Based on this semester’s course, I have developed more knowledge and skills about animation. First of all, my understanding of storyboarding has deepened. Storyboard is the foundation of a good animation, it is the conversion of the textual description of a story into a frame-by-frame narrative of the progress of the story. The animator can have a basic idea of the scene movement in the camera to design the character’s performance. The Layout Artist can also design the final shot based on the finished story. Because it is a visual form of communication, it can be especially helpful for these visual media. The storyboard needs to show the direction and content of the story, including composition, camera movement, editing, and other aspects.

Secondly, I realized the importance of timing in the study of stop-motion animation. Before shooting an animation, it is important to think about how long an action will take and how many in-between frames it will take. This makes it easier for the animator to get a clear idea of the continuity of the story in the subsequent animation. The practice of stop-motion animation this semester has taught me the unique visual effects of different materials and forms of stop-motion animation. Especially in the sand painting exercise, I realized that different materials have different characteristics. It needs to be researched and shot in different ways to reflect its features. 

Finally, in the stop-motion exercise, I also learned how to use a green screen background to create an animation. This requires the animator to shoot stop-motion animation with puppets on a green or blue background and then import it into Premiere for editing. This way allows for more versatility in the background of the animation, which I found interesting, so I used it to create my lip exercise. After designing the character I first created the puppet using paper cutouts where the character’s features could be replaced. Then I shot the whole movie by placing her on a green background. Finally imported it into Premiere for editing and replaced the background with the prepared image.