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?
I think my final product reflects what I planned in my planning and did in my storyboards and flat plans. I wanted to make
my flat plans and storyboard easy to copy onto powerpoint as I didn’t want to change a lot of my work. When I did
my digital flat plans, I wanted a good idea of what I wanted before putting pen to paper. I did rough sketches for the
flat plans as I find I’m not that good at drawing so only did simple sketches of what I wanted with the main characters
and a simple setting so I could add more detail later rather than taking more time to add detail to the drawings as
well as the final products. The position of the text I had early on and wanted to keep that position as I thought have
the text on just one page and an image on another would give me a limit on how much of the story I could tell and
the images I could use. As you can see from the images below, my final product is different to my flat plans in the
sense it has more detail, but the layout of the images are similar, just with the full page not being used. I didn’t use
the full page as I thought that was overused and wanted to create something different to what had already been
done so many times. I decided to create a circle area to put my main images in and fade out the edges of the circle so
it looked like it was being faded in from the background. I think this looks better as it doesn’t look like others and
would gain the attention of a child more easily.
Digital Flat Plan
Final
Product
Page 6
4. The image at the bottom (1) is part of my storyboard. As I did for the flat plans, I made the images simple and easy to
follow so I could easily draw them and put them into photoshop so I could see where it needed detail. Doing this
saved me time instead of doing detail in the storyboard and flat plans which would have taken me a while to do and
would have given me less time add more to my actual work. As you can see, I didn’t change the flat plans much from
the storyboard as I was happy with how it looked and how I was going to recreate this onto my final product.
However, as you can see I have changed the middle page so you could see Rapunzel closer and see her going down
the tower instead of it being a long shot where you can hardly see Rapunzel (2). This also creates a more diverse
range of pages instead of having the pages set in a certain way all the way through, which becomes more interesting
to the young readers of my book.
(1)
(2)
5. How well have you constructed your images?
With the time I had I think I did a really good job of constructing my images and making them into what they
are. Although most of the pages have dark colours, they didn’t to begin with. At first I had the sky for every
page blue with white clouds. But I realised this made the story more peaceful and happy which is not what
I wanted to put across to the young children in my audience. So I changed the sky to a dark blue to get a
darker fell of it, so when I used light blue sky on the last page, the children would feel happier that
Rapunzel is in a brighter place.
To make the images, I decided to use shapes as I thought I was given more free range on what I could do and
the final product would look more like my own work and now someone else’s I just rotoscoped over. I liked
rotoscoping but for this project I felt like it would limit me in some ways and I may not get the smooth
edges I wanted with rotoscoping.
The image on the right (5) is an image I made using shapes that photoshop allowed me to use. I got an
image of an animal of my choice (4) and used the shapes, after I warped the shapes, to create the animals
main body and add small features like his eyes and nose to make him look more real. I think this image
turned out well as the shapes I used, and how I warped them around the animal, was realistic and easy to
do. I found using the shapes to create this image easy and warping them really helped me get a good
outline of the animal.
Before
After
(5)
(4)
6. I didn’t just want to practice shapes, I wanted to practice Rotoscoping too so if I needed it I could use it. I picked the
before image (6) to rotoscope using the polygonal lasso in photoshop. I used the lasso to create the main shapes of his
face. I then layer copied that shape and coloured it in a similar colour to his skin. Once I did that for most of the image, I
decided to put more detail into it by using the colour range to choose a certain colour of the image and layer via copy
that. This gives the face more detail and gives him a more depth of field (7). In my opinion, I liked using rotoscoping, but
I found it can be challenging to make the image your own seen as you’re just copying the colours and shapes of the
person, so it would be hard to make it not look like the original image. I had this problem with an image I did with
rotoscoping (8 and 9), but because it looked too like the original image, I had to do another one and make sure that I
was careful when doing it so I didn’t do the same thing again.
Before
After
After
Before(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
7. How well have you used text to anchor your images
For my text, I looked up the original story for Rapunzel and picked out bits that I needed and were suitable for
my target audience. I then changed parts to fit my story and made sure the story moved along smoothly
and that I could make simple drawings out of them to help show the story as well as explain it.
