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.

Axis Animation Portfolio Review

When i was looking at companies which i would have been interested in looking at, one of them was in Glasgow and i was willing to travel up in order to see them. As a company, they seemed really interested in having me up however, due to work loads on both ends, we decided that it would be best for them to look at my work online and then go for a visit after my course had finished. I thought that the idea of visiting them after my course had finished would show that i wasn't just wanting to visit them for my uni work but instead because i was interested in themselves as a company.


After having many conversations with Jill Wallace (production manager) and Stuart Aitkin, my showreel was then passed on to one of the directors Wiek.


Hi Rory,

I've asked one of our directors Wiek to have a look at your reel. Here's his comments :

The duration of your reel is pretty much spot on, not too long, not too short. Your choice of music I find slightly aggressive (despite loving the TRON soundtrack), but that's obviously personal taste. I think it is a good idea to get something of your own personality in your music choice. Are you a cheerful person, are you a calm or hyperactive person etc. It might seem trivial, but it's all about the impression you give somebody with your personal message. The reel sells you as a person and an artist. So that's why I think an aggressive sound track doesn't work unless you have really quick edits of fast bombastic shots. 

I'm not sure it is relevant to anybody watching the reel to see the quick shots of the software you used. It is much more interesting for people to see what you have made with it. Talent is what it's about. Although having said that its useful to run a card at the end naming the software you've used, as well as your contact details, email, weblink etc for the purposes of studios being able to get more info on you, or contact you easily.

When it comes to the visuals of your reel, It is very important to start with your very best piece and end with an equally strong one. It's all about first impressions and leaving people with a nice dessert. As it is, I am not sure what you're trying to achieve with the first shot. I'd suggest for instance, using the "condemned" part or the footage of you drawing the explosion. They are much more graphic and stronger pieces.

As it stands, I'm not sure what your reel is selling you as, artist or designer as there's quite a mixture on there. Overall I think you should really think to yourself, what is it I want to do, what is it I am best at? Focus on that. Really try to create something special and impressive that makes people go WOW. And as with most things, that means working really really hard and put in lots of personal hours. Look around at showreels of people that you admire via cg sites/forums, vimeo, you tube channels. What is it you like about them, do you feel your work is as good as theirs. If it isn't, why not? What can you do make it better in terms of quality ?

I think the best advice I can give you is to ignore the idea of passing exams at your school with projects that are "ok". You have to stand out from the crowd. You have to set yourself an ambitious goal and really really go for it. It doesn't mean you have to create something long, on the contrary, create something that looks stunning. 2 seconds of stunning stuff are worth much more than 5 minutes of mediocre drivel. The 2 seconds are all you need to impress. 

All the best!!

I hope this is useful Rory and good luck!!

Jill

From reading this, i agree with the comments that he has left and will re-edit my showreel in order to take the advice of what has been said. I hadn't thought about the soundtrack in the way of showing my personality however, if this is the impression that people get from using this style of music, i dont want to be perceived as being hyperactive or even aggressive.

The use of opening and closing my showreel with strong pieces is a good idea however, i was surprised with the reaction to my making-of's being in my showreel. They weren't meant to show the programs i use but instead to show the construction of the pieces, a little something different. Taking this advice on, as well as the advice i received from Claire at Mainframe, i will create a separate showreel that uses my making-of's as the focus.

Overall, i think that the advice that i am receiving in my third year is much more critical and useful that what i was receiving in the other years and this is a good thing. It will allow me to move forward as a designer and into industry without as much worry.

New control screen

After creating the last control screen, decided what i liked and didnt like about it, i decided that i should go away look at the elements and research various elements which could improve it. The research is in one of my sketchbooks and here is what i came to.

This video shows all my ideas incorporated into a single screen, all the elements that i thought were good anyway. I have then filmed Andy moving in front of a green-screen, asking him to do anything as long as he included an arm movement which i could then use to move a specific element on screen.

With this piece, you can see that i have changed the scale of various elements in order to try and make everything look more professional.

The colour has changed from a light blue to an intense orange which was then toned down so that it didn't over power the scene. The orange, i feel, is more appropriate and suites the atmosphere more. Within a dark room, bright colours such as whites and blues seem to hurt your eyes if you look at them too long however, this orange (verging on red) has a nice look and feel about it whilst also not burning your retina's.

With this, i have tried to create everything as close to the final piece as possible as i wanted to get a real feel for how it would look. The elements will all remain within the final design of my control screen however, i am deciding whether to have them all there constantly or have a slight variation of the elements, depending on what the scientist are doing at the time.

For the live action element, i have filmed Andy on green-screen making sure that i had a lot more footage than i needed to that i could play with timing. I decided that once i had ripped the footage off of the camera,  i would duplicate it and flip it on its horizontal axis. This gave me 2 Andy's to play with. I decided to keep one with the original colours which the camera picked up however, the other (right one) i have colour graded. This process allowed me to get richer, more appropriate colours on screen as part of the character.

