https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9 en-us 2016-09-27 14:54:01 UTC 2026-01-22 20:28:36 UTC hello@padlet.com matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/126692239 This week was an eye opener as we explored what idents are and how we use them , who uses them and how they are created! This meant looking into the 12 principles of animation as well as analysis on different indents from TV channels. We looked at animation techniques like pixilation and claymation created presentations which we then voiced to the class educating each other on the information we had learned and the tips and skills we had found. This was all in preparation for the meeting with our current client Protective Behaviours Training Service (originally Families Feeling Safe - Rebrand 2017). Before this meeting we need an idea of the media they needed us to produce for them. After having a 2 hours presentation with the organisation it was clear what we needed to create for them and their policies and principles as they gave us a full run down on their company and motives. I think the experience was the greatest skill i learned as being able to meet with a client and have them give you a outline of what they want ]]> 2016-09-27 14:58:17 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/126692239 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/126692441 We began with a run through of the brief and what we gained through the interview/training session with the client - Protective Behaviours Training Services (originally - Families Feeling Safe). We spoke about the key things they wanted such as audience and techniques as well as key information. We were split into 3 groups who went down to the animation studio for about 45 minutes throughout the day where we produced the rest of the animation experiments such as crash and rebound, falling leaf, flipping and caterpillar movement. These experiments all helped to start howling my skills in claymation and stop motion. I think the skill i have learnt have greatly improved my knowledge and performance when creating and filing stop motion claymation.
 ]]> 2016-09-27 14:58:43 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/126692441 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/127250084 I contacted Sally Gubb who works for Families Feeling Safe, she was able to give me the email of Birchwood Highschool's assistant principle and at this current time (14:54) I'm still waiting for a reply, hopefully will be visiting the school next Tuesday. 

Throughout this week i have developed organisational skills through correctly organising and saving work due to the faulty saving system on the college computers and therefore I'm backing everything i do up to my USB, Padlet and Showbie therefore giving me a lot of other option if anything peculiar arises. My planning as also been improved as i have had to set dates and dealings with my client through direct contact (as seen above) and have made more headway since contacting the client, this has improved my planning as it has meant i have to be able to be adaptable and change my research schedule which i have been doing consitantly each day. ]]> 2016-09-29 13:45:13 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/127250084 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/128138667 This week i prepared to visit Birchwood high school to interview 4 members of their senior leadership team, i arrived at the school at 13:30 and carried out the interviews straight away after meeting with my contact Assistant Principle Melinda Mulley, she then directed me to a room where i can could film each individual and record their response. The responses were true and varied and gave a range of data for me to write up as they didn't just agree or disagree they all fully explained the reasoning and this will be crucial for my data. 
I had difficulties getting surveys done by the students at Birchwood as the push for them to do it obviously wasn't here which meant i have 0 responses at this current time which is alarming although this a has taught me that in future if there are unassisted questionnaires then papers is the best method as it is a more commanded request as their is then a stimulus for them to respond to. Although this is extremely impacting on my data i will try to find ways to gather this information as my deal dine is the 20th October and therefore there is time to try a different method.  Social media responses were is surplus although they weren't the age groups or people i needed immediate responses from and therefore their response were almost moot.
The work with the senior leadership team was helpful and support the creating of my own ideas for the production and planning of the project as they gave me a range of different animations to look at in response such as the consent cup of tea video for voice over and the new morph videos, these will be helpful and should give me even more ideas. 
I have made a lot of changes to my research methods since my last FMP , I'm more i independent and less scared or nervous to interact with the public and the client, this project so far i have called and emailed a range of individuals looking for better ways to find research and better conduct my audience research, this landed me with a interviews at Birchwood Highschool which was remarkable to get in contact with a high class organisation as well as to get interviews with them. ]]> 2016-10-04 12:44:59 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/128138667 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/130441703 At the beginning of the pre-production when our teams had been created, we decided that we needed to put together all our collaborated work to form a new initial idea from all our research. We listed down elements from all our work which we agreed on such as using the characters that the company gave us as these characters were recommended to us and therefore the company wishes to have them involved. I began my task on this project by writing the minutes meetings for the groups and allocating tasks such a mood boards and initial character drawings with dimensions. When creating the ideas list we had to think and consider the client and audiences opinions and therefore our list of ideas all met the brief. The information i found when researching the Bear and the Hare animation by John Lewis was impacting as it inspired me as the script writer to use the same sort of set ideas. 
I believe my ideas on the staging and set design are ambitious but possible as they have a lot of creative elements that will allow us to create entire stage movement by having the props and set pieces move with a adaptable scene, this might be difficult to create at first but with enough planning it will be extremely professional and effective. 
I believe the areas to improve are in time management as tedious tasks take up hours and therefore it feels like the amount of work being done isn't proportional to the time taken. I think we need to consider our scene designs as the company said the scenes can't be dark or depressing and we need to check with an audience if our idea falls into this criteria. ]]> 2016-10-13 14:01:16 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/130441703 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/135105022 collaboratingToday I have completed the final script a few weeks ago I completed a series of tasks which highlighted writing scripts as I find structuring the work more difficult that ideas. I believe I have nearly reached industry standards on the script and believe that I have done extensive research into script writing. I would have liked to have completed the sound research but there are a lot  of types of sound to consider from special effects and foley to Voice over and dialogue and therefore I was spending a lot of research into videos including Tea consent by Blue Chair Studios. This video was mentioned alot  in my audience research and there fir I considered it the best place to start. 


