Final FMP Analysis

Final FMP Analysis

For my FMP I decided to make an instructional video about Tae-kwon Do, It is about the theory of and how to perform basic moves, so weather your a regular Tae-kwon Do attendee or a fresh face to the sport you can be certain that you will learn something from the video.

In my final piece I can identify some strengths and some weaknesses, There are quite a few strengths so I will only list a select few. The first is that fact that it succeeds in what it was made to do which is educate and inform people that know Tae-kwon Do or have nether moved a muscle in their life. Another strength is that the video is simple in the fact that it is easy to understand and straight to the point, The text is easy to read and the dialogue is clear. 
A third strength is, in my opinion the layout of how the video is put together were it shows off each move three times twice in physical film from different angles and ones in animation to show the move in slow motion step by step, all this is so the viewer knows what that move is and how to perform in it with good technique. A fourth strength is how the audio is laid out, in that the dialogue is the loudest so that it is the most heard and the music is the quietest as i only wanted it to be subtle in the back ground to that in between dialogue lines there is no awkward silence. 

A final strength is that there is not really any other video like this and that mine is unique, Were it uses animation and physical film about Tae-kwon Do there is nothing else doing the same however there are some that are about Tae-kwon Do but don't use animation as well. Along with the strengths I can identify some weaknesses as well as I will admit my video is not how I wanted it to be exactly. The fist weakness I can pick out is the quality of my animations, as I'm not an artist but I do like animating, however I am better at animating 3d characters using software's such as Blender and Cinema 4D, which is what companies such as Pixar and Dream Works use. 

A second weakness is the length of my video, as I do feel that it is too long considering it is about 2 minutes over what I had in mind when first coming up with the idea. Also in my feedback using the questionnaire that I made some one suggested maybe making a few short films like episodes so that they were short and snappy so people didn't lose interest whilst giving all the information I intended. A third weakness I feel is the music as I could not find a song that made me think "that is what I've been looking for", I could of spent longer looking for the song but I was running out of time so I chose a few that I thought could work then put them in to Premiere to see which one was the best fit and I ended up using the one I did as it was the closest to what I wanted, but it is not perfect.
A final weakness is that I made my video with no budget at all, so some my set and time was made out of things I already have for example making my set out of bed sheets. I also had to ask a few favours for example getting my friend mason to be in my film.


My overall main idea was to make an instructional video about the theory of Tae-kwon Do to help people learn the Korean and moves for gradings that take place every 3 months, I original wanted to make just an animation but then thought that if I made the whole thing animated it would take forever plus I had not done much animating before, I got the influence to make an animation form Kung Fu Panda which was one of my favourite animations as a kid, However I knew I would not be able to make an animation like that because at college we didn't have the time or software to do so.


So realising my limitations I had to do some experimentation to see what would work and what wouldn't, so taking some inspiration from animes which are Japanese animations I noticed that they draw a background then draw their characters and instead of animating every thing they simple move the background in a direction or zoom in and out of it slowly whilst only drawing select frames of the characters movements making a quick yet effect animation, so I have used this technique in some of my animations. I also experimented and explored in to different looks for my character and scenes, which I made a questionnaire about. I simply asked people to tick the letter of the hair style, hair colour, eyes and colour background they liked to determine which I should use then if there was a tie breaker between two I would decide which to use. 

Finally one of the things I played around with when in the experimenting stage was different techniques like importing transitions making a freeze frame with comic book style backgrounds which in the end I did not use as I thought it looked bad, or at least I couldn't get it to look good.


Overall though the experimentation I did helped to form and lock in the look of the my character and style so with out it I would probably still be deciding what hair I was going to use.

What also helped with my experimentation was my research which is were I thought to use the animes style of animation, But I also had a look in to what other videos are out there that do the same thing as mine was going to be doing, annoyingly I did not find anything similar in the sense of using film plus animation, but there are some that do what my video is intending to do with no animation and only film. Also the videos I found had some guy telling you what to do constantly as mine just says how to perform the move but you don't have to do it.

There are some similarity's though to mine as they go over similar stuff and describe how do perform them in a similar way but slower. Also they do use diagrams to help get there point across which I could of used in my animations but I decided to just draw the moves being perform slowly.

