Extended Project Log

Date What I did Problems EncounteredFebruary 27th Today I made sure I had come

to grips with the Extended Project Unit and knew what I

had to do in order to make this a successful and fun

project/unit. I started to think about what ideas I could do and had a general discussion about

the unit with some of my classmates.

I wasn’t entirely sure at the time how the unit was going to be broken down so I asked my

teacher on a clearer explanation of which I got

successfully.

February 28th Today I didn’t do much work honestly and was most looking at images and reading several

things other people had done in my class in order to bring some inspiration for some ideas for

my Extended Project. It seemed some kind of animation wasn’t present in the class at the time

so I thought that would be quite a good idea and step up

to the plate.

Spending too much time in class wondering what to think

about instead of actually jotting down ideas that would help the

production process of my extended project.

March 5th Today I managed to have a lot of work complete. Between

now and February 28th, I managed to produce a list of ideas, got some feedback on

the ideas and in general, completed all of the manage

portion of the Extended Project Unit. I really enjoyed this

process and it was a lot of fun thinking and developing ideas

in a creative manner, I was excited to start with the

project.

When it came to feedback, I was spending a lot of time

filling in questionnaires and having discussion with people in my class about what they could do for their ideas but I

didn’t feel it felt fair as I would give them detailed feedback

but the feedback I was getting seemed quite limited so I asked politely for a couple of people

to think a bit harder and I managed to get some better

results thankfully.March 6th From yesterday, I had

completed the manage portion of the Extended Project and I was now ready to move onto

the Use resources portion, approaching ever closer to actual production of my 2D Animation. This was exciting and I put it up to myself to

conduct some Research on the matter as I felt that would very

important. Today felt very

Minimal problems. The only slight problem being I think people were confused that I meant I wanted feedback for research of 2D animations in

general and not my idea selections. People felt as if they

had already gave me this information before but I

informed them that they hadn’t and that this was slightly difficult and important.

similar to yesterday as it was once again filling in

questionnaires and gathering primary research but thankfully it wasn’t for the some ideas but

it was more specific feedback for my 2D Animation which was very cool. I managed to stick to my production schedule earlier

and even got it done earlier than I expected which was nice.

March 12th With the primary research done, today I decided to conduct some secondary

Research. I split it into different sections, some of which I’ll fill at a later date when I get the time and motivation but for now I focused on Interesting settings. I was very pleased I

managed to look into Emotional Stories and looking back at that section made me have quite a lot of inspiration

to do interesting settings, sadly it wasn’t as interesting and I didn’t find as many examples

but I look forward to diving into secondary research of concept art and characters but this will be quite a long process, it sure

feels like it.

I had some trouble finding more examples of interesting settings that related to my 2D

Animation idea for my Extended Project since a lot of the actual interesting settings

and locales I found in 2D animations were heavily

fantasy based and not what I wanted but thankfully I found

what I felt were two strong examples and conveyed what I

wanted to portray.

March 13th I had managed to finish my secondary Research on not only

Emotional Stories but Interesting Settings in 2D

animations ahead of schedule and I was very much pleased. It

was time to now look at concept art and characters and

right away I had a lot of research outlets to look into. I

found a lot of examples but there were a couple of issues

but it was still a very fun, enjoyable research experience.

Looking into characters and concepts was very in depth and

because of that I wanted to have plenty of examples but

writing about some of the examples in order to make them relate to my final idea proved a bit difficult as they

didn’t have a very close style to what I wanted but had pieces of it but I felt I did a good job

backing up the relevance of my choices on characters and

concepts.March 19th Use of Resources was still being

conducted and I am still working on Characters and

Concepts. I’m gradually approaching the end of my

I was getting a bit tired of researching and just wanted to

start producing my 2D animation which would be my

artefact for my extended

secondary research and I honestly can’t wait to start

production, it shall be very fun. In the process of Research I

have managed to jot a couple of notes and ideas on what I

wanted to do with my animation but it was a very fun

day.

project so I was being distracted by my brain wanting

to drift away from that but I managed to focus enough to

get my work done so that could’ve been a pretty big

problem as I would have work still outstanding to do.

March 20th Research was finally completed and the uses of resources

section. I am very pleased with this and I felt I gathered not

only a lot of sources throughout my research journey but

managed to go very in depth with each one and I felt I brought up a lot of good

arguments and points to back up my reasoning behind

researching each piece in each topic. I’m proud of my work

here today but now I have to start actually producing my product as it has been a lot

time coming.

I didn’t encounter any problems.

March 26th Today I prepared for my Extended Project Exhibition

which was going to take place on Tuesday, March 27th

Between March 20th and today, I managed to get not only the first and second draft of my animation but the final draft and I was quite pleased with

my pieces. I wasn’t very happy with my two drafts, they were

very rushed but I think I put my effort in the final draft and managed to do something I

didn’t think I would do which is produce a 2D animation which

conveys a strong sense of emotion. I showcased it in front

of a couple of people in my class before the upcoming

Presentation and Exhibition and I seemed to get a few chuckles and appreciation for the music choice which was very nice as

I had quite a lot of issues here. One of them being with the

exhibition preparation. I really wasn’t sure what I was doing

and I kept thinking, is this really it, is this all I have to prepare

for? But I got a clearer explanation whilst talking to my

teacher which was nice and I didn’t mind my exhibition placement. I was sharing a

laptop with two people in my class in order to display my animation but I was having

trouble show casing mine but I eventually got it working in the

end and I was pleased.

The actual production of the animation was a disaster of

shorts. I really wasn’t sure what to use to make it and I kept

thinking too big. I had to keep simplifying my idea to

something that was short and

that was a heavy component of it. It was tiring process but I

think I got there in the end with something at least, even if it’s rather short and doesn’t 100% go back to what the ideas or

sketches were, it still holds true to my intention.

was actually successful. It was a shame and I kept having

troubles with the software breaking and ultimately not

being too familiar with Adobe Flash CS5 but I eventually got

there and produced a final draft that I was quite proud of. I just think of the big problems might

be the fact that people might be confused how the final draft

connects with the first and second drafts so I will have to

explain that in my review.March 27th Today was presentation day

and it quite fun. I showed my animation to a couple of people, people in other

extended projects, parents of the students and more and they seemed pleased with it

once they walked past my little section of the room. It was a

nice looking exhibition and I felt it was pretty example I just felt 2 hours was perhaps too long

for the exhibition and it should’ve been cut down

slightly as I feel there was a period where no more people were going to come and that last 30 minutes could’ve been

used to pack up and tidy up the hall instead of later.

I have a few issues trying to actually get my animation to

display on the laptop but with a bit of fiddling around I get it

working on the laptop but sadly not on the computer with the projector attached but I was still pleased that it was even working at all to be honest.

April 1st REVIEWToday I decided that it was a good time to look back at my blog and improve some of the posts with some imagery and

fine tune my feedback, evaluations and more for the

review section of this Extended Project Unit. It was a very

productive but quite laid back day and I was pleased I

managed to get the evaluations and such out of the way as I do not think I’d honestly right as

much at this point in the unit as the ideas I came up with have

would be tepid and not fresh in

Some problems with the blog was trying to organise some of

the posts in a timely order using the post options with

each post but some didn’t seem to change which is

disappointing as now I have 2 or 3 posts that are out of place but I’m happy at least they are

in the right sections such as Manage, Use Resources, etc..

my mind. General organisation of my blog went well though and I’m pleased with all the

work and the blog itself.