This weekend I will be completing the sound research to stay on track as this is a professional style of working and means I'm progressing in my professional practise. ]]> 2016-11-03 14:53:28 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/135105022 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/135955390 Home study:
Writing the proposal has been extremely difficult. Even with a plan. Over the space of 8 hours across both days i have composed just over 1000 words. Although that may seem a lot i feel like I'm still not clearly covering every area of the proposal in enough detail although i am using industry words and technical language. I'm working professionally on the task and have designated what i thought was enough time to complete the task in although i have mis-managed time by underestimating the full extent of the project and the information i have collaborated. 
The fact that my resources have been limited hasn't helped, my laptop which has the necessary applications to complete the task to the appropriate standard isn't functioning and therefore have had to use a device which doesn't have the programs meaning that certain features like images aren't currently unavailable to me. 
This task has been infuriating to say the least. ]]> 2016-11-07 22:07:12 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/135955390 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136125421 I have nearly completed the story board and i organised my pitch so we can practise tomorrow with the full team as me and jack discussed practising the pitch today without Hannah but then came to the outcome that it would be pointless with out her. 

I have demonstrated consideration for audience by changing the storyboard when i have had new ideas which could better impact the target audience such as having the parents running away from the crows too to show not only children have problems but so do adults. 

I've been effective in some areas of setting my targets as i know exactly what tasks i must complete today but managing time was difficult as i didn't realise how long the storyboard would take as it involved a lot of team communication as jack completed the shot list alongside the storyboard. I maintained focus for the vast majority of the session and tried to stop others from distracting me. 

For homework i will need to complete any outstanding work for the pre-production such as the pitch and proposal. 

]]> 2016-11-08 15:36:53 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136125421 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136426945 I have completed the storyboard and fully filled out all written areas while the images will be drawn by Hannah. I worked effectively more professionally than yesterday as i knew exactly what to do and what information to include. I had to get advice when estimating the length of the shot as we didn't want to have extra seconds to fill time because it wouldn't look professional but also we needed enough time in the shot to get the message and story across. These times may change as they are only estimated. 

Me and jack went up to the art department who were extremely helpful and agreed to letting us use the facilities although we had to get our tutor to email the head of the art department to ask for permission first before going up and using the facilities. I think this showed practising professionalism as instead of just agreeing to an oral contract with the staff in the department we are actually contacting the head of the department to make it an official usage of their facilities. 

