Feedback Evaluation

This blog post contains views that were expressed today when I showed my trailer of Donkey Kong, I had very mixed reviews from a small group of 5 people, there were others but there results were not recorded. The initial preview was not expected to be very good however it managed to pull through when the reviews came through and I had many good feedback but also quite a few bad reviews too and ways of improving too.

Sound

One of the comments that was said about the sound in my trailer was that it worked well to immerssevely draw the audience in and get them interested in what they were watching, this comment helps me understand how my inclusion of sound was good and fitted the theme of the trailer, however not all of the reviews were good as I had a few comments on how the sound was poorly edited in the beginning, people were saying that they noticed the “go” bit at the beginning, this was made apparent after I had uploaded the video and is a completely fair comment as I know how to improve and get why it was raised as an issue.

Motion Graphics

The motion graphics had mainly positive feedback especially when it came to the quality and timing of them, one review stated that the graphics were “clever and unique” lots of people liked the 1 UP graphics when Mario hit the barrel and when the little explosion appeared too, however one review stated that the motion graphics had “no style” but when I questioned said person about what they meant they were unable to give me a reason or any sort of improvement that could be performed on the animation to make the motion graphics include some sort of “style.” That is an example of one of the many unhelpful comments I received but one that did help was about how the graphics could have been slowed down so people could see it for longer “graphics were too fast” this comment is one that quite simply describes how I can improve on it so I am happy with altering the animation for this comment due to it informing me of the issue.

Animation

The animation part of the trailer was given plenty of good and bad feedback which is good because most of it is useful and states how I can improve it, the best comment was about how the animation was smooth and fitted perfectly with the live action aspect of the trailer, the overall thoughts on the animation were mainly positive but obviously there were a few errors and some comments indicate how these errors can be fixed such as “make the barrels move at a consistent speed throughout” I completely agree with this statement and it is a great detail that was spotted by this person, this can easily be solved and has a clear reason as to why they thought this. To fix it, all I need to do is speed up the barrels’ movement towards the end of their path on the map.

Improvements

Most of the comments were very useful in the way that they showed me exactly how I should improve my trailer, the main points were focused on how the beginning featured me saying “go” so to rectify this mistake I only need to crop the beginning part of the video and make sure there is no white noise in the background, another way I could improve the animation is by editing the speed and timing of both the barrels and the movement of Donkey Kong’s arms, I can just tweak the key frames and positioning to accomplish this, I am quite happy to apply these changes if the opportunity is given, one final improvement that I could apply is I could edit the time it takes for the actor to reach the door because he currently slides towards the door so if I made it so in his few steps he made it to the door that would make it much better and give a much more professional look and feel to it.

The overall animation was rated somewhat highly with an average score of 7/10 there was one anomaly of 5/10 but that was 1/5 reviews so the overall majority seemed to enjoy it. Many people also considered this to be industry standard, excluding the mistakes, and the unique use of live action and animation together made the whole animation work very well, the reviews said “live action + animation were a good combination” so I am very pleased with my trailer and with the reviews it received from my peers and tutors.

 

2D Animation

This is my animation for the live action and 2D animation part of the course, I put lots of time and effort into it, even though it may not seem like it. Still I hope you enjoy!

This video is slightly edited but is arguably a better version of the other video.

Motion graphics Report

Title	Donkey Kong: Gamers’ Revenge
Target Audience	Teens/Adults who know the original game.
Duration	30-40 secs.
Style E.g. Dark, Moody, Happy etc	Happy, energetic, action packed and epic!
Synopsis	It will begin with an actor playing DK on a Gameboy or some other handheld device then they will say something along the lines of “this game sucks” then they will pass through a doorway of some sort and find themselves within the world of Donkey Kong at the bottom floor in a room filled with red platforms. The actor will look up and notice DK stood at the top holding barrels and shouting down, a hammer will appear with a ‘poof’ bubble motion graphic, the actor will then shrug his shoulders and grab the hammer. Barrels will start rolling down to him as he sprints towards the first red ladder in front of him, when he smashes them a ‘pow’ or ‘blam’ bubble will appear in comic book style above the smashed barrel, the actor will look at these bubbles as they disappear and he will say something like “woah what is this?” Then a barrel will come tumbling down while he is distracted and he will be hit by it, the actor will look up and notice a heart popping with another bubble motion graphic “Try Again!” The actor will make a determined/serious face and run straight at the barrels with the hammer in his hand while shouting “harrrrr!!” Donkey Kong will laugh while the actor jumps and climbs up ladders all while “+100” bubbles pop up and a motion graphic of the word “score:…” up in the top right corner opposite the hearts. Then the actor will make it to the top and jump at Donkey Kong with the hammer above his head as if he is about to hit DK on the head, then the scene goes into slo-mo and fades to black at the last second.
Specific Production Requirements	For the production of this trailer I will need to use Adobe after effects along with Photoshop CS6 and maybe use Google Chrome or Safari for certain assets, Flash is also an option for the animation production but it is not likely going to be used. I will need physical object such as a microphone or some sort of sound recorder and a camera set with a green screen background.

This bubble is what I used to create ideas for what I could use in the trailer, I chose the red style as it fitted well with the original retro game style. This made it a more effective trailer and showcased Donkey Kong in the best way possible.

