Evaluation

After showing our animation(sting) to our audience we found out that our sting was not as effective as we thought it would be. according to them it would not appeal to them as much and it was hard to understand what it was about. I think that our idea was very original but we were not able to execute it to the best of our ability.
I feel like we did address our target audience but not in the clearest manner.
selfies was our idea and we chose it because it relates to our target audience which is young people(teens). I also feel like we kept with the channel identity because our animation has aspects such as smoking that relates to teens and young people, because most people get involved into smoking around that teen age.
We also had a person exercising in the background because people who workout would have started in their teens or a bit later. We planned to have more background characters, such as a person sitting on a bench or a guy just walking by. But in the end we didn't include all that because we realised that it would take too long. The reason for that is the 10 second limit we had, and we only had about 4 weeks to shoot the animation as many times as we could. We lucky shot it two times and used the frames that were smoother and that complimented the FPS formulae.
we researched about things that we could include in our sting in order for it to appeal to young people, But I think we needed to show it more clearly. We should have included something like iPhones and iPads because most teenagers are more easily persuaded or appealed to on social media, this is because they use social media quite a lot. A lot of it was based on our opinion on how teens are which was a mistake, and we should have looked for answers on the internet to solidify our thoughts. We used our target audience research to help inform our idea because ours were young people, so we thought on making our animation on selfies and thats were our idea came from. next time, we should include things like cars because a lot of teens are interested in cars especially if they're 16.


The audience we showed our sting to also said that our idea was not clear, and this was due to the animation not being professionally made. This was because we moved the clay mations too much between each fame which resulted in the animation not being smooth. we only shot it once when we should have shot it twice so that we could improve it and make any changes if we had to. shooting it twice would have been a huge help into making the animation look more professionally made. It would also have allowed us to add or take things out and improve things like movements and lighting.
If we were to shoot our animation again while taking in these improvement points I think that our animation would have been a success and would have definitely been appealing to our target audience.

Overall, I think our animation could be greatly improved and that if we were to cover all the mistakes and improvement points we could have gotten a better mark and a better chance for E4 to actually consider using our 'sting'. I believe that our animation was not up to par as we thought, and that we should have done a bit more research to help it become as appropriate as it can. We also need to organise our time more wisely so that we get more of the animation done in the shortest amount of time.

Story Board

Planning (Storyboard)

The whole idea of our animation was based on selfies and that young people (teens) take a lot of selfies. We chose to make the theme of our animation on selfies as selfies is very common in this very day and age. We decided to have two people taking selfies and each time they take a picture the other person changes into a different character, but the last guy would turn into a giant E4 logo.
Each of the characters are different and bring along with them certain traits that young people and teens also carry. This is to make the animation relate to them and make them feel that its for them especially.

The plan is to not move the camera when we start taking shots as the whole idea of this is selfies so the camera won't move. We will do the shots in the dark room and have 2 lights constantly on, when grabbing each frame. Every time the person changes we plan to have the character do something that it mostly done by teenagers.
We plan to make the characters out of plasticine so that we can mould and shape them into different positions more easily and also so we can add detailed facial expressions and movements.
For Example there will be a character that smokes, as most people start smoking when they become teenagers. Another character will be picking his nose because teens usually get into bad habits. Another one will be an octapus waving his hands around, this will show that teens also get childish and carry childish traits.
We plan to have a soundtrack playing in the background and also different sound effects depending on what's going on in our animation. There will also be a shutter sound effect each time the screen goes black to indicate that a picture is being taken.

We created the set by making a 3D triangle with an open side. The clouds were made with cotton and were stuck on the background wall with masking tape.


(AFTER DOING IT)
When it came to actually making the 'Sting', we had to take out one character, other wise the animation would have exceeded the 10 second limit. We choose to take out the character that had the least relation to the target audience, so that it would be most appropriate.
We also had to cut down the times in which the characters act because we could not allow them to act for too long, other wise the sting would have been more than 10 seconds.

E4 Target Auidience and brand values

A target audience is a certain group of people that are “targeted” and are persuaded into buying a product or watching a specific movie or show. Within the target market, at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed There two types of target audiences:

- Primary target audience is the main consumer of the product.

- Secondary target audience could be anyone because the product is bought by someone and given to someone else.

The Target audience for E4 ranges between teens and young adults so from about 15-20. E4 is well-known so its brand value is high. This is because there are a lot of youths that watch E4 because of its young teen content. Having a high brand value increases the brands financial gains.
E4's eccentric and witty persona make it a popular entertainment destination. E4 is watched by more than 8 million people each month with a vast majority of it's audience being the youth.
It has a young viewing profile with 52% of it's viewers aged from 16-34.

E4 broadcasts 'The 100' which is about 100 people being sent to earth in order to find out if its survivable.
This program is aimed to the be viewed by young people. I believe this to be true because in the show the main characters are teenagers and the words boy/girl-friend are used as people dating relate to mostly teenagers and young adults. The fact that this show has been broadcasted by E4 also shows that it's for teenagers.
Another program that it shown on E4 is 'Youngers' which is a program about teenagers who get involved in varies things that most teens go through themselves. They get involved in things like fights, relationship problems, career options, parties and many other things.

