OUIL504 - End of Module Evaluation

Before beginning the Moving Pictures brief I had never animated before and had never used Adobe After Effects or DragonFrame, so being made to animate and go far out of my comfort zone was definitely a new skill that I developed. I did realise that the way I like to work doesn't fit well with animation and I find the whole process too time consuming and frustrating. I was slightly pleased with my final 3 animations even though they weren't as detailed as I wanted them to be. I originally intended to create one 60 second animation, but after re-evaluating the brief I realised I had to create separate animations, which I then decided, due to time constraints and the amount of work I had to complete, would be 3, 10 second stings. I found learning how to use After Effects a useful skill, as I may be able to make very simple animations in the future, but I wouldn't want to do an entire brief based on animation again.
I think that the Printed Pictures brief went much better for me, I said at the end of the 1st Year that I wanted to improve my screen printing skills, which I have done, and I am now in love with the process and feel confident in my ability.

At the beginning of this brief when we were made to create images using only line and shape, I found that that definitely informed the way I created and developed my Visual Journal, especially the textures and background that I carried through into my animation. I had never really been a fan of collage and simple line drawings, but being restricted to only using them, definitely helped me to develop a new way of image making, which I would like to improve on further.

I think the main strength in this brief is my finalised print work. I had never really made finished prints before so I was pleased with how I managed to create images that work well as a set. I also think I've got much better at managing and planning my time within this brief, as I haven't been as stressed and I have managed to spread the work load out so I can work on each brief a bit more equally, I have also found new ways of time management and planning that work best for me, and I now use these much more effectively rather than just making a timetable in order to fulfil criteria for a brief. Throughout this module I have been evaluating my work and my decisions much more than in previous modules, I have changed both my print work and my animation work after evaluating it and feel like I have progressed well because of this.

A big weakness of mine would definitely be animation. Because I disliked the process so much I think I neglected it and ended up not really caring about the outcome, especially with my last animation, which turned out quite jerky because of a playback error. If I had put more effort into the animation brief I think I would have been happier with the end product and would have been able to make them more detailed and would have had time to add text and sound to them. I also had to change quite a lot within the brief, like the animation process I would use and the length of my animations, I think this made it hard for me to get fully invested in my animation because it had to change so much from my initial ideas.

If I were to do this module again I would make a more solid decision on what my animation would be and how I would create it. I would have chosen a more simple theme and done stop motion animation instead of trying to create moving images in After Effects, as using the program was what I struggled with most, as I found it often would create problems that wouldn't have mattered if I had created the images by hand using stop motion. I would also spend more time making the animation into final finished pieces by adding text and sound. For the print brief I think I would have liked to have created something a bit more interesting than just prints, maybe a zine or printing onto textiles. Now that I am completely comfortable with the screen printing process itself I feel like I can take more risks and try printing onto different materials and also create prints with more than two colours.

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 2 & 3 - Project Proposals

Reviewed Project Proposals.

In the end I couldn't make the A5 Zine due to time restraints but I'm glad that I spent more time perfecting the other A3 prints, which I was very pleased with in the end. 

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 3 - Printed Pictures - Final Response

Overall I was very pleased with my prints and this brief really sparked a love for screen printing. I ended up misplacing one set of prints so I had to re print them which was a bit of a setback, and the quality and colour wasn't as high as the other original prints, but overall I think that I fulfilled the brief and created a working set of 5 prints. I think that the red and black worked best together because of how much of a contrast they created, they make the prints stand out and help the type to stand out from the image.

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 2 - Moving Pictures - Final Response

animation1 from becky firth on Vimeo.

animation2 from becky firth on Vimeo.

animation3 from becky firth on Vimeo.
Overall I am not very pleased with my final animations. I feel that my second animation worked best and I was happy with how I got some of the imagery to move and change scale but I think that although the first and third animations worked well as a sequence, they weren't very high quality and ended up a little bit jerky. I found it tricky to work with Adobe After Effects and if I were to do this brief again I would definitely choose a different production method. In the end I didn't have time to add text or sound, if I did have time I would have wanted to make these appear more like stings for TV, by researching program adverts and adding the appropriate text to make it more obviously an animation about George Orwell and 1984.

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 1 - Visual Journal

I feel that the task of creating intangible themes at the beginning of this brief directly affected the development of my work throughout the visual journal, which I then carried on into my Brief 2 Moving Pictures work. I found it difficult at first to try and communicate an intangible theme through images because my work isn't normally as abstract as it had to be. I found experimenting with different materials and ways of working to be effective and I feel that they directly influenced my later decisions, especially with the tone of voice that my animation communicated.

OUIL503 - J2O initial sketches

After my research trip I began making initial sketches, I wanted to start by just working in black and white, as I thought this would be bold and stand out when in context (a supermarket, bar etc) I liked the designs best that focused mainly on the type rather than colour and imagery.

OUIL503 - Responsive - Tall Boys Beer Market

I visited the Tall Boys Beer Market in Thorntons Arcade to get some inspiration for my Responsive brief, as I'm wanting my label design to be similar to independent beer company labels. Seeing the bottles in context definitely helped me think about layout and using actual fonts rather than hand drawn type.

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 2 & 3 - Time management

Although I don't really find making timetables very useful and prefer making lists and just following them, I decided I'd try making one for the week beginning the 5th. I did in the end find it quite helpful to do a loose plan of what I might try and do, although it was hard to stick to because of unexpected changes.

I completed a timetable for the week beginning the 12th, which will hopefully help me out a bit more as a loose guideline and help remind me what I need to do during the week.

The main way I remembered what I had to do was using the app Wunderlist, I'd write everything down on seperate lists for each brief and then tick it off and remove it when I had completed it.

OUIL504 - Studio Brief 3 - Printed Pictures Reviewed Designs

After speaking to a few people I realised that my designs didn't work as well as a set as they could have done. To fix this I changed the backgrounds so they were all the same texture and made the actual designs a lot simpler in order to draw more attention to the text itself, as this was the main purpose and function of the print.

I also ended up changing the colour in this design so that the background was also red instead of black to match the other prints.