Animation Evaluation Parts 2 and 3

Part 2

Exhibition methods

I showed this to people to gain responses through a variety of means. For a start I distributed the idents across YouTube and social networking sites. I also burnt my shorts to a DVD to exhibit on the family television and for a selection of university interviews.


Other means I could have chosen are; Theater projection and television broadcast, I could have asked for the shorts to be shown on the colleges television screens, all of these would have been great means to circulate the ident. I do feel however that the Esting isn't made for the big screen which is why I wouldn't want my shorts to be shown in theaters, The ESting strikes me as something that's meant for television. The wall monitors at college would be pretty good as well but those would be better suited to showing information about the school, unless they were reconfigured to show television.

I would have liked to talk through my short in more detail when it came to screening it in class as they would have functioned as a focus group of the estings key demo and pychographics. They did make quite a few insightful comments and one member of the group enjoyed the aesthetic level of my short mostly due to them noticing the 16 / 9 aspect ratio which was different to how all the other EStings where shown.

Obtained feedback from the questionnaire

To obtain feedback about the quality of my short I designed a questionnaire that can be applied to the following subject areas that mattered. Genre and Audience ( I made sure it fitted the demographic although I don't feel it has a genre). Content and narrative ( Again there isn't really a narrative just to a means to an end of delivering the e4 logo). Aesthetic and Creative quality were very important. Technique and and technical qualities again was important to me. In my opinion style was fed back to me in the audience and aesthetic qualities questions.
 When I distributed questionnaire I let it loose on social networking sites. The first thing I noticed was that all the people who responded were the right age for E4's primary demographic.

The majority of these people watch E4 regularly, this means that people reading this and watching my short will understand what an E-Sting is and the level of quality expected from the E-Sting.

Which version is better?
Me and my media teacher had a disagreement about how the video should end and if it should end with a superimposed E4 logo. To establish whether or not we were going to use it I exported two versions one with and one without.

Here are the statistics voted by people viewing the videos and the comments. It definitely shows that version 1 is superior.

A huge majority of people also commented on how the short looked better without the superimposition logo and recognized the logo made from tape.






Is it creative? 

I think it is and generally my feedback was similar.

The bottom quote calling this idea "Very Unique" Creativity and Uniqueness go hand in hand.

When it came to technical quality and frame rate I asked if it would be a high enough quality for television. The comment saying this looked really smooth and professional is just one example of how people thought the movement on screen looked. During production I used twice the frame rate everyone else did in animating their shorts.

However one technical issue was picked up upon, people noticed that half way through I moved the tape with my fingers  to accommodate it back into the cassette. This could only be corrected if I went back and re shot the entire I-dent as it would be nearly impossible to recreate the position the cassette tape was sat in.                                                                                          



When people asked if I could make the Vinyl more visible I took that as a sign of the demographic ( My friends at college) latching on to the concept and actually wanting more. That leads me to believe that they find the images aesthetically appealing.

Oh yes and here's another example of somebody who didn't like version two.

Part 3

Did you have any Constraints?

One of my only constraints was that of needing somebody to operate the camera for me during production. This assistant however did a wonderful job of shooting the short for me while I stayed out of shot to the left of the screen to animate the short. Another constraint was that I couldn't show any sort of branding in the short, this led to me cutting brand logos out of shot and covering a vinyl recod with a 8 mm Cine Reel.

I was given constraints by E4 those were the rules of my brief.  I have looked over Ofcoms broadcasting codes and I can't find any reasons why I wouldn't be allowed to show this short.  The budget of the short was quite a constraint, however I did manage. The cassette I used in the video probably took the most work as I needed to find a charity shop to find a cassette that I could tear apart. The rest of the set dressing was provided by me.



How did I manage my time?

My time management was both organised and precise.The pre-production deadline was the 15th of November, I had finished and shot the short by the 22nd however production could have gone on until the 29th. I have until the 6th to finish my post production however I am almost done and could be by the 29th. This was a great, achievable time frame.  I was able to finish both production and post production a week before everybody else and still deliver a professional level E-sting. Pre-production ran from the 14th until the 22nd of November this I worked to on time with everyone else in my class. On the 25th we began production, I had finished production by the 29th although we had until the 6th. I had finished editing by the 6th however I still had until the 13th of December before I needed to finish.  This worked out for the best in the end as I was required to take absence from college to go for university interviews two Wednesdays on the trot. These interviews did put a great deal of stress on me but the success and organisation of the animation shoot provided me with a foothold of confidence I desperately needed over those tense weeks.

Did you meet the requirements?

I feel I met all of the requirements, I made a short that on the whole the demographic for E4 enjoyed whilst at the same time making something to a high quality and got to give it my individual quirk.
Here is the brief again so we can look at what I succeeded in.

It can't be longer than 10 seconds,

All of the footage made needed to be original material

 The soundtrack had to be made from audio stock from the E4 website (although it was allowed additional sound effects that didn't constitute as music)

It needed to end on showing the E4 logo some how.

It needed to have been made with a specific animation technique.

It couldn't have an explicit material ( Special exception might be considered if the short could be shown after the watershed).

Due to encoding and you tube times the short ends slightly over 10 seconds however this is only due to youtubes catch showing it as 11 seconds, this does break the brief but in the editing software you would be forgiven for making the same mistake.

I met the requirements of using only E4 provided soundtracks however I merged more than one to make the final product. Strictly this is breaking the rules but my interpretation at the time was that it only required one, and you were free to source multiple parts of the other tracks.

It mentions it would rather have a E4 logo incorporated into the short rather than slapped on the end. This was an element of discussion between me and a teacher but we eventually agreed that there was enough E4 branding in shot to keep to the brief.

It is in no way explicit ( unless black vinyls your thing ). All the footage is original, It contained 4 different items of E4 iconography including a purple background. The iconography of the Cassette, Vinyl Record, Cine Reel, and young persons pocket goods fit the deno and pychographics of what E4 is aimed at.

During the planning for this I looked into the brand of E4 and what appears to be the channels pychographics. 

What do you feel you have learnt?

I have gained better patience and a deeper enjoyment of working in animation. I found the practice of animation therapeutic something I could get lost in for minutes at a time the tediousness of working on it is fantastic. I've also gained a better understanding of pre production with a higher level of paperwork. However something I do need to improve is the synergy between my production work and my coursework, The thrill of the opportunity to make something often makes me misplace the attention to get on with my written work where most of my grade actually sits.

Are you thinking of working in the media industry?

Yes, The last two years have been saturated in fantastic experience. I have tried to work in as many roles and volunteer jobs in the industry as possible and every time I finish a project I have even less time before I become hungry for more work. My organisation is quite a problem but I intend to fix that with experience and practice. Whilst doing my pre-production paper work I left allot of the work to the last lesson before the deadline although there's nothing technically wrong with that in the industry it's poor practice to put all of you eggs in the basket of working on the last day to get something done in case a job comes up you really wanna do. In hindsight feel that my organisation isn't up to scratch, I'm to quick to rush a job and get it sort of done. 

Would I consider taking animation further?

A career in the media industry is what I truly desire. Although I really enjoy animation I don't mind having a broader range of interest and work than just animation. I can't really go any further than stating the fact that researching the animation filmmakers has now become a habit rather than a task. I'm even considering entering the Empire D.I.S.S (Done in 60 seconds) competition in the next few years with a Harry-Hausen tribute remake of Re-animator ( Re-Dynamator).

Refferences
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/