Portfolio Review- The Neighbourhood

Since visiting in the first half of this year, The Neighbourhood has been one of my favourite studios, not just in Manchester but also, in the country. This was due to their relaxed atmosphere, their friendly demeanour  as well as their professional attitude towards the work that they produce.
It was these reasons that i made sure that in the second half of this year, i had another Portfolio review with this company. As i have already talked about the studio and atmosphere in the previous visit, i will instead just talk about the advice given.

The last time that i had a Portfolio review with this company, i didn't have a showreel to hand and so, this time, i made sure that i had feedback on this particular piece. This is because a showreel is the first thing that most companies want to see, second maybe to the actual person that they are interested in hiring/ talking to.

As this was my first attempt at a showreel, i knew that their would be much room for improvement and so, i never feel disheartened when people criticise it.

The advice given to me was similar to that of the other companies, that the main flaw with my showreel is my choice of music. Although they all seem to like the Tron soundtrack, they say that the style and beat of the music doesnt suite the showreel. Axis animation said that it made my personality seem slightly angry however, they knew this wasnt true as i had been more than friendly when talking to them and emailing them. Jon (The Neighbourhood) said that the music was the wrong tempo for my piece as in order to fully pull it off, i would need a really fast edit and many more pieces of work in my arsenal.

This advice is something that i have been thinking about with my new showreel edit as, i feel that they are both right. That i need to have a slightly slower, more relaxed piece of music accompanying my piece in order to suite the piece and my personality.

Further advice was given about the order of the pieces within my showreel, that the first clip should be something graphically strong, which leads the audience into the piece. Jon's suggestion was to use a different part of my Apocalypse piece, that the ending (leading towards the city) would be a good piece to use as it is leading the audience into the rest of the showreel. I will heed this advice as i have been told by Axis as well that the opening clip should be different. There suggestion however, was the Condemned clip as it leads the audience whilst having a basic and strong graphic approach to the piece.

The final piece of advice which Jon gave was about the control screen test using Andy as the characters. He was interested in me breaking down the process which i used to create this screen. This is something that i will be doing in my Making-Of and so, i felt that a stand-alone piece on the screen would not be necessary, once my making of is completed.

All in all, i felt that the advice given was informative and positive in the criticism. I cant wait to start my 2 weeks within the company as then, they will be able to see my working method and get a better look at my character and friendly attitude. This is something that you cant achieve in a 20-60min portfolio review, its something that takes time.

Update

After having the presentations on Friday, we now had a week before the final deadline and unfortunately, i still had a lot of work to do however, i managed to keep my head up through illness and have devised a time line in which i need to follow in order to do things.

As of Monday 9th.

Finish Final piece -animate control screen
                             -add sound
                             -touch up Greenscreen
                             -Re-record Audio
                             -Emphasise Globule

This all needs to be done by Wednesday which will then leave Thursday and up to 4:30 on Friday.
This is the time which i need to -Put together my Making-of
                                                  -Create new showreel
                                                  -finish sketchbooks
                                                  -PDP and blog update
                                                  -Hopes, fears and opportunities.

Although these have been separated out into days. I have already found that somethings end up being done as they are what you need to do in order to de-stress from my Major Project.

I have done my Hopes, Fears and Opportunities document and am currently updating my blog : )

At the current moment, i have someone recording themselves reading the script part for Scientist 1 which i will then be able to add over Bobs voice which, in all honesty, was very abrasive and not very good. He did however look the part, being an older character and so i am grateful for his participation.
I think that, depending on how the recording is, i will change the way in which scientist 2 reacts as i can then read in this part as i know how it should sound.

I have found a way in After Effects in which i can emphasise the Globule as its reaction is taking place. By creating a wiggle expression for the video, it allows the camera to shake as the globule shoots come out, adding more emphasis to the piece.

What does the future hold?

