Animation Peer Review.

Today we had the opportunity to watch our seminar groups stop-motion animations.  I was very impressed with them all, the ideas were fantastic and I was extremely impressed at the imagination and creativity of my peers.

Rhian Davies, a member of our group presented her animation; 'Solution No Pollution', to us all today and I found it compelling.

The Message
Rhian's animation was a simple tale of a stick man enjoying the fresh air after a tree had grown from the ground.  Unfortunately, the stick man chops the tree down and burns the wood by using a match which releases Co2 into the atmosphere.  The stick man becomes ill from the unhealthy air and grows a new tree to clean the air.  The message was very clear and the topic used is strong in schools today.

The Sound
The animation was supported by soft music which represented the animation beautifully.  The music had no vocal which meant the viewer was not distracted by lyrics.  Another advantage of having music without lyrics was that Rhian was able to use sound affects to her animation.  You can hear the crackle of a fire, and the stick man has the line 'oh no!' which made me empathise with the stick man's unhappiness of his actions; a clever use of identification.

Technical Ability
The use of paper and clay at the beginning showed a good technical ability.  It was simple and effective and must have been very time consuming.  Rhian used speech bubbles with very little words so not to distract the viewers attention or confuse the working memory.  The fire scene was incredible as with paper, to create the flickering movement, is very difficult. The movement was simple which did not take away the focus of what was being viewed.  I was not distracted by an array of things going on so my eye was drawn to exactly what was going on.  If the stick man moved, my eye was on him, if the tree moved or the fire flickered that is what I was looking at. The whole animation was very creative and cleverly put together.

Enjoyment
I thoroughly enjoyed Rhian's animation.  It was professional but also raw.  After I had viewed it I felt as though I should do more for the environment as the message was strong.  I could easily see this very animation being seen by schools all over Wales as an environmental message.  A very enjoyable viewing.