Animation Project - Feedback / Analysis

I believe that the production of my stop-motion advert was very successful. I decided to create an advert for the Skittles brand, having a seasonal theme of fireworks for the time of Bonfire night and New Year.

I am of the opinion that the skittles worked well in the style/animation of fireworks. The final animation looked very effective and the advert flowed well. I edited a sound track which I believed worked well in helping the flow of my animation. Although a reasonably successful production, there were a few problems encountered which affected the final look of the advert. One of the main problems I discovered was camera shake - once the final video had been rendered, the finished advert showed some jumps in frames which reduced the professional look of the film. Another problem I encountered was the guide marks - due to the angle of the light, our pencil marks showed on screen which took away some professional quality.

After presenting my advert to my target audience, my production group requested they completed a short survey, so we could get their opinion on our advert.

Below are our results:

For the overall opinion of the advert, there was a mixed response for my audience respondents. Some were of the opinion that the advert was great and others thought it could have been improved. The overall conclusion was that the advert was of average quality. However, these results came across as a surprise as other questions (detailed later) had a far more positive response. 

The general consensus is that my advert flowed very well. I got a 100% positive response from this question on my survey, with all participants agreeing that this   advert flowed very well. This was interesting as it is very contradicting of the results to my previous question.


My target audience believed that the sound effects worked very well with my advert and it also helped to emphasise the flow. They also believed that synchronization of the images and sounds were effective. This was the same response for the backing track, although I have not uploaded a graphical representation of this question.

From the written comments I received, the firework theme was very popular and was suited to the time of the year that it was designed for. The negative feedback I received was useful in helping me to identify what I could do better next. Firstly I would improve my image quality by ensuring they did not have any pencil marks and that lighting was consistent. This would help to improve the professional look of the advert, thus in turn encouraging more people to potentially purchase the product after seeing this advert.
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Interview

Following my survey, I conducted an interview with a member of my target audience in order to get some more detailed feedback. My responses are shown below...

Question 1: What is your opinion of the sound effects used and their synchronisation with the images?

Answer 1: "I thought that was really clever, all the sound effects went perfectly and I also liked the background music that you used - it all flowed very well"


Question 2: What was your favourite part of the advert?

Answer 2: "The fireworks"


Question 3: Do the images come across as a professional quality?

Answer 3: "I think they do yes"


Question 4: Do you like the way the Skittles were animated as fireworks and why?

Answer 4: "I like that because it is really creative and hasn't been used before, and I like the way you have used different colours"


Question 5: What is your overall opinion of the advert?

Answer 5: "I thought the advert was very good because it interacts with the audience and makes them interested"


Question 6: If you were the director, what would you improve?

Answer 6: "The only thing I would improve is when the Skittles at the end, I would do a birds eye view and make the letters in capitals to make it clearer for the audience"


To conclude my interview, I am of the opinion that I had positive feedback from my respondent and that they advert appealed to them. I have clearly been shown the positive elements of my advert for example the music, however I have also had constructive criticism and now know how to improve if I was to carry out this project in the future. One of the main things I learnt from this advert is that I could have made the camera more of a birds eye view to improve the view of my animation.
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To evaluate the professional quality of my advert, I have identified an advert produced by the Skittles brand which can allow me to compare quality and effectiveness. The advert I am comparing me animation to is shown above.

Instantly, the original advert comes across as very professional looking, however this type of production has a large budget, whereas my project was working on a zero or very small budget. Professionalism aside, I believe that my advert works very well in incorporating the product into the advert, just like the one above. The main difference is that there is a story to the original advert and my final advert did not have a narrative to it.
Both adverts used sound effects effectively and help to reinforce the sense of brand.

To conclude this evaluation, I believe I had successfully created an advert to a semi-professional standard, incorporating sound effects and music well - helping the advert flow. Although it had its downsides and some unprofessional looking features, it is comparable to an original advert made by the Skittles brand, and some similar features can be easily identified.