For now, i am uncertain about my future within the industry. I have constant doubts about what i will be doing after this course has finished. For a while now, i have been apprehensive and have been wanting to get out of education. Now that i have spent 19 years of my life in education, i feel that its time for me to move on. Many people enjoy the environment of working towards something however, i have gotten bored of this and want to progress.
    The only down-side to this, is that after this final year, i no longer know what i want to do. Dont get me wrong, i want to carry on working in the moving image industry however, i am unsure of what area of design i want to work in.

In all honesty, i think that i want to move to Glasgow and work for Axis Animation however, i am untrained in the programs they use and i also feel that i am not at that level in my design skills. I know that people dont expect new graduates to be the 'dogs bollocks', however, i dont think that i am at a stage to do this at all. Maybe, once i have developed my design skills to meet this criteria and maybe, when i dont have to work towards to confines of what i need to do to pass my degree, i will be able to let my creative juices flow and create something short and sweet that people will say 'wow'.
I know that the criteria in my degree aims to help me meet the marks and will subsequently, help me during jobs when pitching and working for clients and so, i dont want to seem ungrateful with my degree, i just want to progress. Everything that has happened and everything that will happen is in fact, down to the choices that i have made, the people i have met and the goals that i want to achieve.

Lets hope that i get there in the end.

Arm development_colour

As i have many elements within my piece, i felt that i would need to keep a familiar colour scheme for various elements within my design. This initial developed from how I was going to colour and texture my arm. In my head, i wanted the arm to look and feel futuristic, so that it suited the environment in which it was in.

After seeing the adverts for portal 2, i wanted to create something which had as much presence as these characters.

These characters, using metal textures as an exoskeleton and then a white thick metal (possibly re-enforced) with a slight matte finish as the protective layer.

Initially, i wanted to recreate something on these lines however, once i started building the arm, i realised that the design which i wanted was slightly unreliable. This then made me create a more solid structure, one which had little room for a protective surface. However, i still wanted the variation of colours and materials within my arm design and this is what i came up with.

Extension Close UP (variation of materials)

Using Chrome and Black metal only

Having various elements as white Matte whilst

the rest remains varieties of chrome.

My final decision - using chrome and metals for the majority

of the design whilst keeping with the initial idea of using

white  as one of the elements.

The one thing that i think i will change with this it the white area doesnt really have any prominent shadows. I will create a more refined occlusion layer which focus' in on this and see how it can look.

Creating this arm has been one of the more fun parts of this project as i have had to design and plan out every section of the arm, build it, texture it and animate it so that it looks 'cool'.

Design opportunities

From looking around this week, as well as my mother being a super sleuth, I hopefully have two separate opportunities coming my way.

The first, is the Possibility that I have work for a family friend called perry from grassington. This however is not the exciting part of this arrangement as his best friend is a gent called Lee Munden, a director who has worked for Coca-Cola, Sony as well as a variety of other things. From working for Perry, I will be gaining contact with this valuable resource.

The second opportunity is from York and is the possibility to meet up with a guy called Alan Welsman, the European marketing director for Disney. Although i don't know how far this contact could go, I'm still quite excited about the opportunity.

Lastly, (I know I said 2 but why not) I have been offered to work at The Neighbourhood for 2 weeks commencing the 23rd May. This will last for 2 weeks when I am working towards my end of year show. Let's see if these help me with putting my foot in the door of industry.

Portal 2

This is initial trailer that set me to look at Portal 2 for my arm texturing. The subtle uses of the colours along with the limited colour palette means that the character is unified. The distinguishing features of each character, other than the shapes, are the colours used for the Iris. The use of character movement, both obvious and subtle, gives the characters an anthropomorphic personality, meaning the audience will warm to them and be interested in how they feel and move etc.

portal 2

This trailer for portal 2 has humour, action as well as an amazing voice over.

Although not relevant to my piece in these aspects, the use of colours and shades is something that i am interested in. The mechanical structures (characters) use metal skeleton with a white shell. this use of materials is something that i am very interested in and will try to achieve something similar with my armature.