These are snapshots of my animation and live action trailer where I will be revitalising Donkey Kong. The storyboard is very simplistic but contains a graphic image of what the final trailer will roughly look like.

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Motion Graphics Report

This Coca-Cola advert has many characteristics that makes this very cleverly designed, for example the colour scheme is very bland and normal until the Coca Cola is introduced and the bear with the red scarf holding the Coke. The bottle is red to stand out to the audience and signify that this is the main point in the advert, also thanks to the basic colour scheme in the background and the simple white and grey colours on the polar bears, it makes the Coke bottle really pop out and the red can make the audience want a bottle of coke due to the link between red and passion, meaning that more people are likely to buy the product. if the advert had been made differently then it may not have had the same impact that it currently has on the audience. the red colour is the main part of the whole thing and if that had been changed then it may cause other emotions in the audience causing the product to not sell as much. The animation in this seems very smooth and e this must mean that the software the developer used is most likely industry standard software that can produce CGI to a high quality. The overall quality of the motion graphics in this advert are so good because of the way it s produced and how careful the developers were in sticking to the colour scheme that would draw in more people. This advert uses all animation and no live action, therefore it is all computer generated, this provides a good opportunity to show lots of animation techniques and makes the trailer look more crisp and clean while also appealing to the target audience.

In this example it is clear that the objective is to sell Red bull energy drinks to the general public, the way that the graphics move explains what red bull is all about by having the sparks/bubbles coming from the back of the characters. this is meant to signify that the bubbles help to keep you fueled and gong during high octane activities, for example the guy on the bike gets a particle effect on the back of his bike like it is the exhaust and red bull is fueling him when he performs the jump. The colouring at the end is simply the red bull colour along with the yellow of the drink to try and attract the audience as yellow is usually a colour associated with calmness and peace, however the red means anger and passion which is the complete opposite of the yellow, because these two colours contrast it can cause some strange emotions in the audience, also people who like high adrenaline sports causes them to want the drink to help them with their hobbies and give them the edge in competitions. The add was most likely made with a simple software as the animation at the end is very simple and basic so it may have been made in something Cinema 4D etc. This advert is created with a mix of both CGI (computer generated) and live action animation, this makes the animation look very cool and shows lots of skills that may appeal to the audience such as the ability to create an animation that fits with the actual live world around it and provides a good quality video for the audience.

In this motion graphic advert about vitamin water, it is clear that the purpose is to promote the new flavours and show what can be possible when you drink them, the drink also has bright background in suitable places to show that that flavour of drink makes you feel that emotion, also the bright yellow colours in the energy bit are supposed so signify electricity and electricity is usually associated with energy as that is what it produces. The way that the text flies onto the screen in a scrunched up paper ball makes the purpose of the video appeal to kids because scrunched up paper is more of  school accessories rather than something an adult would have. The way that the bottles come into scene also has been done specifically to show the purpose of the specific drink, for example the ‘revive’ flavour has a little animation of it climbing out of the ground like a zombie being ‘revived’  the drink then looks like it would help to wake someone up from being either very tired at the point of death or they could be dead and need reviving. This could also be a sign for gamers to buy this flavour as reviving is quite a common thing among gamers that play Call of Duty or Halo etc, this would make that section of the advert very effective as it would have a much wider target audience and therefore grow in sales, which is the purpose of this advert. The way that the phrase ‘only better’ is repeated shows that the main point in this ad is that everything here is ‘only better’ and not equal to other drinks companies, claiming that their drinks are the best is a very bold statement but can cause sales to rise rapidly, as the obvious choice when buying anything is to buy the best one so being ‘only better’ would sway people into buying the product. This video is very stylised like a cartoon or clipart, the edges of the assets are soft and don’t look too sharp, while also being able to distinguish the different colours. It is very pleasing to the eye and catches the audiences attention straight away.

This video is one of my favourite songs of all time and the motion graphics in this are quite simple yet so effective, the intro is basically stating how good their music is and how it will be your favourite music to listen to. The nice bright colour scheme also attracts the audience in and causes people to find out what it is, this is not an advert so does not really have too much purpose except for displaying cool motion graphics to match the song. The characteristics of the video include the emblem or logo of “proximity’s” channel and their music, also the cool motion at the start where the shapes are spinning and turning is a good characteristic as it slowly introduces the audience into the art style and visuals of the video. This song is called Idols by Virtual Riot and unlike the other examples does not need to attract people in it simply is there to help make the song look a lot better which it does very successfully. The video seems to have been created using adobe after effects, this means that the video was most likely in an uncompressed audio format like AAC or WAV, the most common file format is mp4/mp3, however these are lossy file types, this means that they lose data when they are rendered meaning that the original file may be missing some of the data, this can cause corruption and other issues with the file, for example the sound may skip parts of the song.

When creating theses animations you need to be certain that you have the right equipment, for example if you were to film the red bull advert in 1080i and you only had a camera that films in 480p then that is a technological issue, this stops you from being able to follow the original plan of filming in high quality. However technology issues basically means that the issue is due to something in the actual software of file used, for example maybe the wrong file format was used and the data is corrupt.