Stop-motion animation
Stop motion animation is created by grabbing frames, which are taken by a camera, and playing them one after the other fast enough to for the mind to stitch them together and give the illusion of them being in motion seamlessly. It’s a technique used to manipulate an object or a persona to make them appear to be moving on its own. The object or person is moved in small increments to create the illusion of movement.The series of frames are played in a Continuous sequence; this is called the persistence of vision. Dolls and objects are made with movable clay and joints are used for their ease of repositioning when grabbing each frame.The first instance of stop-motion animation can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph's The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life. French trick film maestro Georges Méliès used stop motion animation to produce moving letters in one of his short films, and a number of his special effects are based on stop motion photography.Willis O' Brien is known for his work on The Lost World (1925), but he is most admired for his work on King Kong (1933). A milestone of his films made possible by stop motion animation. In the 1960s and 1970s, clay animator Eliot Noyes Jr. refined the technique of "free-form" clay animation with his Oscar-nominated film in 1965.One of the main British Animation teams, John Hardwick and Bob Bura, were the main animators in many early British TV shows, and are famous for their work on the Trumptonshire trilogy.Disney experimented with several stop motion techniques by hiring animator-director Mike Jittlov to do the first stop motion animation of Mickey Mouse toys ever produced for a short sequence called Mouse Mania, part of a TV special celebrating Mickey Mouse's 50th Anniversary.Since then, animation renaissance headlined by the likes of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, there have been an increasing number of traditional stop motion feature films, despite advancements with computer animation. The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton, was one of the more widely released stop motion features. Henry Selick also went on to direct James and the Giant Peach and Coraline, and Tim Burton went on to direct Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie.Another individual who found fame in clay animation is Nick Park, who created the characters Wallace and Gromit. In addition to a series of award-winning shorts and featurettes, he won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for the feature-length outing Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Chicken Run, to date, it is the highest grossing stop motion animated movie ever grossing nearly $225 million worldwide. and garnered critical praise.
Other notable stop motion feature films released since 1990 include Fantastic Mr. Fox which was  released in 2009, and The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993).
Types of Animation

Puppet animation - Is a type of stop-motion animation that involves moving puppets in small increments and taking a frames and stitching them all into a sequence, and playing them fast enough for our eyes to create the illusion of it all being in motion. Puppet animation is created by obviously using puppets which are attacked to a long rod that is held by a person and moved after each frame. there are mostly buttons or pull and push mechanisms that allow facial expressions and facial movement. examples of puppet animation include fantastic. This film is about a fox that lives underground and outsmarts three farmers, that live above him, by taking their food supplies. This film is for children that are a bit older like 8-10 in my opinion because the storyboard would be pretty hard to understand as the genius remarks made by Mr Fox. The film 'Humpty Dumpty Circus' (1908) created by J.Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith was applauded as the first stop-motion animation film that featured puppets. These days puppet animation is mostly found in children's cartoons and films. Examples of this type of animation is the King Kong film (1933), Corpse Bride (2005) which is a stop-motion animated horror musical. The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) is an American animation musical fantasy directed by Henry Selick. it used 227 puppets to show the the characters in the film and also used 400 heads to depict the expression for almost every possible emotion.

Object Animation - Object animation is a stop-motion created by animated movements of non-drawn objects such as toys, blocks, dolls etc. examples of this is 'the annoying orange'. Effects like flying and jumping require some thought, so animators came up with a way to show that in their animations. the method they came up with was to have long rods attached to the objects to make it look like its floating and later cutting out the rods using editing softwares. This gave the effect of the objects or puppets jumping and flying with out using things like string to hold them up to make them seem like their flying or jumping. The annoying orange is for kids and you can tell by the laughter and jokes which are silly and very childish. object animation is usually made with other types of animation for a realistic effect. 

Claymation - This type of stop-motion animation takes up a lot of time and is usually harder because you have to move the clay toys in little bits and also change the facial expressions which can make remembering each scene really difficult. examples of claymation are 'Wallace and Gromit' and 'Shaun the sheep'.

Each object (character) is sculpted from clay or a much commonly used substance like plasticine, is made around a wire skeleton called an armature. It is then arranged on set where it's photographed, before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot. This is done until the animator has the desired amount of shots for the film. when it is played back the human mind perceives the series of changing images as motion. claymation is created for audiences such as children but also for teens and adults, because most will see it as a family film.

Pixilation - Pixilation is one of the hardest types of stop-motion animation because it involves live actors changing their movement and pose while multiple frames are taken and they move a little bit each time. Examples of films that use pixilation are: 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb created by the Bolex Brothers and the oscar-winning 'Neighbours' and 'A chary Tale' by Norman McLaren's. The influence of pixilation including real people flying is impressive and eye-catching. This is because it has been mans dream to fly, so to create a realistic animation of someone flying looks good because it almost looks possible. The actor becomes a kind of living stop motion puppet. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a movie, such as looney tunes. Pixilation is also often used in music videos.

Animated Effects

back in the day this would have been hard to make it look realistic because of the limitation of previous technology, but we have more advanced softwares and technology so this kind of stuff is available and do-able.The advantages of this technique is that it can be done multiples times and is a very effective technique in creating jumping and flying illusions.
The limitations of this would be that the flying would never look realistic as humans have not created a machine or a way to fly and have total control over it.

Pixilation was 3D before computers got involved with in animation. Real people were used and so our expectations and reactions are different. a real person flying is way more impressive than a drawing of one. This was the beginning of animated special effects in films.