Holly Powell - Final Major Project
Alcohol Digital Media Animation Research
Alcohol Unit Guidelines
I needed to research the alcohol unit guidelines in the UK because it was recommended by my peers when I showed them the first draft of my animation storyboard to show the audience what the 14 units of alcohol each week for both men and women was equal to. I found the picture above, which explains that 14 units a week is equal to 6 pints of beers, 7 glasses of wine and 14 single shots of spirit. This was helpful because it was easy to understand in comparison to some of the other pictures attempting to explain the alcohol guidelines.
I'm going to use the information and create my own version of the guideline, drawing the wine and beer glasses as well as the single shots of spirits, and then I plan to add in the strengths they equal to, to give more justification to my audience.
Looking at this then got me to thinking about what the guidelines are in other places, so I thought I would look it up just to see how much people in other countries are allowed to drink each week.
Men in Spain have the guideline of 35 units each week and women are guided not to exceed 21 units each week. Spain has the most flexible guideline, as the amount of units are much higher than any other country, especially for men. The difference between the two countries with the most flexible guidelines for men, Spain and France, is 9 units.
Besides the UK, all of the guidelines for men exceed 18 units.
Denmark has the lowest guideline for women at 11 units, but it's guideline for men at 21 units is joint fourth for the most.
Looking at these facts, I believe that the decision to cut the guideline for men from 21 units to 14 units in the UK was a smart move, because it means that these men and women have a better chance of regaining a healthy lifestyle when giving up alcohol, and are more likely to have less long-lasting problems than the other countries.
While I may not necessarily include this in my animation, it influenced my research because it made me realise that having different guidelines in different locations means that many people would probably not listen to them because of how much it differs, because if it's alright for someone in another country to drink more, then people aren't going to follow their own country's guideline.
Animation Analysis
I liked this animation because of how everything linked - one image lead to another, which looked really skilled. The use of vector animation looked good, but I know I'd be able to do more by drawing frame by frame, because this animation looked very restricted in terms of what could be done. The animation relies on the typical kind of movements - spinning things, moving in and out of frame, etc, which I don't think looks as creative as it could be if it was hand drawn or made frame by frame. The video is by Drinkaware, who have a big campaign which I've already done some research into. The voice over is also good, and the video covers a lot of facts.
This first sequence for this animation relies on a lot of typography work, which changes quickly from one work to form another, using the alarm clock as the common element. The rest of the animation uses a similar style by connecting different words and animations by one common element, which I think is clever because it makes the animation look even more skilled.
I like the way one element moves into another, and the use of various colours for the bottles and glasses. However, I think this is a little distracting because it takes away focus from what the voice over is talking about. I want to try and have my drawings tell a story with the voice over instead of draw attention away from it, so that my drawings match what the voice over is talking about. I don't think this animation does this as well as it could, because it focuses more on transitions and movement, and trying to link each vector animation.
I like the way that one thing turns into another, which is a good use of the vector animation. However, I think that I would be able to do more with drawing frames hand by hand instead of vector animation. I like the use of an image being including in the typography, but it still doesn't convince me that vector animation is the way to go.
I think that while the animation does a good job of explaining the risk of too much alcohol consumption, I don't think it goes into that much detail with it For my animation, I wasn't planning on explaining what happens when you drink too much alcohol because I don't think I would have that many ideas for drawings to match the explanations. This animation touches on the subject of cancer but doesn't explain much further, like the types of cancer that alcohol can contribute to, which I think it should've and therefore I was a little disappointed. I know that the main reason is to be informative so I think not going into a little more detail for this subject let the animation down.
I think this scene of the animation is particularly clever by advertising the alcohol unit guidelines, although they were changed in 2016 to not regularly exceeding 14 units a week, so I think it would be a good idea for the company to update their animation.
This animation is different - the images are already drawn but they aren't actually animated. Someone's hands places the pictures on the screen, as they explain all about alcohol. While I don't like this style and I don't want to do anything similar to it, I recognize how creative it is, because it's rare to see an 'animation' like this. The pictures are very well drawn, and it's a shame that it's not actually animated because I can imagine how well the creators would've been able to pull it off if they hadn't gone in this direction.
