Reflective Evaluation worksheet (U10, LO3: AC 3.1&3.

2)

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You are required to complete both sections on this sheet and place the content in your Weebly section called Evaluation.

Wherever you use a quote from any other source, please say where you got it from or it could result in a PLAGIARISM
mark which would automatically fail the unit.

Task 1/2: Reflect on how your work fits your audience (U10:LO3_AC3.1)
Please answer ALL boxes in order to pass this section. You can include screen grabs and links to help. This section is about
evaluating how your work fits the audience you have chosen to target. Answer all three questions fully with supporting
images, links and evidence of audience/survey feedback.

Choose THREE existing professional versions aimed at the same audience/genre as your work. How does yours compare to them? BE
SPECIFIC.

Example 1 of 3
URL/link, image and description
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DkDrVEK2rc

A 24 hour long, relaxing video to “chill/relax to”. The animation shows Bart looking up at a relaxing, starry night with a glowing
moon in the top right. Like the viewer, Bart is fixed to the ambient sky or, at the same time, relaxed by the starts and his
calming surroundings.
Something your loop does as well
I think my loop has a variety of moving parts throughout the ambient loop like a rocking boat, falling leaves and a flock of birds
flying across the sky. I do believe my ambient loop does this better than this one as I think, as good as it looks, there isn’t as
much variety throughout the loop.
Something the example does better
Despite its lack of variety in number of animations, the scenic sky is very relaxing and is perfect for this ambient loop especially
the use of after effects: specifically the use of glow. I think the use of glow on the moon and the starts looks really good and
takes the animation to the next level in my opinion.
How you would improve yours based on this
I like how they have things moving across the screen- like small dots flashing across the screen. I’m not totally sure what they
are but I think they really add to the ambience of things. So, to tie that into mine a bit more, I think I could’ve used this type of
animation as lens-flare type things I my ambient loop.

Example 2 of 3
URL/link, image and description
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32dGIHCzbfE
 A 24 hour long ambient loop that shows a strong theme of study and relaxation. I think this is aimed at students looking to
study/revise for an upcoming test. This loop helps this audience possibly relate to one of their favourite animated characters in
Bart who, in the animation, is doing the same thig as them: studying and relaxing. Like I said, it shows Bart studying listening to
music which is more than likely what the viewers are doing too. In addition to this, there is another starry night animation in
the window, in the background.
Something your loop does as well
I would say that my loop does well in making the characters in the animation interactive through stop-Mo blinking. I think this
brings the characters to life in the animation to make the loop slightly more engaging and, from what I can tell, this ambient
loop’s blinking animation seems to be a tween. For me, this just looks a bit odd and is possibly a cop out of doing stop-Mo
animations for blinking. I think that stop-Mo blinking looks and moves much better than tweening it like this.
Something the example does better
I think the alpha channel they have used in the background is very effective and definitely something I regret not including The
movements of the shooting scars and the flashing glow of the stars fits in really well in the scene and is a nice, ambient
animation.
How you would improve yours based on this
I think, if I had more time, I would probably cut out the water in photoshop and make that area an alpha channel and have
some realistic water behind it like rolling waves or something like that because I think alpha channels work really well in an
ambient loop.

Example 3 of 3
URL/link, image and description
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIm4HvDgQCM

This is probably one of the most common templates used in lo-fi ambient loops: especially Simpsons ones. It shows Bart and
Homer in a car with Homer, looking at the background plate, driving down a motorway and Bart pouring coffee. Both, the
coffee and the motorway background plate move throughout. This loop is aimed especially at people who purely want to relax,
maybe relieve some tension and anxiety. Along with the moving parts, homer and Bart both blink from time to time. I think
this shows that the characters are tired which may help the viewer to go to sleep if they struggle with that.
Something your loop does as well
I think my ambient loop does well with its variety of moving parts. More specifically, things that you wouldn’t spot until after a
couple watches. These are animations like falling leaves in the background and even the water ripples in the foreground as
they are quick and subtle.
Something the example does better
I think the moving background late this animation uses is better than mine as my background for my ambient loop (the sky)
doesn’t do anything where, looking back now, I could’ve made the sky change colour slightly to indicate a change of time of
day for example.
 How you would improve yours based on this
Despite being pleased with the amount of animations I have in my loop compared to this example, I do like their background
plate so I would probably take inspiration from this and make the sky in my ambient loop do something. Whether that be a
change of colour or even movement (changing the direction of the gradient)

