Two recent animations - Haikutimes #156 and Sea to Summit

[Jonathan_Machen]

I thought I'd post some work I created earlier this year. They were both great learning-curve projects, with some obvious flaws, but as a way to sink my teeth into Anime Studio I think they were successes. I have to thank Dale Hemenway for his tutorial on creating characters, that really helped me a lot.
The first one, the Animated haikutimes issue #156 has an obvious problem - the haiku goes by too fast, which I never realized at the time, being so familiar with the content :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_wpZrh9kiM

Then I got to work on an aborted project for Sea To Summit sleeping bags - this involved some very technical re-construction of illustrator files used by the company and then a lot of conversation with the company about how to illustrate water vapor going through bags. The music is mine, and the overall concept is mine, too. They didn't end up using it, but I still got paid something for my time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb0g0ZqN6uI

Anyway, any feedback is appreciated; I spent so much time on these I got sort of burned out, but I'm feeling ready to start another project. Thanks!

[jahnocli]

You asked for feedback -- here it comes. I'll start with the second item, the ad for sleeping bags. I always think the best ads have one clear message, which you remember because of the way the ad is constructed -- humour, poignancy, edginess etc. etc.

You seemed to come at this ad from several different directions. Unfortunately, those approaches weren't reinforcing one another, but pulling in separate directions. The longer it went on, the more confused I became...

On several occasions I was left thinking - "Why?". Why did that sleeping bag hop into the distance? Why did 3 different coloured sleeping bags end up lying next to each other? Why was the sleeping bag cut in half?

The images seemed OK, but there was no narrative -- it was a struggle for me to stay with it until the end. Something I didn't manage with the first item -- it was too twee and, as you say, the text just goes by too fast.

Sorry to be negative, but you did ask. Maybe other forum members can shine a more positive light on your endeavours.

[Jonathan_Machen]

Thanks for your observations. Yes, the sleeping bag project was actually meant to be integrated with other explanatory regular video, with much more description to go along with it, but the guy that hired me got dropped for unrelated reasons, so I just threw things together at the end, then added the jumping section for fun, once it was clear a lot of my work was for nought. I agree it doesn't make much sense, at this point, I should have given more of the history of the project before posting to this forum. Still, it taught me a lot, and criticism like this is useful, so thank you.

[paulcopeland]

I enjoyed the layering of the character between the vegetation at 1.33.

Well done.

Paul.

[Jonathan_Machen]

Thanks Paul, I was happy that worked out, too, a small success in the larger scheme of things. Photoshop to the rescue.