Self Evaluation

This module has been the most steep learning curve, both in terms of learnign practical skills and finding about myself as a designer. Having never used After Effects before, a range of skills were needed, both when directly engaging with the software and in preperation, that I'd simply had no experience with before. I sturggled particularly with the idea of storyboarding and how to employ it. I ended up using it as an extremely quick and rough drafting technique, allowing the fine details to develop at a later stage when I put it into After Effects, however I feel that my animatons would have benefited with more attention to details at the earlier stage. I used a great range of new skills on after effects including the basic transformation tools and more complicated proccesses, like using multiple images in stop motion. In terms of the final result, I feel that I employed the new skills I'd used with reasonable competence, however, some of the finer details with the timeing of the music and transitions between images could perhaps of been tightened a bit, however, I don't think it was at a level that makes it distracting to the overall effect.

I also learned to use DVD pro in order to construct a menu system that presented all of my work. I found it easy to do this using the schematic system, creating menus and assets and dropping them into the system, however it was difficult seeing all the menus pixelate (as I'm told is normal) because they were hand drawn. I feel that it is perhaps a little unfair that my final resolutions are impacted that negatively through no fault of my own. I think my DVD menu's would have benefited from a transitional movie, however, I feel that given digital media is something I learned I don't enjoy, nor am I particularly good at, I felt that it would be better to make a set of menus that function well, allbeit simply, then try and do something more grandiose.

In terms of the research proccess, I made a much more concerted effort to record al stages of what I was doing in terms of both practical research and secondary research. I feel that I was able to keep my project from spiralling out of control by doing this, althought I found it difficult to keep track of my work through electronic means, as a pose to writing it down, thorough blogging helped em to overcome this, though there are bits, I'm sure, that I've missed out.
I consider this a real strength to moy work, one I can only see as growing and becoming a real foundation for the conceptual stage of my work as I go forward into the next module. I also think that, because I've learned that I don't really enjoy this area of Graphic Design, I can become even more able to generate a strong body of work for the fields I do enjoy.

A real weakness to my work is perhaps the technical competence I have within this field. I found it really difficult to generate storyboards or think sequentially. I also found it really difficult to employ some of the highly technical methods that my peers around me seemed to use, I had to settle for what I learned from Mike and try my best with this. I found it a struggle not to be up to my usual standard, I take pride in my production, and it took alot of work to get to the point I ended up at, and I still felt disappointed by the work I had done.

Things I will do differently:
- I will research using primary methods more thoroughly, like I did through last module.
-I will use this largely difficult experience to thrive in fields that are more what I want to do when I graduate.
-I will build on the good blogging practice that I started in this module and become even more thorough and maintain them with even more precision.

Attendance 3
Punctuality 5
Motivation 3
Commitment 4
Qauntity of work produced 4
Qaulity of work produced 3
Contribution to the group 4