Evaluation of Animation

Living Together in Peace

 

 

Having watched the rest of the groups animations possibly the one that gripped me the most was Living Together in Peace by Holli Davies. This animation tied in closely to the recent event in Paris (Je Suis Charlie) and the animation effectively illustrated this. Although the animation told a clear story, as a viewer it was simplistic to watch with good use of sound effects.

A particularly well executed skill of Holli's animation is in the title. The use of hands is very difficult in stop-motion but throughout the title of the animation Holli does this professionally without any errors. Our world today witnesses many events similar to what happened in Paris and the animation tries to highlight that why on Planet Earth can't we live in peace. The animation is emotionally engaging and whilst watching it opened my mind to other world conflicts not only 'Je Suis Charlie'.

The simple stick men are used appropriately during the animation and the idea of using the French flag is great use of creativity. Its obvious that good effort has been displayed throughout and as the work has been completed solely by Holli it is far more difficult than working as part of a group. Looking technically at the animation it displays great use of music, clear lighting throughout and  creative elements from start to finish!

http://alternativelearningenvironments.blogspot.co.uk/





Animation Project

 My Stop-Motion Animation

Having completed the module we are now able to use our new creative skills in order to complete our own animations. Having used Zu3D in lectures this proved to be the easiest application to construct our animations however there was many other skills needed in order to produce an effective animation. Working alongside a fellow student (Emma Moriarty) we come up with the idea of using clay models to illustrate how the rapid advancement in technology may eventually result in the loss of jobs for many individuals. We tried to use three characters in the animation; two clay human models and one robot who's duty was to take the jobs of our other two humans.

The manufacturing of the clay models was perhaps the most difficult task for us as a group. Having looked at various clips on YouTube for advice it became a time consuming task to eventually come up with the two workers. However, as the robot was a square shape and was more a stiff figure it proved to be far easier and used a cutting tool to ensure the shape looked accurate. Alongside the creation of our models it was beneficial if we discussed what settings we will use. Using both of our ideas and communicating we decided that it would look effective to gather backgrounds from the internet rather manufacturing our own backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

The main conflict in the animation is the one of the workers losing their job as a result of technology. This conflict is unfortunately not resolved and this is supposed to reflect the way that society is going today. There may be a time whereby robots are created in order to carry out tasks in quicker times than humans which can be cost beneficial to companies. In order to try and illustrate the two different work environments it was important to gather appropriate background sound effects. Originally we intended on narrating the animation but as we progressed we seen how difficult a task this was and opted to use the background noise of an office and a factory. Both sound effects directly link to the locations the animations are set in but we did find cropping the sounds to the length of the scene very frustrating on Zu3D. Luckily adding the sounds were at the latter of the project so we were okay for time.

 

Having now completed the animation me and Emma discussed what we would have done differently or what we could improve in future projects. Personally I believe we didn't storyboard effectively which left us having difficulties when filming the animation. Storyboards can be invaluable if you are working as a group as a well structured storyboard allows each group member to have a clear idea of the goal (Serif, 2012).  

 

Overall, I am pleased with how the animation turned out as for numerous hours me and Emma laughed at our efforts claiming highlighting our lack of creativity! Although it was very time consuming it was a thoroughly enjoyable project. Below is our final animation!

 

 

 

What is BETT?

BETT

 

The Bett show is the world's leading technology event and took place in London January 2015. The event hosts the worlds most innovative technology which has inspired education for over 30 years. Highlighted in Bett are summits which include providing school leaders of ways to adapt to the ever evolving education space and also there is a summit of Higher Education specialist to share their new ideas.

 

I2i Events state, "Across five theatres, the Learn Live series will immerse visitors in teaching techniques, learning strategies and implementing technology, through seminars, workshops and demonstrations." 

Read more: http://www.bettshow.com/Content/Whats-on-at-Bett-2015#ixzz3QIjeiSmm

Exhibitors are given the chance to display their work to educators worldwide opening a platform for growth and success. Exhibitors will have many benefits as a result of advertising their ideas at Bett including; immediate feedback from peers; the work will be published on the website which attracts over 470,000 readers; open new market opportunities and also the chance to be alongside the world's leading players such as Google and Samsung.

For me, events such as Bett are needed regular as the World struggles to keep up with the constant changes in demand. Educators must be aware of the growth in technology and the impact that it can have on a child or in some cases on adult's learning experiences. Bett doesn't only work by presentations and exhibitors are given numerous ways to highlight your idea.

 

Bett are already opening offers to stands at the 2016 Exhibition and no doubt the event is continuing to attract a wide range of institutes.

ICT has played a key role in my education growing up and I have seen the rapid advancement in applications from primary school to my current position in University. An ICT rich environment allows learners to get to grips with current technology allowing room for exploration and use of own ideas. ICT can also produce a wide range of results leading to students being able to collaborate and discuss what they have found. Many students will find the use of IT a far more engaging way of learning as they are constantly involved in the learning experience. If the children are giving the choice to create their own learning and options to explore they will enjoy their education. Inevitably, the use of technology may lead to increased decision making for learners and can enhance learning opportunities as a result of learning by doing.

Who knows what technology we will be using to learn in 10 years time!!!  

 

 



GLOBAL NEWS!

Radio Show

 



 

As a result of looking at the importance of sound we have constructed a podcast in a lesson trying to use different sound effects on Audacity. In groups we have tried to incorporate recent current issues along with humour to produce an interesting radio show. Above is our radio show that we produced. 

