I found this module extremely challenging. I find digital apps very hard to learn and i couldnt use them. They became a hindrance rather than a help. But I found ways around the problem.

As I said, I felt that I was in a land without a map trying to navigate digital animation so I decided to just jump in and make a stop frame animation and see what happened. I realised that I was jumping ahead in the brief but I often learn in an upside down way.

I was pleased with my first attempt although it didn’t have anything to do with Propaganda which was the brief.

Phillipe challenged me to look at what I had made and work out how I could turn it into a Propaganda theme. And so I added a short sequence to the beginning of the film which gave the story the contemporary context of the current energy crisis. It struck me that the energy companies were telling their customers that that should keep warm this winter by jumping up and down and eating porridge. I remember how angry I felt when I heard this and so I thought I was satirise this in my film by having the Baby – who is in charge of the energy company – say exactly what the real energy companies had been saying. One of the purposes of propaganda is to convince large groups of people that something is true when it is clearly not. I referenced this is my treatment citing Hitler, Trump and Boris Johnson, all of whom had babyish mannerisms, as very effective propagandists.. I backed into this idea after Phillipe had challenged me and I’m glad I did. I think the central idea of a Baby monster who consumes everything and lies about it is a fitting image for the way Big Business is conducted. Of all the aspects of my attempt to create a piece of animation on the theme of Propaganda I think the concept is strong even if I came across it almost accidentally. Through this process I have learned that in creating art it is important to be open to correcting course and even more importantly being vigilant to spot the “accident’ that works.

I can see that I need a lot of time to make something really well and that every single component of the film from the set, the characters, the lighting etc etc takes a very long time and that it just the beginning. I would make sure to allow much more time for post production in future. Aside from the digital difficulties that I had, I learnt that even researching and finding or making the ‘perfect’ sound is a very long process.

FINAL AnimATION