WWF Project Evaluation

Creating my initial idea of producing an info graphic about sea turtles for my WWF project, I

started the pre-production process generating a few rough concepts and background

designs over the summer break. On returning to university I was approach by Laura Wade

and Hannah Hills-Evans who liked my idea and wanted to collaborate forming a group. It

was at this point that I undertook the role of director and we all began on the pre-

production process involved in this project.

Advised by Colin in his pre-production unit, we following the same production schedule as

our final major project and applied it to our WFF animation. This was in order to produce

the same level of work for both projects, creating them to a high standard. Wanting to

establish an art style and obtain some first-hand reference footage of my own, I went to the

Blue Reef aquarium in Portsmouth. Documenting my time here, I collected video footage,

photography and produced some rough sketches of the marine life. This strongly influenced

the artistic direction I wanted to take the project in, allowing me to establish an art style,

colour palettes and understanding of the movement of fish. This reference footage was

highly influential when establishing our story.

Beginning our production process, we all started with the creation of backgrounds in

Photoshop using different layers enabling us to animate these later on in the final

animation. It was crucial that we did this as creating emotion, dept and atmosphere was a

fundamental element we wanted to achieve from this piece. Around this point I was

advised to create and advert / television segment rather than an info graphic as this would

allow for more animating and an ability to really showcase the skills we had all obtained

across our three years of university. My group and I agreed with this, therefore we changed

the basis of the animation while still maintain the art style and medium of animation we

wished to complete the project in.

With the knowledge that it was going to be difficult animating the underwater scenes and

element of water, as none of my group had previously attempted this, we arranged a

meeting with Paul. It was during this meet up that he advised us to use my aquarium

reference footage and online clips in order to observe how light reflects on the ocean floor

and through water in general. He suggested that this would not only enhance our

backgrounds making them more realistic but also create a sense of depth. I eventually over

came this challenge by creating slightly transparent layers which presented light streaks

within the water, enabling our characters to move freely behind them. Not only did these

create the illusion that our protagonist was swimming amongst the reflections in the waves

but also helped in constructing a foreground, mid-ground and background, adding depth to

our animation as previously suggested by Paul.

As the key motive behind the production of this animation was to create and emotive and

informative piece about the conservation of turtles, I decided that I wanted our project to

look childlike evoking a sense of innocence and on consultation with my group, they agreed.

By having a ‘cutesy’ protagonist suffering from the effects of humanity and the endangering

of this species, our animation would seem more severe, moving people to donate to the

charity. As this piece was informative, we wanted it to appeal to children therefore, we

decided to explore with puppet animation as it created the illusion of moving paper cut outs

and a more storybook esc feel in comparison to other forms of animating.

Puppet animation proved challenging for me as I had never before produced a piece using

this technique of animation. Thankfully my group members had and they taught me the

process of how to do this. By constructing our previously designed puppet parts, moving

pivot points and parenting them together we were able to animate our shots, dividing

scenes and break up the animation tasks. I am really pleased with the way the puppet

animation turned out and feel that it really aids in conveying the artist style I originally

envisioned for this project. This form of animation although simplistic, is charming and I am

encouraged to produce further pieces like this in the future.

Working in a group has been enjoyable and rewarding throughout this project. Following

direction and producing work to deadlines, all of my team worked tireless to create a strong

and emotive piece of animation as we originally decided in our project proposal. Embracing

artistic suggestions and ideas from my team, has turned my original concept into a shared

piece which has been created into something more than I ever could have envisioned alone.

Overall, I am very pleased with the final animation and am excited to display this piece in my

final showreel.