I don't like the style of this animation because it's not actually animated and isn't in colour. The use of black and white images associate it with being boring because there isn't much else going on. The direction this animation goes in with using a hand to move all of the images makes it look a little time consuming and seems to use a lot of unnecessary effort, because using an editing program, the images could've been faded in and out and moved off screen even if they weren't actually animated, which would've been a lot simpler. I appreciate the drawings because they're really detailed, and I think if they had been animated and drawn out in frames, this animation could've been a lot better.
I think that this part of the animation couldn't been executed better because of the explanation of the effect on alcohol. While it explains it well, I think it's a little boring. I think the time taken on this part of the animation should've been spent more on something else, such as explaining the different types of cancer that can develop from too much alcohol consumption, using this image of the body to go with it.
Like the previous animation, this one touches on the subject of cancer but doesn't go into detail about it, but the other problems that are spoken about are explained in a tone which isn't attention-grabbing. I think that the lack of colour in the animation along with the explanation of some of the risks which probably shouldn't be as focused on as much as the risk of the cancer development makes the animation lose interest.
This animation is very well constructed - it uses vector animation, and looks really good. The animations make sense with what's being talked about, and the style is consistent, colourful and interesting. I don't want to use vector animation in this way, but so far this is one of the best ones I've seen for the topical of alcohol. All of the information is clear and well presented, although the animation is long and I feel like if I were to include as much information and make my animation longer, it would seem dragged out and it wouldn't keep the audience's attention for that long. I think it would be better to keep the animation short, including some information but not too much where people would start to switch off.
This vector animation is extremely long, so I want my animation to be short and to the point because I think that otherwise it will start to lose interest from an audience. However, the animation goes into a lot of detail about a range of topics, including the first part explaining the effect alcohol has on the brain. It's clear and very informative, but I think it's too long.
The animation goes into detail about a range of topics to do with drinking, including alcohol consumption whilst pregnant and the consequences for the baby, teenage drinking and making stupid decisions, such as having unsafe sex, teenage pregnancy and drink driving. The animation then goes on to explain the effect of long term alcohol consumption on mental and physical health, including liver failure and the negative effect it has on medication for anxiety and depression, and finally what happens to the body as you get older and continue to drink. I think the coverage of a range of topics is really good, but to do all of this, the animation is really long, which I think would make an audience turn off after a while.
I like the use of advertising at the end of the animation because it shows just how much the company that's made this animation cares. While the other animations I looked at advertise their websites, this animation is the first to offer proper help with a call line and online counselling.
Looking at the above animations have helped me recognise different styles and techniques, and it has also made me very adamant on the fact that I want to produce an entirely hand drawn animation, with each sequence within the animation drawn frame by frame instead of using vector animation. I also know how long I want it to be and what types of information I want to include, because the last video I reviewed was extremely long, and I want to be able to keep mine very short but also very informative. From looking at the middle animation, I also know that I want my animation to be colourful and imaginative, because I didn't like the fact that every drawing in that video was just black and white. These animations have been extremely useful with part of my decision making process, with the most important decision being using hand drawn animation.
Voice Tests for Voice Over
Friend 1
Friend 2
Friend 3
Friend 4
Since I want to get someone else to record the voice-over for my animation, I decided to conduct some voice tests using some of my friend's saying one of the lines. I wanted to do this because I thought it would be beneficial to experiment with whose voice would sound the best as the voice over, because I want to execute my animation to the best possibly quality I can, and therefore I want to use the person who has the clearest voice and can speak with emotion, in order to connect with the audience. I didn't want to be the voice over because I don't like the sound of my own voice, and I don't think I would be able to accurately convey the emotion that I want without having my voice sound too weird. These tests have been helpful because I've decided on a voice over that I really like and believe can do the best job, so I think conducting this experiment has helped a lot because otherwise I may not have thought of using the voice of the person I've chosen.