UK Based Animation Studios

As a bridge to the world of animated feature films and big animation studios in the US, I decided that I should probably get a little bit more experience here first before going big! I thought I could start off relatively close to home; I decided to make a catalogue/list of personally hand-picked animation studios that are based in the UK that I find would suit me well or the ones that have caught my eyes. This list should enable me to find contacts easier if I ever want to get in touch about work experience, internships, studio visits etc.

Bristol:

Aardman Animation - There are two studios in Bristol and the closest one is 15 mins walk from my house.

Sun and Moon studios - As well as being a full service animation & games producer they offer a comprehensive range of design & illustration services.

A Productions Ltd. - Strong reputation for creating and producing award winning children’s content for broadcast.

Wonky studios - WÖNKY Films are an award-winning full service, high-end animation company that creates content for multiple platforms.

Leeds:
I didn't find any studios in Leeds that I feel I could fit well into.

London:

Blue-Zoo Studio - Clients include clients include BBC, ITV, BSkyB, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney, Kellogs, Lego, Shell, Barclays, and HSBC amongst many more.

Studio AKA -  Film & TV work - reputation for creating diverse & captivating stories for all ages & audiences. Films have been honoured by BAFTA, Sundance, Annecy & Cartoon D'Or and by over 130 Film Festivals awards - including an OSCAR nomination.

Picnic - Services include 2D & 3D animation, script writing, illustration, character design, storyboarding, concept/ip design.

Parabella - Specialises in bringing narratives to life with visual flair and character

Further Professional Research

After thinking about developing a portfolio and looking at internships at Pixar in the last post, I decided to browse their website some more and came across these 'Paths to Pixar' videos:

Layout Artist - The guy with the glasses in this video, reminds me of me little bit at 2:00:

"Once I had the layout done, I found the animation just tedious. I wasn't terribly good at it, which was a problem. I felt like I had already done most of the work. And that's when I knew that in animation, in the sense of being an animator, it wasn't for me but that I still was interested in animation as a type of film making."

This is exactly the same thing that I said in my PPP presentation about the moving pictures brief for OUIL 504 Studio Brief 2. I really enjoyed making the art, figuring out scenes, layout, how I want things to move. But when it came to actually animating the scenes, it felt a little tedious. I wasn't as excited during this part of the process. This is why I'd like to collaborate with animation students again. Maybe I should give the title of being a Layout Artist a go in the future? Maybe.

I also watched another video Artists - I really like what this woman said at 3:16:

"To really do well in this business, you have to get excited about things that seem like they're going to be impossible."

To be completely honest, right now, I feel like me getting into Pixar or any other animation studios for that matter, is so far-fetched. But I have always been taught to keep dreaming big, aiming high, thinking positively, because you never know; things that you thought were once impossible might just become possible. So I'm gonna keep reaching for the stars!

Creative Strategy: Portfolio & Internships

Since the beginning (and also before) of this degree I already had a clear pathway in mind on what I want to achieve, what I want to be and where I want to be in a couple years time. I started my level 5 PPP presentation with this, reminding my peers and myself of my ambitions; to ultimately have a career in the animation industry (DreamWorks, Disney, Pixar, BlueSky, Laika being a few studios that I look up to).

I don't feel that my work is up to the standards (yet) of animators/illustrators/artists who work in the mentioned studios above. So in order to make work up to the standards of current employees at these studios, I decided to find out what their expectations are; what it is exactly that they require of you, skills, experiences etc.

I looked up internships at Pixar and there was one that caught my eye the most;

This sounds super exciting to me especially if you get to go to California! but I'm not confident yet to apply. This year I really want to develop my portfolio and get better at:

• Character design
• Environment (sets/props)
• Colour/lighting
• Further develop my layout and composition.
• Overall just get better at drawing

To achieve this, I need to practice, practice, practice. Observe. Experiment. Play. Take photographs. Use photo references if need to. Stop being so afraid of getting things wrong!!

