Claymation Reflection Essay

This quarters big project was making a claymation about an explorer. The person that I made my claymation with was my best friend, and partner in crime, Phalen Cochran. We did our claymation on Amerigo Vespucci. Phalen and I worked really well together. I think that is mostly because we are besties 'till the end.

I can't really say I have a favorite part of making the claymation. But if I had to choose one it would be making the props. I had a lot of fun doing this because I like making things out of clay. Another reason why I enjoyed this part of the project was because I got to talk and mess around with my friends much to Mr. B's disapproval. Despite all of the camaraderie we rarely got scolded. If we ever got in trouble for anything it was for talking too much. Except for once, when Camden and Cameron were having a clay fight.That was funny. Until they got in trouble. Then it was REALLY funny. Making our claymation wasn't all fun and games though. There were also some difficult parts.

The hardest part of the project for me, was making up all of the dialog and narration. This is because had some trouble not repeating the information through out the entire project. We had some trouble with recording our our dialog and narration as well. The Computer annex was never quiet and so when we would listen to our voice recordings you could hear everyone in the backround. We tried to hide all of that noise with backround music but Phalen and I aren't very technically inclined. So randomly you hear someone scream something weird. Phalen and I weren't terribly happy with the outcome of the audio portion of our project. Based on what everyone elses sounds like, ours could have been a lot better. I think granted a little bit more time and a little bit more quiet it might have sounded better. But then again, other people made theirs sound good with out those things.

The most important thing that I have learned through out this project is that team work and determination are key. In the beginning of production, Phalen and I found it hard to focus and stay on track with all of our friends around us. It really hit us that we needed to hustle and ignore all of the distractions when one of our scenes was turned in late. After that, each scene got better and better as we learned how to manage our time. Team work played a very important role as well because without it our project would be in shambles. Phalen and I worked very well together when it came to making sure we were both doing the same amount of work and giving our all. Never once through out this whole project did I feel that I was doing more work than Phalen, or vice versa. On days that I just wasn't in the mood to work and only wanted to socialize, Phalen was there to remind me that we needed to move along. I think I also learned a bit on time management. We set goals of when we would get all our props made, when we would get audio done and when we would shoot. That helped immensely.

Over all I really liked doing this project. It involved all of my favorite things, Phalen, playing with clay and socializing. I even enjoyed it when Phalen and I couldn't work the stinkin' computer, or when we had to record our audio. I sucked in a bunch of knowledge about computers, team work and time management as well.