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Untitled from egokick on Vimeo.

evaluating Frankenstein screenplay

armature:

Initially the spine of my Frankenstein was stable and good enough to animate with but over the course of several hours of animating it weakened in places and became very unstable however it was sufficient for the relatively short scene that it was needed in. However, if I was going to animate him in a longer part I could have made it much more stable with a bit of glue or by using thicker wire. Despite its poor use for animating I am particularly pleased with its hand movements and general appearance as many people commented that it was quite scary.

Lighting:

It took a very long time setting up the lighting and trying to position the camera to capture the key areas. For example when frakenstein scratches against the door I wanted the viewer to be focusing on the shadow he was casting behind him whilst also being able to see the door he is scratching against in the foreground. I would have proffered the door to be slightly lighter so that his hand movements would have been seen more easily, I tried using small lights although unfortunately I could not find anything that would do the job. Although I am generally happy with how the scene turned out.

working in a group:

I am more at ease working alone and just going ahead with my own ideas without having to discuss things with other people and so I found the balance between complete independence and working for/towards a group goal hard. If I had taken more initiative in the first week of animating I think I would have gotten all the problems I had with my part of the animation out of the way ready in time for the second week.

set:

Another problem I had was with the set, particularly the walls. I didn't notice it at first but as the Frankenstein monster was scratching against the cardboard door it was moving the entire wall out of place which was very noticeable. We made a temporary solution by stacking some books against the wall which reduced the movement and made it much less noticeable although a set which is bolted down to something that won't move would have made it much easier.

Overall I am happy with the end result, bar a few of the transitions which could have gone much smoother if I could have got the lighting the same in the final scene. I left the set at the end of the day with half of my scene done and was ready to finish it the next day with everything in the exact same place and some how the lighting was totally different and I had to start completely again, the same problem occurred 3 times.