Once I had the story and I spell checked it, I chose where to position my text and whether I should have it on a
page of it’s own or on the same page as the image. I decided to put the image on the same page as the
image so I could spread out the story and not have to shorten it because of the limit of pages we had. I
then went onto dafont.com and chose the font I wanted (11), and installed it so I could use it. I picked this
font as I thought it was bold and would be easy for the children to read. It is only not too complex so the
children would be confused on what the text says. I then put in the text after I did the page with images
and characters. Once I saw the text on the page, I resized it to fit the page and closed the gap between the
letters to make them look closer but not too close so they couldn’t be read. Once again, I read through to
check any spelling or grammer mistakes I had and make sure the text was in the tense all the way through.
(11)
(10)
8. Is your product suitable for your audience?
In my proposal, I made it clear that my target audience were children aged 5-11. I picked this age range
because when they are young they can have it read to them by their parents and when they get older they
can read it themselves without the help of their parents. I also chose this age range because it’s at a stage
where these ages can begin to read so it’s an easy read for them to start with and not too complicated for
them to read. The gender for my audience would be female as the story is about a princess and females
are stereotypically suppose to like princesses and because there is a happy ending, that will point more to
girls than boys. This story doesn’t have a prince in it and only has one other male but he is only in for one
page (12), so boys will not be interested as other versions have involved a prince saving the princess, but
because my story does not include that part, boys will not be interested in the book as she is saving
herself. The location for my audience will be English speaking countries such as the UK and the USA,
mainly because my speaking language so the book will be in the English language too, because of this I
need to aim at English speaking audiences so they can read it with no trouble.
For Social Grade, I think my book would be aimed at the working class so even If they don’t have a big job, they
can still buy my book as it won’t be very expensive to buy and will be available in easy to access stores.
(12)
9. What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?
When creating my pages, I used a number of tools. The first tool that I used for most, if not all, of my
work was the shapes (13). I really liked using these shapes because on photoshop you can use the
ones they give you or you can use the option to use different shapes that are shaped like trees or
birds etc (14). These were really useful when I wanted a tree or clouds in the background to help
the scenery come to life (15). The normal shapes were also very helpful as I could warp them to
make shapes that would help create simple part of the scenery such as the tower and the purple
parts near the top of the tower in some pages. I also used the shapes to create my characters. I
didn’t want to use the polygonal lasso tool as I didn't want my characters to look like someone
else’s work off the internet, so I used the shapes to have free roam and make the characters look
more like I’ve created them. Plus, I think it was easier than having to stress about getting the shapes
right when using the polygonal lasso.
(13)
(14)
(15) (16)
10. (17)
One tool I both liked and didn’t like using, was the Polygonal lasso tool (17). I used it to
create a picture to go with background of the page. It really helped as I had to get
specific parts and using the Polygonal Lasso Tool was easier than using shape tool. Even
thought I used the shape tool to make the picture frame as I was quicker to use that. I
mostly used the Polygonal Lasso tool but I also didn’t like it because it would sometimes
come out looking too much like the picture or I had parts missing so I had to fill in those
parts with shapes. I didn’t want the picture to look like the original so I used different
colours and shaped the woman a bit differently. I also used another tool, colour range
(19), to get even more specific with the parts I needed. I really liked using this tool as it
helped get darker or lighter colours which would give the image a better look and a more
depth of field. It also helped an Illustration look more believable so the kids can easily
picture the scene in their heads.
(18)
(19)
11. What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?
There are many parts of my work that I really liked but there are also some parts that I didn’t like
how they turned out. The first page I am quite proud of, is my last page (20). I think it came
out really well because I had a lot of time to work on just this one page. I had made a
schedule to follow but I found myself ahead of schedule may times, when it came to doing
the last page, I had additional time to do it giving me chance to put in a lot of detail and make
it look as realistic as possible. But it wasn’t just the last page came out as I wanted it too, all
the pages I did came out looking great and I am really proud of them (21, 22, 24). I am also
proud of page 11 (22) because I had to create a horse that looked like it was running away
(23), which took a while as I used the polygonal lasso to go round the horse’s body and also
used colour range to add some shading to him, so considering the time I had to make it I am
happy with how it came out looking at.
