2. Use this template to help you evaluate your project.
You should give specific details about your work.
You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.
You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are
good or why you are proud of them.
You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make
better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.
Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.
Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.
3. Does your final product reflect your
original intentions?
• Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your final
product
In terms of the digital flat plans I feel like the final product reflects them to an extent as they clearly show what
is going to happen on each individual page. But may be slightly different in terms of the positioning of the
characters and text. So in the final production the text could be in a slightly different place to where it was on
the flat plans.
As for the planning I feel like the overall production kind of reflects the final production as in the start of the
planning document I stated that the graphical style would be to use shapes for the backgrounds and then to
use a rotoscope technique for the characters. This has remained the same throughout all the stages and now is
shown within the final production. I have kept with this as it feels like it will keep with the audience as there is
some simplicity within the book. This could make the book reflect more professional children’s books so books
such as The Hungry Caterpillar. But then with the rotoscope will bring a bit more definition within the book and
this I feel could make it appeal a little more to the secondary audience (parents) as it will show some more
detailed pictures.
4. How well have you constructed your
images?
• How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the
overall visual appearance and well as the use of texture and colour.
On the whole I feel like the images have been constructed well I especially like the first and last page as I feel it
reflects the good bright colours that children will like within a book. As they are normally colours that would
not be put together in order to make a realistic looking building as there aren't many buildings that are
coloured green or orange. So having this unrealistic style to the buildings especially with these two slides I
think works well with the product.
Although there are a few of the pages where I feel that the overall look could be improved especially pages 7
and 8. This is where the pizza becomes his hand as this aspect I feel still fits with the styling I feel could be
improved upon to make the overall look generally better. Maybe just by adding in a bit more of the hand to
make the actual hand look like a hand could be where I start.
In terms of looking at the piece at a professional level I would say that the graphical style does not reflect
anything that I can find in terms of professional work, although that does not mean that the images
constructed don’t have elements that relate to them. And would say that the images appear to cover a level of
professional appearance through some of the pages but just not all of them.
5. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.
The way I have gone with on text and the images is to put them together onto a page, so I would create a small
space within the images to which I could put my text into. Adding in where I could I decided to make it so that
the text would follow the movement within the page. This occurred on the last page there the text followed
the path of the carriage. This I feel worked well with the overall look of the production. This happened as well
on pages 1 and 6 as well as on page one it follows the skyline over the buildings and on page 6 it follows the
slant on the wall. Just to add in little parts of extra details and will represent speech I have used bubbles just to
get the audience to have every little detail that they can possibly have. So there are 2 pages that include a
speech/thought bubble.
I have used a similar method to what is used in The Gruffalo in the terms of creating space to fit the text into
the images. This I feel is a good place to star with in taking inspiration from books as this book in particular is
one of the best selling children's books and is known everywhere. Although this sort of technique only happens
on few of the pages within The Gruffalo I took the whole thing as a better way of getting the images and text to
merge together to make the whole page look a lot more whole and complete.
6. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
• Reference your proposal
• Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content
During the planning stages I felt that the book could be suitable for an audience especially for the 3-5 year old
target that the book was reaching out to. This is due to the simplistic storyline and design. With the characters
involved such as the fairy and the way that she effects the characters like with the pizza could create some sort
of entertainment for the audience targeted. Now however I feel that the book should be made for a slightly
older audience maybe for around a 6-8 audience. This is just due to some of the script involved within the book
is quite tricky for a audience of that age and I feel that the audience previously said would have a better
understanding of some of them rather than a 3-5 year old audience.
For a profile to the audience targeted I would keep the age the same at a 3-5 year old base and would say that
the main gender for the book would at a very mixed audience but I could just sway the audience towards
females because of the use of a more stereotypically female favoured character (the fairy). On the whole I feel
like with the characters it should appeal to this audience and with the use of the bight simplistic designs makes
it look very susceptible to children of this age.
7. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
• Reference specific tools you used with images
With the techniques I used I feel like I like the level that they have produced. With the technique of using
shapes I like the level of simplicity due to what you would expect from a children's book. However if I was to do
the same thing again just with a different audience I would not use a shape technique for the background. So
will work both ways but for this task in particular, I quite like how it fits with the rotoscope that I have done for
the characters. This I feel acts as a pedestal for the characters in order to let their detailing stand out and make
them pop from this background.
