Reflective Essay

I had a lot of fun with this project, and although there were many things to learn, I have been able to develop a variety of skills and am proud of what I have achieved with my final animation. I have picked up new skills and used software that I had no previous experience with. This was a great opportunity to gain a better understanding of the fundamentals of animation.

One of the areas I think I was strongest in was the background design for my shots. This was quite a surprise to me as I had struggled with the perspective exercises at the start of the course. It has never been a strong point of mine and so I’m very happy that I have been able to develop my skills in an area that I would not have expected.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the process of keyframing the most important poses. It was a difficult task as some of the shots were from tricky angles, but I was able to use my references to create detailed and recognisable scenes. Once I had all the keyframes in place, it was easier to see what needed to be added to make the final animation successful.

For the final animation, I chose to animate on a mixture of ones and twos depending on how fast I wanted the shot to be. I think this worked well, as some shots, such as the last scene, were better suited to ones as I wanted the movement to be quick, whereas others, where the action was slower, looked better on twos.

I was extremely pleased with how the final animation came out and think it told the story well. Adding in sound effects helped with this, as when I showed it to my sister without them, she was confused about why the main character was shocked. However, once I added the ‘bang’ noise, she said it was now clear that it was an accident.

For the most part, I think our team had good communication. I discovered how vitally important it is to work with your team when creating an animation to complete the project in a timely and cohesive way. Even though I was a little disappointed that few of my design ideas were chosen by the team, I think we came up with a strong character and world design in the end. I am also happy with the effort I put into the project and how my work turned out.

If I were to do the project again, I would try to incorporate more camera movements into my animation as I think it was lacking slightly in this area. If I had done this a little more, especially now that I am more confident with the software, the animation would have been even more engaging. Further, we had an ambitious storyline for our animation that we could have simplified slightly to make it less stressful to complete within the timeframe. However, I do think that it was good that we were ambitious as it gave me a better grasp of the time and work required to produce animations in the real world.