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Evaluation

The brief I chose for my stop motion project was a Childrens TV Animation
series. The brief required an exciting educational animated production
with an inspiring lead character aimed at 3-8 years olds. They were
looking for a 30 second pilot episode with a soundtrack made specifically
for the production. The narrative structure had to be suitable for the ages
8 years and under and there must be a narrator. The main character must
appeal to both genders and the location must appeal to the specific age
range.
In my negotiated brief I changed a few elements from the original brief. I
chose to try something different about the narrative structure, I chose not
to have a narrator and to rely upon speech bubbles instead. I also felt I
needed a little more time to get my story message across, so I changed
the length of my film to 45 seconds instead of 30. Instead of having music
which was specifically made for the production I chose Christmas music as
my sound track to make sure my audience were immediately aware of the
time of year. I made these changes to ensure that the production was
appropriate to my target audience and more individual to me and I feel
that they improved on the original brief.
Generally speaking, I found the feedback I was given to be positive.
Everybody understood that I had chosen to create a Claymation film for
children and they understood the message of the film. The style of film set
I chose made it obvious that the story was set around Christmas time and
that the family were struggling financially as the dad was not working.
The feedback showed that the audience understood the family wanted to
give their son a good Christmas despite their financial difficulties. Some
of the comments that supported this were as follows the story message
slows: That family is important and sharing gifts shows the appreciation,
It tells you that they are not that rich but want their boy to be happy, It
tells you that the kid has to wait but he gets the dog eventually. It
indicated that the story line, the primary colours I used in both the making
of the characters and the bright set images combined with the uplifting
ending was appropriate and attractive to my target audience. I chose to
dress the characters in my film in such a way as to show my audience
what each person does daily. Mum, Caroline is in her hospital uniform,
their son Zack is in his school uniform and their dad is in casual clothes as
he is currently unemployed. feedback also indicated that my target
audience would easily understand the message in the story which is a
demonstration a familys love for each other in the face of adversity. The
audience liked the style of my animation, i.e. a sad story but with a happy
ending and they felt it was easily understandable to them and would be to
my target audience. The characters roles were clearly understood and
they felt that Claymation was an effective style for this story.
The feedback on my editing showed very clearly that the time and effort
that I had put in to the Claymation was thought of as being professional

and made for a smooth running film. Some of the feedback comments
that support this were It looks like the characters are actually walking , It
was edited very well, impressive. However, although the speech bubbles
got good feedback on the basis that they made it really easy to
understand what was happening in the film I had moved on too quickly to
the next shot so therefore the speech bubbles were occasionally difficult
to read. The feedback I received was really positive on my idea and how I
executed the film. They particularly liked the bright colours I used in my
sets and for the story characters and they felt a lot of effort had been put
to produce a professional film appropriate to my target audience. Some of
the comments regarding the creative idea were The idea was creative
and was very good for a childrens animation, It was creative and the
execution was great and suitable for children.
Id like to compare my film firstly to Head over heels by Timothy Reckart.
I enjoyed his style, the story started with an unhappy situation between
the two main characters who are not getting on well. They are frustrated
and sad with their situation but they overcome it by compromising and
the story ends with a happy outcome for them both. I liked this concept
and therefore used it for my animation. My story also started off with
hardship and the frustration this brings but ends in happiness for all the
characters through their love and compromise. Another animation
company I admire is Aardman Animation, who are famous for Morphe and
Wallace and Gromit. I particularly like that they focus on the main
characters and the set is left deliberately quite empty. They use vivid
colours that are attractive to the target audience and they make
Claymation look easy. Their Claymation is so professional and the realism
they create is so amazing, this made me want to try filming in this style.
Having done so I realised how challenging it is to create smooth
movements with this media. The difference between my amateur film and
this extremely professional animation is clear. Plasticine rather than clay
is much more difficult to manage, the colours run, it becomes too soft
when over handled and it is hard to get definition into the characters
face. However, I really enjoyed trying this style of animation.

When I decided to do Claymation for my stop motion project I had some


clear ideas on what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to tell a sweet story
about a caring family and how they love each other. I chose to portray a
normal family set up during Christmas time. The feedback I received
showed me that despite the difficulties I encountered using plasticine
figures the effort I put in produced a smooth running animation. I chose to
keep the props on my set to a minimum imitating the style of Morphe. I
used bright primary colours and bright lighting that I felt would be
attractive to my target audience who are children and it would hold their
interest. I deliberately made the main character in my film a child for this
reason also.

Overall I felt that I achieved what I had set out to do. I learned a lot during
this project in particular how difficult Claymation is to create a
professional effect. I spent hours trying to get this professional effect, not
succeeding and starting all over again. When I did achieve what I wanted
it was really rewarding. I liked the use of my speech bubbles but I was
disappointed with my editing as although I did slow the speech bubble
frames down it was clearly not slow enough and therefore hard for my
audience to read, I need to work on this element of editing. If I were to do
a stop motion film again I would consider Claymation as I enjoyed the
concept but I would research the best clays to use for this as I found the
plasticine really frustrating to work with and as previously mentioned I
would need to rethink how I present my dialogue.
In order to manage the movement of my characters in future films I would
trial Plastilina, this is a wax and oil base modelling material used by
sculptors for modelling pieces. I suspect when using this it would enable
me to retain the true shape of my characters and achieve a more
seamless movement. I would improve the structure of my armatures by
binding my armature with steel wire, which would give the character good
mobility and allow ease of movement. My film would be vastly improved if
used a narrator instead of photographing speech bubbles. I have learned
that a good narrator can add atmosphere to a film and deliver drama that
speech bubble just cant do.
Although I found the end result of the animation project rewarding the
shooting process was tedious and really challenging. This may be because
I was using substandard products and armatures but I found it really
frustrating that with each move of a character I seemed to spoil some of
the definition in that character because the plasticine was so soft. I cannot
imagine myself working on a feature length animation film as the whole
process is so slow and technically challenging. I would prefer to work on a
production with more pace.

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