Ben Snellgrove

Evaluation
We were set different briefs about an animation which we had to complete ourselves. This would
consist of around 750-1250 photos to complete the process and involved us creating characters and
different settings for us to tell a story. The brief which I chose was a TV Ident which promotes its on
channel. The channel in which I was promoting was Vibe Productions and I had five options to
choose from and I could only select three. These options were the choices I had to promote and
animate. My five options were Radio Drama, Documentary, Music Video, TV Advert and a Chat
Show. I chose to do a documentary, chat show and music video as these were the three that I
thought I had the best ideas for. My chat show included two characters coming on stage and taking
their seats and was almost the opening of how a chat show would look. Next was the music video
and I had the same two characters dancing to a song. This proved to be the most difficult one to film
as I could only move the whole character instead of arms and legs which my characters didnt have.
Finally was my documentary scene which was in and around flowers and wildlife. Making the set for
this proved the most difficult task for this particular scene.
Work similar to mine would be shows that used plasticine models for their characters. Wallace &
Gromit is the first piece of work that I will be comparing too. My work was around twenty-six
seconds long and consisted of twenty five photos per second, or twenty five frames per second. This
is one of the major differences between the two animations. They use a lot more photos per second,
and this therefore makes the whole animation smoother and easier to watch. Youll see through
mine that it becomes jumpy and almost disjointed. However, when watching an episode of Wallace
and Gromitt, their scenes are smoother and they flow, almost like a real TV show. Another
comparison is how the characters look. The characters in this programme are professionally made,
they are smoothed out to make
them look as realistic as possible.
Whereas my characters didnt
take long to make, they werent
rushed, but they could have been
better. My characters were made
out of pipe cleaners and
armatures, whilst Wallace and
Gromitt were mad of plasticine.
This allows a lot more natural
movement that looks realistic. I
found plasticine too difficult to
mould around my armature, so

of

therefore I opted against using it. The music that was used in my animation was a vary
different music, but not particularly genres. I used pop/ top 40 music in all three of my
different scenes. They suited what was being shown on scene, with calmer music
being played in the chat show, and more upbeat music being played when the music
video was being shown. The next comparison will be to Aardmans Chicken Run.
This is a very similar piece of work to Wallace and Gromit. They use plasticine to
create their characters initially, and are then computerised to make them
smoother and have a more professional look. One of the main significant
changes from Chicken Run to my animation is the change of sets. Wallace

and Gromit have a main setting, which is their home. However with Chicken run, there are loads of
changes in characters movements and their location. The characters once again look like theyve
been made professionally, and you can see the difference in quality between mine and theirs. The
creative qualities of their work compared to mine is nowhere near the same standard. They have
professionals come in and arrange their sets, character movements and design the characters.
Whereas I was creating an animation for the first time. I didnt know what materials were good, bad
or suitable to use. With the materials I eventually ended up with, they worked well for what I
wanted. They were mobile, easy to move and strong which allowed them not to have any wear and
tear through a long process. The narrative of mine was very different as well. They do animations
that are episodes or films, and the reason I compared my work to theirs is because of the materials
they use, not the narrative/ content of their storylines. The aesthetic qualities is how it looks on the
eye. What do the audience think of it? Does it look professional and does it look appropriate for
whats being animated. And I believe it passed most of these tests. The way my characters were
made, what they looked like and how they were addressed I believe all looked appropriate and
suitable.

Within my animation I tried to make my work look as professional and realistic as possible. I wanted
to create the feeling of a real stop motion animation, and therefore I needed to complete tasks to
make it look how it did. I started by making my sets and what topics I wanted to cover. Out of the
five options available to me, I
chose TV chat show, music video
and documentaries. I felt these
three would give a good overview
of what Vibe Productions cover
and produce. The three sets I
chose all had to link in to what I
was producing. The chat show set
had a background of a black and
white setting, with a stand out old
red telephone box. This looked
good and professional, and linked
to popular chat shows. The sofas
and table were made out of
stable and reliable materials, which also looked good on the eye. My inspiration for this was popular
TV chat shows such as; Jonathan Ross Show, Alan Carr Chatty Man and Rob Brydons chat show.
These were all good examples to follow, and the final outcome of this scene was pleasing for me.
The reaction I got was good, and everyone knew what was happening. For the next set, which was
the music video scene, I used glittered fabric and a disco ball to make a different lighting effect. This
was one of the hardest parts to film as the lighting was poor, and therefore it took the camera
longer than usual to focus and capture the picture. I used the same characters as I did in the first
section as they play the main part. From my feedback, the people who answered all agreed that the
settings were fine and that they suited what was being shown on screen. I asked them what their
first thoughts were when they saw my animation, and the feedback was very positive. Gathering the
information together, they knew what was happening, they werent lost in the situation and wasnt
confused by what was being shown on screen. I had one possible improvement that someone left
me, and that was to do with my subtitles. They thought the font didnt quite suit what was
happening and could have potentially looked more professional and suited. Apart from that, people
were impressed by what I had conducted.
My third scene was the documentary. For
this I chose to use the setting of plants and
wildlife. My inspiration for this was

