Evaluation & Reflection

Week 1 & 2:

During this two weeks we were introduced to the new project, covered context and most of the research. Also I finished my production schedule towards the end of the second week, whci helped me when I moved on to the next steps.

Week 3:

This week's goals:

Finish the research on the intros and fill in all the practical skills page with all the drawings.
Put up the storyboards on the website.
Plan what I will use to create the animation.

It is very important to know what I'm doing before I start, otherwise I will just be waisting time think where to start from. I've achieved most of the goals for the week, thought I should have already started production. I decided that I will do some work at home to catch up with where I want to be.

Week 4:

Monday and Tuesday:

I wanted to start with production as soon as I finished with the storyboard, I moved straight to production because I had a lot to do and I want to make sure that I will be able to do that. I wrote very little about what I've done regarding production, because I didn't know how to do screenshots on my computer. I still need to write about what I did as lots of things happened.

Wednesday:

I pretty much continued production. In the morning I tried to open the animate file but it wouldn't because it didn't upload until the end the previous day so I had to call home and have it uploaded again.

Thursday and Friday:

I continued to the production, as that is my main priority for now. Since I find it very hard to do the first scene I have focused completely on doing that, which means I had very little time to focus on the website. I plan to do that later on when I feel more comfortable with where I got with the animation.

Week 5:

Wednesday:

I finally moved on to the next scene 6 seconds in the entire animation. I still had written very little on the website, though I did describe what I did on the planning and production page.

I think so far my pages look decent, except that I need to add research on 3 artists from one of our drawing lessons. One of them specifies in line drawings, which is pretty much what I am doing with the animation.

In addition I need to add some of the drawings in my sketchbook to the practical skills page.

Thursday:

I plan to continue with the animation, and update the planning and production page. I still haven't finished the research on the artists or put any of the drawings I did in the drawing class. However I did update the planning and Production page, by adding screenshots and explaining what I've done.

Friday:

On Friday the main think what I did was work on production. As it takes I long time to work on it I want to focus on it as much as I can. Since the day is much shorter than the other two, I don't plan to much more than to work on the animation.

Week 6:

My goals for this week are:

Continue production
Do research on the 3 artists
Upload my drawings to the practical skills page

Wednesday:

I want to spend the first lesson on the website, so I can make sure the website looks right. I want to make sure that website has all that I have missed. For example, I think that I miss a lot on my evaluation and reflection page, but now I can't really add what I missed as I don't remember properly.

The second lesson I plan to work on production and hopefully by the end of the day I will start with the third scene.

I need to update the planning and production schedule.

Thursday:

Today my goals are to finish my flip book, to start the third scene of the animation.

After I started the third scene during the last lesson, I took some screenshots and uploaded them to the website. I added some notes to them to explain what I did and what tools I used to make the animation.

Friday:

I continued with the third scene. It seems much more easier because there are not many little details.

Week:7

Wednesday:

Since it's half-term I will be doing work at home. I downloaded animation file from one drive, and once I opened it I saw that 3 frames were missing. I remember saving the animation and uploading it to one drive, so I don't understand why the frames are missing. This is probably the third time that something like this has happened during this project so I really need to find a way to avoid loosing my work. So all I can do now is to just continue with what I have.

I plan to add research on Studio Ghibli, and on the 12 principles of animation, in order to support my work.

Thursday and Friday:

I continued with the animation. I did very little on the website, but during the week I made a list of what I need to add. I wanted to do as much as possible on the animation before focusing on the website, which is opposite of what I did for my final project last year. I wanted to try and see if this method was better than the one used last year. At the end it resulted almost the same though, I think there was a different reason as to why I progressed not as much as I wanted with the animation.

I think that I managed to accomplish all I planned for this week.

Week 8

Monday and Tuesday:

I had aimed to finish the 3rd scene by the end of Tuesday, in which I succeeded. I had a little trouble with saving, which resulted in me having to redo everything that I have done for the day, but regardless I managed to finish it by the end of the day which I am

extremely happy with.

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday: I choose to spend the rest of the week on looking at the website and filling in all that I have not added, and also adding to the planning and production. I found that I needed to add many things that I actually looked at but didn't mention on the website for some reason.

Week 9

Monday & Tuesday:

Finished the animation by Tuesday evening. The only thing I had left was to add a scene with the name of the film that will be around a second long, and the render it, which I decided to on wednesday at colloge as i didn't have to software to reder the animation at home.

