I know the 2d pipeline, in a strict studio sense, but no real idea of how quickly stages of production should take when working in a professional team. When I’ve asked around, it’s always project-dependent and working on a 90s short feels more in tune with advertisement and commercial work deadlines than a movie. I’d love for Brinemouth to become my new artistic identity, and potentially get featured on WIA, AWUK, and It’s Nice That. Even submitting it to festivals feels like a big step in my future career. 

I’ve looked a little deeper into junior roles in TV/episodic and commercial/advertisement, and I’ve realised I need to tailor my showreel and curate my portfolio much more than I initially anticipated. In the next few months, I will create short, funky animations to post on my socials in Animate and Soho in a 2D puppet/cut-out style. I sometimes struggle with staying on model, and working with rigs will be a great way to solve this problem.

I also think that making a short fake promo in the style of a ketchup or soft drink commercial could be beneficial to have when I approach studios like Nexus, Passion and Blink (I’m a HUGE fan of Passion’s Drawn Together Starbucks ad campaign, and would love to work on similar projects in the future). 

On the other hand, I need to keep improving my frame-by-frame character animation; I plan to finish my one-minute film, BLT, so that I can submit it to festivals in the Autumn. I’ve also volunteered to help as an animation assistant on my friend’s graduation film at Gobelins; I hope I can sneak my way in to making connections with her friends and classmates in France. By doing all this, I will keep my showreel fresh, with more technical and tailored shots for my job applications. 

Ideally, I’d have Brinemouth Apocalypse Club polished and fully comped for when I go to Annecy and for the showcase next week.  To prepare for these, I’ve refreshed my website, Instagram, LinkedIn, and business cards. I’ve removed a lot of my older work that doesn’t represent my skill set now, or isn’t the type of work I’d like to be hired for. 

One shot in particular had become a sticking point when I shared my reel with DNEG and Moth; I had a 2D character jumping out of an industrial pipe with a 3d camera move. I intended to showcase my ability to animate a complicated character’s move whilst they were moving very fast, but because the 3d background was left untextured, the shot felt jarring compared to the rest of my reel, where the shots had completed backgrounds and had been fully comped with lights, shadows, chromatic aberration, etc.  Rather than reanimating the character and texturing the 3d pre vis (I am not a huge fan of 3d software and this would take me a significant amount of time to do), I decided to work from scratch and put a 3d shot into my graduation film, which I feel is much more successful as the animation is smoother and the 3d vehicle works within the context of the shot.