(21) (22)
(23)
(24)
12. With the good parts came bad parts. Although I was satisfied with how my characters looked, I didn’t
like how simple they looked (25, 26). I should have made them from different angles instead on on the
side and from the front. I think if I did this, it would make the characters more interesting and it the
story would look better. I also thought I could have added more to their clothes and faces to make
them seem more realistic. I also don’t like how some parts of the image come out of the circle (27). I
think it looks out of place and more like it’s been left like that because I didn’t have time to finish it
off, rather than a professional page.
(25) (26)
(27)
13. Why did you include the content you used?
When it came to picking fonts I knew I need bold and simple fonts that would be easy to read for
my younger audience. So I went on dafont.com and looked through different fonts. But my
final choice was a font called steelfish (28). I liked this font because I thought it was simple
and would be easy to read for my younger audience. I needed to bring the letter’s closer as I
thought the original space between the letters was too big, so I made it smaller so it looked
better.
I included he images I did because not only did I need to tell the story in words, but also in
pictures. Before I made the images I made sure I knew my story and based the images on
what each page was describing. I needed to chose images that would describe what you
were reading, but there were some pages that had more than one thing happening (29), so I
had to choose the more important parts to do the images of so it will look more interesting
to the younger readers.
(28) (29)
14. For my pages I had to choose the right colours as I was using the some of the same colours over 11 pages. I
chose to use a dark blue for the sky on all but one page as those 11 pages were the tower parts of the story
(30), so I wanted to create a sad and dark atmosphere that would show that it isn’t nice to be where she is. This
wasn’t my idea at the start though. I made all the skies on every page light blue, but I thought they looked to
happy for that part of the story so I changed it to give a darker feel to the pages. The grey clouds also add to the
sadness and make it seem even more bad to be there. But on the last page (31), I made the sky light blue and
had white clouds to make it seem Rapunzel is in a happier and nicer place. As well as the sky, had white clouds
throughout the book but I again thought it looked too happy for what the story was explain to I changed them
to grey to go with the dark blue sky.
I didn’t really use many effects as I didn’t think I needed a lot. I did use shapes to create a magical looking spell
that took over the top of the tower (32). I used and warped shapes to make it look like the magic was all the
way round, and added shapes to make it look more magical as children may need stereotypical things to make
them know what it actually is. The dark blue sky (30) creates a sadder effect than the last page (31) and gives
you a darker feel to that part of the story.
(30)
(31) (32)
15. What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?
As I said in the last slide I changed the colours of the sky to create a different atmosphere and feel to the page.
On the first 11 pages I did a dark blue sky (33). I did this to create a darker and sadder feel to the pages as
these are the parts she she is stuck in the tower and has succeeded escaping. I changed the dark blue to a
light blue on the last page to give off a more happier feel to the scene and makes you feel glad that
Rapunzel is away from the dark side and has come home to the happier side.
For my evil witch character (34), I made her in black clothing so you could se she was dark and evil and the
character you want to hate. I also have her green lips and black wart on her face as they are the what
other evil characters are associated with as green is seen an the colour for evil and a wart is usually what a
witch has. I used The Witch from The Wizard Of Oz and the evil step-mother from Cinderella to help make
my witch look more obviously evil.
Even though The King is only in the book for one page, I wanted to make it obvious that he was the king, so
when I made him I added a crown on his head as kings and queens are known for their crowns as they
symbolise how important they are and why they are important. In children’s stories, a king and queen
have crowns to help the young readers indentify them, so I thought I needed to add a crown onto my king
so it helped my young audience recognise who he is.
(33) (34)
(35)
16. For my Rapunzel character (36) I picked her to wear pink as pink is a stereotypical colour for a
princess so it would help my young audience identify her. The pink also tells you that she is the
good person in the story and she is a very innocent person. Again, this helps my audience
identify who she is in the story and if they should like her or not.
