Our project

Based on the feedback we received it is essential to improve the camera movements as it is seemed as one of the distractions. Stop Frame Animation is about a smooth change of the objects and fluent moves, so that it seems realistic. We didn't manage to keep the camera stable at some parts of our film, however this would be our main aspect when creating another video based on this concept.
I believe that overall, we managed to create a beautiful stop frame animation and we presented it in an interesting way. The soundtrack was the right choice as it appears from our feedback and personally I believe it worked well as it perfectly describes the importance of Time.
The background might be slightly distracting, however we wanted to make a comparison which would suggest reality and how people make changes in their lives, what contrasts with the action in the video.
I am happy with the result of the video and received feedback as it shows that the film is quite successful overall.

Feedback from the audience and our response....

To gather feedback from the audience, we uploaded our completed stop frame animation onto YouTube and Facebook. Also, the clip was shown to individual people.

YouTube Feedback

ww.youtube.com/all_comments?v=eE2CooC3Cdg

On YouTube, most of the feedback was positive with few comments on how we could improve the video. We also had a chance to respond to the feedback, what showed interest in the video. 

We received a suggestion that the video could be slightly longer, however timing was one of our limitations, therefore we couldn't make it as long as we wished to. 

"Good idea, although the camera doesn't appear stable in few moments.", I definitely agree with this observation as at some point it was difficult to keep the camera stable. Some movements of the camera required the use without tripod; therefore some parts weren't very clear. To improve this, I believe we could spend more time to create slow and constant movements to keep it stable and carefully consider the moves of the camera. 

Based on the audience feedback, I believe that the choice of music and the way we used it worked really well. Also, the idea of our understanding and representation of time as well as the typography was considered as successful. 

Facebook Feedback

On Facebook, we also received mainly positive opinions about the video. It was described as creative and it showed experimentation.

"Very fabulous work overall, the only thing I could mention is that at some parts, the camera seems to be way too shaky, especially at the but it focuses on the arm and sort of pans around it at 0:39s, so if you could slightly improve the flow of those frame transitions it be absolutely perfect"
Again, the instability of the camera in being mentioned, therefore in another video, the movement of the camera would be the main concern for us.It would be useful for us to practice 'pulling' and 'zooming' to get the right.

Feedback from individual people

Feedback from individual people contains positive feedback as well as negative. 

"Lighting and set was very well considered-The lighting had soft effect that was appropriate for the feel of the animation and the soundtrack" 

We focused on the lighting a lot, so that it creates the right atmosphere and draw viewer's attention to the main character. The lamp we chose provided the soft glow.

"Not sure about the newspaper background-what was a significance of it-some of the newspaper text was a little distracting"

I tend to agree on this comment at some point, as the background could be found distracting, however our point was to make a symbol of reality and description of what's happening in the world represented by the newspapers, while the main character stays without changes. 

"Panning out to show both legs was a good idea and worked well"

We tried to make the composition run fluently, however we didn't want to make it so simple, therefore we continued the pattern on the visible areas of the body. The panning in was successful as it seemed easier as we concentrated on this subject matter in the camera viewfinder. 

"The following pan -it didn't work so well as it was not so fluent"

Again, we experienced difficulties with keeping the camera stable as our experiment required a lot of movement. It was much harder to maintain focus on the subject when panning out. 

"Animation too jerky on the arms"

I tend to agree with this opinion as some parts of the pattern didn't work very well. Especially, in that particular point, the camera was slightly out of focus, however our point was to make the pattern slightly terrifying so it describes the story. We should have re-shot this part and taken more care with depth of field.

"Continuity not correct on close up of the hand on guitar fretboard" 

Keeping the camera stable, creating pattern on the body and making a movement of the camera was a very challenging task. It didn't work as well as expected, but it gives an idea of what we tried to interpret. Again, as we would want to improve the video, the movement of the camera is one of our main aspects. 

"Why did you choose to do a portrait orientated film?"

One of our limitations was the space we could use when taking photographs, therefore we avoided having unwanted objects in the camera by choosing a portrait orientation. Also we needed to concentrate on vertical movement, this meant that the portrait format was appropriate. 

"Overall well paced-the movement of the plant/leaves up the body was innovative-I think a good starting point for further work"

"Soundtrack choice was a spot on-very appropriate for the pace the and movement in the animation" 

We spend a lot of time on thinking and researching the soundtrack, however I also believe the combination works well. 

"Typeface used in credits was excellent-it matched the organic flavour of the paintings on the body"

We wanted to keep similar quality of the typography to the film itself creating it manually. 

The letters were created using a fine liner pen and each part of the letter was gradually added as the photographs were taken. It took a lot of time to produce that particular part of the film as the whole process had to be done carefully so that the video is fluent. 

The Final Project

Looking at our previous experiments, I started to think what went well, what didn't and what we could do to improve that.

In our last experiment, the idea of the background worked well as it looked exciting and fascinating. Through that concept, we wanted to describe what our video is about.

The lighting in our last video wasn't considered well enough, what caused an unsuccessful outcome at the end, however we did focus the lighting on the main character what gave a fantastic result and helped the audience concentrate on the subject instead of the busy background. 

In this process of creating the video, we had limitations like space and the lighting wasn't as strong as in our previous video. 

Our concept of the video is to describe the attitude of a young person towards life and to show our own interpretation of time. 

A person on the chair is our main character, whose life is passing by what starts to appear on her skin. It seems like her she is trying to go against the time, however she is not making any changes which could positively reflect on her life. The background made out of newspaper is slightly distracting, however we wanted to make a symbol of reality and people making changes in their lives, while our character is sitting calmly and still, without feeling or emotions what symbolizes no changes. 

The guitar is supposed to represent undiscovered passions and talents, which cannot be used without any changes. 

By this idea, we wanted to describe the importance of Time and what role it makes in everybody's life. We try to communicate with the viewer and make the audience think about our concept more in depth. 

I believe that the outcome is quite successful and I really like the concept and the music which perfectly describes the importance of Time, although I think we could improve the project by keeping the camera more stable and maybe making the project slightly longer.

For the titles, I also used the stop frame animation technique, what took quiet a lot of time to complete, however I'm happy with the result as it is. 

What I'm very satisfied with is the lighting, because it was one of our limitations. And we managed to deal with that using a normal desk lamp and we put it on the ground what created an interesting effect. 

When editing, we used the fade in and fade out effects to make the video run more smoothly and it worked quiet well. Also, at the beginning of the video, we decided to show the whole character and start getting closer to a certain part of the subject, which takes up the whole frame.