Portfolio Visit | Daniel Greaves

I was lucky enough to have a one to one portfolio crit with Daniel Greaves at his studio 'Tandem Film'

I was pretty nervous to say the least, but I got so much out of it which will help towards my FMP and my views on where I'm going in my professional career.
I got near enough the same feed back on both my Feelgood and Train animation as Beakus gave me which only highlights the fact that I really need to consider timing in my work whilst taking into account what the piece of work is for.
He had a real good scrub through the feelgood piece and pointed out the design, like beakus, is really good and went on to say the characters feel like they belong to the environment you've designed. He was very careful with his words and didn't want to say things which weren't true which I admired, the overall feedback on my work and how I approach it was that the design of my work is very impressive and is working to my strengths.

What was good about showing my animatic for my FMP is that Daniel made me scrub through it and explain what was happening after he'd watched it through once. No one's ever asked me to do that, they've just tried to understand it and given me feedback which might not even apply. Once Daniel understood the piece he was able to give some really good feedback. As a result of the feedback (from both visits) I've made a new animatic with added shots which gets the story across better.
I showed a style test of how I wanted the piece to look, again, he liked the design of the animation. He said it seems I've got a lot of work to do if you want to get it all up to that standard!

What I've learnt from the visit is that design is a major strong point in my work and work needs to be done on my storytelling.

Protfolio Visit | Beakus

Me, Jack Maguire and John Hind went to visit Beakus studio last Wednesday whilst in London, arranged by John,  I showed three pieces of work to Steve Smith and Eleni O'Keeffe who kindly took the time out to see us.

I showed my Train Animation and Feelgood, the main bit of feedback I got, which applies to both, was that their too long for what they are. Feelgood should be shorter because it needs to be short and snappy as its advertizing a product whilst the Train Animation should be cut due to its lack of story.  I've been told this a few times now, and as a result I'm making sure my FMP is the right amount of time for what it is.
It was said for both pieces that my design work is really good. This was nice to hear as its something I've been working on to improve.

Lastly I showed my FMP animatic. It was really hard to do, as I had to sit there and explain the concept and it always makes me embarrassed, but I think its essential to do it and I just have to get over it.
It was good to show though, as I got a fresh pair of eye on it. The main thing brought up by Steve and Eleni was that there needs to be more of a reason for the Kid to scare the Bear, which is something I never considered, but it makes perfect sense now. I few suggestions were given which I went away and thought about and have now added to the animatic. Its added more work, but i think its work which is essential to the story.

Aslo, showed this piece which I did with jack. We described what it was for and why we did what we did. As a result they both understood it and had no comment on it...which was a good thing!

Old Boy - Veiw Point

I watched this film a while ago, i posted something about the colour in it and was going to post veiw point the next day. That never happened!

So, i took a few screen grabs of the film which i thought were to do with view point.....



The film starts with a point of view of a police officer (above) watching the main character, i think this was a good way to start the film as you get an idea of what the main character, that you will be watching for the next 2 hours, is like. You start to judge him straight away, then as the film progresses your view might change.


This next set of images might not make that much sense, i dose to me but I've seen the film.
So, the above images show key bits within a camera movement, the camera slowly movers round the main characters friend in the phone box.
Whats nice about this bit is that your eyes are fixed on the guy in the phone booth and don't pay any attention to the main character in the background (who is only seen in the first of the four screen shots shown above).
Because the camera move was quite clever and snatches the main character away from you so sneakily, you are lead to believe that the people who kidnapped him are quick and sneaky......i think!


(above) After the main character has been kidnapped you go to a shot of the floor and a small door on the floor where food is passed to him. Someone comes to give him food and all you see is his legs. This camera angle is showing off who is the authority figure, and not being about to see this persons face is putting you in the same position as the main character.

I have more....

Storyboarding in 'The Incredibles'

In this clip the director Brad Bird and others are talking about the process of making/ coming up with the story, once the script is written or whilst its beeing written, there thinking about the storyboards. I like how they throw ideas at eachother, seeing if anything will work, becasue there starting from scratch so everything has to be thought up and the more ideas they come up with, the easer it is to choose a composition that works.
Also quite interesting (and scary) how Mark Andrews (story supervisor) talks about how they get a scene that stands alone really well, then they remember that no scene stands alone in a film, goes to show that they have to consider every scene whilst doing one scene to make sure everything fits into place nicely.

Story boarding

Few notes from a book i've got which has a section on storyboards.

. All different aspects of making any film/animation like; sound, lighting, colour, story etc can't be considered alone which is why storyboard are so essential. which means storyboards make all the elements flow together by trial & error

. Rough guide lines to story boarding;
Film - 100 storyboards per minuet (more if the scene is complex
T.V - More than 100 because there shorter, have more action and scene changes

. Originated from the 1920's when artists would pin up gag ideas on their wall, this expanded into the job we see today which is called, gag man or storyboard artist

. Today the industry seems to do storyboards directaly on the computer through touch screen monitors and tablets (think initial storyboards are done with pencil and paper)