Now I'm just Experimental

Here is Tom Dowler and My "Experimental Animation Project"

There are a lot of issues with our final production but I am nonetheless very pleased with it. I do feel as though had we gotten on with it sooner, and given ourselves more time we could have devoted more time to the animation

and it could have been much smoother and much more focused. I really enjoyed animating in the technique that we used, but I did feel a little rushed, an consequently the animation is dubious in places (for example the hand in the water is very 'rubbery').

I enjoy the overall feel that the animation has, I think that we have been almost lucky in the way that it fits to the sound clip. It really suits the erratic strings, and the urgent vicious structure of the clip. The animation feels themed overall, there are a lot of connotations of danger involved, especially with the crashing waves and the images of sharks and the drowning man. There is quite a subtle but poignant narrative that runs along to the sound clip, lent to it by the animation, but the imagery suggests to me that somebody has been drowned or lost at sea in this raging storm. I am fond of the way that the clips of the sea build up to a climax, and reflect the dangers inherent in nature, and then the switch to the animation is indicative of a story being told, despite just wanting to try out a new technique. I think that the switch to animation does work, and feels natural, the chalk and dark paper creating a grayscale, dreamlike look to the aesthetic. The animated scenes to me work effectively, although they leave a lot to be desired in terms of technical ability. I feel that the sharks and the boat scene are most effective, from a technical standpoint as well as a storytelling device. I enjoy the way that the sharks signify a climax and denote a sense of peril, which is countered by the boat and the leaving of the sharks, leading us down from the climax to a calm conclusion and a return the – now relaxed – live action ocean.

The main problem that I have with the finished production is the technical side of the chalk animations. They are, due to time constraints, a little clunky and a little under polished and are in need of more inbetweens.

Overall I am very pleased with our finished product despite its flaws, I feel as though our attempts at the techniques involved are reasonable and work successfully. Obviously with more time and organised planning I would hope to produce smoother, cleaner animation, but I think that the idea of an experiment is to try something new, and I feel as though we have produced a coherent, as well as visually pleasing experimental animation. 

The Hungry Caterpillar 2

This is my finished 11 second club entry, I would have given a development and progress update type thing now, but my memory stick with all of my line tests has broken. Typical.

Despite it's reasonably poor reception on the 11 second club ( I checked, I finished 132nd with a rating of 3.82 I think) I am still pleased with this. However I completely understand the criticisms offered to me. 

The grabbing of the camera is easily misconstrued as being a morph or some kind of growth spurt. I think that is most likely to do with the timing here, it needs to be snappier, with less inbetweens and more overlap at the end, I feel as though up until the zoom/grab it works relatively well, perhaps he is a little static and conservative with his motions. 

Perhaps the grab was over ambitious at my current ability, and I should have stayed with squash and stretch, and just finished off smoothly, without trying to add that bit of dynamic action at the end.

Overall though, I think that I've produced something that I am proud of, I like the floppiness of the character, and the timing of most of it, obviously I will take the criticisms on board for next time I am doing character animation.