The production was enjoyable but no doubt we encountered difficulties. The Audacity application has many features which enables differences in pitch, tone or even volume which can be very fun if you have time on your hands. Having looked at the importance of sound effects, creating our radio show demanded various different tones of voices in order to try and display different emotions.

The task involved using a number of different creative abilities whilst not detracting ourselves away from the importance of sound. Without visible scenes sound play an even more important role in portraying the message you are getting across and although this radio show is only a 2 minute clip, from the opening title you can identify that there is an element of importance and I feel that the various emotions in our voices throughout show elements that we are trying to get important news across.

Camera-Less Animation

Camera-Less Animation 

Having looked at various ways to learn from animations it was now time for me to produce my own camera-less animation. There are many different ways of doing this but we chose to look at the Thaumatrope and the Magic Lantern.

Thaumatrope

The Museum of the History of Science highlight that a Thaumatrope is a Victorian toy with a simple picture on each side attached to a piece of string. The idea of a Thaumatrope is that once that image is flipped to the other side quickly the object appears to move.

However, I myself did not find it as simple as just drawing two images on either side of a piece of paper HAHA! Actually after a few attempts of drawing just a simple smiley face I realised that I was making errors on the opposite side. I found that after flipping the string the face was upside down on the other side. In order to make a decent Thaumatrope measurements must be accurate as if the picture opposite appears in a different place it can look unrealistic to the viewers.

 

As you can see from the above images the Thaumatrope was not my most successful animation piece of work!


The Magic Lantern

Using artistic skills again, as a group we then created a Magic Lantern which is another historical device which uses camera-less animation. The Magic Lantern will present images you slide and will be projected on to a screen. As a task we were given the opportunity to create our own Magic Lantern and improvised with our own materials. We tried to create the image of the changes of weather but it was important the original images did not differ too much and that the frames remained the same size throughout the slide.

 

The most crucial element of the Magic Lantern was ensuring that no light got into the box in order to project the work on to the wall. As you can see from the two images we used a lamp to try and present the images but the classroom needed to be dark in order to clearly see what our animation was trying to achieve,

 

Stop-Motion Animation

 

Stop-Motion Animation

 

Stop-motion animation is an animation technique which involves making a physical object appear to be moving. The objects may often move in frames allowing the animation to look like an illusion to the viewers. We see stop-motion animations everyday whether it may be in adverts, TV programmes and there are even films which use this type of animation (Dragonframe). Stop-motion animation comes in various formats which include puppets, clay animation, cut-outs, models and silhouettes. The basic process of stop-motion is taking an image and moving the characters ever so slightly before capturing another photo. (Dragonframe)

 

Lego Animations

 

The Lego animations differ from the films in that the films use computerised animations compared to Lego Harry Potter which does use stop-motion animation. Alfie Olivier highlights that although the Lego Movie used computerised animation, he is happy for viewers to believe that the film uses stop-motion from the outset as its what he set out to do as the Animation Supervisor.

 

The Advantages of Stop-Motion

 

• It can tell stories through character, conflict and resolve, and visual interest satisfying the audience's psychological identification needs.
• There is something very fundamental about the physical reality of actual models, puppets, lighting and imperfection that we can identify and understand as humans.
• Animations allow you to teach an audience anything you would like it to.

The Disadvantages of Stop-Motion

Often if stop-motion animation has very little disadvantages as long as it is completed effectively. However if frames differ too much from the previous it may lead to the animations becoming less realistic. Another vital component of stop-motion animation is the quality of the images. If the quality of lighting varies throughout the frames it can lead to inaccurate animations.

Successes of Stop-Motion

1) Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Aardman and DreamWorks teamed up to make this stop-motion film in 2005.

2) Chicken Run. Another Aardman production which proved to be a success in 1994.

3) Fantastic Mr Fox. Made in 2009 and includes the voices of stars such as George Clooney and Meryl Streep. This stop-motion production had an estimated budget of $40,000,000.


A Short Stop-Motion Clip
                                                               



What is Animation?

Animation

 

Film Education indicate that animation is a process whereby we witness still pictures appear to move. Animation has existed for centuries in many different ways but as technology has updated animations have inevitably improved in quality. Film Education also insist that the reason we are perceived to see the mages is moving is down to the 'Persistence of Vision' theory. Our brain will hold on to the image for a fraction of a second and when another image is presented so quickly we cannot cope with the fast moving images.

Without even realising we come across animations every single day; may of the adverts we see; films we watch and many TV programmes all include animations of some sort. Animators will make changes in size, shape or angles in order to create the effect that they are moving and the speed of each frame can have a big impact on how the viewers judge the animation.

Possibly one of the UK's most successful animation is Wallace and Gromit. The film is a stop-motion and many Wallace & Gromit films have been created over the years with a large amount of success for Aardman Animations. Aardman have completed films such as Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep and The Pirates which are all well known in the UK.

Animation in Schools

Children at all ages are now encouraged to use the creative instincts and animation is a great way of doing this. Rather than using the traditional books and whiteboard there are now many pieces of software which enables children to use technology to broaden their learning experiences. Zu3D is a stop-motion software for children and adults which can be used to create short animated films at school or at home. Having sampled Zu3D myself the application requires patience and can be difficult for children at a young age to grasp.