I've just recently finished my project and I am burning into my memory a few notes that I need to remember for future projects. I think I underestimated the amount of time I would need to complete the project, but worst than that I think I didn't ever have a clear vision of where I wanted to take it. I know the storyboard process was suppose to help us out with that, but I found that once I got on the computer there suspected issues or problems that made the story board useless.
My initial idea for the project was really ambitious and would be something new and challenging for myself. I really wanted to push myself not only for the assignment, but also personally as a media maker. Seeing as how my interview with Danielle was really a lot about the future and where she wanted her skills as a tutor to lead. I thought it would have been really interesting to do a animation. I love to draw and doing a three minute animation where I could draw her hopes of the future around her would have been in my mind really interesting. I although underestimated the work that doing a three minute animation would take. I ended up wasting a lot of time working on something that didn't even get finished and had a lot of other problems. I ran to problems with the software and also the way I was drawing. I ended up being really frustrated and requiring a lot more time to work out the bugs with doing a animation.
With time becoming an issue I had to come up with a new idea. An idea I had in the beginning, but was overshadowed by my desire to do an animation, was to use text.The idea was to have the entire interview show up on the screen in text. Both, in English and Chinese. I wanted to mimic episodes of "Learn to Read" that I use to watch when I was young. I remember would read and as she did the words would show up on the screen. The idea was to have the interview be a lesson in its self. So as Danielle spoke I would have the words appear on the screen with their Chinese(mandarin) counterparts.
Looking back at the video now that it is finished. I think my attempt to stylize the video hindered the education factor I wanted the video to communicate. The screen at times is too jumbled together with English and Chinese and it becomes difficult to make out with words go with one another. If I could change something I would have every word and its Chinese translation show up on the screen one after another. So that you could stop the video at any point and see the word and it's Chinese translation.
I think for future assignments I need to curtain my ambitions so that I have something that lends itself to the allocated time and communicates the message I set forth in the beginning. I haven't gone away from learning animation, but its now something I am learning and experimenting with in my own free time. So if I choose to do a animation again, I'll have some experience doing so.
