Leeds Digital Jobs Festival

Annabeth informed us via email of the Leeds Digital Jobs Festival.

I knew from browsing the website that the entire job fair would not be entirely relevant to my practice, but what gave me faith was seeing 'designer' in the list of who the employers were looking for and of course that can be translated into animator.

The job fair was an interesting experience and it was pretty much what I'd expected with a few nice surprises. When I was walking around talking to people, I made sure to not just say, 'hello, I'm a graduating animator' instead I decided to say that and that I am a designer and am interested in working in video editing. I felt like it was very important to mention the range of skills I have. I also decided against simply asking everyone if they have an animation department and instead asked them if they do animation. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that quite a few people said that even though they did not currently have an animation department or even do animation currently they are keen to get into that field, therefore were happy to take my business card. I gained the sense from talking to people and handing out my own business cards that they were interested in what I do and keen to help me out in any way they could.

I felt like the experience was very successful as as a result I am currently waiting for one of the individuals to arrange a meet-up with me as he said he was keen to discuss job/internship opportunities with me as animation is something he wants his company to get involved in. This is encouraging to me because I feel that I could have a lot to bring to an animation department that's just starting out and they would benefit from my ideas and enthusiasm.

Applying for an Internship at Little Motel

Feedback on My 2017 Showreel

I received feedback from Rob, Ollie and Fiona at Matter and Co. regarding my 2017 Showreel. I massively appreciate Fiona setting up the official meeting in which Ollie and I sat down with the three of them to discuss our showreels in depth. 

I received so much feedback it's hard to know exactly where to start. 

• Remove Blind Pipeline clip

I was advised to take out the clip in which I showed my Blind Pipeline project. They felt that although it was a nice idea for a project, it doesn't really showcase my skills. 

• Rework track

I knew timing my animatic to music was important and I thought I had done this pretty well, but I was advised that I should focus more time to this. I received feedback that as the showreel was, the visuals didn't match up enough to the track, I was told that my showreel goes at a pretty similar pace throughout and I should concentrate on creating a build up.

Rob showed me a showreel by Ryan Jackson of which illustrated his point better of timing my clips to music. This showreel is perfectly timed to music, it's a very fast track, therefore the clips are incredibly fast cut and on screen for hardly anytime at all. They literally match the track to the beats.

Rob told me that it was not a problem to show multiple clips from the same animation. I was worried this may look choppy and have often spoke of this with my peers. But Rob said that it's not important, it's better to focus my attention on editing my showreel almost like a music video.

• More integration

Rob gave me a piece of very useful advice. This was that I should look for running themes that could connect my clips. For example, if a clip plays in which someone is running, the next shot should have fast movement. Then if in the next clip it has speech for example then I should place it next to another clip that features speech and so on.

• Keep to 2D

One piece of feedback I received that I initially disagreed with was that I should get rid of the 3D animation in my showreel and replace it with more 2D. I disagreed with this because I'm very proud of my 3D animation that I made in Character and Narrative and really wanted to show it. However my point was challenged with the question of do I see myself animating 3D again? And the answer to this is no. This did convince me a little, but a major fear I had of getting rid of these 3D clips was that my showreel would look very similar and boring, like I'm just a one trick pony. However they mentioned to me that I can still showcase very different stuff in the realm of my speciality. For example, yes most my clips should ideally be 2D animated as that is the type of role I want to go for in the industry, but there are many different things I can do with the medium. For example I could take a piece of pre-existing material and animate it to show off my skills of replicating styles (a point Annabeth had raised with me previously).

• Replace my Blind Pipeline clip with life drawing nicely edited together in a way that it works as a clip of it's own.
• Need Stretch Frames

Fiona told me that what my showreel is lacking are stretch frames. Admittedly this had not crossed my mind. 

Sadly beforehand I was even unaware of the term 'stretch frames' but after finding out what they were I realise now what an essential part of 2D, especially traditional animation they are. Fiona also advised me that if I did want to work for a studio like Golden Wolf, then I need to include stretch frames in my showreel as Golden Wolf are very big on stretch frames.

• Watch LOADS of showreels

The feedback I received in the meeting was incredibly useful although I did hit a bit of a bump in the road.

Ollie asked me what my dream job would be. I replied to this after some hesitation. My dream job would be to work at an animation studio that produces 2D animated films and shorts. Fiona stated that while that's a fine dream job to have, it conflicts with my short term dream of working in commercial animation at a company like Golden Wolf. She advised me that once I get into commercial animation it is quite hard to then make that switch, so if I were serious about pursuing a career in animation in which I work on films then I really need to re-evaluate my options of what direction I want to go in for the short term future.

London Animation Club

During our work experience with Fiona at Matter and Co. Fiona took us to the monthly London Animation Club.

Olly Brown, Vivien Halas, Jez Stewart, Emma Calder and Ged Haney

The event was an incredible experience. We watched the animation Know Your Europeans by Bob Godfrey and others. I in particular liked the animation Know Your Europeans - Germany. The animation was very bizarre and incredibly fast paced yet I found the animation aesthetic to be incredibly successful. 

After each screening the special guests explained the process of how these animations were developed, what they thought of them now and Bob Godfrey.

Fiona asked the question 'what advice would you give to graduating students?' (A question I asked her in my interview with her).

Emma Colder: 'Being able to do something better than any body else in a particular way helps. Being able to reinvent yourself quickly. And never to let disappointment crush you.'

Ged Haney: 'The best you can do is have a website, without having a website, you're never going to succeed. Just email every studio. You just have to get your foot in the door. That's the difficult bit. You have to build your relationships'.

Fiona said that she asked the question for Ollie and I and answer we received was incredibly useful for us going forwards in the industry.

Thoughts on H264films Showreel

On our week of work experience with Fiona's studio Matter and Co., Fiona asked both Ollie and I for our thoughts on H264films Showreel. These were my thoughts...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBDXGw5FK9g&feature=youtu.be

Personally, I found that although the look of the showreel is very successful and nicely laid out, I am not a fan of the multiple videos playing at once. The showreel does not start with a logo and throws the video straight into an entirely random clip of footage.

I like this because it does not need to start obviously, that can reveal itself later, however after that clip I only became more confused. The first grid shows nine separate clips of which to me have no crossover, maybe they do but my brain is unable to process that quick enough, yes our attention spans are short so showreels need to be short but here I felt I was just being bombarded with information and could not focus on anything so very soon became board. I feel like there was just no flow to the showreel just lots of stuff on a screen of which individually make very successful clips.