Results and reflection of your survey

Show evidence of your audience feedback and reflect on what it tells you.
Show evidence of your survey results here (screen grabs/graphs/burls/Youtube comments/other)
What patterns or trends did you notice from your audience feedback?
Some trends include:
 5 stars- It seemed that, overall, people liked my ambient loop as no-one gave it below 5 stars.
 Target audience- Almost everyone said that my target audience was students looking to revise.
 Music- Most people liked the music I chose to go in the loop.
 At first watch- Most people spotted everything apart from the water ripples.
What did you learn from thinking about this?
I learnt that a lot of people liked the music, so I chose that well and my target audience was for students who need to study, so
I am happy that this was recognised in the surveys. In addition to this, one of my dislikes about my animation was the stop-MO
water ripples. This was because I thought they didn’t really fit in the scene and, they went by far too quick. This has been
recognised in the surveys as some people couldn’t spot them at first watch
How might you make improvements to your work based on what you’ve learnt from your audience? Be specific
If I were to do it again, I would definitely do more with the water than just stop-MO ripples. This is because I wasn’t fully happy
with the ripples as, when I did them, I was tight for time, but I don’t think they fit in well. This has been proved through the
survey answers with one person saying “I think there could’ve been more going on in the water”. To expand this to my next
animation project, I think I should take from this to use as much of a scene as you can. In other terms, if there’s something that
 could be moving, even slightly, do it as it can make the scene much more interactive the more moving parts there are.

Conclusions on your audience feedback

Based on what you’ve learnt above, write about whether your feel your work is fit for your specific audience overall.
Remember to say why and prove it
In conclusion, yes, I do. This is based on several things like almost all my survey responses to target audience were students
wanting to study which was correct and I think the animation, overall, does this. In my opinion, if you are a student, I think my
ambient loop is an ideal video to put on in the background; there isn’t too much going on and its relaxing and can help
someone focus. People seemed to like that the animations I included were engaging but were subtle enough so the viewer
wouldn’t get distracted by them and take them away from What they need to be doing.
However, some things that I think I could’ve done better was the animation of the water. I am not too keen on the water
ripples, and I think I could’ve animated the whole body of water. I think this would’ve looked better and made the rocking bat
animation fit in more.

Task 2/2: Reflect on your own skills, processes and personal development (U10:LO3_AC3.2)
Please answer ALL sections fully in order to pass this section. You can include screen grabs and links to help. This section is
about how you feel your creative abilities and processes have improved during this assignment. Answer all sections fully
with supporting images (including your own screen grabs: CMD+SHIFT+4), links and any other evidence you feel is relevant

Talk about three issues you had during production. These could be based on practical parts of the work, supporting tasks
such as research or even audience surveys.
Stop-Mo:
There are a few reasons for this as I only had 2 stop-MOs in my animation. This was the blinking eyes and water
ripples. This was a bit of a general problem when it came to the later stages of finishing the ambient loop, as some
initial ideas I had hadn’t really worked out or didn’t look as good as I planned. You can see in the screenshot
below my initial ideas for stop-MO’s. In addition to this, I did have some trouble with the water ripples. Not so
1.
much in the animation side but more just figuring out how I want them to look and what colour would they look
best in. Looking back at the water ripples, if I could, I would do it differently as I think that the ripples are too thing
(brush size) and move to quickly especially the one on the left. In summary, I do think that the stop-Mo side of my
ambient loop overall could’ve gone better but I’m happy with the blinking stop-Mo and the water ripples stop-
MOs are okay but definitely something I would do differently if I had the chance.
Alpha Channel- I struggled and ended up not including an alpha channel into my loop. I knew that a big use of
alpha channels was windows in the scene. Obviously, this was not helpful to me as I didn’t really want to do an
2. indoor, bedroom-like, ambient loop as I thought that there are already a lot of them on YouTube- through my
research they seem to be very common. So, I wanted to do a different loop to those types; this then led me to
the problem of including an alpha channel. I couldn’t really think of where to include it.
Survey- For the last week of college, I was ill. Despite having exported the loop and added the music to it, this
3. really affected the results of my survey. More importantly, I didn’t get as many responses as I would’ve liked
because of missing that week.

