Week Six

MONDAY 30/07/07:- Today we received our first industry briefs from Calon, Griffilms and Dinamo. This is the week when the serious stuff starts to happen. There's six of us on the training scheme so we've been paired up an assigned to one of the briefs. Kei and I have been given the Griffilms brief 'Mr Stunt Butt'.
The brief is to create a short 'viral' animation that will create free advertising for 'Mr Stunt Butt' at www.MrStuntButt.com.

TUESDAY 31/07/07:- Researching into other short stings on the Internet to see how they advertise their products and how successful they are. Brainstorming ideas with Kei on how we should approach the stings; do we need to be extreme with the gross out humor to advertise the product? We've also been going through the animation library Griffilms have sent us to familiarise ourselves with the character and style of animation. For a simple looking animation the library of symbols (body parts) is huge.

WEDNESDAY 01/08/07:- Had a chat with Dylan Jones at Griffilms about the brief they had sent us. Received technical info about frame rate, screen size etc. E-mailed Dylan a list of ideas and story lines involving the character. Received an e-mail with his response of the ideas. Continued by creating a short storyboard involving Mr stunt Butt and a one man band kit.

THURSDAY 02/08/07:- Received an e-mail from Dylan this morning with his response to the storyboards, pretty good. Suggested that it need to be simpler, but also retain the fluidity in the animation, he also directed me to some work on the Internet for inspirado. Continued the remainder of the day working on a test piece of 'Mr Stunt Butt'.

FRIDAY 03/08/07;- Today has been spent reworking some of the work I did yesterday, adjusting the limb size of character, it's taken me longer than I expected however I'm satisfied with what I've done and the character looks in proportion. Hopefully on Monday I can get on with the remainder of the scene with less hassle.

Fifth Week

MONDAY 23/07/07:- New week, new project. Flash training with Marc Lewis. Creating three ten second stings for the Urdd Eisteddfod, that can be downloaded on to mobile phones.

TUESDAY 24/07/07:- Same as the above.

WEDNESDAY 25/07/07:- Lot of progress has been made on my idea of the mobile phone animation, main character has been designed and animated. I'm pretty happy with the 30 second story my character is in and I quite like the soundtrack to the story.

THURSDAY 26/07/07:- Pretty close to finishing a rough version of a short animatic for the mobile phone project. I'll try to post on my blog for you to see.


FRIDAY 27/07/07:- We had a presentation of our work, and a decision was made on which short would be used for the downloadable urdd eisteddfod mobile phone stings. My short wasn't selected, but it was a good exercise in understanding the Flash programme and I'm pretty happy with the work I've done.

Fourth Week

MONDAY 16/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling' Continuing work on the animated graphic novel. Lots of drawing has been done and there's a lot more to do, hopefully I will be ready to scan in my work tomorrow. I will then use photoshop to colour and compose each picture (scene).

TUESDAY 17/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling' Contining work on graphic novel. Inking art work and scanning into computer.

WEDNESDAY !8/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling' Continuing work on short story. Colouring artwork on photoshop, editing story on premiere.

THURSDAY 19/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling' Continued work on editing my short story. Made a hash of it at my first attempt, I tried to jam everything together. Second time around I concentrated on the script recording and made sure the dialouge ran fairly well; it was then I added the images.

FRIDAY:- 20/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling' Final day of the project. This morning has been spent tinkering on premiere adding background music. Fairly happy with the work I've produced. I'm a bit dissapointed that it looks nothing like a graphic novel, but I think the story is strong enough to carry it.

Week Three

MONDAY 09/07/07:- New progect 'Digital Storytelling'. Our brief is to create a short two minute story on a subject of our own choice. The style of animation will be comic book/graphic novel.
Industry visit to Atticus. 3D studio,they seem to do a lot of work in advertising. A lot of 3D graphic design, nice studio.
Found the eject button on me keyboard for the Mac. "Aint used a Mac before nor I avn't!"

TUESDAY 10/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling'. Continuing our work on the short stories. Today 'scriptwriting' with the assistance of Ian Staples; scriptwriter for welsh television dramas such as 'Pam fi Duw?' and 'Caerdydd'. I found the day to be really usefull in structuring and creating a dynamic script. The process of coming up with the initial story and then writing it in script form has become less daunting and more enjoyable after today's tutorial.

