Francisco Pizarro Claymation Reflection

Francisco Pizarro was a pretty boring man. He killed people, wanted gold and wealth, and sailed a giant ship over the ocean. Boring yes, unimportant no. Although he was just like many other men during his time, he did extraordinary things. They might have been cruel, dishonest, and disturbing, but I still managed to get a two minute claymation out of his life. The claymation was an interesting way to show knowledge of a certain persons life. You had to display this knowledge verbally, and through pictures and words.

During this claymation there were times when the camera was sliding around, and the peoples heads were coming off but all in all it was a lot of fun. If I had to pick one thing that was the most fun, it would be taking the pictures. You had to be creative in showing different aspects of the explorer’s life. I think it was fun because it wasn’t your cookie cutter report. The pictures were a way of making the report fun and engaging. Another reason I liked taking the pictures was because you had choices over which view you gave of that person’s life. For example, Francisco Pizarro killed many Incans over the course of his journey. You could say that ‘He was a noble man of his country and brought prosperity to his land’ or, ‘ Francisco Pizarro was a brutal man that killed thousands of people and brought down a thriving civilization for personal gain’. It all depends on how you wanted to portray your explorer.

The most difficult thing about this project was definitely turning it in on time. There were all sorts of things that could go, and did go wrong, that made it even more difficult to turn in the work. Sometimes you would shoot a scene, and it would not be the quality of work that you wanted to turn in. This put you in a predicament. You could either, turn in the scene on time, or redo the scene and make it better at the expense of turning it in late. Because you had so little time in some situations, you would find yourself asking that very question. At times your situation would become frustrating, or you would find yourself in a bind and this all contributed to the difficulty factor.

I don’t think that there was one most important thing that I learned. Although, time management was defiantly one of the major things. I learned that you always have to be thinking one step ahead, or else you easily fell behind. You had to outline what it was that you needed to get done that day, and how could you help make tomorrow less complicated and rushed. Another part of the time management was if you got behind, how to catch yourself up. Which was not always an easy feat because each scene was just as time consuming as the last. Learning this helped a tremendous amount and made the project less stressful and more enjoyable.

I now know more about Francisco Pizarro than I would ever have thought possible. I think I learned more about him because I was forced to take in information in many different ways. By this I mean that I had to write information on my story board, research it for the sets and people, and recite it for the audio. This project was interesting and different. I really enjoyed a lot of different aspects about it.. I hope to do more projects like it again!