In this project I can easily identify some key areas were my idea and my skills developed. My idea developed over the period of making my project and the experimentation stage especially as that is when I realised what things I could and couldn't do using the resources and limitations I had, For example I originally wanted to have freeze frame's that had kind of a comic book style background in between move categories like kicks to stances however when I went to making these freeze frame's I realised how bad they looked so in the end I just had the freeze frame's with the back drop I had on the original footage. Another place where the idea had developed is the fact that I originally wanted to have it no longer than 5 minuets, instead the final piece is just under 7 minuets which is OK because it means that all of the information and footage I intended to be in the film still is. If I wanted to I could easily take out one move from each categories which would make it significantly shorter how ever that was not what I wanted to do when making the video so it is just longer than intended. 
I also have developed in my skills thanks to this project for example I have developed my animation skills because my animations got smoother and smoother, also my drawing skills as my perception of how a body works is a lot clearer making it easier to draw people in positions and finally my editing skills have improved because I used colour grading which I hadn't before this project and using more transitions and effects to get the result I wanted.

When I it came to asking friends and family what they thought about the finished product, I asked a couple of people in person what they thought about it but the majority of my feedback was on the questionnaire I sent out, using Google Forms. I got some good compliments along with some good criticisms which if I could go back and redo the project I would put in to place, sadly I don't have the time, so I will have to except that this is what I have got and be proud of it, as I did put a lot of work in to this project. Over all the feedback I got was positive and also made me happy due to the fact what people said was what I wanted to hear about my video, for example the last question I asked was what one word would you use to describe this film? and the majority said "Informative or Educational" which is what I was going for as it is and instructional video.

I also got a couple of odd answers that made me chuckle one being "Feet" as in my animations I went for a split toe shoe on the feet which I guess did look a little odd but I cant draw feet. The over was Introduce, but I have a feeling that was from my french friend who is OK with

English but not fluent in any way, I presume they meant "Informative" like the rest.

Earlier I mentioned some criticisms which I said if I had the time to go back over the project I would implement them. These criticisms were to improve upon the animations which I totally understand especially the first few that I made as they were awful compared to the last few I made.
Another one was to improve on the music choice which is not a criticism from any body Else other than me as I do feel if I had more time I could find a more suitable song. Another criticism which was from some one else was to maybe make the video in to smaller episodes instead of one long one which I agree as I can see why people would lose interest after a while of watching it. Also another self criticism is that I could of had a few different transitions instead of one of the stock ones that were in Premiere and even made one with a kind of smoky effect. looking at these criticisms, I think if I had two more weeks of time I could easily make these changes which would improve my video to a much higher level.

Looking back at my Statement of Intent I don't see any massive changes to what I have made compared to what I proposed in fact I think I have made almost exactly what I intended apart from the fact its a couple of minuets longer than I originally wanted, But I don't see that as a big deal. I will say though, I do think that with a bit of practise I could get the quality of the animations I made up to the standard I had envisioned when writing out my Statement of Intent. Going back at my pitch to my tutor who was playing as a client I am quite pleased with how my project has turned out. Before my pitch I did have the concern about time management which my tutor did pick up upon and said "the only thing I worry about is will you have time to do all of it" which I replied yes as long as I follow my plan and don't procrastinate, sadly I will admit that I did procrastinate which I do regret as I could of improved my project to a higher standard as I fell a bit behind, but not enough that it meant the project was not finished, which I am happy to say is not the case, it meant I had to rush a couple of bits in my project towards the end and not have the time to give them the attention they need.


Apart from the little fall behind the project went better than I expected as I have got every thing done and to a level that I am happy with I just hope that it will get me the grade I would like. I said earlier there is quite a lot I could improve on given enough time or another go at the project were I wouldn't procrastinate, but sadly I know what I am like and it would only happen again.

Over all I think that this project has been a success but I could of made it more so.

Product Assessment

Product Assessment
After getting some feedback on my final piece I believe it was a success, in the fact that it has performed the function I intended it to do. At the end of the questionnaire I sent out, I asked people to describe the video with one word and about 15 people out of 20 said informative which is exactly what I wanted to here. 