This is something i will definitely be doing as part of the post-production of this piece. 

Control screen test

As part of my animation, i have been creating a control screen which will have numerous elements as part of its design. The surround of the screen will be created and textured in Maya. The foreground elements will be scientist working on a green-screen however, the actual interactive screen will be created in After Effects.

By incorporating various elements into the control screen, i will give it a more professional look. The colour, placement of information and overall design of the screen will have to look organised, informed and professional or else the elements wont merge together.

This is one of my initial test which later informed colour scheme, placement and size of my screen.
This short test, ad some nice elements as part of its design however, there were various things which i felt, were wrong with its design.

The colour was my initial worry. This bright blue on the screen would be distracting and i felt, would cheapen the look of the screen and the animation.
The grid along the floor didnt look right. If i was creating a hologram animation then i feel that this would have a place however, as i was creating a control screen and the globule was going to be a graphic representation/ diagram of said globule, i thought that putting a 3D space indicator in (the floor grid) wasn't appropriate.
I do like the look of the constantly changing numbers, indicating a fluctuation in the globule however, the size and 'random generation' weren't right. The numbers are way too large for something which you dont want the audience to read. If i was to add these into my control screen, i would use smaller characters and have it just as an extra element to the screen

The display indicator (moving circle) is definitely the best part of this test. The random movement and its ability to draw the attention of the viewer is interesting.. This element is the only one of these that actually made it into my final storyboard and design ideas.

Realflow test 2

With this test, i used the same shape however, created a shoot off of the main geometry in order to create more separation of the fluid as it enters the main torus shape. I then changed the angle of the emitter so that the fluid wasn't just splashing against the floor however, it enters smoothly and with a fair bit of force behind it.

The mesh around the particles had already worked fine so i did't want to change it much incase the fluid began to separate in ways that i didn't want it to. 

With this animation, i love the initial interaction as the mesh and particles fly out of the shoot, the stream of liquid has a nice shape, reflection and motion however, as it hits the internal ring of the torus, it separates too much and the droplets look rather unbelievable. This changes as they begin to merge back into the same mesh though creating some nice gaps within the fluid. 

The collision between each area of the fluid is something which i enjoy. The force from each end of the fluid  allows for decent interaction and as each section has a similar force behind it, small whirlpools are created

As the shape begins to fill up, the forces above and below to surface of the fluid allow for some nice areas of interaction such as when the fluid is filling in the gaps of the shape as they bounce around as it collides with itself. This is also nice under the initial release from the shoot as it enters the torus shape. Subtle pushes from the fluid filling up counteract the initial shoot and we see a nice force push of fluid as the shoot eventually over powers the rest however, this is where the simulation stops. I wish i had carried it on slightly longer as then, i would be able to see how the fluid carries on.

The texture of the mesh is created once the mesh is taken into maya. I applied a simple blinn as i didn't want a hefty render time but still wanted some surface reflection.

Realflow tests

As part of my animation, i wanted to get some good fluid dynamics and for this, i decided to pick up Realflow and teach myself a new program and see what type of effects i could create.

The program is rather taxing as there are many variables which effects the particles, real world effects and particle interaction. I will start adding various tests for my animation and explain my reasoning and what i wanted to achieve by doing them.

With this animation, i created a torus where the liquid particles could interact with the sides without giving a lot of kick-back which would be created if hitting a 90º wall. This way, the fluid would only interact with itself. When running the simulation, i didn't expect the fluid to double back on itself straight away however, this then allowed for a collision as well as some undercurrents. All this helped me to understand the resolution and viscosity of the particles and will subsequently help when im creating other simulations.

Massive Attack- Atlas Air

This is a follow on from the previous Massive Attack post as i felt that this also helps me with my colour scheme as well as type on screen, relevant for the display and the time titles.



This video has the same character from Splitting the Atom (the bunny) however, in this video, said bunny is constantly changing and almost evolving with the music. Action and Reaction.

However, the reason that i have put this video on my blog is because of the text on screen, sometimes there for the sake of being there however, other times the text is used to display information and give a sense of surveillance. This is interesting to me, considering the control screen that i am making has various displays, some involving text, others purely graphical however, all are animated.

Its good for me to look at these various uses of info-graphics as they may be helpful when i have to create areas of my screen in After Effects and other programs.

Portfolio review 1

Rather soon after posting a rant that i had about Portfolio visits and reviews, i have found a light at the end of the tunnel. Although faint, i am hoping that this light will burn a little brighter.

When we went down to London, I emailed many companies and some of them offered online reviews of my work, others cancelled on the day and others were an out right NO. Dont pass GO, don't collect any sort of feedback.

