Portfolio Visit

I went to my first portfolio visit today, i went to see a free lancer named Derek Linsley. He was kind enough to invite me to his house so that i could show him some of my work and he could show me some of his. I was very nervous about going up to his house as he said his 12 year old son was going to be there and he wanted me to give his son some advise on art, design and animation! When i got there he had got out a load of different advertising leaflets that he sends out to different companies. They all had different pictures of what his work looked like. There was one in particular that i found really interesting, it was a still from an animation he had done where a milk float drives across a dull landscape turning everything it passes into a more beautiful scene and brings things to life. He did mention to me that he is not the animator himself he works with various companies as the director (he has the ideas and gets involved with companies to bring them to life). He also gave me a tour of his house and showed me some of his graphics work and photography for catalogues like littles woods. After he showed me all this amazing work it was eventually time to show him mine. I made up a short showreel that had my scratch films, rotascoping and my 3D frog. He was really intrigued with how i made the frog so i showed him my development within my sketchbook like my drawings and screen shots and he was very impressed!! I think he appreciated it a fair bit because he hasn't touched upon that much 3D animation he was fascinated that the frog was made starting with just a cube! He also mentioned not to become too focused on a particular area of work at this moment in time he said to get out there and get involved in all sorts of things and try everything and then maybe figure out what you want to focus on. Derek never focus on one particular part of the design world however he has always been in creative control and directing all of his ideas never anyone else's. He also mentioned that if i need any more advise or any guidence i can contact him when ever i like so he gave me his mobile number and email address so i think he will be really helpful to me in the future.

Light Creative LTD

Light Creative is a creative agency based in London ... they have done advertisements/idents for channel 4 and the Disney channel. They are specialists in branding, design and direction for broadcast so i thought they would be useful to look at for my Ident Project. One of the pieces in their show reel that i recognised was the idents for BBC 4 where the screen is split into 4 like this:-

Not only that they have done a few title sequence which i think is something i want to try out in my spare time ... try and create one for a film that already exists and put another spin on it! From the website this company seems to feel rather large as they do a huge variety of things it also seems very fresh, simple and current. They seem to have a lot of experience with all sorts of animation, live footage, graphics ect...

Love Creative

Love Creative seem to be similar to Dinosaur ... their work is fun, strange and quirky (right up my street!) they have done work for Nandos, PS3, Umbro and Dr Martens. OOOOO and even Website design for The Neighborhood :) this is interesting! They do a range of things from packaging design to web design but their website itself is so engaging ... i am loving looking through it! The overall feel of the company i am getting from the website is fantastic! Its fun, fresh, bright and makes you want to look through all of their work. They also have a blog on their website which is updated regularly which i am going to keep my eye on as i think it is great ... i need a portfolio visit here or even just a studio visit! Its awesome! I have just emailed them asking if i could pop in and show them a short show reel of work for some advise so hopefully i will hear back from them ... I'm really excited!!!!

(Website)

Cube Creative

I had a look at another design agency however unlike Dinosaur it seems very serious and very business like. Also while looking through the website i found it to be too clean and not so exciting i think this experience of trying to look at a multitude of companies i think i am coming to a conclusion of that i want somewhere bright, bold and colourful and the smaller the better! Dinosaur seems to have a huge range of mediums and i think i am starting to feel a bit better about choosing a path to follow! However enough about Dinosaur i am getting to excited about it i wanted to look at a verity of different companies. Quite a lot of the work Cube Creative have done is for the NHS and Manchester Council so i don't really think it gives them an opportunity to be quirky and fun as they are more serious clients. I am not keen on much of their work and they focus more on graphics and motion graphics not a path i find very interesting.

Dinosaur

I found this company who are located in Manchester ... through looking at their website the majority of their work is advertising if not all of it! They have done work for Adidas, Alton Towers, Key 103, Reebok, Gola and Manchester United (some of these local to Manchester). I have notice though that the majority of their work is Graphic design but there are elements of moving image in their work list. They have done adverts for the Cooperative to promote the British Music Experience. Their style from what i am feeling looking just at the website is fun, quirky and fresh even the website itself is very friendly and inviting and I'm sure that would be the overall feel of the company itself. I have recently emailed them asking them about a portfolio visit so fingers crossed!!!!!!

Example of their Cooperative work (British music experience)
I love this piece i think it extremely simple but so effective ... i love the mixture of celebrities in the Co-op store! I think it works well and is fairly humorous and i think as the British Music Experience is suppose to be fun and exciting i think this advert works well.