Pixar also wants applicants to submit demo reels, and if I were to one day apply I would need to be able to know how to make one. Pixar, actually has a link on their website that tells you how. THANKS PIXAR! maybe I could create one anyway as a self promotion material? yes. its a possibility.

YCN Student Awards Ceremony 2015

As part of our Responsive module, Bex, Joe and myself took on the YCN competition briefs. Bex and Joe took on the Fedrigoni brief, whilst I the Pan Macmillan brief. Commendations were announced officially on their website on the 4th of June. When I saw my name on the list, I was utterly excited! - I was actually shaking. I was really proud of myself! Told my family too in our family group chat, and they all showered me with unlimited use of excited emoticons in their messages - I felt extra loved that morning hahaha.. (I think there were a total of 5 students from Leeds College of Art who received a commendation.)

On the 2nd of September, we attended our very first official awards ceremony at the London Barbican Centre and Conservatory! I felt so so honoured and grateful to be able to experience such things! I feel so much more motivated to do well with my career. During Level 6 I want to take on more live and competition briefs for a chance to experience this once more. I also think that it is a good way to get yourself out there.

All commended work were exhibited after the presentation ceremony, and it was really interesting to see other people's reponse to the same brief - just shows how diverse we all are and I was really impressed with how professional they all were! I was amazed! Overall, a memorable night!

Where am I? There I am :)

PiQSang

As well as a writer, my cousin (not the one discussed in previous blog post) runs her own homemade banana chips/crisps business in her spare time. She asked me if I could make her a little logo to go on the packaging of her product. I enjoyed my previous logo designing project for ayasoBoutique so I thought I'd help my cousin out with hers. This way I could gain more experience with this type of design work (and also because I'm nice).

Her brand name is PiQsang because banana in Indonesian is 'pisang' but I'm not quite sure where the Q came from and I didn't question her about it haha. She already had some ideas on what she wanted so this was quite helpful. She wanted bananas in the letter Q and she wanted a Siger crown (a traditional crown from Lampung) somewhere in the logo because she said that her product is inspired by the traditional dishes of Lampung (not sure if I've translated her correctly, but it's something like that anyway haha) and she also wanted it in pink and yellow. 

Though I have really limited knowledge into designing logos, if there are any rules to this type of design work, she was happy with what I came up with, so that's a job well done for me :-)

I would like to learn more about designing logos and such, but I think that's what graphic designers are there for. So I will just learn through doing (if I get people asking me to make them logos again).

Textiles x Illustration Collaboration

Whilst in Indonesia I visited one of my cousins uni because I just wanted to see what it's like. She goes to the University of Textile Technology in Bandung and it was an interesting experience just going around the uni; the atmosphere is really quite different than in the UK and when I asked about the learning side of things, I was quite surprised that they were still required to do maths and science (not sure if it's just my cousin or like that everywhere in Indonesia too).

As well as aspiring to work within the animation industry, I have also dreamed to be able to one day have my own little boutique on the side, like how my mother once did. My cousin has already planned to start a little business selling some of her creations and thought that it'd be a good idea to combine both of our skills together. We haven't gone into details about what it is that we'd like produce, but as a starting point we looked at fabric printing prices in both the UK and Indonesia. I looked at how much it would be to order printed fabrics with our own designs on them online in the UK and she looked at prices in Indonesia. The difference is unbelievable! Soooo cheap to print in Indonesia! 

I really enjoyed my stay in Indonesia and want to go back again next year and work on something with the cousin. I'm definitely going to make something happen, make my mark in Indonesia as well as in the UK (and everywhere else in the world)! Yes let's do thisssss. Further research and discussion with the cousin needed to make this a reality!

INDONESIA ♥

The rest of my summer holiday was spent in the tropical temperatures of Indonesia! All my extended family lives there and it was the first time in 2 years that I got to spend time with them. I spent a month there and it was the most fun I ever had in a looooong time! This was the break that I really needed to recharge after such a full loaded, fast paced second year! I felt extra relaxed whilst I was there.

