TBT #5

Apologies for this being on a Friday instead of Thursday, but who's counting?

I did sort of hint at this one in my last tbt post, so here goes:

It's the first music video I made, completed in December 2011. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this and I'm not exaggerating!

The idea came about a while before carrying out the project, but that was a much simpler idea, just with text (and all in Adobe Flash). That probably would have looked AWFUL. This was the first time I used Adobe After Effects and also the first time I did rotoscoping (besides those tests previously).

I am still proud of what I achieved here, as to do this in such a short space of time (I think I did the bulk of the animating in three weeks) and to have used a lot of new techniques, I think I did alright.

I remember the day I finished it and needed to screen it to three university lecturers, along with a small presentation. It was my last day of term before the Christmas break. I think I was just so tired as had a lot of late nights/ early mornings to get it done and I really just wanted a rest. I think I remember saying that I hated it! Which, at the time of presenting it, was probably true. I don't especially like it, as such, but I don't hate it. I appreciate my achievement and it's probably one of my most notable projects to date. Not that I'd ever use it as self promotion anymore or show it anyone for that matter(!), but more of the fact that it showed me what I could do and capable of doing.

Rejection Rejection Rejection

A bit like Location Location Location, but you don't actually get a new house and you just cry more.

I'm an artist, therefore rejection is something I know only too well. I'm sure there's many of you out there whom also feel the same/ share the same experiences so I thought I'd focus this blog post on that, so we can all have a cry as one big rejected artistic collective.

It's also because earlier this week, I was unsuccessful for some funding (probably not going to say which funding I applied for) for an animation I'd really like to make. I put a lot of time and effort into the application and also towards researching and writing the animation and so on and so forth. On Monday it was submitted and on Wednesday it was rejected. At least I was put out of misery quickly! Silver linings and all that...

I also just received an email regarding a film festival submission. That too, was rejected. COME AT ME REJECTION. I AM HERE FOR YOU.

I was annoyed directly after I received the email, because it felt that all my hard work, time, effort and future plans had been put to waste. Despite this, my despair/ annoyance faded away fairly quickly, as I know I can't do anything about it and I just have to move forward.

If this happened one year ago, then I'd probably be dwelling on it for a while, but over the past six months, I've been changing my outlook on life/ my thinking pattern and have learned to deal/ cope better with things that occur in my life which are out of my control. Also, I've had more rejection that ever this year, due to that task of job-hunting. 

I think one of the main things to help dealing with rejection is acceptance. If you can at least accept how you're feeling or can accept that what's happened has happened, then you're on the right track. If you continue down the "woe is me" path and let these setbacks knock you down, then you're going to have trouble getting over them. Yes, it's annoying, especially when it's a project one is so passionate about (or you have a constant stream of rejections), but if you let things out of your control get to you, then you'll never make what you want to make or be happy or satisfied with your situation. You can't control life, but you can control how you deal with life #preach

Another thing I find useful in dealing with rejection is not having any expectations or hopes. Wait, that's not meant to sound so depressing: "have no hope"- really, it wasn't! What I mean is don't get your hopes up or expect that because you believe in your project (can be applied to anything i.e. relationships, jobs etc), it doesn't mean someone (or everybody) else will. And you've got to understand this. Nobody owes you anything and not everybody thinks like you, however nice that may be if they did...

I believe if you want to do something badly enough, then you will be able to do it. It might not be what you've originally had in mind because of time or budget for example, but if you let go of your idealisms and free fall into the future and ride with everything life throws at you, then it's actually quite exciting! Maybe you'll realise through rejection, you choose a completely different path to go down and you end up preferring that one. Who knows...

So go forth, embrace rejection and make some amazing art!!

Apologies for how happy and cliched this blog post sounds! MAYBE. But positivity is good, amiright.

TBT #4

I missed last weeks one of these, see last blog post.

So today I have you this:

This was the first bit of rotoscoping I did, back in 2011, for a music video which may or may not be the next one of these tbt posts!

I did it with a trackpad mouse- this was before I had a graphics tablet and it took AGES!

I'll admit that it's not the most exciting of animations to watch, but it's the foundations to where I am now with rotoscoping. I guess it also shows how tentative I was, perhaps, to experiment with the medium at first, whereas now if I tried rotoscoping for the first time, I think I'd just go all out!

At this stage, I was also fairly new to Adobe Flash, too. 

I haven't actually done any animation/ rotoscoping for a while now- something I'd like to get back into- and plan to do so, soon.

With this tbt posts, I think I'll start doing them every other week from now on, as I don't want to run out of old films before I've made a new one!! 

Look I Made A Cake!

Apologies for lack of posts recently- I missed #tbt, too :( 

I have been insanely busy, working on a couple of videos alongside my "proper" job- which is working in a bowling alley (it's not as glamorous as it sounds!), so unfortunately, blogging had to take a short hiatus. But I am BACK, so never fear! Or maybe DO fear. I might be about to scare you.

I think baking counts as being creative, does it not?

I've been saying to my housemate for a while now, that I'm going to make a cake and on Thursday of last week, I did just that:

It's an apple and cinnamon cake, one of my favourites from when I was younger (I often used to bake when I was a child).