Also the feet thing is because I got a comment about the animations feet looking like a camels but that is because I was going for a split toe shoe effect. 
Some of the other feed back I got was on the question did you learn anything from the video? if so what? I got a couple of no's but the majority said yes and that they learned things such as different types of moves what they are called in Korean, how to perform them and so fourth along that nature.

I also asked if you are a Tae-kwon Do student would this help? the majority of the people I asked are not Tae-kwon Do students so i put the option "if I was it would" which the majority clicked, subsequently all of the Tae-kwon Do students that filled in the form said yes proving that it had been a success, I only got two no's i think though.

I also asked would you like more videos like this and why? I got a lot of yes' because it makes Tae-kwon Do look easy and interesting, another answer was that it is well made and I also got one saying "yes but next time I want to be in it".

One of the last questions I asked was does this video make you want to learn Tae-kwon Do and the majority said not sure which a perfectly valid reason as they might like the look of it but not the commitment it requires, second was yes and most people said because it looks interesting and fun, and the least said no however it was still 20% which is understandable as martial arts may not be their thing.

Aesthetically I am quite happy with how my film turned out because it as a simple yet factual feel to it. From the video clips to the animations to the text over the top. I also wanted to keep the text a simple font so that it is easy to read. I will say however that I wanted to add a few more fancy transitions between moves but I ran out of time to do so, but I made do with what I had at an instant using the in built transitions in Premiere.

Assignment 3 Vlog

Assignment 3 Vlog
Assignment 3 was the hardest I had done as it was the main bulk of the project actually making my final piece. 
I started by drawing a storyboard, then writing out a script which I did find a bit tedious, however, it is part of the project. The next step was filming and making the animations. The filming was easy as  I simply set up a set using the veranda in my back garden and some bed sheets, then just filmed the friend performing the moves. I then filmed in my Tae-kwon Do class which was even easier how ever I didn't use a tripod or nothing as I wanted the class to carry on as normal with out drawing any attention to myself. The animations were the hardest things to make, as they were the most time consuming.  I will say however, that I improved immensely from the first one to the last one, and this actually is evident during the film too.

Editing Process

Editing Process
I found editing my final film in 'Theory' easy however, when getting round to actually doing so, it was time consuming and I had to make a few exceptions, with what I had to hand  although it was  not ideal.
For example; I could not find an ideal song for background music at first then, I found an 'all right' peice that when I experimented with the  volume and turned it down, it sounded quite good.
I edited my piece in Three steps.
The first was putting all the videos and animations in sequence so that there was a rough order of how they would go. Here is a screen shot of the sequence.
 
I also colour corrected some of the shots I had using colour grading in Premiere.
From this:                                     To this:
 
Then, the second step was to add text over the top of the videos and animations that said what the moves were in English and Korean, which you can  see in the image above at the start of the sequence. It took me a little while to get the text right and the transition of the words, as when I moved computers (as I had to move classes) I noticed that the same text font to not transfer over to the  other so, the text I wanted was substituted so, when I went back on to the original computer all I had to do was change the font back to what I wanted originally.
Here is a screen shot of the sequence with text.

The third step was to add in audio. I first put the dialogue in the sequence and adjusted the videos and animations to fit which then made the whole video a couple of minuets longer than one which I first proposed consequently, I do feel that there is nothing I can take out unless I remove one of the moves from each category. Secondly, I added in the music, I didn't have a set song , but I did have a few that I thought could work  and be appropriate for this film, so I imported them all into 'Premiere' .  I took one at a time and put them in the piece to see which one fitted best, in the end I picked one for the main part of the film and  used a more upbeat song for the credits at the end. The last piece of the puzzle was the  sound effects, I decided not to use any sound effects in the main section of the film apart from when I had the freeze frames to signify the change of move type, I used a kind of slow motion swoosh that had a climax which is when the freeze happens. Here is the sound.
https://www.freesound.org/people/cosmician/sounds/159574/

This is what the sequence looked like.

The very final step is to export out the finished video, I didn't render the video before exporting as I knew it would do so on exporting. I knew that it would take a while to export however, I was not expecting the estimated time to come up with 1 hour and 22 minutes at first ,it managed to export and render in around 20-25 minuets which is not so bad despite it saying over an hour.

