Evaluation

1. Evaluation
Leah Ellis

2. Production Process Evaluation

3. Research
Strengths
I feel that the strengths of my research were that I was able to survey
at least a very small selection of my audience, seems as it is for young
children, I was trying to get some of my possible audience to get their
opinions on this project to affect the overall product. I feel that this
helped as it allowed me to see what a cross section of them think.
Although this was a very small selection and mostly from the same
area as they all went to the same out of school group and were mostly
males. This was helpful for producing my product as it lead to a much
clearer idea of how they like superheroes and such.
I also feel that a strength was that I had looked at various different
shows so that I would have a wide view of the genre and so I would
have the clearest possible view of what is popular around the
children's animations area of television, which is what I was hoping
to create through this project. This was showing me an insight into
what the children that would be viewing this would be currently
watching and how it would fit into their screen time.

4. Weaknesses
I feel like I could have researched more trailers for the shows
that I researched, as I only looked at 1 trailer, thinking I would be
doing an episode before the end product was decided upon. This
could have made my planning for the trailer just slightly easier as
I would have had a better idea of how other trailers are
portrayed.
I also feel that my research focused on animations without
dialogue too much, as I was initially planning for this, although
my idea was still growing for what I was wanting to produce and
so I ended up not producing an animation like this as they often
have very over dramatic actions and much bigger movements so
that the audience can understand what is happening even with
the little dialogue to explain it.

5. Improvements
I feel that there are a few improvements I could have made to my
research.
One of these being that I should have looked at more than 1 trailer from
the shows that I was was looking at to be able to have a clearer idea of
what an average trailer is and how they are usually presented that makes
the children want to watch them. This could have made it so that I would
have been aware of a few more conventions for this genre as I feel that I
may have been a little unprepared just thinking about what I have seen in
the past.
I would have also liked to have looked at a few more animations that are
related to the product I finally ended up creating. This would have been
more superhero and anthropomorphic animals as I have ended up
creating this and yet my research does not represent that, meaning I went
into planning slightly blind as they are all completely different topics, and
every genre has slightly different conventions. An example of a show that
I probably should have researched is Paw Patrol as I know for a fact that it
is a very popular show for both males and females and is all about a
group of dogs that save their town from a lot of different problems of
varying types. This could have given me a lot clearer idea of what they
use, and what is making it such a popular show.

6. Planning
Strengths
I feel that the strengths of my planning was that I made sure to include a wide
variety initially so that I had a lot of different things included in my ideal
overall idea of what it was that I wanted to produce. For me, this was
children’s animation, so you can see that throughout I have always kept that
at the centre of what I was thinking. This helped to give me an idea of how
wild my final product could be, if I wanted it to, seems as I would have such a
wide variety of options.
I also feel that I went into enough detail with the storyboard
to try to make that best it could be for the time and storyline
that I wanted in my trailer, and did this by not just doing one,
but two slightly different story lines so that I can make sure
that I am definitely happy with it and how it will go so that I
can follow it clearly enough when it comes to creating it. This
helped to ensure that my trailer was to be what I wanted and
that it was clear for me as to what it was I would be creating
from this plan.

7. Weaknesses
I feel like I could have planned out my sounds more as I
seem to have planned the imagery in quite a lot of high
detail, yet I had some problems when it came to trying to
produce the music and sound effects as I forgot to plan
them out before hand.
I also did not plan out my style sheet quite as much as I feel
that I should have. Looking back at it, I feel that there
maybe should have been a little more to them, more
reference/inspirational images to put in them and then
been able to explain more clearly why I thought that they
were important to my work.

8. Improvements
I feel that there are a few improvements I could have made to my
planning.
One of these is planning out my sound effects. This is because I
realised once I had finished my animating that I had no idea of how to
do the sound effects or what I needed, which could have been easily
avoided if I had just thought a little more about this area. This would
have improved the final product as it would have had sounds that
actually fit in with the theme of the product much more instead of
having ones that just fit as well as I thought I could settle for from
online sources instead of original, well composed specifically for this
one project.
Another improvement I would have made was practicing my music
production. This was found to have not been touched upon at all,
which I only realised much too late with only around a week of
production time left to actually create the music and final sound
effects. This could have dramatically improved my product as I feel the
music does not fully fit in with the visuals that I have produced
although with my lack of knowledge in GarageBand and with general
composing of music, it was near impossible for me to actually create a
comprehensive piece of music that would fit the scenes it was needed
for in such a short amount of time.