Although its been a while, i have finally got a reply on my work from no other than Mainframe (London).

I had already been to the manchester branch of this company and i thoroughly enjoyed the experience however, i wanted to see where the roots of this company lay. Although unable to go round the studio, i did speak to Emma Philips on the phone about my aspirations for industry, that i wanted to work for a company who were interested in all sides of the Industry, 3D and After Effects. Although she wasn't able to talk for long at the time, she was interested in what i said and agreed to look at some of my work online.

Weeks and weeks then went past without any sort of communication however, i have recently received an email talking about my showreel and how i can now improve my work to help get the foot in the door of the industry.

Hi Rory, 

Thank you for sending this through. 

I think that the 3D stuff at the beginning of your reel is great - I would try and show more of that as you obviously are good in this area. 

When we look for staff / freelancers we look for their strength be it animation, 3D,  comping....you should try and hone in on your skills and what you want to be employed doing. When you have your foot in the door somewhere then you can start broadening your strengths and showing off in other areas. 

Instead of such a broad showreel - try and have a couple for your different skills and then you can send these accordingly...

I hope that this helps! 

Good luck! 

Emma 

This is rather interesting advice when thinking about the showreel. Having multiple showreels, one for each area of design that i do work in, is something that probably seems like more work however, it is good advice. I am interested in both 3D and After Effects work. I have especially liked building the display for my control screen and so, i feel that a separate showreel for this style of work will be useful. I also feel that with my online work, i dont have to opportunity to show my ideas generation and sketchbook work. My sketchbooks are something that i have pride in as they show that i can generate multiple ideas and plan out visually what things can look like. 

This email has given me an idea, maybe I should have a sketchbook showreel, showing ideas and how they develop into final looks in my piece. Essentially, it will be a showreel of my 'making-of's'.

Portfolio rant

As part of our third year, we have a requirement which states that we need to have 6 portfolio reviews by the end of the course, 3 in the first term and another 3 in the second part of the year.

Although i have sent out many emails and rang even more companies, i have found that a lot of companies either hang you dry, lead you on or just don't reply to anything you send them. This is rather disheartening when you think that, without these visits and reviews, i wont be able to pass my course and will subsequently walk away without a degree.

This is something which i feel is where the industry could improve. I have found that many companies, although successful, aren'y helpful when people are trying to put their foot in the door and make some contacts. Dont get me wrong, some of them are beyond helpful. They will let many of us talk about our work and are usually happy to give feedback on where you could be heading.

When i am a part of the industry, working for a company or even later on in my life, when i have settled down and am happily working away, i think that i want to be one of those people that will help put an end to this rut that i am in. I would be happy to talk to anyone about their work as well as how they could improve.

Lets just hope that i can get the opportunity.

Massive Attack-Splitting the Atom

Whilst in uni the other day, Jamie McIvor was watching a music video by Massive Attack called Atlas Air, this however, was only part of it. It was then that he introduced me to the music video for Splitting the Atom and ever since, i have become hooked on it.



This video has changed my outlook of what is possible within Maya as it uses 3D and a lot of action however, the entirety of the action is frozen in space and is revealed as the camera passes by. The use of simple colours and shades is highly effective as it allows the reflections to give more detail and add another dimension.
The reason i like this music video so much is down to the nature of not having to show all the objects in the scene moving, however, we are instead told the story of what is happening through still objects and the video builds up like a jigsaw puzzle.

Like i mentioned before, the colour of this piece adds to the action. It doesnt distract the audience from the overall message/ focus of the video, but instead enhances the lines and faces of the geometry that makes up this world and the objects within it.

The colours within this piece also interest me as they will be similar colours to my containment room, highly reflective blacks and whites will allow for multiple reflections, refractions and a nice rich noire colour to the globule.

The camera work in this piece is also incredible. The use of tumbling the camera so that it uses its entire 360° axis is something i hadnt thought of before however, now that i know how effective it can be, it is something that i may incorporate into a project if i find it appropriate. The reason i find this technique effective is because, as the audience when i watch this, i wonder whats happening or where am i now. This is then revealed as the camera spins. This is particularly good towards the end of the video as the rabbit is in view. We, as the audience, dont know what it is to begin with, then we dont know which way round it is and in the end, the entire story and sequence of events are revealed, making yourself think.

The bunny is also a recurring element from Atlas Air, the music video Jamie was originally watching when he introduced this to me.

I will blog about that next time.

Nexus Productions

After visiting Tandem Films, the majority of us then moved on to a company called Nexus.
Considering we had just come from Tandem Films, i found myself constantly comparing this
company and its work to Tandem. This however, wasn't a bad idea as the whole point of us visiting companies is to see where we want to be after we graduate.

