The Neighbourhood | Portfolio Vist 1

One thing I've taken away from this portfolio visit which I think I'll start doing...or shall I say start not doing, is showing my show-reel. I felt it was such a waist of my time and their time. The whole point of a portfolio visit is to get critical feedback on your work and the show-reel is only fragments of your work, also you send your show-reel off to a studio if your looking for a job and I wasn't asking for a job. I suppose it’s a nice introduction, but i felt it was an awkward one.

The character animation went down well and so did the ident brief which seemed to trigger the conversation of style, which John started to talk about how sometimes not having a style is better as it shows you can adapt to all different mediums. He also pointed out that still having a style doesn't mean you can't do other things, its finding the balance of doing stuff which your recognized for and trying out new ways of working.

The only bit of criticism I got was towards the train animation for the self-initiated project. John pointed out that some of the shakes on the train were a little harsh on the close ups. Its something which I thinks been pointed out before, and when i get a spare minuet I'll be correcting it.
Apart from that, they really liked the style of the animation and mentioned that the colour palette was very strong.

They seemed to like mine and Jacks side project 'seasons' in which they gave some suggestions towards bringing in some close ups to get across some of the subtle facial expressions. We'll take it on board and see what happens.

So in conclusion, I've got some amending to do to the train and I've managed to identify what went well, what didn't and learn from that for the next one.

People #4

Day Tripper

Today, Me, Jack and John went to Liverpool to experience a piece of art by Kurt Hentschlager called 'ZEE' at the art house FACT which had an exhibition on called 'Abandon Normal Devices' which ZEE was being exhibited in. The theme of the art work being shown was 'Belief'.
Rick had told us about it at university a few days before...or even weeks before, so we knew what we were going to.

We went straight to FACT and went to sign up for the 'ZEE'. The guy took us round the back...and explained what the situation was, he essentially said

'Its a room which is fogged up so you can't see anything and then once your in, strobe lights will come on making you see all sorts of trippy patterns...oh and by the way, sigh this form before you go in to say if you have a fit or a seizure we have nothing to do with it. If you have any doubts don't go in'

I had a small doubt.

John signed up, and after some careful consideration, Jack signed up. too. In johns words I 'woman-ed out'. They went in....10 minuets later they were out. They raved about it, saying I had to go in, its really good, we're going in again afterwards!

To cut this part short, we went for lunch, then I struck a deal which involved going to a Beatles museum and then I'd join you in the ZEE.

Back at FACT, we all signed up for the 'ZEE'. Having Jack and John think it was a good experience and not at all scary, my nerves weren't that bad. Once we were called to go downstairs we got another warning from a lady saying 'Its going to fill up with fog and get pretty intense in there, don't breath through the mouth a lot as it will feel uncomfortable...and if you feel like your going to faint call me. Any doubts, don't bother coming in'.

I went in.

We went into the 'pre fog room' which had a small amount of fog in, to get you used to the experience, then she opened the door to the main exhibit. They had ropes which started at the door and went deeper into the space, them curved back round towards the door. The room was still filling with fog and you could see people at first, but as you shuffled further into the room it got more and more intense until I couldn't see johns behind (which wasn't a bad thing!). Then the strobes came on and then experience began.

You know, it was weird, I really enjoyed it to begin with. Jack described what you see quite well by saying its like looking at a kaleidoscope, although I could relate to this, I can't speak for everyone. In terms of how I felt,it came in waves, at one point i was loving it, then it all dawned on me where i am and that I can't see the exit and i started to feel enclosed ...then more pretty colours emerged, embedded in my eyes. And so it went like that for most of it.

It was during the time when I was loving the experience and i'd let go of the rope to try and loose all sense of where I was, when some horrific screaming came from inside the room and suddenly my out of body experience went away in a flash and reality kicked in real fast. I panicked and immediately looked for the rope to get out.

I got out pretty quick and so did the staff member who went to get help for the guy still in the exhibit...i didn't know what was wrong with him though. Once out i waited for a minuet or two, then John and Jack emerged. We talked about the experience whilst waiting to hear what became of the guy who went a little 'west'.
We came to the conclusion he must have fainted or had a total panic attack. He was ok in the end.

I'm glad I experienced the exhibition and speaking to a woman afterwards who was in there with us, the whole 'guy screaming incident' just added to the whole experience!

Here's Me and Jack in the exhibition...

I'm on the left and jack's...errrr maybe its the other way round, i don't know...

In terms of the exhibit itself, it comes across in the leaflet as a calm and relaxed piece of art; using words like 'immersive' and 'ethereal' (if you don't know what that means, look it up) and in a quote from the leaflet, the last line is,

'Swim! the free white sea, infinity, lies before you'

ZEE is selling itself as a very calm and relaxed spiritual piece and is in an exhibition which is based upon the word 'belief'. I felt the disclaimer forms and talks before hand are a real put off and even if you agree, it ruins that experience of calmness which its trying so hard to be. Yet when your in there, its out of this world!

Sound Collaboration

I always done sound for my animations myself, but after the 'Eden Ident' sound which, I thought, was very weak I decided next time round I’d ask my good friend Richard Gallagher, who studies sound design in London if he's interested.I had a massive creative spurt at the end of the holidays creating about three short and very basic animations; I gave one to Ric to add sound to. It was 'Watching Television', the final one is embedded below.

I thought the sounds were nice, wasn't over keen on the voice of the man, seemed a bit out of character...but I didn't actually brief him on the piece. I just gave it to him saying "do something with it”.
It was nice to let go of a piece of work and give another creative mind some input into the work and put their own stamp on it.

As the test animation was a success, I was happy to ask him if he wanted to work on the train animation. He asked me to sent over what I had so far, so he could get an idea what he was going to be getting involved with. He liked what he saw and said he'd be more than happy doing the sound.


On Monday 24th November Ric was down in Manchester (sorry, up in Manchester) and by that day I had the final Train animation, titled 'Nowhere Fast' finished. We both watched it and talked about what I wanted out of the sound. The day before I'd had a think about that I wanted so I wasn't wooly when it came to explaining to Ric. We made a list of stuff I wanted, which can be seen on my hand in disc.
Although there wasn’t much communication on the progress of the sound, from the meeting we had to the final mix, the outcome is fantastic, and I think the whole experience has helped my ability communicate my vision for animations.

Hotch Potch Manchester

I'll go through a few of the things presented which I thought were interesting... 

We arrived half an hour to an hour into it. We'd just missed the first thing, which was a documentary and someone was at the front taking questions about it.  The documentary was about micro chips in human beings. The discussion which followed the film got quite heated.

After a short film called 'happy birthday', which was very good, 'Mr. C' went to the front and introduced his rap music video, which he wrote, sang, acted in, produced and directed (if I remember correctly). I didn't care for the song or the video really, but during the question and answer afterwards he pointed out this was his first time creating a music video...
During the Q and A afterwards someone asked essentially 'why is it all you, you, you?' Mr. C's answer to this was that no one ever manages to deliver the goods, he's always dissatisfied with the end result, so this has made him do it all himself so what ever is thought 'yer, good for him. Its his music' and I still think that. But I'd also say that maybe the reason for people not giving him what he envisioned maybe it’s because he can't communicate his ideas. I'm in a situation where I'm asking someone to create sound for my animation so I’ve got to be very very concise so that how I envision the sound gets into this guys head so were both on the same wavelength.

There's so much more to say about it, but I thought I'd just point out two key ones for now. Its nice to see places in Manchester encouraging people to show there work and talk about it. I really would consider, once my animations finished, asking if I can show it at the ‘hotch potch’ event.