Recording Dialogue and finding music/sound effects

Recording Dialogue and finding music/sound effects
I recorded the dialogue for my piece at home as I wanted to use a piece of software that I have on my computer which is good for screen and audio recording as well as streaming called OBS or Open Broadcasting Software, as its also known. It took me a little while when I first got the software to get my head around it but, I did eventually and now I feel that I can set it up to record or stream anything on the computer. 
For my Recording I set OBS to only record audio input from my Gaming mike that I use for talking with my friends when I play video games on the computer games, the reason for this, and did not borrow one from college, is because it is a high quality mike, as long as the setting for it is set as high quality for everything and it came out pretty clear. 
When I was speaking I had to do a couple of tests to see if everything was working, so I just said "testing, testing" and it was a great sound on the file, this meant  I could carry on  with the rest of the script. The whole thing took me about 40 minuets to set up and record. I did make a few mistakes that meant I had to redo a couple of the lines, because I was trying to sound clear. To read the script and say the lines reasonably fast so I can fit the audio in with the video with out too much editing afterwards was quite a challenge. 
Insert pick of software and set up here:

When it came to finding music I automatically went to the youtube music library where there is music that is copyright free, reliable and safe to use/download so I have had to listen through numerous tracks on there . I couldn't seem to find one that sticks out and say it should be in my piece, so I have saved a few that I think could work and in editing I will put them in and see which I feel works best . This  will be the one in the final piece.

For finding sound effects I did exactly the same as the music, I found some I liked and saved them, then I will try a couple in editing.  I did use a different website called Freesound.org as well because I have used them before, and they have community posted sounds that are free to use, as long as you post the link of the sound in the description or credits for example there is a slowing down time sound effect that I have got from their that is perfect for a couple of my scenes.

Insert sound effects here:

Filming Process

Filming Process
The filming process was the easiest to execute to be honest, as it meant waving a camera around and there we go I have the shots. Ok maybe not quite like that, but it was way easier than the animation process, and more fun, that is why my piece has more physical film than animation in it. On the plus side I invited my friend around too to do the moves so, we spent the day together.

I had two locations that I filmed in, One being my back garden where I filmed the singular move shots, The other being my Tae-kwon Do class.

The first shots that I filmed were in my back garden, where I used a Canon 700D DSLR along with my tripod, however, I used the tripod as a mono pod because I had to navigate around my garden which had a few uneven surfaces as well as a pond that I had to negotiate . I decided I wanted to film the shots out side because there was the most amount of space, plus it meant that I did not need to have lights set up as it was a bright day with a thick layer of cloud that meant the light dispersed evenly making the shots bright with out needing extra equipment.  If I had filmed inside there would not of been enough space for the high kicks and other action shots, and I would of needed lots of lights as it was fairly dark inside comparatively.
I made the set by combining three bed sheets I originally wanted the background to all be black, however I only had one black bed sheet so I decided to go for a bit of a weird design in that the top half was black and the bottom red. To do so it meant pinning up the bed shit on to something luckily for me my dad had been making a veranda which did not have a roof on yet so I pinned the sheet to the wooden support beam that went across the top, Then I noticed that you could see through the sheet, so I then put one of the red sheets behind the black giving it  more solid colour, and also stopping it from being see through. I then draped the other red sheet over some wood that was lying around and then made it flat on the floor filling up the bottom of the set. The wind gently blew the sheets too which was a bonus as it added to the final effect.
Then in post edit I will zoom in to remove most of the stuff out side of the scene. 
I  got my friend to come round and bring his full Dobok(the white suit) and perform the moves for me .
We used simple instructions for communication such as "recording" when I started recording then "1, 2, 3, go" to signal when he should move at which he left a second between go and him moving so that their was some room for editing, then he would perform the move and stay in the last position, at which point I would wait a couple of seconds again for editing then say "cut" and stop recording.  

