Animation Evaluation

     There are many different ways to review this animation projects such as using Prezi or presenting a form of Audio commentary however I will be producing a written report to review my project. I am doing this because it is the easiest and quickest way to summarize a lot of information in great detail. Unlike a Prezi or PowerPoint in a written report I am able to provide a lot of detail and makes sure I include everything where as if I were to present it I would have to use bullet points and short sentence and explain the rest so there is a possibility that I might miss something out making it safer, easier and quicker to review it in a written report.

            

     Before I could even begin to review my work I also need feedback from other people so I would have to exhibit my work. I done this by uploading my Esting to YouTube and looking at some of the comments for feedback however I soon discovered that more was needed. I gathered more response by making a survey on surveymonkey.com and put this on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter and also emailed it to some friends on my college email. I gathered a reasonable amount of responses from this so that I could write an evaluation however I could have gathered more response by disrupting it more widely such as putting it on forums and multiple other websites. Another way to gain the information would have been by doing focus groups or interviews, that way it would have reached a larger audience and I could have got a wider range of responses.

     My main way of obtain responses was through the Survey Monkey questionnaire. I asked mainly people of similar age to me by sending it to friends in college and sharing it with friends on Facebook and Twitter. I thought this would be the best way to collect responses as E4 target audience seems to be my age group so it made sense to me to ask my age group what they thought about it. Most of the people that saw my Esting gave very positive responses saying how it was a unique idea and generally people liked it however there were some pieces of constructive criticism but this will help me if I ever re do it. To get some of these question I had to ask very specific questions including ones to find out who my audience is so what question did I ask?

"Are you male or female?"

     Most of the audience I asked were Male however I would not say this is a bad thing as E4 seems to be just a little bit more male orientated so in fact this works out to my advantage slightly. However as long as I ask the target audience of teenage and young adults weather they're male or female then the amount of males and females asked shouldn't be a problem.

 "How old are you?"

     I managed to ask my target audience of males and females that are teenagers and young adults which is displayed in the graph so the response I gather from the rest of the survey will prove to be very useful to me and how well my Esting turned out and also what I could do to improve it.

"Did you like the Esting?"

     It seems that everybody I asked said they like the Esting which is good as that's also E4's target audience. But what exactly did they like about it?

"What did you like or dislike about it?"

     When I asked what people particularly liked about it I found that a lot of the answers said about how "fluid" or "smooth" it was.Another person said about it being professional which is good to hear because it means people can imagine this Esting being shown on E4.

"What genre and style did you think it was?"

     Most of the responses I received here said that they thought it was an animation or stop frame animation so it was clear to the audience that it was meant to be this style.

"Did you see a narrative (a story)?"

     Although most of the responses I received here said they didn't see a narrative or story someone did mention about there being themes instead such as friendship and fun. This is probably best shown in the Esting through the fact that there are many of us taking part in this project yet we're all wearing the East Norfolk purple t-shirts showing we are friends having fun in a small community.

"Are there any technical features you thought could be better? If so how?"

     Most of the responses gathered from the question were things I had picked up on myself, the main one was people saying about how it could have been in a different location for each photo or to make the background and area around it more bright and colorful as it was an E4 Esting.



     Overall the general reaction received was highly positive however there was the odd bit of constructive criticism here and then which I would agree with but from the responses gathered I wouldn't say that anyone said they disliked the Esting.

     There were some constraints that we encountered whilst developing this Esting, one of them was the fact that we could only use set music given to us by E4 so it was hard trying to find a song that matched our Esting however this was not our biggest problem. I would say the biggest problem we had was printing the photos as they were printed on photo paper so it did cost money and time, this restricted us to how often and when we were able to film however we did get around this. Despite having this problem we managed our time well making sure that we used any spare time we had effectively by filling in other bits of coursework, preparing everything we needed for the next stage of filming or even editing and working with what we already had so this ensured we always had something to do.

     I felt that we meet the requirements of the brief well, keeping to the rules and guidelines that E4 had set and still managing to produce a good Esting that people enjoyed, although there wasn't many rules and guidelines to stick to it is still important to make sure you do so and keep to the brief so that you don't face any issues further down the line. After the Esting was made we set it to obtain some feedback, although most of the feedback received was off of survey monkey we did also ask other people what the thought of it such as family, friends and tutors. Most of the feedback received was generally very positive with only a few bits of constructive criticism here and there but this is to be expected when you showcase your work and this helps you to develop better projects in the future.

     From working on this project it has proven to be a bit of a challenge when it comes to working to a brief. In some ways it can be easier but other ways it can be harder. I find it easier because I know what I have to do but then it becomes more difficult when I start to consider how to do it, this is when I begin to feel that my creativity is being limited and can sometimes find it hard getting creative ideas within that brief. It's for these reasons that I don't feel I would be suitable in working in an environment that meant I had to work towards a brief, it's not that I feel I couldn't do it but I do feel that I would be much better in a situation where my creativity would be allowed to flow much more freely. After doing this unit I feel that animation would not be a viable career option for me. Although I thoroughly enjoy animation in it's finished product and highly respect it I don't really have the patience for making it and it doesn't feel as natural to me as live action does meaning that it would probably not be a viable career choice.