Evaluation

For the context of practice 1 module our main task was to produce a 3000 word essay and an animated response which linked to the essay theme. I found the module challenging and found it difficult to get my head around ideas like triangulation and the correct way to Harvard reference. I eventually understood these elements and they are very simple really I just didn’t understand them at first.

For my essay I chose the question “What is the role of handmade/traditional animation in the digital age?” I chose this question because I find it interesting how the animation industry has changed over the past and how it may change in the future. Also I am quite open to both traditional animation and digital animation so my essay is based a lot on how traditional and digital animation can work together but also I have identified the strengths of both and the weaknesses of both.

When planning my essay I struggled with finding a good structure for the essay as I haven’t written an academic essay to this extent before and I didn’t really know how to write about the subject I chose. However in my progress review I realised that I just needed to expand on some key points and analyse an animation.  I didn’t stick to my essay plan as much as I should have done so my essay isn’t very well structured. I think the reason for this is that I expanded on the key points too much and used up too much of my essay on the key points and only a small portion of my essay is spent analysing the animation.

I enjoyed the lectures and thought they were very interesting and I have learnt a lot of new ideas and different ways of thinking from them. I thought the semiotics lectures were very interesting and also the colour theory lectures, I learnt lots of new information about the science of colours and how the brain perceives colours and how colours can seem to be different when put next to certain other colours.

For my animated response I thought it would be a good idea to combine computer generated animation and hand drawn animation.  For the first scene I animated a life drawing class to illustrate the idea that drawing practice has deep roots and those roots run through all other artistic practices. For the second scene I animated a sculptor with a chisel and hammer and a computer generated foot/leg. I wanted this to show that whatever medium is used to create the artwork, the same knowledge of the fundamental ideas of form, light and shadow are needed to succeed in producing a skilful piece of representational artwork.

In conclusion I enjoyed this module despite the work being quite challenging. This has definitely been my weakest module mainly because I struggle with academic writing, and find it hard to understand certain techniques but academic writing is definitely an important skill to have and hopefully I will improve in the future by focusing on it.