Lyme Park - Research

As an element of research I decided to go to Lyme Park to develop a feeling of a stately home and the grounds I knew would be perfect to film. I filmed a few pieces around the grounds, and got the overall effect of a stately home and what it's like to be in that position and environment. From the research around the environment I was able to be inspired into the passion of the land that the Last Squire of Erddig must have had and the sacrifice it was to give up his legacy.
I'm really liking the textures within the environment and I feel that this is well reflected in the descriptive writing, so I should ensure that I have an appropriate aesthetic for the animation.

Abstract: The Art of Design - Documentaries Netflix

Christoph Nieman- from his site.

Over Easter I have ensured I have looked into some research regarding the industry and professional practice. A really good tool I've found is to watch some documentaries on various areas of the industry to see how they work, and what they developed into as professionals. Netflix has made a series of episodes following alternate designers which I have found particularly inspiring in terms of Personal Development.








Christoph Niemann- Illustration
Christoph Niemann is a German illustrator best known for his work on the covers of the New Yorker. Taught by Heinz Edelman in his youth, Niemann spoke of how Edelman would never be encouraging, that's not how he taught, he spoke of how proportions, and more structured work was discouraged, and he loved that.
Niemann discusses how his creativity isn't thought up as a formula, it is a moment of craziness for him, however he does say each idea requires information, and that is what his values are as an artist.

Personally, I found that his creative process was quite similar to my own development, in that he researches and sketches up ideas really roughly before pursuing them with further research, further knowledge and information. I like this way of working and it's nice to see that it is also applied by a successful professional, there's just the adaption to Motion Design.

Es Devlin- Stage Design
Physical creation of projects has always been important to me, so I decided to watch the episode that featured on Stage Designer Es Devlin, who spoke of how she always constructed things from an early age, and for her, it is about immersing the audience in a new reality, and a creative environment that she has made.
In particular, I found her 'Scent Infused Mirror Maze' installation really inspiring, as it was about guiding the viewer through the maze and to a familiar place, mimicking the feeling you get when you smell a certain scent which is connected to a memory.

Alumnight Event

Through Stockport College hosting an alumni event in the Mint Lounge in the Northern Quarter, it presented a great platform for building more contacts in the industry. There were various talks that I found very interesting, and ensured that there were some questions pitched to the designers. A particular question that fascinates me is:

 "When you first graduated, what did you call yourself? (A motion designer? Animator? Moving Image?" 

It was very interesting to hear some responses and developed that most designers alter what they call themselves dependent on what job they are applying for with what skills they would require. 

Personal Development Aesthetic

Tant de Forêts - trailer from Burcu & Geoffrey on Vimeo.
Undersong from Matt Smithson on Vimeo.
Far The Days Come from Pencillati Studios on Vimeo.
Forget Me Not from Mew Lab on Vimeo.

Aesthetic Influences - Live Brief

In order to get an idea of aesthetic I've been looking at some interesting videos in order to develop a style.


Alice In Wonderland from byeot on Vimeo.
Title Sequence / Reis-i Cumhur - 2014 from Rashad Mammadov on Vimeo.

Memories of Paintings from Thomas Blanchard on Vimeo.
Female Portraits from Alicia7777777 on Vimeo.

Fuzzy Duck Live Brief- Erddig Hall

After having had a portfolio criteria with Motion Designer of Fuzzy Duck Matt Geeling, we asked whether he could set a live brief via email to pursue and show at a later date, he and a fellow animator Natalie Wood gave us the following brief:

"Create a 30 to 60 second motion-graphic based on the following theme:
“Visualise the state of mind of a man. A man who will do anything to keep his families legacy together, but by keeping it will destroy it. Or should he give it away, to no longer own it but to allow it to be preserved for others to enjoy”.

This was the fate of the Last Squire of Erddig Hall in Wrexham, Wales. I have attached a few photos that may be of use, which show the building and the man himself. Also, here are a few links that may be helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erddig
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/erddig
Feel free to take this in any direction you like, and most importantly, have fun with it! We look forward to seeing what you come up with."

I feel like this could be a really interesting brief, and I have undertaken some research of the house itself: Erddig Hall in Wrexham.

