Project 1 - Introduction

This is the first project we were given as a class, on our first day. The prompt was to create a short autobiographical animation around 1~ minute long. As this was my first animation, I decided it would be a good idea to simply test the waters with something light hearted and ultimately rather silly, hence me crashing while riding a tricycle. Of course, I realised far too late into the process that this was completely off the mark in that it was the furthest thing from autobiographical - I have not ridden a tricycle in quite a few years and definitely not so while dressed to impress. My response to this sudden realisation was to panic, cutting the animation short with my immediate death by precipitant television sets that would proceed to tell the audience about myself.

Considering it is a first attempt, I'm not entirely displeased with the outcome (at least from a technical standpoint. Plot-wise I would say there are problems. Serious problems). The initial crash with the pothole is not something I am pleased with however. The camera is stiff and unnatural, pushing itself about singularly and, in my opinion, dissects the animation into pieces rather than having constant, flowing movement. Naturally I noticed this far too late, unable to edit the segment without having to edit the rest of the animation. I am rather pleased with the eye movements though, I feel that they give the character life in that is presents a nervous demeanour with the eyes darting around, seemingly avoiding eye contact with the audience.

It is a shame I never found the time to actually animate the falling of the television or that I never got to fully polish the animation with art beyond a sketch. I feel that if I was given the project again I would definitely be able to understand a lot more about Flash, especially in regards to timing. I did learn a lot from being made to fiddle around in a program blindly. It's not something I haven't had to do in the past, but I think this was actually a lot more fruitful than my previous endeavours with unknown software.