For having not baked in about four years, it turned out really, really well. It was cooked for the right length of time and it was a good consistency. If I made this again, I think I'd use one more apple to give it a bit more moisture (the recipe said "three or four" and I used three- being tentative and not as confident as had not baked in quite a time) and I would also add a bit more cinnamon. Besides those points, it was a job well done! I think I'm going to make it a weekly thing, but a different cake every week. Maybe one day I'll make something super extravagant! We'll see...

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Here's my next piece in the low poly style I wrote about in my last post.

As you can see, the low poly head is "better"/ more developed than previously, as is the concept and overall look of the piece. It also took a lot longer!

I really like the minimalist background- definitely something I'd like to use in my further works, but I have mixed feelings about the style used on the shirt. I think mixing styles like this works well, but I wished I had used a solid brush rather than having the pressure sensitivity turned on. I feel the variation in brush size puts too much detail into something that I didn't want especially detailed. Perhaps I'll redraw it and see...

Maybe a slightly textured/ noisy background wouldn't go a miss either. It might bring the foreground out a little more. I think this can pass as a finished work, but there's plenty more room to play around. Criticisms aside, I do actually like it! 

Illustrator Fun

I've been playing around with Illustrator and Photoshop of late to touch up on my digital art/ design skills- always useful to keep actively creative and learn new techniques. 

I must admit programmes such as these are hard to get to grips with at first, but once you know all the amazing stuff they can do, you'll never want to be away from your computer again. There's so much stuff to try, it's crazy! 

I was searching the good old internet to look for some tutorials to try out, especially ones that get me out of my comfort zone and I found this one. I loved the look of the end result and it's also something I'd have no idea how to go about doing it.

I found a fairly old photo of my brother and decided to go about dissecting his face with triangles. Here are some screengrabs of the piece at various different stages:

...And here's the final result:

I'm impressed with it for a first one- I really had no idea how it would turn out or if it would look any good or have any resemblance of the original photograph (or my brother, for that matter!), so in that respect, I'm happy. On the whole though, I can see room for major improvements (and potential) and it's definitely a style I'd like to develop and do more of...

Watch this space!

TBT #2

It's Thursday once again, which can only mean one thing: THROWBACK TIME!

I thought I'd choose this as my next one, because I made it around this time four years ago, again 2012, but it's very different from my last #tbt video.

It was for Film4's Scene Stealers competition (please comment with link to film if you entered!), where you were to recreate a two minute scene from a Film4 film, from the list they provided. I decided to do mine of Submarine:

Due to illness, I unfortunately missed the deadline, but I finished it off regardless as I thought it was such a cool idea for a competition/ project. Please do another one Film4, if you're reading!!

Anyway, I gathered my family together (sorry guys!) to star in my rendition of the film. I reckon they did alright...

I didn't copy the scene or style of film directly, because I wanted to put my own twist on it, but as the original film was set in the 1980s, I decided to give it an analogue feel, by overlaying parts of it with some Cine Film, which I telecine transferred. My friend Richard Holmes also kindly composed the music for it, which is ace.

I definitely should have worked on the colouring of some of the shots, plus I wish I had used an old fashioned looking TV for the penultimate shot. Also the sound at the beginning is awful- definitely should have used ADR.

Besides the above comments, I think I achieved something quite good considering my circumstances at the time. Be really cool to recreate something like this again these days so I can see how much I've progressed, have a bit of fun and get out filming again...

TBT #1

Because of current internet trends and for a bit of fun (I know- crazy aren't I!) I thought I'd start a series of these #tbt posts- or "Throwback Thursday" for anyone who doesn't internet as much as everybody else.

I think as a creative, it's good to sometimes look back on previous work to see how much you've developed and/ or improved over the years, as sometimes you don't see any progress in your work until you actually look back.

It's also an appreciation of old ideas etc and of course to have a little laugh, reminisce and get a little nostalgic over "the good old days".

I'll start with this one:

This was the second music video that I made, May 2012. It was a university project (I was nearing the end of my second year), for the 'pop promo' module.

Although cringey in places, I am still really pleased with the editing and perhaps even a little bit amazed with my achievement here. I remember having a distinct style I wanted to portray/ create in this video, somewhat like 'On To the Next One', Jay Z ft. Swizz Beatz and also similar to the Azealia Banks video for '212', ft. Lazy Jay. I think I did just that, but on a really, really tight budget. I mean, just look at that flag!

Nevertheless, I did learn a LOT of new skills with this video, such as chroma keying out the green screen I painted onto the canvases, scouting and following up various locations, how to do some of the type animation in After Effects and also the first (and last) time I used Final Cut Pro X, or shall I say the final time! Sorry.

I think this was the beginning of me using this style throughout my work. As you can see in my later films, they take essences of what I was attempting here, but in a more refined way. I'd say this is one of my more significant pieces of work I've made in terms of concept and style. I wouldn't include it in my showreel anymore, but it helped me decide what route I wanted to take my filmmaking down and also experiment with new techniques. I also burnt a teddy bear #yolo

Enjoy! ...and in the meantime, I'll see what I can find in the vaults to dig out next.

GIF #2

To mark the (sort of) first day of the football season, I made a GIF:

View more of my GIF work here.

GIF #1

I GIF you this:

Would like to develop this style more, so watch this space! 

...In the meantime, check out my Giphy page HERE.