I did my page in the style I did to make it easier for children to look at the images and identify
what is in them (37). I didn’t want a full page of an image as I think it would be too much for the
young audience and they won’t be able to pick out certain parts of the image as there is a lot
going on, so I simplified the page to make it easier for them
(36)
(37)
17. What representations can be found in your work?
For my book, my main characters are both women (38) which oddly see in a fairytale book as there always
seems to be a prince there to save the princess. But I didn’t want that in mine, I wanted to show young
children, especially the girls, that you don’t need a man for everything, you can be strong just like
Rapunzel and overcome an obstacle to get make your life better again. The only man in the book is the
king but he is only in it for the first page as I wanted to show that Rapunzel was fine before she went with
The Witch.
The age of my main characters range from around 17 to about 50. This is can represent real life and how the
older person can think they can control the younger person, but the younger person can stand up to the
older person and leave the situation if they don’t like it. This can show the children that if they don’t like
how they are being treated, they can stand up to the person they are being ill treated by and leave the
situation for a better one.
I have no specific religion for my book as didn’t want to represent a religion wrong which could end up with
complaints from parents that could end up with my book being taken off the shelves.
(38)
18. What style have you employed in your products?
When it came to choosing the style of my pages, I researched existing books to see how they had set out their
pages. One of the books I researched was The Tiger Who Came To Tea (39). I liked the layout of some of
the pages as there was the Illustration with the writing on the same page. I liked how the Illustrations
were put on the pages as they didn’t have a very specific or detailed background that took up all the page
(40). It was just a white background that made the illustrations look like they were fading into the page. I
really like this style as most children’s books have their Illustration take up all the page. I didn’t do this as I
wanted to create something different and make my pages more interesting then just a full page of an
Illustration. Plus, it would take less time to do as I don’t need as much detail as someone else would need
if they were doing a full page. I faded out the edged of the Illustration (40) because I wanted something
different and interesting that would help the children keep their focus on what is in the circle. It also helps
keep the main focus on what’s in the circle and doesn’t turn your attention to something that doesn’t
need your attention.
(39)
(41)(40)
19. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and
planning
Taking time to plan this project really help generate ideas on the story and how I was going to show it in a book. Looking
up existing characters that fit what I wanted my characters to be really helped with my designing of them and how I
was going to represent their sort of character in my book. I didn’t need to research many existing Rapunzel’s
because she is a very easy character to do and you can’t change her much as she’s the main character. The Evil
Witch however, I could do what I wanted with her, so I researched evil witches of existing stories and evil step-
mothers. I took my main inspiration from the evil-stepmother from Cinderella and the witch from The Wizard Of Oz
(42, 43). I liked how they both looked and how they were represented in their stories. I wanted to combine them
together so the witch would look like a normal human but obviously has some aspects of evil on her; like the green
lips and the wart. The image of the With from The Wizard Of Oz is one from the TV show Once Upon A Time. I liked
the look of her because it gave her a more modern look but she still has the aspects of the older film witch that
helped you identify her. This research really helped me get a good idea of what I wanted my witch to look like and
how she would come across to the children in my audience. I wanted her to look like a normal human but have
aspects that showed she was evil (44).
I thought doing flat plans really helped me visualise what I wanted on my pages and how I was setting out my pages;
where my characters are standing and whether the Illustration will be a log shot or a close up of what the text is
explaining. I is also helped me with what page was what part of the story and how the Illustration was going to
show the text in a picture.
(42)
(43)
(44) (45)
20. Another thing that helped me was looking at different versions of the tower and where it
is situated so I could get an idea of what I could make it look like and where it could be
placed. I researched the tower and found a few photo’s that inspired me (51). This image
helped me with how tall it should be and what it should be made of. I knew it had to be
tall which helped me with the dimensions of the characters on the floor compared to the
tower. I also knew it had to be made of bricks as it would make more sense and it would
be a strong tower.
I looked out how the tower had been adapted in film adaptions of the story and they
were all similar. The tower was tall and in the middle of nowhere (47), hidden from the
outside world so Rapunzel couldn’t easily escape and find people to help her.