Nexus, unlike Tandem, was much more hectic in both the amount of people working there and the amount of jobs they had on at one time. This meant that, although there were many people in the building, a lot of them had their head down, working on different projects and not collaborating with their peers. This seemed a tad too stuffy for me as there was tension in the air.
When we got into the building, we were initially escorted downstairs into a room which resembled the inside of a piece of extruded geometry. Lots of lines and angles filled the room which was used as a meeting area for clients as they had a large LED TV and hidden surround sound system. This room could also be used for conference calls.

The good thing about this company is that they, like Tandem, have the ability to make all the models for any stop frame animations in house. This workshop was located next to the meeting room which meant that when we were being shown to this room, we were able to have a sneak peek at some current models.

This company was spread out across four separate floors. The basement was the workshop and meeting room, The ground floor was sued for reception and some work stations. Im assuming that a fair bit of the accounting and promotion is done on this floor. The first floor had various design stations spread out around a single massive room. This was where we spent most of our time, talking to a few of the  members of staff however, this wasnt where my interest lay with this company. It was the top floor that sparked my interest as it was almost like being inside of a smaller company, housed inside this larger one. This floor was taken up by 3 freelancers who, for all intensive purposes, were part of the Nexus team as they had worked with them on various projects. This crew of motley men reminded me of myself and Steve in foundation year, a group of guys who were easy to talk to, knew how to take a joke and seemed at home with their environment. These guys were fun to talk to and didnt mind us playing with their stuff (small models created for animations). This made talking to them and asking them questions much easier as they were happy to help and seemed quite layed back.

All in all, i felt that Tandem films was more interesting and more informative however, the top floor of Nexus had something about it, something more natural and appealing. With this in mind, i feel that i would like to work for either a smaller/ more compact company where the atmosphere is relaxed and everyone works together OR i wouldnt mind working in a larger company but as a small group within that company. This would mean closer bonds are formed and you would feel more like an equal and less like a cog in a machine.

Tandem Films

(click the logo to visit the website)

Recently, the moving image crew (well 2nd and 3rd years anyway), went to London in order to see some companies and have a perusal at their work and the environments in which they work. The first company that we went to visit was a delightful place called Tandem films. You may recognise their work as they produce the Simon's Cat animations.

Although i knew some of the work that Tandem Films produced, i wasn't familiar with the style and various other pieces of work that they have produced. This meant that whilst visiting their company, i had a welcome surprise when i found them both fun and interesting to talk to.

Tandem Films produce work ranging from stop motion to 3D which means that they have a broad range of skills within their department that allow them to accept work with various requirements.

Although from the front this building seems compact, it is in fact a lot like Narnia. Upon entering the building, you soon realise there is a lot of depth to the building. This space extends out into a glass roofed area in which all the work areas are. Due to all the glass, it can get rather hot inside the building resulting in many sun umbrella's around the work areas. I had never seen this done before, especially within a design studio and it was these kooky elements that made this company stand out. They knew how to have fun whilst also being very professional.

Further surprises were in store when they took us all downstairs. This area covered the same as the ground floor however, all of the technical items were kept here. They practically had their own tv studio down there with many possibilities. This was due to their infinity wall which can be painted to be used as a green screen or blue screen or whatever coloured screen they wanted. They also had a sound proof room which can be used for folie work for their animations.

It is this ability to have all the work produced in-house that makes Tandem films a tight nit team who can produce projects as varied as they do, whilst not loosing out on time renting rooms and equiptment out for projects.

In the beginning...

In order to update my blog, i will work through all the things i intended to put up, from sketchbook 1 to sketchbook 3. This will then give me something to work by. I will also be adding various other posts including tests and maybe a couple of my sketchbook pages so that you get the idea of how i work.

DVEIN

When i first decided to use realflow as the basis of my animation, i automatically thought of Dvein. This studio, based in Barcelona, uses Realflow in order to create some realistic looking fluids which are aesthetically pleasing and have the ability to be controlled, without ruining the look or feel of them.

I first came across Dvein in the first year as they did the animation for the Diesel Fashion show. It was here that i was introduced to programs that control fluids. Although this interested me, i never thought that i would be doing the same thing in my final year.



This showreel from 2007 shows some of the earlier work by Dvein. Their use of contoured shapes and fluid like textures helps create an environment in which anything seems possible. Various elements within their pieces have helped me in creating my own environment and the main focus of the piece, the globule.

There work has progressed from this year, moving on to more complicated fluid(esqe) designs and due to technological advancements, the fluid had more dynamism and character.




The use of fluids are something which u really want to develop as i feel that they are yet another skill set which can improve my work. I have always found the use of fluids and the ideas behind them fascinating, the way they flow and act, almost independently of real world forces, is interesting and now that i know of various ways (programs) which can realistically show these fluids in action, at whatever frame rate i wish.

This is definitely a program which i will carry on using after i graduate. I wonder what i will be able to achieve with more time to play with controls.