How/to what degree were you able to resolve each issue?

Stop-Mo: Obviously the whole problem of including 3 stop-MOs in my loop wasn’t something I could improve in
the time limit, but I was able to add to, what was looking like just one stop-Mo in my ambient loop. In addition to
1.
this, I edited my initial ideas slightly to include the water ripples as a stop-mo. Adapting my initial ideas helped me
add more stop-MOs despite my loop still being one short.
Alpha Channel- I technically never resolved this issue as I didn’t include it in my loop. However, coming to the end
of production, I did think I could’ve done something more with the water by using an alpha channel.
2.
Unfortunately, this idea came a bit too late for me to implement it so I don’t know if it would’ve worked but it is
something I can take into my next project.
3. Survey, I resolved this issue by gathering answers through other platforms, so I have included these in the section
 above. These platforms include Microsoft forms and Instagram messages. So, I got 8 responses from my survey on
Microsoft forms from college and the other responses on said platforms were a group of family and friends.

Write about at least three things which well during the whole process?
Talk about what you felt went particularly well about them.
The Photoshop work- this includes cutting parts of the background image so that it can be in different layers. I was
glad I did this because I think it looked good and when the clouds went behind the trees and when the flock of
1. birds appeared from behind them too. This was just using the polygonal lasso tool which took a bit of time
because it is all manual, but it was straightforward. Furthermore, the small other parts of photoshop work that I
did in this project like a bit of colour correction for example was, again, straightforward.
Tweens- This includes things like the falling leaves, the boat and the clouds. The clouds were very simple to do,
just a straight tween across the sky and the boat was a simple rotation tween. The leaves were a little bit harder
to do as I wanted to make them move more and look like they were swaying in the wind. I did this by changing
2.
the tween path and the speed. I wasn’t completely sure on how to do this, but I watched a short YouTube video
on it, and it was simple from there and I am really happy with how the leaves tween turned out so it was
definitely beneficial to do that extra bit of research.
Adding effects to the clouds- As you can see in the loop, my clouds are slightly blurred. This effect was something I
learnt about during my year 1 FMP and, ever since, it’s something I include in any animation involving clouds as I
3.
think it makes the clouds look much better and a bit more realistic. I just changed the symbol to a movie clip and,
in animate, they have all these colour effects like glow, blur, drop shadow etc.

And finally, write a small amount about what you enjoyed about the project which you could possibly use in future work
or assignments. This could be from research, design or your practical production process. Feel free to use screen grabs.
I enjoyed the photoshop side of work at the start of the project. I enjoy doing things on photoshop and this is something
I will take into probably all my upcoming projects. In addition to this, I enjoyed creating the mood boards as a part of our
research for this project. I really liked collecting groups of images from different cartoons and animations and talking
about how they could fit in my ambient loop on my mood board.
I really enjoyed making the flock of birds in after effects which was something a bit new for me but I think that it turned
out well and it was something I wasn’t so sure about in after effects with things like making it 3D and adding motion blur
so this is now something I can go into my next project with. Furthermore, when we had to bring all the parts together
and render the ambient loop, I really liked doing this in after effects adding the flock of birds in behind the trees and
animating them to fly across the screen. I also had to colour correct them a bit, so they fit into the scene better which I
think helped a lot.
Lastly, I enjoyed all the animation parts of this project when it came to doing the stop-Mos and tweens. I feel I am
improving at both of these the more I do it, so I feel more and more confident going into my next project.
Overall, I feel that this project has helped me improve my animation skills and research skills. I now feel more confident
with using these in my upcoming projects.