(46)
(47)
21. But a weakness of the planning beforehand was the time I spend planning and looking at different
versions of my characters over the years. Even though I was on a schedule, I thought I spent too much
time planning leaving me with less time to how I could develop the representation of my characters in
my book. I think I did my characters really simple and didn’t try and develop them enough. I think if I
had more time I could have developed my characters more and maybe done more on the Illustrations
which could have helped them look more real and let the children imagine a bit more.
I think my schedule (45) was also a bit of a weakness in a way but also a strength too. On the
weakness side, I sometimes found myself ahead of schedule and when I looked back at my schedule, I
needed to slow myself down so I could get back on schedule, this resulted in me changing some things
of previous pages that I didn’t need to change but because I couldn't move on to another page, I was
stuck adding small pieces for a session. But the schedule could also be a strength as it helped me with
what I had to do and how much time I had to do it.
(48)
22. 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?
The story I have done, Rapunzel has had many different versions and has been recreated with the original story being
changed to fit the audience each story is for. The original story was created in 1812 by the Grimm Brothers (47). I
looked at this story as it was the original story , but for my audience, this story was too cruel and gruesome so I
changed it to fit my audience. The original story includes Rapunzel being banished to a dessert and the prince
jumped from the tower window, gaining injuries from this. I didn’t think this was suitable for my audience so I cut
out some of the inappropriate parts and made it simpler for my audience.
The next well known version is a version that was produced by Mainframe Entertainment; Barbie as Rapunzel (48).
Barbie as Rapunzel is based of the Grimm Brother’s fairytale but tailored and changed for it’s audience. In this
version, like in my book, Rapunzel is trapped by a spell but later traps the evil step-mother by using magic to trick
her into the tower. Rapunzel is now free and reunites with her parents and marries the prince. I took the idea of
the spell from this adaption but changed it so Rapunzel didn’t have magic to trap the evil witch/step-mother. This
movie was released on DVD only with no cinema release. The movie was also made into a PC game (49) where you
had to help Rapunzel make the castle colourful again after the evil step-mother cast another spell on the castle.
(49)
(50) (51)
23. The most recent film adaption known so far is the Disney film Tangled (50). The story is loosely based on the Grimm Brother’s
tale as they’ve changed a few things to adapt to their audience. Instead of the main male character being a prince, Flynn Rider
was actually a thief, who is wanted by Rapunzel’s real parents. Mother Gothel, the evil step-mother/mother, is different too as
she is quite nice to Rapunzel after she finds that Rapunzel’s hair has healing powers from a flower Gothel found before
Rapunzel’s birth. The flower was used to help Rapunzel’s mother in sickness and was transferred to Rapunzel, making her hair
magic. Mother Gothel kidnaps baby Rapunzel and makes her believe she is her mother, even though her real parents are still
looking for her, 18 years later. The story is also different in that Rapunzel doesn’t fall for Flynn straight away, they go through an
adventure to see some beautiful lanterns that Rapunzel’s parents let go every year on Rapunzel’s birthday. But when Gothel
finds them, she tied Rapunzel up and stabs Flynn. Rapunzel wants to save Flynn with her hair, but Flynn cuts off her hair, cutting
all the magic away from her hair so that she could be free. But it turns out, Rapunzel’s tears can also heal as as a tear drops on
Flynn and heals his wound. The two share a kiss and Gothel falls out the tower after she turns back old. Rapunzel then goes back
to her parents and marries Flynn, or Eugene which is his real name.
So the original story of Rapunzel has been changed multiple times for the audience as the target audience has always been
children, and occasionally teenagers.
Rapunzel has also been shown in Once Upon A Time (51), which is the most recent adaption of her so far in anything. Once
Upon A Time is a fantasy TV show about fairytale characters stuck in the real world. The show tells the story of Rapunzel but
with added other fairytale characters not in the book, such as Prince Charming from Snow White.
The tower is one of the well known parts of the story so in every adaption is has been set there, in a place which is away from
the outside world.
(52)
(53)
24. Peer Feedback
• Summarise peer feedback and discuss
– Responses you agree with
– Responses you disagree with
