Creative Presence Presentation Boards

Portfolio of Work

Creating a Website

I thought it would be a good idea for me to make my own website. It's a great platform to showcase all of your work and contact information, and when done well can be very professional. I thought it would give me the upper hand for when I begin to contact studios looking for work/experience, and it will be easier for me to show them what I do with the use of a website too.

Website Pages

MY WEBSITE

Again, I made sure to make my branding consistent across the pages and I think the end result looks really professional; at least I feel more like a professional now I have the website. I even bought the domain name. 

I had to be really critical with the work I decided to showcase. I featured only stills from my films on my home page, making sure to leave out films/animations that weren't as strong. There are links to my other social media pages on every page of the website, so this work can still be accessed. I also scanned in a lot of work from my sketchbooks that I thought we good examples of linework and featured them on my portfolio page, along with work in progress images, pre-production art boards and life drawing. 

With my about me and contact me pages (where I have wrote about myself and addressed the audience/viewer) I tried to have a good balance of professionalism and insight into my personality, to try and get across that I'd be a friendly person to work alongside. Not only that, but I have my CV and position statement for me to be formal, so I wanted my website to be more of an insight to how I am as a practitioner. 

I'm very pleased with my website, and have since tweeted about it, and updated my social media with a link to the site address in my Bios. 

Showreel 2017

My Showreel

For my showreel I have chosen to showcase clips from Kites, From a Child's Eye, Lifting Tower Projections, Marathon De Animation and A2 Milk. All of which are 2D which is how I want to market myself, so I left out the 3D work I did for Telling Tales, despite being proud of that work. I also left out other work that I have done in the past despite it being 2D (for instance my Changes in Gaming Infographic and previous loop de loop submissions), as I didn't think it was as strong as the work I have recently produced. 

I don't have to worry about copyright with this showreel, as I asked Cameron, a music student from LCoM, whether he'd be interested in making a track for me. I was delighted with the results, and I think it has greatly improved my reel. It conveys a tone-of-voice which I think is very suited to my work and my personality; friendly and lighthearted. 

Overall I'm really pleased with my showreel. I think it showcases my best work very well and gets across my character animation focus. It also shows my engagement with live briefs and external experiences outside of university, which can be used as a conversation starter for potential interviews. 

Business Stationary Pack

I made a letterhead with a similar theme to my invoice. I made sure that my logo didn't take up too much room on the page, and that my contact details were clear and eligible. Again, I think the document looks very professional, and I can see this being very useful for the future as I will have to contact a lot of companies in search for experience and/or work.

I also made sure to make a black and white version to make sure it was still tangible in monochrome.

Letterheads

Business Stationary

Here I have put together a mock-up of all my business stationary, complete with letterhead, business cards, pin badges, showreel work and invoices. I'm really pleased with the consistency in my brand and how much more professional I feel as a result. 

New Business Cards!

As I have updated my logo and general branding, it only made sense for me to update my business cards too. I was generally happy with the layout of my old cards, but tweaked the design slightly so it was more suited for my current branding.

New Business Card - Front and Back

The logo and font is consistent, although this time I made sure to have the text larger and bolder. Though the card I made previously looked good online, it was much harder to read the physical copy. I also decided to leave out my social media handle, but featured my website address instead, where links to my social media can be found if needed.

I haven't yet printed any of this design as I still have cards left, and it would be a waste to not use them as they were quite expensive. When I run out of old cards, I will be able to print new ones with my new design. 

Animation Studio Research: Follow up Networking

Since my presentation I have started to look at trying to gain connections with people that work at DreamWorks. I have attempted to connect with some artists on Linkedin - I shall post my progress with them if I see any - but I don't want to stop there. I'm going to set myself a target to get into the routine of spending just a few hours a week doing some SERIOUS social media networking, whether this be on Twitter, Linkedin, Instragram, the lot. I don't want to just limit myself to this one company, instead I shall reach out to different people that work for different animation studios that I am interested in. I hope to build my network, but also try to get some advice and information about work along the way.


Update:
A while back I was able to get in contact with a girl called Elie on Twitter, who is a skin concept artist working at Riot Games, a company I am very much interested. I knew of her because my Boyfriend had met her at an event the company held in October time of 2015, and I used this as a grounds to introduce myself on. She was very happy to answer the questions I had about her work and what it was she did, and she also gave me advice and tips with my own practice.

I found it interesting to know that she believes it better to master a skill first and then branch out, especially as I have had mixed responses when it comes to that area. I think it would be nice to have a specialty, but as it stands I'm still not 100% certain on what it is I want to do, so I shall continue to explore until I find the thing that is right for me.

Animation Studio Research: DreamWorks Animation

As part of our study task we were required to choose an animation production studio to make a presentation on. As well as talking about the studio's history and key works, we had to demonstrate that we had made an attempt to contact the studio or some of it's employees, in an attempt to expand our network.

The twist with this task is that we were not allowed to duplicate studios, and were required to post on our animation forum/board which studio that each of us were going to look at. I attended the party too late and the studios I had in mind had already been assigned (for example, Disney, Aardman, Pixar, your general larger studios). It was a hard task for me to think of another studio that I was interested in, and there weren't a lot of small studios that I was aware of, so I literally looked through my library of animated feature films in my DVD collection until I found one made my a company that hadn't already been selected.

That company just happened to be DreamWorks, and the fact that it hadn't already been selected shocked me a little as it's a very large company that has produced some very successful movies. I was happy to proceed with this company as it had produced some films that I am very much fond of. Whether they are a company I would like to work for is a different matter, especially because I'm not sure what it is I want to do yet but CGI is definitely one of my interests at the moment so that's a start.

My Presentation Slides

I made a start on trying to contact the studio before I made the presentation, and on the DreamWorks Animation website I found an email that I could contact. In the email I outlined briefly who I was before I went on to ask if there was any information they could provide me with regarding things like internships and what they personally look for in new employees. When I put the slides together I included a screenshot of my email and at that point I had not received a response, though when I came to give my presentation today I had, though sadly it was just a generic stock reply:

I feel the presentation went well and this opinion is solidified by Martin's feedback, who outlined that I had undergone good research and had a good focus on twitter and social networking. He suggested to me that I should look at Linkedin profiles and have another go at emailing different "folk" which is just what I plan to do. I would like to have a genuine response to some of my questions, and it can never hurt to build connections, even if I can't really picture myself working for DreamWorks.