programmes like David Attenborough and similar wildlife shows. To make my setting, I used a canvas
photo of plants which I already had, and then made 20-25 flowers using pipe-cleaners. This was a
time consuming process, and maybe there was an alternative as to how to complete this task and
have a more efficient use and longer lasting product. However this wasnt the case, and the final
outcome was ok. I could have been better if id of had the resources to do so and would have made
more flowers to make it more compact. This wasnt too hard to film, the lighting was good, and once
everything was in place it all went rather smoothly. However, having placed the flowers on a
plasticine bed, trying to move the characters in and around them proved a difficult task. The flowers
kept falling over and therefore losing their spot. This could have potentially made the animation
jumpy, but I had to try and find a solution. This was to do lots of still shots. Shots of flowers and
movement on the edge of the flowers.
There are some stand out ways that I would improve my animation. Firstly with my photos on the
chat show scene, some of them arent fitted properly to the screen of the camera. This meant that
some of the background was able to be seen in the photos. This required lots of editing that wasnt
needed if Id have fitted the camera
properly. The second thing would be
the focus of the camera. Some of my
pictures appear to be out of focus, and
therefore ruin the flow of the
animation and overall viewing quality.
You can see hear how out of focus this
photo is. This was a major
disappointment for me as I wasnt
paying attention to the finer details to
make my animation as good as it
possibly could have been. My next
improvement would be to do with my
characters. You can see at the bottom of
both of them that they are supported by
lolly-pop sticks and plasticine. This if the
most efficient way I could think of
supporting them and allowing them to
stand up. I didnt think of this problem
when designing them and thinking about
how I would move them around. Although
it doesnt look good, and maybe looks a
bit tacky I didnt actually work. At no point did they fall over or lose their position, they balance of
weight was fine as well. Other techniques I could have used to solve this problem may have been
available, but at the moment when I need to use the characters, this was the most efficient method
available to me. Moving onto my music video scene, I encountered the same problems when taking
my photos. I still had the gap around the top of the set and this also required me to edit every photo
individually. The same problems seemed to be happening as I took photos that werent in focus had
reunited the quality of my final animation. With the documentary scene, Ive explained that the
flowers were a difficulty and that moving around them proved a difficult task. However, the photos I
took in this were the poorest ones I took. All of the flower photos were out of focus again and this
disappointed.

At the start of this whole process, I completed a brief which included rules that id set myself that I
had to follow. These included things like how many shots is had to use per second which was a
minimum of 25. Id set myself that task of making my animation 30 seconds long, which I didnt
manage to complete. I believe that overall my animation came in at 26 seconds, so therefore I would
have needed around 100 more photos if I was going to complete the animation to my brief. I feel I
am suited to the animation industry because of my ideas and basic skills I have. The ideas I came up
with suited every topic I chose and was suitable for TV. I feel a good attention to detail is needed,
and I certainly performed this. I showed that I could make objects that were needed to make my sets
complete and Ive shown that I can use other resources like disco balls different lighting to make my
final outcome look better and more professional. My hands on approach was shown throughout this
process because of everything that needed to be made. I started by making sofas and tables out of
Jenga block and lolly-pop sticks. I then had to put my backdrop together. For this I used a canvas that
I already had, but I faced a problem that lighting was coming through. I used cardboard to prevent
this from happening and make
the canvas more stable as well.
For the second part I used a
glittered backdrop which shows
that Ive thought about what will
allow the disco lights to be
reflected onto the surface.
Making the characters also tested
my hands on approach, as I had
to find a way around wrapping
the material around the armature
wire. I used pipe-cleaners and
thought about what colours
would make this appeal to both
sexes. Pink and blue was the obvious answer and this as this is the stereotypical colours for boys and
girls. This shows that Ive thought about the minor details. I used the letters V and P to promote Vibe
Productions as much as I could. Time management wasnt too much of a problem as I had a lot of
time to complete the process. Working from home was an advantage because this meant I could add
parts and shot my animation over the weekend and after college. Some of the feedback I got was
helpful and this therefore improved my animation overall. Shot types and angles was some of the
advice I got and I used it to good effect.