Durex is DONE! Reflection

I am happy with this project. At the last minute I opted not to submit three posters for the sake of it, but instead just two good ones at the recommendation of my tutor. I'm glad I did this as I am now proud to show the whole submission and don't have to justify the poorer quality of the third. Sorry, Jenny Dosh or whatever your name was.

She DEAD

What I learned:

• Again, quality always beats quantity
• I should have done this faster
• Composite more organised-ly you fool
• Artivive is a great tool
• When I push my boundaries and try new stuff, I have fun and add diversity to my reeeel.
• Collabbin with Illustration students offers new perspective.

The last one is especially true. I've done two collabs with Illustration this year and they've both taken me down unusual avenues with look, media and tone. I'd gladly do more of it. 

Artivive is rad and I'd certainly try it again. The 3D space is incredibly intuitive. Next time I'd like to use more 3D, though.

Durex is done! Compositing

The last two days have been a nightmare of compositing, as I fell into that old trap of having to name my files 'final', 'final final' and so on and so forth. It left my desktop looking like the aftermath of some horrific battle, with half formed .mp4s and .psds littered randomly and chaotically across my screen. Were I to open one of the Premiere projects now, I would be greeted with a sea of RED indicating that my files are all missing presumed dead, and I would probably never be able to recover them.

I prayed that there wouldn't be a blackout or a crash. As the work becomes more intense, my faith in technology wanes. I've already written off one memory stick this year due to breakage, and Google Drive went down about a week ago. How will I preserve my digital files when technology inevitably fails altogether? And what will my time and work have meant? I suppose the only option is to hope someone appreciates my films in the moment.

It made me think of my final film, and how much MORE prepared I will have to be for it. I have a 50 gig hard drive in my side table at home. I think I will clear it, organise it and rely on it, as Gloop Cafe will be a hefty comp job.

I should be more prepared.

GLOOP CAFE - Tutorial and Update

I met Dotty today and went over the animatic and animation in minute detail. She had recommendations of things I could change. Writing them here so I don't forget them.

1) Add more build up to the fight and make it as clear as possible. Add more sausage and gloop to every aspect of the fight. Keep it SIMPLE.

2) Make more use of the dog. The dog will resonate with the common man.

3) Change the TITLE because it makes no sense to call it "Gloop Cafe" when both cafés are equally important.

4) More CHAOS, more people to help build up the fight. Don't lose momentum.

5) Add credits over still backgrounds.

6) Fix a few frames of pacing here and there.

Today I will revisit the animatic a final time to add these extra details and frames. At this point I know it's important to keep tweaking to achieve a more polished film, but it's frustrating to go back to it. Such is life. The further into the film I get, the harder it is to tweak. Something I'm learning to overcome with this film is my tendency to be incredibly protective of my ideas. I came up with a strong base idea but had I done it my way from the start, it wouldn't have been effectively executed in the 2 minute runtime limit.

I have to keep the animation to the animatic TO the FRAME for the sake of the sound designer and composer. I'm happy with the film so far 

Live Brief 3 - DUREX. Carrying on

I've been continuing to animate Durex the last couple of days. Yesterday I made a flurry of condoms in After Effects to act as a transition between the scene and the logo. I've made two, one of which will pop out of the poster as a 3d layer.

I've also hastily animated the third poster with a character named Jenny Dosh. It fits with the style, although it isn't my finest animation. An ad campaign with three posters is far better than one with two. Great things are in threes.

In retrospect, more pre-production would've been useful here. Establishing the characters further and testing more ideas beyond just our initial concept. I pitched a couple of things but we chose the first one. I should have drawn more in depth character designs and focussed more extensively on world building to keep it consistent. I think that the concept and energy of the animation are appealing enough to make audiences overlook those inconsistencies, but as always there's room to improve.

On Friday, we colour

Live Brief 3 - Durex - Animating

Following a recommendation from my tutor, I watched the opening credits of "THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM for inspiration. It had a dynamic, 3D style which would look sick when applied to the mind-bending forces of AUGMENTED REALITY.

Look at that DEPTH OF field! Imagine that dynamism applied to a picture of somebody offering you a condom.

LIKE this

I've also been COLOURIN hard. I'm happy with how it looks. Otherwise, the project isn't as organised as it possibly could be. We don't have a gantt chart or anything but we just work on it knowing that it will be done when it's done.

There will be 3 interactive posters. Adrian Frisbee's morning routine, Wonky Nigel's routine and a third one. Still need to think of the third one