As well as the shape technique used I also used a rotoscope technique to get the best possible look for the
characters, because with rotoscope it does not matter about using great detail as you can get away with not
putting in every little detail. As for my production the characters don’t have noses. This I feel is a big change in
a persons face but because of the simplistic style it kind of works for this book, especially with it being a
children's book. The specific tools that were used within this rotoscope technique were the polygonal lasso in
order to fit the exact shape of the characters features that I wanted.
8. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
In terms of how it look now I feel like it has a few ups and down points towards it. As I feel that there are pages that I am quite
happy with and a couple of pages that I feel if I had more time I would have worked on to just giving them a different look and just
generally tweaking them.
The main pages that I liked are simply the first page, because of the level of detail within the buildings, so the windows and the
general look from the use of colours and having a colour gradient in the sky to give it a more realistic look. This I feel is some of
the same reasons as why I like the last page, the level of detail into the carriage and the way that the text follows the movement
of the carriage I feel just works well as a final page and does give it a good push with this anti-realism theme. I quite enjoy the
look of the fairy and the way that the page has been made in the second page. This I like because of the boring colours within the
page showing a just plain and simple boring office that doesn’t really have a whole lot of colour but then with the addition of the
fairy really lifts the page and put most of the attention onto the little character in the corner of the page.
I quite like the look of page 6 as it has this sort of twisted angle to the living room setting, as it just gives a fresh perspective of
seeing what happens in this particular environment. But with this slight angle on the background also has the same effect with the
text just to give it a slight unbalance and make it appear a slight off convention page. As it shows the female character angry I
though to use that as a reason to make the page feel slightly uncomfortable.
As well as this I also feel like there are elements I could improve upon are just like I feel in improving the colour scheme of the
whole as it appears a bit dull and I feel for the audience being children it could have been a lot more bright and colourful and just
make it appear just more aesthetically pleasing. In terms of the pages on a whole I feel they are ok in terms of angles but some in
the middle particularly page 7, where I feel like the page itself doesn’t really show as much as I could have hoped to have put into
it. I would probably try to involve the female character in there somewhere in order to just fill the page up a bit more and show
that there is something happening a little better and maybe show some of his skin on the hand to show the transformation a little
better than It is portrayed. And I am the same with page 8, as I feel like the page isn't really taken up as much room and there is a
lot of dead space.
9. Why did you include the content you
used?
• Images, fonts, effects, colours
In terms of the font used I went for a bold serif font. I did this as I have noticed that it appears in quite a lot of
children's books and will be a kind of convention that kids will be used to seeing and will easily be able to be
read, due to how bold the text is.
Using this font style is very popular within books but is especially present in children's books, one book in
particular that I have found that could be mentioned for using this type of text is the tiger who came to tea.
Which also uses serif and this will become very useful for children as they will start to find this font familiar and
think that it could be a professionally made book.
With the images I decided to include elements like the speech bubble and thought bubbles just to extend what
I was trying to portray. So instead of just writing that they guy was hungry I decided to use a thought bubble
and include food within it to just show the audience rather than tell. This I feel was effective and worked well
with the simple style of the production. This same kind of thing was done through the last page as instead of
just putting them on the sofa thinking about the carriage instead I just showed the whole scene of the two
characters siting on the carriage riding down the street as a sort of dream sequence.
10. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
• Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give
additional meaning to your work.
The signs and symbols I have used within the work are all used to create a meaning. In terms of colour schemes
I have used a dull look to some of the locations, like the office setting which shows just a plain simple dull office
setting which is mainly constructed of grey and black colours. This I did just to show a kind of sign towards his
life as it is just a day in day out simple repeated dull job that I decided to replicate through the colour scheme
in this particular setting.
Most of the ways that I have crated this is to replicate a normal day, so having the guy go to work as normal
and then when he leaves work and goes home he and his wife are still in their work clothes.
I have used darker colours throughout the middle section of the story so making the living room darker to show
that there could be the part where conflict appears. This shows the darker side of the book where she shouts
and then the book shows the happier parts at the beginning and with the colourful and bright. This I a quite
subtle way of showing that the whole book uses the colours to show what is to happened and show the linear
story sections of the book. For this reason is to why I used a darker red as the colour for the walls In the living
room.
11. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to
be able to interpret them.
At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a
magazine is written in.
At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that
we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.
We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to
understand when looking at others.
We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different
forms.
11Creative Media Production 2012
12. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
What is this?
This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in
snow and with a red ribbon on.
Our cultural understanding allows us to
interpret its meaning.
To us, in British society, it means
Christmas, presents and family.
This is because we share a cultural
knowledge.
12Creative Media Production 2012
13. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
There are many other signs and symbols
that we attach meaning to.
A leather jacket can imply rebellion.
A sports car can imply wealth and power.
A cross can represent religion.
13Creative Media Production 2012
14. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world
over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.
What that car means however, can be very different depending on your
cultural background.
14Creative Media Production 2012
15. What representations can be found in
your work?
• How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does your work
feature different ages, races, social groups or religions? Does a lack of any
variety of character types create its own representation?
Within my book I have tried to make it so that all races and genders. So I have made it so that all the characters
are of the same races that there is no unbalance between characters. With the genders point I have made it so
no character is of any higher ground and that they are both completely equal.
With the lack of variety within the book I feel that it fits a lot more when all the characters that relate are of
the same and doesn’t show a huge amount of variety in terms of race. This could create a particular
representation in that it just shows a general family and will show no stereotypes with the characters.
16. What style have you employed in your
products?
• Discuss influences/ existing products
• What visual style does your work have and why did you choose it?
The visual style that I have gone for is a quite simplistic look to the production in making the whole project
made out of shapes and adding in simply rotoscoped characters. I decided to chose this particular method
because I felt like the shape element although looks simplistic is like a lot of the books made for around that
age group and fits with the audience profile rather nicely.
For the inspirations I decided to use the same sort of styling for the characters as the book The Birthday Crown
and have changed the look at little to suit my book. From the book The Birthday Crown you can see that the
characters faces have very little details and mainly just show the eyes. Just upon that you have two lines for the
mouth and the nose. In seeing this I decided to completely go out of the way with a nose as I saw it as
acceptable to not include a nose.
17. What were the strengths and weaknesses
of the pre-production and planning
• How did the planning and research help
• How well did you manage your time
• Reference specific examples
I feel that the planning was strong on certain levels as throughout creating the production I knew exactly what I
wanted from each page and exactly what text is to go where. From the planning document I found the exact
method that I would use to make the whole production, so using the shapes tools and rotoscope and which of
these would go onto each of the pages (so know which background and characters would be featuring). As well
as this there was also the aspect of having a schedule, which told me as the time progressed at what stage I
should be throughout the days I spent making the production.
I also feel like there were some weak areas to the production. One for example is not having enough detail
within the flat plans, so I had to adjust and make some of the angles that you would view the event for the
pages during the production stages. This I feel was a little set back but was still manageable.
Throughout the production stages I felt as though I was ahead throughout so I thought I managed my time
well. Along with this I also had finished with a nice amount of time to spare in order to look back and just make
sure that all of the pages were complete to a good standard. This makes it seem like with the amount of
planning that was strong that the time allotted was enough to get everything done nicely and was managed
well.
18. Historical and cultural context
• How does your work compare to what has come before? What other
similar products have existed in the past? What current products exist?
In terms of the storyline it does have many comparisons to a old fairy tale which because of its age has now become exempt from
copyright. Which follows the main basis of my story but because of the age has some very different ways of putting the story
across. This also shows that the way they use words are very different to how we would have told the story now, as they use some
kind of slang terms that would have made a lot more sense within that time period that only just can be translated now. Because
of this I thought it would be a good idea to modernise this story, and make the characters in a more of a world that modern day
people will get better and to make the book catered to more of a modern audience by eliminating these words and just adding in
proper English.
However there doesn’t seem to be of any books that have come before that follow this exact structure or show any elements to
the story I have produced. Many products may include similar pretences like having the three wishes but there isn't a book that I
have found that follows the same level of the story.
19. Peer Feedback
• Summarise peer feedback and discuss
– Responses you agree with
– Responses you disagree with
