a penguin was going to sing a song but before he gets the chance to sing the first note the E4 logo falls and squashes him.
I really enjoyed making this EStings video as it was all practical and creative work. I got to show the audience my skills with camera angles for the pictures and editing using Adobe Premier Pro. The part I enjoyed the most was creating the characters with plasticine as I was able to shape the characters I wanted to use and see them slowly build up.
When taking the pictures I had to use the camera skills I learned from previous assignments to frame the shots. I needed to take around 120 shots for the video to be the 10 seconds long that it need to be. I had to make sure the camera wasn't moved between shots as this would ruin the effect of the stop-frame animation. When editing the video I had to place all the photographs onto the timeline and change the playback speed and the brightness & contrast.
I could have shown the audience my Estings by posting it on all the social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, E-mailing a link to all my contacts, psychically showing people the video, blogging it on my Blogger page.
I showed the audience my Estings by posting it on Facebook which didn't work, showing people at home and getting oral feedback and having a focus group in class discussing the positives and improvements that can be made and making notes.
The criteria I should get feedback on is the genre that the audience think the animation is, from my questionnaires I found that 81% of the participants got the genre of my Estings correct which was comedy. I also got feedback on the design and build of the character. One of the participants said that, 'models were well made and the set design was detailed and again, well made'. Also the content of the animation which means the actual action that happens in the video, to link this to my questionnaires, 100% of the participants said that the video was suitable for E4. Someone said it was suitable because, 'it doesn't seem to contain any unacceptable footage'. The style of the animation was stop-motion animation, from my feedback I found that people thought that the animation was smooth. The techniques, the narrative of the Esting was a singing penguin but before he starts to sing he gets squashed by the E4 logo, someone said, 'the idea for the Esting was clever'. Also I had to get feedback on the technical quality such as the use of stop-frame animation and how well it was done, the participants said, 'motion of the characters was very fluid', 'the Esting was very smooth'. The feedback I got for the aesthetic quality of the video was that I used good bright colours for the characters which was noted upon in the questionnaire results. Finally I needed feedback on the creative quality such as the way the set and characters designed, someone said, 'the character design reminds me of when I used to watch Pingu'.
I received feedback for my animation Estings from YouTube comments, questionnaires and from our class focus group in which we all watched each others videos and then gave them three positive points and improvements they can make. The positive comments I received from the focus group were; the character models were well made and very detailed, the set design was well made, it was fit for purpose due to the comedy elements, good use of shot variety, and the animation was smooth. The improvements I received were; a penguin falls over at the back towards the end, the E4 logo wasn't very well made as you could see the cardboard backing and you can see out of the set at one point. I agree with the improvements that have been stated as I noticed these myself but didn't have enough time to re-shoot all these scenes.
The feedback given from YouTube was very similar. Four people commented on the good use of angles and movement, and again two people mentioned that the E4 logo wasn't very well made. Other feedback I got was that 'the music went very well with it'. I also got feedback from questionnaires by handing them out to friends and family and making them watch the video then answering the questions that I wrote. Another way that I could have received audience responses would have been written reviews from the audience but it would have taken longer to get the feedback from this and it would have also been longer to find some of the points I needed if they wrote a lot.There are many ways I could have reported my findings. I could have done an oral presentation but this would have taken to to prepare and less information would have been given, I could have done an action plan or a review but I have decided to reported my finding by writing this final evaluation for my animation Esting.
The finished video turned out a lot better than I was expecting. I was expecting the animation to be more 'jumpy' than how it was. I also thought that the music may not fit but in the end it complemented the video very well. I think the strongest part of my video was the character models as I think they were well made and designed. However I do think there is a lot that needs to be re-shot and re-edited such as the part when you can see my hand in one of the shots.The format that I have chosen to evaluate working to a brief is through a written report on this blog post. I will involve the feedback the I received to see if I have made a video suitable to the brief and use proof in the form of photos. The brief that I was given from Channel 4's E4 was to make a 10 second long Esting. Our class decided to create the Esting using stop-motion animation as it suited the animation subject we were studying in class and would make for a good ESting. After researching Estings by watching examples online it showed that most of the best ones were made using animation as it allowed more imaginative things to happen. I created questionnaires to find out if the participants thought that the ESting was suitable for E4 and therefore fitting for what the brief has asked me.
There were legal constraints that I experienced when making the ESting. My original idea had the penguin singing 'Pennies From Heaven' by Frank Sinatra but instead I had to find a copyright free song with a similar sound. I found the song in a royalty free music folder that the college had obtained. The song had a similar style to what I was hoping to use and it had no legal constraints. E4 provide free downloads on their website of music they have created to be used in the EStings but I couldn't find anything that fitted what I was looking for.I also encountered financial constraints as the budget we were given was very low. The characters I created were made from plasticine that the college provided but it had to be shared between the whole class so I was limited to what I could use and had to use the colours that were available. Also the set was made from old A4 paper boxes and sheets of A4 paper with pictures printed on them sourced from Google Images, again provided by the college.
I didn't experience any regulatory constraints as the idea I had didn't contain any elements that anyone would find inappropriate. However when choosing my idea I had to keep in mind what would have been inappropriate to make sure it would not break Ofcom (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/) laws.When making the ESting I had to make sure it was finished in time to meet the deadline. I finished the creation of the character and the set with plenty of time to spare but what took the most time was taking the pictures and then having to re-shoot some scenes. The editing stage didn't take very long as all I had to do was import the pictures, set a certain time and frame size and add a video filter to make it look more professional. In the end I had a finished video in time for the deadline, however if the deadline would have been later I would have had to time to fix and re-shoot some shots including the shots where you can see my hand.
The feedback I received for the ESting was mainly positive but a lot of people picked up on the parts of the video that needed to be re-shot such as the shots when my hand is visible and the snowman shot has poor lighting. I received feedback from a variety of sources, we had a class focus group in which we all gave each other positives and improvements that we could make. Also I got feedback from people that are not in my class with the use of questionnaires. I played the video to family and friends then they filled in the questionnaire I created.
I have never thought about animating as a career choice but I have proven to my self that I have gained a lot of skills that would make me good at it. The skills I learned I can take forward with me in a variety of media jobs such as skills with editing animation videos and shooting animation video which isn't very different from shooting real life video or pictures. Making this video has made me consider animation as a career but it's not really what I want to do but I have developed some of the skills required for the job.