King Bee Animation

I had a quick look at King Bee studios in London i roughly looked at their different styles of animation and briefly looked at the overall feel of the company. I was reading through their 'about' page and i found this quote that i feel is very important and will be useful to me in the future. 'Animated Commercials, Titles, Series Productions and New Media Marketing all need to hit their audiences in the first second or audiences will click away ' I couldn't really get the feel of the company but i feel their website is bright, exciting and engaging so for clients who's first impressions will come from the website it looks great. The animation styles also appear very different is all very different backing up the fact they will bring in different freelancers for certain briefs.

Lumiere Studios

Lumiere Studios:-

3D Animation
2D Animation
Motion Graphics
VFX
Character Animation
Fluid Simulation
Visualisation
Animation for digital content

They have a large variety of work from commercials to music videos all very, very different. It seems like they must employ people when they are needed to make their work fresh and varied each time.

As i was going through their work i noticed they had created the Dairylea nachos advert with the mexican cows and also a creme egg advert. I think more of their focus is on 3D animation with characters of some sort.

'Lumiere exist to make great animation, and where better to do this than slap bang in the middle of London's Soho, the European epicenter for animation companies. Our cozy, characterful studio is situated at 22 D'Arblay Street, nestled in amongst a collection of film production companies, post production facilities and sound studios.'

This quote taken from their website briefly sums up their work environment for their point of view, it seems like they are situated within these film companies and postproduction companies so that that collaborate and create better works.

The Pond

http://www.thepondstudio.com/

The Pond Studio - CG animation studio based in Wilmslow (very local)
The Pond's creative team have experience in all areas of 3d and in a range of media. They have worked on projects for the BBC, Discovery Channel, ITV as well as feature films.

I love some of the work they do however it is all CG and 3D which i am not too great at. I like the fact they are so local too! I was going to ask them for a portfolio visit but what stopped me was the fact my work is varied so i'm not too sure it would be the place to go.

London!

I found that there is a lot of time spent looking at the animatic ... the animatics i saw were amazing and if you have an animatic to a good standard your final piece will benefit.

Tandem

I loved the layout and feel to their work environment ... it was light at open giving a better work experience. There is not hierarchy as everyone works on the same floor fairly close to each other. I also liked the fact the employes/freelance did there own work as well and the company supported it.

Nexus

I didn't really like the work they produced however the freelancer that working the attic like area was really interesting.

Cinesite

This company was massive! Even though they are producing special effects for major hollywood films it was very calm and relaxed. I found the business side of things a lot more prominent within in this company that is what they talked most about (The money). Which fair enough for most companies working within hollywood is their main goal! Unlike smaller companies such as Tandem will focus as a small team on their work more than money (thats the impression i got any way).

After visiting these 3 companies i am fairly scared about heading into the world of industry especially as you never tend to stay in one place for too long. I gathered that the majority of people i met are freelance and work with companies and continue to do their own work on the side. You also need to keep your showreel fresh you constantly need to up date it as the industry progresses throughout the future.

Raw

I cam across this company while looking into my summer brief .... the majority of their work if not all of their work is graphic design but as a moving image student i should look at graphic design as it is a very important step in moving image!

However on the website they do have a very simple animation to show their 'company process' ... http://www.rawdesignstudio.co.uk/pages/process

1st Ave Machine ... ReRun

http://www.stink.tv/#/live-action/1stavemachine/rerun

This short film is very interesting! The motion graphics and CGI when the basket ball player is running and his shoes are left behind ... the way the shoes leave his feet and then retract back together looks so realistic! I was reading something about how it was done and it mentioned 'suspended animation'

Post Panic

Design company based in Amsterdam ... the reason i wanted to look further into Post Panic is because i have only really looked at companies within the UK so i wanted to see if there was any difference in the work because of the difference in popular culture!

http://www.postpanic.com/

Alot of the projects directed by Post Panic are very futuristic, extremely surreal, clean, bright and bold! But to be honest its not as if i haven't seen other designs like it before so i don't think it is extremely different ...

Tomato

Tomato is a large art design collective in London co-founded by John Warwicker, Steve Baker, Dirk Van Dooren, Karl Hyde, Rick Smith, Simon Taylor, and Graham Wood. Two of which are members of the band Underworld famous for their song Born Slippy (Rick Smith and Karl Hyde).

http://www.tomato.co.uk/

I came across Tomato while in a lecture of my Art and Design National Diploma and was fascinated with them as they created the title and end sequence for one of my favourite films Trainspotting i also learnt that two member of Underworld were involved (Born Slippy was a dominant part of the soundtrack for the film).

This is part of the title sequence below, I love this sequence i think the white lines against the black background to me connote the representation of train tracks...however the fact they are moving around the screen erratically and not in one direction could connote the message within the film, possibly the effect drugs have on the human body!

RJDM Animations

http://www.rjdm.com/website/website/index.php

As i was looking for designers and animators in the north west i came across RJDM a company located in Northamptonshire (not in the north west but i really enjoyed looking at their work)!