9. Time Management
I feel that I was managing my time somewhat well, as I managed to finish
everything on time. I do however think that this could have been done slightly
better if I had planned out a little more, and stuck to that instead of just deciding
to start one part to just work through until it is complete, then move onto the
next area that needs to be worked on. This just about worked in this instance but I
feel that if I tried to do it again that it may not have worked as it was pure
coincidence that it did this time.
It may have been a lot better of a completed animation if I did have a
considerable amount more time as I would have been able to animate some extra
scenes that I was advised not to include unless I had extra time that I did not end
up getting. This may have allowed the viewers to understand a few more of the
scenes that seemed to be commonly misunderstood. Although I don’t think it is
essential to have these scenes, that could be due to me writing the story and so
knowing it all unlike a first time viewer that I am wanting to be intrigued by this
trailer.
If I did have the extra time I would have likely also been able to look into music
production more to try to have all self- composed and created music to stop me
from finding royalty free tracks online and setting even if I am unsure that I think
it works very well. I feel this may have helped to make it all flow more smoothly
than how it does currently.

10. Technical Qualities
SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npry-
mm1ytw&t=0s&index=3&list=LLh_aLdVc5ESia0t6hUCJEzA
A similarity is that I have
included a reaction shot
to the narrator through a
completely unrelated
scene in the show that
expresses excitement of a
character to something
you do not find out.
I also have similarities to
this other trailer as I have
included
anthropomorphic
characters instead of
humans as they are more
able to move in other
ways than humans and
can have a lot more
creative freedoms.
I have not done the same
camera angles as I tried
to keep it to more
longshots instead of
medium due to my skill
level and confidence in
animation.

11. SOURCE:
https://simpsonswiki.com/wiki/List_of_title_screen_gagshttps://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPG0MqIcby8
There are similarities
between the title cards
as they both have the
sliding cloud background.
This is something that
can be hard to achieve as
you need the entire
image to exist already
and then animate it to be
a smooth movement
across the screen while
not having the
background clash with
the colours in front of it.
A difference is that
the trailer for The
Simpsons is much
different to their title
sequence, this could
be because their
movie was
presented to be
done in a slightly
different format to
their series.
Although, this was
after it was well
developed so it is
understandable.

12. All of my animations were hand drawn on
a graphics tablet, which was an aesthetic
and ability choice. This was due to the
fact that I had noticed from past
experience that it is extremely hard for
me to create good looking drawings with
a mouse. This lead to all my drawings
being on paper and scanned in to trace
over. I feel that this worked extremely
well as it allowed me to have a base line
for how I wanted my characters to appear
to be. This also made it so that I could
make the best possible designs
throughout as I could have at least the 2
different layers of character editing,
through the pencil and then the tablet,
using this chance to change up small
details which I did at certain points as I
felt it looked wrong once it was on the
computer for those details to be included.

13. This shows how I had penciled out a design on paper and scanned it
in. I then had to go over it on a new layer in Photoshop to be able to
use it as a line art for my animation. I had to do this in stages when
there was multiple times that I needed to use a certain base with
slight changes, like with the fox, I had to duplicate the line art and
change it slightly to create each stage of the mouth opening. I then
had to invert all the colours so I could use a layer mask to colour the
lines and create a layer underneath to colour the shape in general.
I had to look up tutorials for this process so that I could learn, and
test it out a few times as I found that it became much easier to
remember this complex yet simple method through repetition. I did
have to keep referring back to the tutorial through time as I realised
that I kept forgetting certain simple steps in the process. A lot of the
animating was done with tweens between frames as I found it
extremely difficult to smoothly animate 2 or 3 different aspects
across a screen at the same time. Although a few were done by
creating 3 or 4 different slightly different shots to change between in
a fast time, to make it appear to be smooth animating – for example
for the rabbit to stand up to hop. SOURCE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XiwNBagMsA

14. Aesthetic Qualities
I used a lot of bright colours and simple
shapes to make my animation stand out
and appeal to the young audience and
so they can tell the characters apart and
be able to recognize them from a
distance or out of context.
I included this scene that has the
show of friendship and community
which is a good message to send to
young children about the importance
of these things to encourage them to
be kind and helpful.