For my second set of shots I filmed in my Tae-kwon Do class where I wanted it to be as raw as possible, so I simply asked my instructor if he could run the class as normal and I could film like I was not even there.
I only had one chance to record the shots that I needed from the class because I didn't want to take up much of the classes' time, and also I want consistence of who was there or not as the case may be. Speaking of people who were not there, I was politely asked by a couple of people to not be filmed, so I made sure I was filming at angles, so that meant they were not in the shot. This proved quite easy  as their was only two people that didn't want to be filmed, and they were right at the end of the line, so I just filmed from where they were which meant that they weren't in it.
As I only had one chance to film it meant that I could not get any experimentation in with the colour balance, lighting and angles, so the shots do have a bit of a yellow tindge but I can fix that easily in post production using colour grading built in to 'Premiere.'


I used the same camera set up as the first set of shots however, I did not use a tripod or mono pod this time, as the case may be becasue it was too big to take to the class, plus the set up would of made me more apparent leading to the students staring into the camera detracting from the raw feel I was aiming to achieve.

Animation Process

Animation Process
The animation process in quite simple in that it is essentially drawing a few pictures one after the other and then the computer will animate them to one another accordingly . There might need to be a bit of tweaking as I found out when putting it all together.

The first step is to open up Animate:


Then I click on HTML canvas which gives me the basic animation format to work with:

The next step is to import my back ground:
I do so by opening up animate and the file window that the background is in and drag and drop over the main screen in animate,  the computer automatically makes a layer with the background on.  You do have to zoom in or shrink the background so that it fits the frame.

My next step, was to create another layer and start to draw the first position the character would be in, I used the videos that I recorded as reference to get proportions and positions right.
This was the layout that I was using to work with.

I  proceeded to do postilion by positions and frame by frame, leaving about five frames between the first and second drawing and the same all the way thought to the end of the animation.

Finally to finish off each animation I would make all the frames turn in to 'Classic Tweens' just to make the scenes smoothen out.

Some did not turn out too great once I applied the Tween so, I had   to go back and select the part that did not look too great, and convert them to a frame by frame animation, and then adjust each frame one at a time, which made them a little more tedious but meant the it looked better. This operation was quite time consuming too.

Then all I need to do is export.

I did see a massive difference between the first and last animation that I made, which shows how I progressed, and how my skills have improved. drawing wise and animation wise. Saying that if I had time I would go back and redo the first few animations that I made at home at the beginning, purely because they look so bad compared to what I have made now, however it does give a good topic to talk about in my final evaluation and self assessment.

How i will receive feedback

How I will get feedback

I plan to get feedback on my final piece of work by making a questionnaire using Google forms to gather results of what I did well and what I didn't do well. Some of the questions may be appropriate if you do Tae-kwon Do, ie; 'would this video be helpful for remembering basic theory?' 'Would you like there to be another video like this but on more advanced theory?' 'Did you like the style of how it was made/filmed/edited?' these are just a few for examples. I will also ask verbally some of my Friends at Taekwon-do for their opinion, to get a more down to earth feel for it.
I know from previous experiences, questionnaires don't always allow you to right exactly what you would like to, as it might mean diverting from the question. Then, using all these results I will some up what I think I did well, and not so well and then justify why ,from what people say in the results.
I did also think about holding a focus group, however, when I sat down and started looking at the fundamentals of doing so, I thought it wouldn't be a good idea, as trying to organise some of the students to sit down and give feedback together would be difficult as I wouldn't be able to get them to come in out side of lesson as they have there own lives and I cant do it in lesson as it would disturb the lesson. I considered asking the instructor but they are always occupied with questions from parents and organising the lessons.
I am hoping that the above actions with my questions will give me enough feedback to get a conclusive opinion on my Theory film.

How I will get feedback

How I will get feedback

I plan to get feedback on my final piece of work by making a questionnaire using Google forms to gather results of what I did well and what i didn't do well. Some of the questions may be if you do Tae-kwon Do would this video be helpful for remembering basic theory? Would you like there to be another video like this but on more advanced theory? did you like the style of how it was made/filmed/edited? these are just a few for example. I will also ask verbally some of my Friends at Taekwon-do what they think to get a more down to earth answer as i know from previous experiences questionnaires don't always allow you to right exactly what you would like to as it might mean diverting from the question. Then using all these results i some up what i think i did well and not so and then justify why i people said what they say in the results.