After the talk with lorraine it has been decided that we should make the shots more simple as they could confuse the audience or be too difficult to create professionally, therefore to improve the production for our audience we must make the shots more simple. ]]> 2016-11-09 15:22:03 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136426945 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136750216 Today i successfully practised how the set will look during the production by setting it up no the table this allowed me to feel more confident about the finish production, after this me and jack then went to the art block to complete the set but it took longer than expected as we had to cut out multiple pieces in order to fit others into the main set structure. We used tools like a hot glue gun and a Stanley knife to stick down and cut the cardboard but the hot glue gun was sufficient for the task so we had to use pritstick as this in large amounts did a better job. ]]> 2016-11-10 15:05:12 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/136750216 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139232360 Today my target was to deliver a clear and confident pitch to the client which will allow them to feel more confident in Imagine studios while we produce the production. To critically analyse the presentation and how it has effective the relationship between Imagine Studios and the client. 
The presentation was meant to be at 13:15 but it was moved to 13:05 which was a small amount of time to lose but equally broke into the last part of our practise pitch. This gave some tension in the team but we held together and remembered to act professional. 
Throughout the day  we finished outstanding work and improved key notes on our power point presentation as this would allow us to fully cover the production and any questions that arise. We filled in information on the research but found it a challenge as displaying information and research hasn't been our strongest point and in the next project/unit it will be a priority as this will allow me to progress professionally. I felt this was a weak point of our power point as it lacked physical research but instead had established estimations and projections which allowed us to get our content across to the audience. We practised the main bulk of our presentation on the 17th as we had had absences the weeks before causing problems although these problems were unavoidable they still impacted the production but we managed to patch this on the day and still put together a professional presentation.
When delivering the pitch we had singular topics such as introduction,research, team, creative production of the narrative and script, target audience, materials and resources, contingency. These were the fundamentals of our presentation. I presented: experimentation - music, armature and claymation, script and narrative, resources and target audience. Each of these slides were meant to be 4 minutes although I allowed myself to run over which didn't make the presentation "drag" but allowed me to go into more detail which the client seemed to entice. However when i do my next pitch i will try to make information concise in order to fit it into 4 minutes or the recommended time as this will keep my teams confidence up and also mean i meet the right criteria. The questions asked by the client were mainly about script, script and narrative are always up to interpretations and as a industry writer you have to be open to change and improvements, on this occasion i didn't agree with the client although the as i said in this industry you have to be able to change the project for the better of the company. The question asked was clarifying what the narrator would say , i gave an example of "Everybody has a right to feel safe, everybody deserves to feel safe" - they disliked the "deserve" sentence as they said it made it sound like people had to earn the right although i disagree i have change this section of the script. 

My next priority is to complete a industry standard animation which will impress the client and the target audience, this will happen next week from Tuesday to Thursday - these are our filming days. The character will be completed by the artist over the weekend.

]]> 2016-11-21 23:05:56 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139232360 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139236694 There have been a selection of problems and challenges that have occurred while creating the characters  for the animation. 
1. The clay was too hard and stiff at first for the artist to work with and had to be manually heated and moisturised for it to be used on the characters. This made set backs occur and meant that we had to buy more clay in order to had defining feature because the other materials it wasn't possible with. 
2. Armature, the rigging inside the characters was far too weak for it to be used in the final production and broke when the artist was creating the character, luckily we had a contingency plan where we would use wooden mannequins to create the character instead and so far this has been more efficient. However the artist sourced another artist to cut down one of the mannequins in-order to make it the right size of the child. 