15. I designed this logo to include the
name of the show in a slightly fun
font that I thought the children
viewing it may like it to some extent.
I also wanted to include the ears to
signify that it is rabbits that are used
throughout as the characters – but
more importantly that the character
‘Super Bun’ is a rabbit. I also
decided for it to be in a square
shape so that it would look better to
be in the corner of merchandise and
such.
I decided this launch date as it would
be in the summer holidays so children
would have more time to watch TV. I
also chose to do it in the hand written
font to fit in with the rest of the
writing throughout the trailer. I also
feel that it makes it slightly less
confusing than some more complex
fonts that could have been used.

16. I created a meteor to come in and give my main
character – Super Bun – her superhero powers. I
decided to make the meteor brown as a form of
rock colour, but with some lines of red/maroon
through for some little added details. This design
was causing a little controversy throughout the
people who viewed it as some considered it
looking more like a meatball, although that was
the very small minority so that is a negligible
result. I also added the red flames around the
front that match to the flame trail in it’s wake that
is a gradient from red to white to show that it is
quite a hot flame as it gets lighter.
With the lines, some have compared it to
the Charlie and Lola style. This is because a
few of their patterns are just a detailed
design that they have animated on top of
to have that as almost a mask for that layer,
making the pattern be for that
object/setting even if it moves.

17. I made this setting for one of my scenes which is meant to be viewed as a tree trunk, that
was hollowed out to be a home, complete with a bookshelf. Although the bookshelf could
have a few more details to make it more obvious, I feel that this is not needed as it is only a
simple extra that was designed to just add to the homely appearance of the tree.
The tree trunk is something that I was working on
for quite a while. I was wanting it to be slightly more
detailed than a lot of the other aspects throughout
the trailer as I was thinking that it takes up quite a
lot of space, and it may be slightly hard to tell what it
is otherwise.
To do this, I was analysing real trees and trying to
figure out how the tree knots and lines appeared on
the bark, and how that looked when altered slightly
to a more cartoonish appearance.

18. Audience Appeal
I would think that this scene would appeal to my
audience as it is clear from my research that superheroes
and animals are the most liked main characters in
animations and this shows both combined, making it feel
to be liked at least somewhat by both demographics. As
Paw Patrol is a similar show, using animals that are
somewhat superheroes, it shows that the audience would
be existing for this show already. Although, Paw Patrol has
quite a masculine audience seems as it is dogs – which
are more associated with males – and most of the
characters are male, making it more relatable for young
males. This show however, has rabbits, which are more
associated with females. It also has the main character
being purple, which is often seen as a female colour,
possibly making the main character appear to be a female
– hence more acceptable for females to watch it.

19. This scene also links, as it shows the
superhero and animal combined again but
also adds a small amount of violence in a fight
scene, which is a very commonly liked thing
to have in almost any type of program. This is
something that will appeal to many in my
audience as it is such a commonly loved
aspect to media.
This scene helps with the violence as it is an
explosion, which is often associated with fun
and excitement, as well as with what children
of either gender appear to love due to how
gender neutral they are becoming, after
being associated with masculinity for so long.
This is an exciting scene that is just bright and
colourful to make it so that the viewers
understand what is happening during this
scene and can follow the story line
throughout.

20. I feel that this scene will appeal to my
audience as it uses bright, simple colours
and very simple designs that still allow
you to be able to understand what it is
supposed to be. Also including small
details, like the bookshelf and the tree
details, I feel add to you knowing what is
in this scene
I feel that the release date shown, and
how it is presented will appeal to my
audience as it is in the summer holidays,
so they will be home all day instead of
missing it by being at school. Also
because it is over an image of clouds,
something that I took inspiration from
The Simpsons with, so it may
subconsciously entice them to associate
it with that worldwide well known and
loved show.

21. Comparison
I was evaluating a few other shows when I was
researching for my product. One of these was My Little
Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP). My product ended up
being quite different to this, but with some similarities.
One similarity that we share is that all the characters
included are a different colour. This helps the audience
to be able to tell the difference between characters
with similar/the same general design. MLP uses the
body and mane colour along with a different mane
style, accessories and their “cutie marks” on their
flanks to tell the difference but I decided on
just the colours.

