Performance and Character: Course summary: 13/12/18:

Over the past few months of the Performance and Character animation module I would think that it has been an enjoyable module and it has helped me to develop considerably as an animator. 

At the start of this module I was intrigued by what we were going to do and what activities were involved. When it mentioned using character animation and communicating performance I was feeling rather worried how I may approach elements like the reference footage and which method of animation to approach. At the same time however this was also a module of looking at our desired specialisms in my case it was developing my skills in stop-motion and working in 2D animation. 

Originally I had set the exercises as doing one method of either 3D, 2D and stop-motion for different exercises so I would be fulfilling the criteria of the module.Over time though I found Maya to be more difficult with character performance and decided to go with my strengths and test my limits. 

I have found the exercises to be fun and challenging to work with. One of my favourite exercises on the course would be the Dialogue and Short story exercises. The reasons being is that the dialogue was a chance to do some real acting and also challenge myself in terms of drawing characters over stick men. In addition more practice at lip synching along side audio was the chance to better practice the method more than I did in the Creative play module of last year. 

The short story was rather fun to work with as it gave me a chance to show my creativity as a story teller and to try a rather ambitious story and character pose namely golf. Other exercises I did find a challenge was the character walks. I was finding it even more difficult to translate the movements of animations like the limp from the reference footage into the stop-motion animation than last year. Another would be doing more 3D like movements in Animate CC for rotation. Another was doing the baby walks as it was hard to capture the leg and hip movements even with the found reference footage.

However through some learning of animate and 2D animation on this module its helped me in my Creative collaboration module for animating a 2D bee in terms of copying the key frames and in-betweens in the wings and the body while in flight. 

I've found over this project I've found myself using a mixture of found footage of the internet and footage I recorded myself for different exercises and performances. The use of the Animation festival was useful as it inspired me to make a side by side comparison of my reference footage with my animation.

The feedback from my exercises was most helpful especially from students like Holly, Adam and Stephan who had an honest opinion of my work and have given helpful suggestions. To aid with my improvement. In turn I receive insight from looking at the work of others and see how they approached their animations. I've been impressed by work done by Adam, Ollie and Beth's work using their methods, execution and experience, its been inspiring. 

Through my struggles and challenges over this module I would think the experience of the performance and character module has helped me develop considerably as a 2D animator and has given me a broader understanding of stop-motion animation and the use of straightforward animation and the animation principles. 

I hope that what I have learned will help me over the course of the next year in animation and it has given me a lot to think about and do to prepare for next term. I have enjoyed the module and it has given me more perspective in animation and films. In short it has shown me that acting is important no matter what media it is be it live action or animated films. 

For the future I intend to ask for more constructive feedback in my work be it in art or animation and spend more time on Animate CC but also consider looking into using industry based software such as Toon Boom to see how it will impact my animation and development.