Final Evaluation

My rationale has remained the same throughout this module; I have continued to focus on branding and promotion across print and motion. However, my statement of intent has changed, in particular the briefs I intended to do at the start. I had to drop the Fashion Branding due to the client being slow in getting back to me, which has been an issue across a lot of the live briefs I’ve worked on.

The Yearbook and St Martin’s brief have been the most stressful, which is down to the clients. For example, the St Martins brief was extremely slow due to the client not being able to pick who she wants to work on the branding, resulting in re-pitching several times. Even when she picked Maya and I, we still had to pitch one more time, in the end; we have had to produce some of the other deliverables outside of the FMP due to it holding up our schedule and individual deadlines we had. Thankfully, this did not affect the working relationship between Maya and I. This is a slightly different situation with the Yearbook brief as there were group tensions from the start, but we have ended on a positive note and can look back and learn from errors.

I have learnt a new program this module also, for Brief 04 – E4 and Brief 03 – ITV2, as the kind of visuals I had in my head were not possible to produce in After Effects so I started to learn Cinema 4D end of February, beginning of March. At first, I was wondering if this would mean my ideas would be inhibited slightly due to a lack of knowledge, but it actually set me free. I was able to produce whatever ideas I had written down, and I am really pleased with the colours and quality of the finished pieces. Especially the E4 deliverables, I think the music really refines it and makes it more final than my ITV2 idents where I would have liked to have had a narrator talking over the top, but finding somebody without a strong accent, who would be willing to record audio may be more hassle than its worth.

I am glad I did the E4 and ITV2 brief, as it was a chance for me to do what I wanted to do and enjoy, and it is something I would be proud to have in my portfolio, plus it gives me more content for a showreel. I am equally as glad I did the other briefs as they were a chance to work with clients, one on my own, one with Maya and one with Nick Morgan, Natalie Jackson and Kirsty Hair, so it gave me an all round experience.

As always, I think time management has been a weak point, writing this evaluation now, I can think of many things I should have done, which unfortunately at this time is tough, as I can’t have another go.

Relating to the issue of time is the motion graphics work itself, as much as I have a real passion and spark for creating this kind of work, especially in Cinema 4D where it has that high quality, glossy look, this is disadvantaged by the time taken to render and work with it. For example, to render my Discoball Ident for ITV2 with a duration of 10 seconds, it took 2 hours to render.

In terms of my boards, I am pleased with the way they are, they show what I have done for each brief, and I am actually surprised at how well the motion briefs turned out as the images came straight from Cinema 4D which is RGB, as when I changed them in Photoshop to CMYK, they became murky. An error with the printer and paper stocks has resulted in me having 3 different stocks for my boards.

With respect to my final products, some of my St Martins work was water damaged when I wasn’t in the studio, so reluctantly I have handed some in. This was the same for the Indiependent brief, a few deliverables were ruined but they have been photographed, although they all needed reshooting after advice from the Final Crit.

Without the chances to work on live briefs this module, I don’t feel I would have been ready to work with clients straight after university. The learning experience from these briefs have prepared me in a way I wouldn’t have achieved without the Final Major Project on this course.

Looking back over my work, from the past three years, I am shocked at how my work has developed, and how my pathway within Graphics has changed. I started the course interested in type and layout for campaigns and posters, and now I am more image based interested in motion graphics, for branding and promotion.

My blogging has really let me down this module, there is a lot of development work missing for Briefs 3 and 4, and I am worried this will have a huge effect on my marks.

I feel I have worked to the best of my ability, with the exception of poor time management, and I have learnt a lot about myself personally and professionally. I walked in to the course, naïve and unconfident, and now I feel my confidence has built up and I know what I want to do next. Touch wood, this is a positive end to the year, and the course.

Brief 04 - Final Boards

Evaluation:

The E4 brief was great fun to work on, it’s work I can look at and smile, I enjoyed it from start to finish. From researching to the designing part, although I must say rendering can be extremely tedious.

The brief really came together when I added the sound to the motion graphics, it really rounded it off and made it seem more credible. It is something I can imagine seeing on E4, I might enter the next E-Sting competition.

For this brief I had to learn Cinema 4D, it was the only way I could get the look I was going for, which isn’t achievable in After Effects. It was a challenge, but that made me all the more determined to learn. After my previous module, my tutor told me, he felt my ideas were being held back by my software skills, therefore this module, I have done everything that I wanted to do, even doing proposals in cases that may have been slightly more tricky. The Lord of The Ring E4 ident was a proposal, as I was running out of time, and was finding it hard to animate the ring suitably, which is a shame as I love how authentic the ring looks, it almost looks like the exact ring.

I liked the broadness of this brief, I had my motion deliverables, packaging an event and printed material. The printed material I didn’t actually print as I am not sure I could achieve the look as the ideas were doing in Cinema 4D, so they were in 72 dpi and RGB, even when you change it in Photoshop it isn’t exactly the same. The popcorn packaging I did make, but it got damaged in my final crit, some kind of splash marks appeared on it, so I photographed it for the boards.

Product Shot

For my popcorn packaging, the colours aren't exactly the E4 colours due to printing issues so I will photograph this and not hand it in as a final product.

E4 Proposal: Lord of The Rings

This is an idea I will propose as I am not sure how to appropriately animate the ring. Although I just love how authentic it looks. Here's how I made it, I took a cylinder primitive, and took off the caps to give a ring shape.
Then I applied a metal material to it, and played around with the settings of colours to achieve a gold colour, then I wanted a brush effect so had to adjust a variety of settings within the material layer to achieve this. For the text, I downloaded some elfish script in order to wrap it around the object, I inverted the colours so they became white, adjusted the offset and scale and gave it the engraved look.

The sheer time I have spent 'trial and error'-ing I didn't leave enough time to animate. But I do know how I would want it to look.

E4 Inception Monday (With Sound)

E4 Inception Start (With Sound)

E4 American Beauty Monday (With Sound)

E4 Inception Bumper (With Sound)

E4 American Beauty Start (With Sound)

E4 American Beauty Short (With Sound)

E4 Start: Inception

Trying out the totem along with the film reel, chair and floor:

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E4 Start: American Beauty

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E4 In-Programme Information

Using the film rolling out in the style of the banner:


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E4 Non-Themed Ideas

E4 Non Themed Idents

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E4 Short: Inception

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E4 Inception Totem Practice

Practicing with the totem - I have made the shape myself, firstly I started with a half spline before using the Lathe NURB on it, then I needed to apply a material - before animating it appropriately. This will be used for the Inception advert.

E4 Ideas: Cube

Experimenting with the E4 logo as a texture on a cube...
This was for a concept of when you throw the dice to decided what to do with your night - in this case the answer is always E4.

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E4 Short: American Beauty

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E4 American Beauty Rose Petal Practice

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