Ffresh Film Festival
Aron Evans - Dinamo
Aron Evans, founder of Dinamo pictures in Cardiff gave us a presentation of his studios showreel. He gave us an insight of the studios beginnings and the basics of getting a job in UK as an animator. He then opened up the floor for Q&A.
Dinamo is known for it's production of multiple children's Television programmes, the most notable of which being the stop motion 'Rastamouse'. Aron gave some helpful advice regarding production. he said things like to give at least two weeks for storyboarding and that his animators could produce anything from two fifthteen seconds of animation a day, anything more and the quality of animation could suffer. He also said it's important to always think like a director with all of your work. The industry is always looking for more directors and he likes for his employees to have their own ideas for shows that they would like to produce. He also went through basics such as when giving someone a pitch keep it to one side A4. Keep your showreel short and be selective about what goes in it. Advice wise it was all stuff that I have heard before however it's always useful to hear how a particular studio likes to receive applications. Aron stressed that 'cel action' is a very important bit of software in children's animation at the moment. I first learned of 'cel action' when visiting Astley Baker Davies and have been meaning to get hold of a copy since, as it seems to be a useful bit of animation software to learn.
I definitely wouldn't mind working somewhere like Dinamo. I don't think I would exclusively go for children's TV. Honestly though I'm happy to work anywhere as long as I'm helping to produce good content.
Suraj Harrington - The Mill
I particularly enjoyed this talk as Suraj went into great technical detail on how the effects in the advert were achieved. For example all the text animation behind car was originally animated within after effects and then was exported into their 3D software as an alpha map. This alpha map was then used to as data to tell the keyboard model in the background how to animate. This helped me think about my own 3D production as normally i'm used to exporting 3D materials into a 2D scene but I'd never thought I'd be able to animate something in 2D and have translate into a 3D image.
I'd never thought I'd really be that interested in VFX as I didn't understand completely how I would be able to fit into a production staff but as I've been developing my understanding of programs such as Maya, I'm more open to the idea of working at somewhere like The Mill. No matter where I work I would still be an animator.
I always worry that with 3D I'll be required to do more than I currently understand but with the walk through that Suraj gave us though, I felt more comfortable. Every step that Suraj explained I understood and I felt that were many elements of the production that I could've helped with.
The advert itself is very inventive and be viewed here on vimeo.
Tim Makin - Wink Nudge
Tim Makin, founder of 'Wink Nudge' (a mobile device software development company) gave us a talk about the basics of designing for web content on mobile platforms. Whether it be a tablet device, mobile phone, ios, android or windows. He stressed the importance of simple navigation for users. Less information can be displayed on a screen than on a pc. This opens up interesting design challenges for the developer. How does the developer/designer cram all of the same kind of information as a user would be able access from their computer on their phone. This made me think about my own web presence as more and more people access the internet through their phones. I had to make sure that my site worked on any platform. So when it came to developing my showreel site I made sure every step of the way that my site worked on both ios and android. Now if I send an email containing my showreel to someones phone I can be confident that they will be able to view it wherever they are.
In terms of software development, I'm not particularly interested in taking it as a career path. I've taught myself bits of basic coding here and there but it's more of means to an end than anything else. I'm definitely interested in working more on creating simple games. It would really great to be able one day make a mobile game off my own back but I'd never do it as a full time job unless of course I was only animating.
Yasia Williams Leedham - Octopus Publishing
Yasia Williams, art director at 'Octopus Publishing' gave us a run through of the standard process of how they would design and then produce the cover sleeves of their clients books. It was great to see how much craft went into making book covers. Although the talk wasn't very relevant to my particular skill set, I really enjoyed listening to design process. That being said I wouldn't be opposed to doing illustration for books. It's not where I'd focus my efforts but if I ended up taking that route I think I'd be happy.
It was interesting to hear how in recent years the company have had to adapt to producing for mobile content as well. Due to the success of things like kindle the hard copy industry has taken a considerable hit as less people are buying books from retail. Now Octopus Publishing also design a range of different interactive experiences to go along with their hard copy products. It's a nice reminder that illustration skills will always able translate to popular forms of entertainment. Making sure you have the knowledge to be able publish content to your target audience is always essential.
Chris Woodworth - Traveller's Tales
Chris Woodworth is animator at the game development studio 'Traveller's Tales'. Traveller's Tales are best known for their work on the recent LEGO games which take famous ip's such as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings and then completely redo them in the form of LEGO. It's a novel idea which has seen huge success.
I had already met Chris once before at the global Gamejam so it was nice to be able to catch up with him. I had a lengthy chat with him after his presentation. We disgust all sorts of things ranging from how I should present my work to how Chris saw the future of his career.
I'm very impressed by the range of Chris's work. Both his 2D and 3D work are very good. Talking with Chris gave me the confidence to revisit my own 3D animation. He suggested that I should try using free animation rigs such as Morpheus or Max. I started using Morpheus and I'm so glad I took Chris's advice as I felt I've learnt a lot from it, I'm really enjoying animating in 3D again. So much so that I think will definitely start to look for work in 3D animation as well as 2D.
Dan Berry - Creative Futures Lectures
I've been attending Dan Berry's creative futures lecturers every week before the Easter holidays. Dan has been going over lots of very important business & financial practices. making sure that we understand how to manage professional briefs and commissions. The do's and don'ts of freelancing. He has given a very important insight of how to charge clients appropriately whilst still making a reasonable profit.
I've been very grateful of this information as previously I have undercharged for a lot of my commissions Now I feel I will be able to act a little bit more professional towards all elements of my work.
Dan also went over how to present yourself as an artist in the online space. He said to keep presentation simple and easy to navigate and to make sure all information presented is completely relevant. He suggested for those without a portfolio website that they should use a template plugin for building a website such as wordpress. I decided to go against Dan's suggested approach merely because I've had a little bit of experience developing websites before and I felt it was less complicated for me to build my own site than to learn someone else's template. I'm now happy enough with my portfolio and online presence that I have begun to look for work when I finish my degree later this year.
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