Showreel First Draft

Responding to what I learned during the last showreel session, I have now produced a draft of my own animation showreel. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to ensure that my showreel was both as short as possible while still showcasing my best work and that I featured my best work at the beginning of the video, and the end of the video. I considered this during the production of my showreel and was very pleased with the results.

During this week's session we were tasked with presenting our showreel to the rest of the class for feedback. My showreel was generally well received, with one minor criticism - the 3D segment let's the showreel down. For my completed showreel, I intend to remove this segment and replace it with footage from my third year final animation. Expanding on this point, I feel that this piece should also be removed given that I would prefer to be represented as a traditional animator with skills in digital animation, rather than to be perceived as a wholly 3D animator - as this piece suggests.

Showreel Practice Session

During this week's session, we were tasked with finding ten images from work that inspires us as animators, and placing them within a timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro. The resulting footage lasted around 2 minutes. We then adjusted the timing of each image/removed images from the timeline where necessary in order to crop the video down to only 45 seconds. Below is the piece I produced during the session:

This task highlighted how selective one needs to be when compiling a showreel; particularly in terms of selecting only the best pieces of work, and having them last for just the right amount of time. I found it helpful to carry out such a task using images from other people's work as I found myself being less sentimental as I may have been about removing large segments of my own work from the timeline in order to crop the piece down to showreel length. I also learned the importance of shot placement in a showreel. Initially I had placed all my shots almost at random across the timeline, however we were later told to arrange our footage so that the strongest shots were placed at the beginning and end of our showreels. The effect of this change is that the piece is able to hold the viewers' attention for much longer (if the piece begins on a poor piece of work, viewers are likely to stop watching faster) and leave viewers on a positive note.

I will be preparing a draft of my completed animation showreel for next week.

Showreel Research

Prior to the sessions in which we will be producing our showreels, I researched some showreels from others in the same sector of the animation industry that I aim to get involved in. Below I have listed four of the most notable showreels I looked at, and will explain why I think they worked/didn't work and how I will use this information to ensure my showreel does work.

The first animator I looked into was Matt Timms, a 2D visual effects animator. The first thing that I noticed about this showreel was that it begins and ends with the artist's name, yet no contact details. This seems like a common mistake made in showreels, and I aim to include a complete set of contact details when I produce my showreel.

Besides the lack of contact details I enjoyed this showreel, although it did feel as though the video ran on for far too long considering much of the work is very similar. I found myself wanting to click of the video after a minute or so.

The second showreel I looked into was by 'Tendril'. Although this showreel was around the same length of first one I looked at, it actually felt shorter. This is due to the lack of repetition featured in this video - which also goes to highlight the diversity in Tendril's output, and the range of animation styles they are capable of.

Furthermore, I noted that the music in this piece blended very well with the animation due to it's neutral and reserved nature, whereas the music in Timm's showreel was fairly brash. A neutral audio track will help draw the viewer into the piece without distracting them from the visuals.

The next showreel I looked into was produced by 'Rubber House' - a 2D animation studio.

Once again this showreel features an extremely high quality of work, yet very little variation in terms of the styles showcased in the video - this, once again makes the video feel far too long. The effect of this is that people are likely to click of the video before the end, which is a serious mistake considering this studio only provided details at the end of their video, and even so, their is no contact information, just the name of their studio.

Finally, I looked at a showreel from 'Meindbender Animations'.

Of all the showreels I looked at, this one appeared the most professional and appealing. The music is not too subtle, yet compliments the visuals. The showreel begins and ends with both the studio's name, and a way to get in touch (their website URL). The showreel also shows variety and quality, featuring a range of different animation techniques and projects from the studio. Even though this showreel features a greater amount of project work, it is still the shortest one I have listed.

In conclusion, from my research into existing showreels, I have learned that when I come to produce my final showreel, I should:

• Keep it brief
• Try to use neutral music to avoid jarring audio
• show as wide a variety of project work as possible
• make sure to begin and end with clear contact details

Initial Website Design Ideas

Today I experimented with some simple initial design ideas for my website. My primary intention here was to begin the process of establishing a personal brand for my website and related online pages, such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Firstly, I began to consider the type of logo I will be using both on my website and across social media platforms:

Logo Concept Experiment

I wanted to put across what I do while also conveying my personality at the same time. As such I felt it would be interesting to experiment with using an animated logo of myself, created in the style in which I animate/illustrate. I thought this was quite a fun idea, as it immediately tells people that I am and animator in a way that lets them 'get to know me' somewhat. On the downside, in uploading this to my own website, I did find the animation quite distracting to have in my peripherals while viewing portfolio pages etc. If the animation was done subtly enough - or stopped after a set number of loops - this idea may have potential. Of course, in its current form this could not be used as a logo however I think the idea is certainly something to consider and possibly take forward in my final design.

Secondly, I experimented with using some of my illustration work as backgrounds to my pages:

Landing Page Idea

Above is an example of how this would work. I like this idea as it once again provides an immediate impression of the type of work I create as soon as you enter my website. There are a few issues with this concept however, firstly, getting such a background to look good on any computer is somewhat of a challenge without having the image stretch or go off screen, and secondly, text placement is awkward as a result of this. I have got around the issue of having the text cover up the focal points of the image when viewed on different devices by incorporating the text as part of the image file rather than straight text on the webpage itself, although this is still not idea.

Generic webpage background Idea

The next part of this idea was to experiment with backgrounds for the rest of the pages on my website (above). I used images from the same set as that used in the landing page to give a feeling of continuity to the site. These images were blurred slightly to make them more subdued and help to prevent the background imagery from distracting from what is in the foreground.