Having a contingency plan for this production was a great resource and has meant that production for the artist hasn't halted and has been continuous and prosperous. ]]> 2016-11-22 00:04:45 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139236694 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139483304 This production day has been riddled with success and failures. 
Problems and technical errors:
1. The first Mac we used in the animation studio kept freezing and not properly connecting to the camera which caused delays as we had to seek assistance but did use this time productively to create more set pieces as to add to the set.  
2. Characters and set pieces melting under the heat of the lights and the room. This was mainly unstoppable as the room naturally became extremely warm due to the lights and the crew and the lights are needed for the scene and therefore can't be turned off mid scene however this still effects the character due to their material and the properties it has. Although i did have a fan blowing cool air onto the models when they weren't in use as this helped them reach a cooler temperature before use.
3.Computer crashing as we exported and saved. We has created 7 seconds of animation across 2 scenes and had 2 hours of production today left where we aimed to achieve scene 4-5 but there was a technical error while saving to USB which caused the program to crash. To make sure this doesn't happen again we will constantly back up and save work to the desktop and USB. Although to make up for the work lost i stayed later hours till 17:15 to redo what i could and nearly brought us back to the same place we were originally at. However this has put us back and we could be at scene 6 by now and therefore give ourselves more time to edit. ]]> 2016-11-22 22:14:59 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139483304 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139722468 Today we were more dedicated and committed than yesterday as we had recovered our footage by re-filming up to the point we lost it. This gave us further enthusiasm and meant that me and jack were able to come in at 09:30 in order to get ahead that day filming and now at the end of the day at 16:30 we have produced nearly 20 seconds of footage at a better quality because we have learned and gained skills in animation by actually animating. Originally the characters looked really impressive but because of the heat and the mixing of clay have gradually become more amateur looking although the dirty look from the mixing of the clay fits with them being in a forest. We had to stop the characters melting by having the window open and having a fan on the characters at all times when they weren't being used this kept them at a suitable temperature. ]]> 2016-11-24 09:41:05 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139722468 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139776792 Editing has started today which is assigned to jack but i have been helping place scenes and try and solve problems such as merging clips together, i tried to help by googling it and researching but in the end we had to find a technician to assist. My main objective today was to help with the editing and to add changes to the script as we have adapt 
the script in order to create a good production. I added in the use of the snake and there changes in the dialogue although i also put the sounds and effects into the script so that other group members could work from it. ]]> 2016-11-24 15:00:22 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139776792 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139781129 2016-11-24 15:30:18 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/139781129 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/140535437 Today i recorded the dialogue for the production and completed multiple takes so that we got the best recordings this only took about 20 minutes and i gave the voice actor the script for an hour which gave him enough time to memorise the majority of the words and prepare voices for it. This gave our group a success we needed although we need to cut certain areas this was definitely an improvement to the corruption of our work this morning due to a save failure and memory stick/USB ejection problem causing us to lose the editing we did last week but my group powered through and brought us back up to speed, helped try and remember which parts had been edited last week for example the slowing down of a close up scene.
Due to a darkness problem we have had to re-film parts of the productions like the start but we re-filmed this today and improved it by adding a variety of shots and lengthening the start scene making the presentation better. 
Although we work effectively one member of the group could have been more effective and produced more for the team today however this is a off day in their usual good work ethic but has dramatically effected the way the team has worked as well as the teams morale. If this continues it will be dealt with however for now we will have to see how productive they are tomorrow. ]]> 2016-11-29 15:35:56 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/140535437 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/141049236 Today has brought our production to a halt, we lost our editing from the days before and we kept losing it throughout the day as Final Cut Pro wasn't being helpful. After hours of trying we managed to fix it and fixed the autosave feature but this put us very far behind in our editing which we will need to catch up tomorrow.
While we were having trouble with the editing we planned and created questions for our audience feedback. ]]> 2016-12-01 10:11:57 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/141049236 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/141096628 Today we have completed the editing including the audio and sounds. This is an absolute relief after the problems we have had with editing this week, the week started out well getting a large majority of the editing done however as technical problems occurred we managed to lose work and have redone the editing 3 times. This waste of time has lost a window of time which we could have used to greatly improve our animation/ident - we have worked professional through  this time but the saving when editing was handled unprofessionally where as in the media industry this sort of problem wouldn't have happened. 
We have met the clients brief by following their restrictions from the start of the project and therefore have formed the entire ident around their campaign principles, we made the ident happy in areas with music to make it uplifting while still including a problem for the character to over come. We used adults and children in the character designs so that the video was aimed at all ages and also said this in our dialogue. 
We will be conducting audience feedback throughout next we and have a crew member interviewing a group of people on monday ready for the tuesday, this feedback will give us the information we need to evaluate our work professionally. Creating a vast assortment of questions to ask the audience means we will have alot to analyse and critically compare in our production. 
After watching the finished ident I realised that although there were problems i think we have fixed or adapted to the failures and technical problems we encountered. ]]> 2016-12-01 13:57:38 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/141096628 matthewreevearnold https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/142493062 Toady we are showing our animation to the year 1's for additional feedback for the ident and to our clients for their feedback and opinions. We had created short 1 minute pitches for the presentation although there was a scheduling error and we originally thought the showing of the ident was Thursday the 8th instead which would have given us time to make improvements and also to make a detailed presentation but we worked with what we had and carried out the presentation anyway. This shows a level of adaption to a professional standard as these scheduling mistakes do occur in the industry and you have to be prepared for it. It was nerve racking to stand up in front of the client and present our work because it has so drastically changed since our presentation to them due to technical and planning errors. We got great feedback from the client but alt of what they said was improvements we as a team could identify for example the lighting being too dark due to a technical perception error and the audio being jumpy and inconsistent. ]]> 2016-12-08 09:48:49 UTC https://padlet.com/matthewreevearnold/4afj6d8z56r9/wish/142493062