Unit 8

The primary reason I chose to take Animation as my final project

came from my deep childhood love for animation and drawing. The
idea of being able to create whatever you wanted with just the
power of your mind and a pencil and some paper. Animation has
been an important aspect in my life, giving me and others the free
will to tell stories and communicate with emotions and ideas in such
a unique and easy perspective way that both children and adults can
understand and be entertained.
Furthermore as to why I thought animation was suitable for me was
because growing up with animations and amazingly created shows
such like The Simpsons or Family Guy it has made me realise that
animation can actually help people connect throughout the world in
a way they find comfortable, whether that be a way to express and
come forth with something that has been maybe a huge impact in
your life or to want to explore that open and creative mind you have
and by just put it all on a piece of paper.
When I was younger many animations inspirited myself to want to
express my imagination and to just throw it all on a piece of b lank
paper, creating wakey and upfront drawings with just my mind, I did
also take a large break from drawing at some point because I knew I
didn’t really have the resources or materials to even by far create my
own animation going into college though I knew I had the
opportunity to create my very own animation, we was giving the
question as to what path would suit us personally on are final
project, with the options being graphics, film, games or animation,
once I saw animation as option I went for it and here I am to bring
my animation as my final project.
Coming up for an idea for my animation was quite difficult at first, I
thought my imagination had just ran off on me leaving me with blank
mind, I had already spent my first few days into the final project just
deciding on what to focus my animation on which already a rough
start. Out of the blue the idea for Horror came to me, I remembered
I had a strong liking to horror, being both horror films horror games
and even just horror itself, I think by the first 2 weeks I had a strong
idea planned out for what I was going to do with my animation, it
was going to be simple and short.
My idea that I had for this short animation was like I said short and
simple, with a classic horror murder killing people and then chucking
their bodies into a nice wood chipper, it sounded pretty simple and
easy in my head but digging deeper into this final project it got more
difficult and stressful. I slowly realised that this whole animation idea
was going to take a while, we had 6 weeks to do are final project but
by the third week I still hadn’t even started on the animation itself,
those few 3 weeks I was mostly used to improve my website or
thinking of other ideas for my animation, I feel I should have started
on the animation a lot earlier so then I could have had more time to
improve on it.
Coming up to the 4th week I had most of my frames for my
animation all drawn out and ready to be put into editing, to help me
with editing I used a software called adobe premiere pro which is a
timeline-based video editing software, ill be talking about how that
software helped in in my final week of college later. For sake of my
website I thought It would be a great idea to create a short test run
video of my animation which can now be found on my website on
page ‘Planning and Production’ , this seemingly went really well with
both the animation and the editing of the animation, that test
proved to me that I can create a solid animation if I try and hard and
stay on track with my work, this was a difficult task for me as I’m
easily distracted, I shortly solved this problem with my love for music
which helps me get into zone and focus on my work.

With the final weeks coming up I knew I had to stay on track and
properly focus otherwise I knew to myself I wouldn’t have time to
finish my final project, this was also quite difficult for me knowing I
had to draw so many more frames and then transfer them onto the
computer was just override stress for me, especially with thought
always lurking over my shoulder it was quite hard but luckily for me I
quite enjoyed peacefully drawing and working away so I was as hard
and as difficult I expected it to be.

The final week was tough, I knew I had everything ready and set to
be put into one final piece but throughout looking through my work I
did notice small things I did miss out or maybe even didn’t notice. A
massive notice for me was looking through my work I actually
noticed that one computer my drawing didn’t really stick out that
much, the way I had transferred my work was through an app called
Adobe Scan where I would obviously take a picture of my drawings
and then it would work just like a printer and scan the image, pretty
sending it over to my computer, furthermore I didn’t think this was
going to be a problem until I soon found out that the image didn’t
look the same on the computer to what it did on paper, this was
nightmare and could potentially ruin my whole entire project.

But I didn’t let this drag me down, with the help of software called
‘3D Paint’ I was able to actually outline each and everyone of my
drawings, sure it took time and pressure but I just kept telling myself
“once its done, its done” I was also aware that this could also
improve my final project massively too in which it did, the out come
of the frames was amazingly improved and really caught the eye.

Before After

On the final day of the Final Project Unit I had finally created my very
own animation, I honestly didn’t think I would be able complete my
own animation in that short amount of time but here we are, I think
my final project was a complete success with the animation being
maybe not the best but average, even audio wise I think I did a
brilliant job for myself, and overall I think the my final animation
horror film turned out great. Obviously I do think that the final
project could have maybe been spiced up a little better, I’m slightly
disappointed of how short the actual animation is and how quickly it
ends but I think what I have learnt from this is if your going to create
an animation make sure you either have time or a team to help, it
takes many tasks to create an animation but for a standalone
animation I think I did pretty well.
I do also think it is ashamed that I wasn’t able to create my own
audio, I really think that would have improved my animation and
would have possibly earn me some more marks, I think how I’m
going to maybe going to overcome in my next future projects is to
spend more time drawing and not leaving work and other tasks to
last minute, but at least I was able to have the time to add in audio
from Youtube videos and soundtracks.

In conclusion I really have enjoyed working on my very own

animation and I think it was the perfect choice for me going into the
Final Project, I’m glad that I was able to complete the my animation
and to actually have something to show off and to be proud of by the
end of the course, furthermore I’m also going to work on not leaving
most of my tasks and other future work projects to last minute, I
brings a great deal of impact to your end out come so Im going to
learn to improve on that, overall I loved the Final Project and hope to
do more like this in my near future.