OUGD202 Evaluation...

I will admit straight off that I didn’t think that I would enjoy this module. I’ve never had much of an interest in animation, or learning about moving image, so I had no idea of what to expect. I have tried to keep an open mind throughout the process of designing and producing my animations, and continually thought about how I feel about digital media as a whole.

During this module I have discovered several things about myself as a designer, about digital media and where I fit in the world of digital media; I am not very good at thinking in three-dimensional space, or about thinking of things on a screen, and translating my ideas. I have found it quite difficult to come up with ideas that I think are achievable using the software available to me, but still trying to push myself to try new things. I enjoyed the Silent Movie brief, because we were able to play with the words, and had a definite structure to the animation. It was also quite easy because it was meant to be very simple, and I like keeping things simple. From the initial brief, the Top 10 animation was much harder to get my head around, and more difficult to design.

I think that my ideas for the animation were good, and fitted well with the subject matter I had chosen from my research. I know that my skills with Adobe After Effects are not very good at all, and I think that this is where my animation may have suffered. I like the final outcome enough to not want to start all over again, but I know that there are a lot of things I could have done much better, if I had the knowledge of the software.

That being said, I have developed my skills in After Effects. I am glad that I have tried out different types of animation, and learnt new skills that I would never have wanted to learn, had we not been given this brief. I am hoping that the skills I have learnt will come in useful at some point, even though I do not intend to pursue digital animation as a main interest.

Using the iWeb software has been interesting, and something that I think will come in very useful for future briefs. I have learnt to use the entire program during this brief, and I really like how simple it is to use, if frustrating at times!

If I were able to improve on this module, I think that mainly my skills in After Effects would need to be much better. This is something that I had never tried before, and I think that this is a big drawback when it comes to learning something whist producing work. I would also like to try producing an animation based of different subject matter, possibly something more fun and dynamic. I do not think that my subject matter gave me the best starting point for this brief.

One of the main frustrations of this entire module has been relying on digital information. I have been lucky that I have not lost any work in a significant way. I have, however, had several set backs with my animation and iWeb which has been so irritating and wasted a lot of my time. Using iWeb seemed very easy at first, but file sizes became a big problem. With After Effects, some of my files would not show in the animation, when they had been working fine; this meant having to repair the links and
re-animate an entire section. I know that we were warned of technology letting us down; I’ve tried to be really careful with saving my work and files etc, but I have been let down by some of the software.

I am slightly sorry to say that digital animation is not something I really want to try again in a hurry. This brief has been quite stressful when I initially thought I was really going to enjoy it. As a designer I realise the importance of digital animation and media design, I just know that it is not area that I excel in. My favourite part of this whole module has been learning iWeb. I have developed skills here that I will definitely use in the future; I may even present more of my prep and support work using iWeb based files.