22. A difference is that they have also got it that it is
harder to tell the difference between the main
character and the others, this is because they are 6
“ordinary” ponies that have formed together,
whereas I have chosen for one character to get
special powers, and therefore a cape. They have got
something slightly similar in later series as they
changed one of the main characters into a different
breed – from a unicorn to an alicorn (wings and a
horn) – which only the royals in their land have as
she has matured.
I also appear to have taken inspiration for the
colour scheme of my main character from
them as, looking at them side by side like this
shows me. This is because the purple colour
often represents royalty, importance and
magic. Also the deep blue type colour helps
highlight this status with its roots in meanings
along with trust, loyalty and wisdom.

23. Another similarity between them is that although
the main animal type in MLP is the pony/horse,
they also include many other types of animals too,
including dragons, hippogriffs, draconequus (“head
of a pony and a body of all sorts of other things”),
and many more (A selection of which are shown
below). Within my show this is also true as,
although there are mainly rabbits/”buns” there are
also a fox and snake present in the trailer at various
points.
A difference is how many main characters that I have included in
my show. I have decided to only make one main character. This
was partly due to my abilities and how long it would take to add
another character into this story due to how it would take to
make it with enough details that I would feel I had put enough
into the character, but also the time to create that character
would be more that I would like to have to do. It also requires
creating a full personality and story for that extra character, I feel
it is more worth not having them in this creation. Whereas MLP
has 6 main characters that have been expertly animated and
created with completely different personalities and backstories.

24. Peer
Feedback

25. Feedback 1
• What did you like about the product?
I could instantly see that this was intended for a young
audience which was really good. I really like the use of
vibrant colours and sound effects, but that it stuck to the
conventions of kids animation by remaining simple.
• What improvements could have been made to the
product?
 I think maybe adding more depth into certain aspects, for
instance, I wasn’t sure what the asteroid thing was at first
– which could be confusing to the audience. I like the
simplicity of the font but it could be more exciting and eye
catching.

26. Feedback 2
• What did you like about the product?
 The animation was very smooth and didn’t feel as if it was
lagging or at all.
 The variety of scenes made it entertaining for the eye and kept
me watching rather than just one animated scene
 The art was good enough for me to understand what everything
was.
• What improvements could have been made to the
product?
 Some of the sound effects didn’t feel as if it fitted and was hard
for me to understand what it was for.
 The action sequence was fairly hard to understand as I thought
the snake was the antagonist. So maybe compose the characters
and scenes a little better.

27. Feedback 3
• What did you like about the product?
 The colours used in the trailer are very bright and make the animation
stand out.
 The text used in the trailer is clean and easy to read and matches the
rest of the animation.
 The plot of the animation is easy to understand and get behind.
 The music is really appropriate with the animation and fun.
• What improvements could have been made to the product?
 Because of the large amount of colours used the main character can
often get lost, however as they are a different size to any other rabbit
this does not matter as much.
 The scene with the meteor and the exclamation mark I feel goes on for
too long (third scene in) and needs to be cut down shorter if possible.
 The audio is a little unclear when combined with the music and can
not always be understood.

28. Peer Feedback Summary
What do you agree with from your peer
feedback?
– I agree with the use of bright colours and simple design in
my animation making it clearer for the young audience as I
intended for it to be made brightly and simple enough for
anyone to understand what is happening.
– I also agree with how a few different feedbacks show that
my meteor scene was not ideal as it was quite long and
could have been explained slightly more as to the people
who may not know the story, possibly will not be able to
understand what is happening or why. Although this was
designed to be part of the mystery that makes you want to
watch the programme after they view this trailer.

29. What do you disagree with from your peer
feedback?
⎻ I disagree with that the scenes need more depth
as it is designed to only be a trailer with very
short, unexplained clips of what would be in the
series. This is to give the audience a short little
introduction which will get them more interested
instead of being told exactly what it all is.

30. Peer Feedback Summary
 The changes I would make to my animation would be making the
meteor scene just slightly shorter, as a couple of the reviews were
making the point of it not always being too coherent or a good
length. I agree with certain points about the length and slightly with
their points on understanding, so I feel like this would be something
to change.
 I would also like to edit the music, as mentioned a few times in the
feedback, it may be relevant and suit the animation somewhat,
there are some areas where it does not quite seem to fit as well as I
would wish.
 Similarly, the sound effects were a point that was brought up which
I feel may need change as I feel that a couple of the sounds were
not quite what I was hoping them to be but I had to settle for them
as I was running out of time and it felt slightly too empty without
certain sounds being present.