Wednesday:

I rendered the animation and put it on Planning and production and on Presentation page. I also added missing bits and pieces to the Research page, Practical skills page and Planning and production, as wellas Problem solving.

Thursday & Friday: FINAL EVALUATION!!!

Final Evaluation

To begin with I was very determined to get a complete animation for this project. I was left a little unsatisfied with what I got at the end of the final project last year so I decided that I will focus on the practical side more, which I was able to do more successfully this year as I actually had a computer and all the softwares I need unlike last year. To actually get the animation done by the deadline I had to cut few scenes from what I originally planned to animate, however I decided that is much more important to get out the scenes that I was most confident doing, as that way I know that I will end up with a finished piece. I believe that achieved this one goal, as I got a finished piece, that I am happy with.

I am very happy with the animation that I made, as it is a great improvement from my animation last year. I like how smooth most of the scenes are, though they are quite short and pass very fast. I would definitely work on making the scenes longer if I had more time, I think I could've done better if I was more srtict with my personal deadlines, or rather my planning wasnot very specific and detailed, and I was not setting weekly targets that would've helped me move forward more significantly. This is why I am setting this to be my goal for my next project, as I belive this will help me be more organised with my work, and not leave most things for the last days.

In regards why I chose to recreate part of the trailer of Howl's moving castle, it is because it is my favourite anime film. I love the art style of the Ghibli studio movies, and especially this one, and I find the story very captivating. The animated film is based of a book with the same title written by Diana Wynne Jones and has two sequels, that I mentioned in my research on the film. Also I loved the trailer of the film and it made me make my final decision to work on this film, as in the early stages of the project I still couldn't decide what film to choose.

Looking at my pages I am not very happy with my Context page and Research page. I did very little writen work, as I'm still trying to balance the practical and the writen work, and I'm not particurarly successful with that. To begin with the context page has the minimum amount of information that I could put on there. I kept thinking that I'll go back and fill the page in with all that it needed, but I never did. As for my research page, I think that I didn't analyse in depth and just brushed off most of the tasks that I have given myself, by just putting down some surface level analysis, in order to make more time for the practical work. This too is the result of me not setting specific targets and follow them. Because of this I end up doing the majority of the work towards the end of the project. I think I should have added research on minimalistic/modernist drawing variations or/and animations. I could have added research on the 12 principles of animation, in order to understand better what I was doing and to help me support my work.

I think there were some more things that I could've added to the Problem solving page, however if I don't write them down the day the problem happened, I forget them, and because of that I risk to repeat them again, which can be a big issue in the future as it may affect my work badly. I think that I should keep sticky notes around, whenever I work so if an issue rises I can record it on the paper, and then add it to the website whenever I get the chance.

I think that my Planning & Production page is much better than what I had in previous projects, as this time I have added lots of screenshots of the process and also described what I did and what I used to achieve that outcome. I think that helped me keep track of what I needed to do next. I think that I could improve this page adding the scenes from the original animation and putting them next to my versions, and compare them. I think that would have helped me to see what I could improve in my animation.

My practical skills page consists of most of the practical work I did during this project, excluding the work on the animation. I don't know why I didn't put screenshots of the animation on the page, however I must do that for the next project as that is practical work as well. I put all the sketches that I did during the drawing classes and also added comments on them explaining what I did. I think that just a simple description was not enough, and to improve my analysis on the practical work that is presented on that page I could mention what shading techniques or materials I used on the sketches, for example. I did mention rather I liked doing the task that was given to me, and if I found it helpful. I think there is a lot more to improve on this particular page, however I feel that I am on the right track of making the page work for me, and support me in my work.

As for my Evaluation and reflection page, I have always struggled with this page, because my thoughts could never set for one task that I wanted done. I also find it more like a chore that a tool that helps me see what needs to be done next. Instead of evaluating I describe what I have done for that day and then brush it off, and move on. Because this page fails to do what it is supposed to do, the rest of the pages fail too. This is the page where I have to organise everything, evaluate what I've done before in order to decide what works and what doesn't. Because I often neglect this page my other pages and the whole project suffer, and I end up trying to fix everything towards the end of the project. To improve on this page the first thing to do when I open the website is to go to this page and set my tasks for the day. For example I could dedicate the first lesson on the website, and then the second on the production. I believe this will help me be more organised.