Fuzzy Duck- Portfolio Crit

I met with the head of Motion Design at Fuzzy Duck, Matt Geeling, who gave me a range of tips and advice that were really helpful.
As well as showing him some of the older projects, I showed him the Self Initiated Project to get some feedback on the overall aesthetic and the scenes so far.

Body Image Project 
He really liked the overall look and the movement of the lines, but he was worried that I could be too vague with the storyline if I made the project too long and time consuming. His advice was too ensure that I was quite harsh with myself and cutting down the scenes in order for it to work better and to be more effective within the time that I had.

Memory Book 
He enjoyed how personal this project was, and was pleased with the college look to it and especially with the depth of field he found it very effective. He did say that I needed to add more depth to the audio, and perhaps to remove the current track as it's very dramatic and distracts the audience away from the sound effects a little too much.

Showreel
I felt it was really important to first and foremost show my showreel as this is something that I need the most feedback on. He liked the overall feel to it and likes the work I showed, however parts like the live footage he didn't feel were necessary to include, unless I wanted to pursue more of a career with film. It's interesting how he suggested adapting your showreel to who you were applying for.

I found Matt's advice really helpful, and it allowed further development into my understanding of what studios look for in the industry.

Flow- Portfolio Crit

Flow is a studio that had really interested me after being recommended by Emma Reynolds (who supports illustration) to look at their Showreel. They produce a diverse range of work but very lively and fun.
Karl who is one of the Motion Designers in the team spoke about how fun and passion are the main qualities they look for in work. The projects that they enjoy are ones that they are most likely to initiate more interest in.
Karl was very helpful and I found that it was a good opportunity to ask him to look at my first attempt at a showreel in order to see how a professional would view it.

Showreel feedback
I explained how the pacing of my showreel had to reflect the gradual pacing of my work and how I was struggling with such a thing, however he was really helpful and said that it's not so much about being a snappy and quick showreel but very much about the edit and the overall effect that the animations have in co-operation with the soundtrack used.
He suggested maybe taking out the filmed parts unless I wanted to pursue filming he didn't find them relevant, however liked the general edit and found the depth of field of my collage animations along with the song effective, but said I could maybe lengthen some of the collage sections.

He also explained how with their own showreel that they only put 2 clips from each animation in the showreel so they're not showing too much and there's a more diverse range of work. He recommended that 5 seconds should be the maximum amount of time a clip is shown for as people do get impatient and bored.
There are a few parts that he recommends clipping and making shorter and says that generally they don't like showreels that are more than 1 minute, so mine needs cutting down slightly from 1.30.

Memory Book Animation
I managed to slow down and improve the sound effects of this animation which I believed makes it more effective. Karl asked two of the other designers (both called Jordan) to help to view the pieces.

Design Bridge- Portfolio Crit

As an extra for the London trip I contacted a Graphic Designer John Sherwood from Design Bridge who gave me a tour of the studio as well as a crit for my work.

The actual tour of the studio was really helpful and interesting as I find the aspect of motion in advertising has always fascinated me. Although John is a Graphic Designer, he does work alongside Motion Designers within the agency who I also was able to speak to. I found it interesting that such designers work together within the agency as that's something I find appealing with working as part of a team. There were alternate aspects to the agency, the idea generation department, visualisers, production and post production and editing processors. 

Motion Designers were also used for Cinema 4D models of certain products that they could use in packaging as well as gifs and online moving image adverts. Feedback As I have received feedback from John earlier last year, I showed him more current projects as well as the project I am currently still working on. Memory Book Project They really liked the thought processes behind it and the meaning it produced but said it could have more of an opening sequence and also allow more time for the audience to take in the imagery. The original music interestingly they preferred to the possible idea of changes of music throughout the video, as they said this would be too distracting but the current nostalgia track has a good tone to it and is subtle enough to be effective. Some of the images could also be edited and smoothed out for crisper results. Body Image They really liked my animatic for this project as they said themselves as an agency rely alot on animatics and storyboard development. They wished I could've brought my sketchbooks and suggested to show these off as the development of ideas and evidence of these progressions is favoured in their agency and they believe in the industry too. They suggested subtle sounds for the piece and perhaps even using Illustrator rather than Photoshop on the images for more of a rustic and analogue looking piece. They thought
the colours worked well but could have experiments with different textures to overlay on the images.