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!