WEDNESDAY 11/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling'. This morning was spent performing and recording our scripts. My first attempt at recording went pretty well, only a couple of stutters and some sniggering at the diolouge. The second attempt also went pretty well, but there was something missing from the script. With the third attempt I think I nailed it; some ad-libbing was required to tighten the story. The remainder of the day has been spent breaking down the script into storyboard form and coming up with the design of the comic.

THURSDAY 12/07/07:- 'Digital Storytelling'. I've mostly spent the day in the studio on charachter design for my animated graphic novel. This morning we recieved our recordings from yesterday's script reading session. I was dreading it. I've always hated listening to recordings of my voice. I always seem to sound like 'Sloth' from 'The Goonies', but to my suprise it wasn't that bad, I sound more like a stoned hippy with a monotone voice. "HEY YOU GUYS!"

FRIDAY 13/07/07:- This morning we went on a industry visit to Joanna Quinn's studio, "Beryl Productions'. I'm quite suprised at how small the studio is. With the work that 'Beryl' produces I was expecting a larger studio with more staff. Despite the size issue 'Beryl' is a international business, producing commercials for the American and Mexican audience. Joanna took us through the key stages of producing one these commercials, very interesting; a lot of pre-production work ironing out the visual mechanics of the animation before the compositing process.

End of week 2

Another whirlwind week of meeting important people and visiting studios.
MONDAY 02/07/07:- Bruce Steele 'Post Production-Visual Effects' Supremo.
Worked for GLASSWORKS. Worked on the Stella Artois commercial(The World War 1 Fighter Pilot commercial), the shampoo commercials with the hair monsters. He's a great example of how someone can fall into the buisness, starting at the bottom and working their way to the top. Great meeting him, his enthusiasm for his work clearly comes across and its infectious.

TUESDAY 03/07/07:- The Bait. Made a house call at 'The Bait'. Small Studio which produces title sequences for welsh television programmes such as 'Bandit' and a couple of music videos for Gruff Rhys and the 'Super Furry Animals'. Graphic based work that comes across energetic and visually exiting. They come across as being vey laid back, however the ammount of work they produce in a short period of time is incredible.
Rick VIlleneuve 'Freelance Animator' paid us a visit in our training studio. Gave us some helpfull advice about surviving as a freelancer. This guy knows what he's talking about, he's been a freelancer for over 20 years. RESPECT!

WEDNESDAY 04/07/07:- Joana Quinn and Les Mills 'Beryl Productions'. Been in the 'Biz' for a long time. Started up 'Beryl Productions' soon after Joana left university. One of the few studios that still animate handrawn frames, very little digital effects are used. Great example of a little studio competeing with larger companies on the international scene. Joana gave some great tips on charachter acting and lip syncing. Awsome!
Visit from Gitte Watkins 'Creative Business Wales'. Explained what 'CBW' is about. They'll give us the support we need to fund our own progects such as starting up our own studio's. 'CBW" is kindda like the middle man between the creative organisations such as 'Film Agency Wales" and the Welsh Assembley Goverment.

THURSDAY 05/07/07:- Mike Collins 'Storyboard Artist'. Industry visit from Mike Collins a former comic book illustrator. A pretty cool guy, worked on the 'Judge Dread' comics. Brought in examples of work he's done for the comic book industry, and work from the television and film industry. He also brought in his sketch books which were exellent. He also gave us some good advice that money isn't the important thing in the business, it's finding a job we love doing and have the passion for.

FRIDAY 06/07/07:- THE SLIDE SHOW. Our first progect. We had a week to research a figure from the CGI industry, and make a slideshow presentation about them. I was given a American/Canadian aninmator to report on. His name, 'Chris Landreth'. I admit I knew nothing about the guy, but through my research I found out he's a pretty interesting figure in the world of CGI. He's sort of rennaisance man; a software programmer, animator and artist. He's also a Oscar winner. He won an Oscar in 2004 for his short animated film 'Ryan', that's based on another Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. It is definately worth checking out, 5 stars.