Monday 9 July 2007

Tuesday the 3rd, onwards!

He he got a bit side tracked with the bloggin ^_^

Tuesday 3rd July
Started off with a trip to 'The Bate' where they mostly use After Effects to crate graphic title sequences and music videos. They showed us some of the stuff they had done for the Super Furry Animals, which included a collaboration with Pete Fowler, who is one of my favourite artists and creator of Monsterism. That was really interesting. Their studio was awesome. It was a little attick room, but it was large enough to use as a studio. Really nice environment but the kids screaming outside the window would get on my nerves.
Later on that day we had a talk with Rick Villeneuve about working as a freelance animator and how to use freelance effectively. I found it easy to talk to Rick, knowing him from GCADT and it was cool to see him again. He made the freelance industry sound both excited and dangerous, which it probably is, I'm nervous about the idea of that kind of lifestyle.

Wednesday 4th July
Had a visit from one of my favourite animators today. Joanna Quinn. I was especially looking for ward to this meeting, I just adore the way she works and draws. Les Mills was also there and they showed us some of the commercials they had done. I liked their work ethic of making commercials and using them to fund their bigger films like 'Dreams and Desires'.
Joanna also brought her portfolio with a mixture of frames and cells from all of her projects. The cells of the cats from the American Wiskers adverts were especially beautiful. The lines quality and the scale she works at make each frame look awesome, I'm very envious of her. The way her and Les Mills collaborate on a project was interesting to hear about too.










Thursday 5th July
Had a visit from Mike Collins who works for calon as a storyboard artist and also works on the Dr Who comics. He's a really cool guy. He showed us some of the storyboards from 'Hana's Helpline' and explained how he would rough it out and get Beth (a friend of mine ^__^) to clean it up. He talked abouit the good points and bad points of the storyboarding and comic industry. It sounds like such a cool job but the pressure to get things looking right would be too much for me I think. Mike is basically acting as first director, planning all the camera moves and angles. He also brought in his portfolio of camic book work which was fantastic. My favourite had to be the sketchbook he would take on holiday with him. EWith it he would draw different people he saw, very good practice for character design and anatomy. I love to see the roots of how people work.
Spent the rest of the day preparing for a presentation on Ellen Poon before heading to the cinema to watch Shrek the Third. It was okay. I wasn't expecting the story to be great but the animation did look beautiful. The lighting and backgrounds were lovely, but they should have spent more time on good story. They were definately starting to wear thin on gags. Some bits were funny though. I missed the end, but it didn't really bother me. The fairy tale ending was predictable.

Friday 6th July
Spent most of the day preparing for my presentation on my chosen Special effects artist, Ellen poon. I hate presentations, I'm never any good at them, but this one I didn't mind so much. I had no idea about anything this woman had done, and after gaining all the research I could on her, she turned out to be really interesting. You can see my power point presentation here side show

1 comment:

Gabe Estes said...

Wow. I wish my school had more stuff animation-wise, because this sounds a bit intimidating. As one of my hopeful career options I don't know if I'm going to have enough preparation.