Monday, March 7, 2016

What Makes a Good Animated Video Good?


It was mentioned in class on Wednesday that one possibility for our final project could be an animated video. I began thinking of sources of animated videos to analyze based on form and content and one source that I have turned to a few times for my own learning has been teacher tube, The videos certainly range in terms of quality, but there are a few characteristics that make the really engaging ones stand out.

1. Music! Some videos had subtle music playing in the background, while others only had the teacher's voice for the audio. I found it very difficult for the latter form to be engaging. Though the music did not add to the educational content of the video, it did improve the form. For example in the video "layers of the atmosphere), you heard a catchy outer space tune in the beginning. my attention was immediately caught. However, that music lasts only for a few seconds and then you are left only with the voice of the teacher, the video quickly became less interesting
2. Moving Graphics. Some of the videos had a stationary picture, and the teachers would either let it be and talk about it, or they would write over it as they spoke. Either way, the videos weren't that engaging. The ones that caught my attention were the ones where the graphics themselves moved and changed every so often. For example, there was a video about the Spanish-American war which was presented mostly like a power point, where things were added to slides and the slides changed every 30 seconds or so. This made the video much more engaging than it would have been had the images been stationary the entire time

There were a couple other factors that altered the quality of the videos, but I feel that these two were the most critical in making a video fun, engaging, and informational

3 comments:

  1. I agree with the music part of it. When someone is speaking, I am actually able to pay more attention to what the speaker is saying. It makes what they say more meaningful, and sometimes, adds more emotion or pathos. Also, when I hear that song again at a different time, I am able to remember what that person said.

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  2. These are really good points that made sense as soon as I read them. I tried making a video for my post today and I think it struggled because I did not include either of those elements in the video.

    I also think that quality on these points is really important. One thing that I have a really hard with is when there is audio behind the speaker and that audio is too loud to where it is hard to hear the speaker. The graphics also having to have meaningful motion. If they are simply moving to move, it detracts from the presentation.

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  3. The music was something I noticed in the animated videos I watched as well. It was almost like elevator music. It's really subtle but makes a big difference. If we were to do this I wonder if we could produce our own music, and if not, where would we get music like this?

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