CoP3 Proposal

Creative Response: Finished Animation

I have since decided on a question to end on, so I have been able to complete my animation; "Where do YOU think gaming will go?". I thought this was an appropriate way to end the animation, as it engages the audience - which is emphasized by the way the question has been visualised - and it is quite a broad question, allowing for the audience to think of many different aspects of gaming, which in turn could create a number of different views and debates.

After hours of searching I have also found a sound track that I find to be suitable. It is just fast enough to be entertaining without being too distracting, allowing for the audience to take in what the infographic is saying. It also has the tone I was looking for in a backing track, and makes the viewing experience more pleasant.

To edit the sound track, I initially made the start of the song and the animation line up, and I was going to trim the song down and make it fade out so it wasn't such an abrupt end. I didn't really like how it sounded, as it didn't sound like a natural time for the song to finish, so I tried lining up the end of the sound track with the end of my animation, to see whether I could make the start of the song sound natural instead. Luckily, there was an appropriate starting time near enough to where the animation began, so I made these line up, and simply extended the last frame of the animation so it cut out when the music did. I think the sound track now works very well and it greatly improves the piece overall, especially as some of the sounds compliment some transitions in the animation. 

Final Animation

Overall I'm very pleased with my animation, especially as it is my first ever info-graphic. It hasn't been the most interesting project I've ever worked on, but I certainly can see myself producing things in the future of a similar nature, as I have enjoyed creating the different components that I was going to need, and the finished product is very satisfying and professional. I feel that I have learnt a lot more about After Effects now, and I believe that I am much more efficient with it, though I would like to see what else I can do in terms of animating, and see whether I'd be able to make a more interesting piece.

I think my infographic accompanies my essay well. I like that it doesn't necessarily repeat what I've talked about it my essay, but it does shed light on a different area of gaming that I only mentioned briefly in my essay. It outlines how gaming has developed over the years, just like how my essay does this with gender representation.

Creative Response: First Draft

My infographic is very nearly complete, and I've only spent a couple of days on the production. Once I got into the swing of animating, I found that I was producing around 20 seconds a day, maybe ever more as the animation process itself isn't too difficult. I didn't do a great deal of planning other than the thumbnails I created based on my research plan and I have simply been animating each section as I go along, and moving onto the next section once I was happy with how it looked. If I was unhappy with it, I would simply move the text around, or try a different transition method. This didn't happen often as I would usually layout all of my text and components first before deciding upon what animation technique I was going to use. I found that this was a very efficient way of working as it meant that I was very rarely correcting mistakes. 

First Draft

I started of using a camera to move between the text, in case I wanted to have some of the text at different angles like I did at the end of my transition testing. I soon decided against this - though I did like how it looked in my test - as I didn't want the animation to be too complicated/dynamic as I thought this would make it harder to read. Instead I stuck to a selection of motions that I had previously experimented with, only this time around I tried to give the text some anticipation and secondary action when it was flying onto the screen and leaving it. I also tried to split up the different motions so that it wouldn't feel too repetitive and boring, which I think I have done quite well.

The only thing I am unsure of is how I am going to end my animation. The animation at the moment doesn't seem to end on anything significant, and I would like to have a question or a statement to end on so that there is a definitive end, rather than a cut-to-black. I want whatever I choose to make the viewer think about their own views on gaming, and how they think the gaming industry has or will change.

I also need to consider sound. I definitely think it needs a backing track of some kind, as a ~2 minute info-graphic seems to drag when you are sat watching in silence. I don't want anything to distracting though, so I am going to avoid anything with vocals, and instead shall look for something that is fairly uplifting and relatively upbeat.