My Opinion of My Final "Turismo de Portugal" Idents

• Tram
  

Overall, I  feel that this ident is not as good as it could have been, if I had used my time more efficiently .  I am pleased with the background scenery and the people on the tram, but I am disappointed with the way the logo character walks towards the exit. If I had more time,I would work on improving this by changing the arm movements. I had a problem, because to keep with the logo, the character does not have proper legs, with knees etc, so I couldn't make him walk properly. Also his legs are a bit small and with the benefit of hindsight I wish that I had given the character better legs. I feel that this lets the ident down, as otherwise I think that it has been successful in portraying the impression that I wanted to give the viewer.  

• Fisherman
  

I am quite pleased with the fisherman ident. I like the way that the fisherman character turned out, but I do feel that I would have liked to have shown more expression on his face and to have given him more power in his movements so that they look more realistic. But I am very pleased with the scenery in this ident. I think that the boat, sea and sky are quite simple and work well, although they were not at all easy to get right. I spent a lot of time tidying up the boat and the movements of the fisherman and I think this was time well spent. I kept the sea very still, without waves, so that the overall impression of Portugal is of calmness and tranquility, rather than a rough sea.

• Crab
  

I am quite pleased with my crab ident, even though I feel that there are a few improvements that I could make, if I had more time.  The main thing that I could upgrade would be to give the crab more character by giving him more movement and facial expressions. However, the time that I spent in changing the crab's original position, with his back to the camera when he throws the photographs, was really worthwhile and this is the reason that I am so pleased with my achievement. Having the crab facing forwards and digging his claws into the sand to find the pictures looks far better and much more polished.

Overall, I think the final result is quite pleasing. 

Conclusion

I really enjoyed working on this brief and feel that I have learned a lot, even though I had already used Flash on my previous course. I struggled a bit with my timings to complete the task, partly because I wanted to make quite a few changes too late in the assignment. For the future, I need to get further ahead early on so that I can have more time to review my work and make the necessary changes. For example, I decided  to have the logo on the screen at the end of each ident for the same length of time, so this added to my work right at the end. Therefore I  have learned for the future that it is important to take on board from early in my planning to include  ideas that can link a series of pieces of work.  I would incorporate ideas that can link a number of  animations together from the beginning of my planning stages, as a key component of the design. 

I have also learned that feedback from a group or team is invaluable, to help refine the animation and my ideas as they progress. It is useful to have regular feedback from others, to avoid progressing too far and finding that others see your work differently to yourself. This regular dialogue  has been most helpful and I would enjoy working as part of a team in the future, helping each other and pooling ideas.