I really wanted to make the most of the time with my family and explore the country I was born in, so during this month no work, uni or anything remotely related to anything except fun was given a thought (ok maybe a little bit), which is why I'm kind of running behind with summer tasks :s but Fred told me that, and this is something I truly believe in also is that "Life experience can really inform your practice and growth: all experience is good experience." so hopefully things I've experienced during this trip will help me grow into a better person, make me a better visualiser, story teller and everything else in between. Another quote from Fred that I appreciate, "Explore your interests (like with your underwater image) illustration is both visual and content driven. Don’t ignore the heart of your practice." - Cheers Fred! these are words I'm gonna live by from now..

Few snaps of what I got up to in Indonesia on my Instagram :-)

I previously posted about my plan to have some sort of work experience at an animation studio whilst I was on holiday, however, I never got a reply when I contacted them. I thought about actually going there in person, but I never got the time to since we were always going back and forth to different cities and places to visit the family. I would like to say it's a shame, but I also really cherished the time I spent with the people that I only ever get to see every so often. 

To compensate for the lack of work experience, PPP activities during this time, I decided to do a little bit of research into animation studios in the UK that I could contact and possibly visit in the future;-

I've decided to look for animation studios in Bristol, Leeds and London as a starting point (might branch out later on if I find something interesting) - Bristol because I'm from there, Leeds so that it's convenient during term time and London because it's the capital! Click here for more info.

Lighting Studies

In my PPP presentation, I said that I'd like to improve on the lighting in my illustrations as I think that it's one of the things that play a big part on storytelling - for setting moods and feelings. So between working on the Kidney book for Leeds Children's Hospital, I decided to do some studies from photographs - just studying the lighting, light bounce and also playing around on Photoshop and with the blurring tool too, which is soooo handy believe it or not! 

I really enjoyed doing these and I think I've improved slightly, but still wanna improve more!

Tigerprint: Characters For Everyday

After the success of both of my previous competition briefs that I entered in OUIL 503 Responsive, I decided to enter another Tigerprint one. This one was all about designing characters for Tigerprint’s Everyday range. Think male, female and love. I entered something that I did just as stress reliever and it was such a surprise that I got into the shortlist again! hahah

I think I'm quite competitive by nature so I definitely enjoy competition briefs, gets me going real good! and I hope to enter some more in Level 6.

End of Year Exhibition and Art Market.

Before going back home to Bristol for the summer, I participated in the Leeds College of Art Art Market! - This was a pretty new thing to this year's end of year degree show and since it was free to submit work and we get to keep all the money we made from sales, I thought that it would be a good way to earn some extra money and also extra exposure for my work. I had some A5 prints left over from Comic Con, so I had no other preparations that I had to do except labelling, which I found strangely enjoyable hahahaha..

We prepared the market ourselves and helped with hanging work up and took turns working a shift during this week. I really enjoyed being involved in something like this and would definitely do it again. Maybe even look to participate in fairs outside of uni. Whatever it is I end up doing the the future, I think selling prints like this and even online (which I have yet to start) is a good way to earn extra money.

Unfortunately I wasn't in Leeds at the end of this, so I asked a classmate and fellow participant to collect my earnings and left over prints, so I'm not sure how much I sold haha. I did get a few comments from people online about my work though, which I feel really happy about!

I have mentioned in my PPP presentation that I want to look more into online platforms for showcasing and selling my work, which I haven't really done because I've been sooooo busy! This is still something that I want and have to do this year!

Charlie's Kidney Transplant

I've had a very productive start to my summer holiday; Completing the illustrations for the Kidney book that Leeds Children's Hospital have asked me to do. This project was made part of my Responsive module but I only submitted 3 fully illustrated double pages for this module. The client wanted to have the book completed for the end of July (29th) as they wanted to have it ready for transplant awareness week where they'll be having transplant games for the children at the hospital and a launch/opening party for the book.

Although they gave me until the last week of July to finish the book, I gave myself my own deadline to complete the project (12th of July - as I would be going abroad on the 14th). I spent everyday from the 20th of June doing this and completed it just as I wanted before the 14th. 

This project has been a real learning experience for me; working and communicating with real clients. I think this project has also really pushed me with my time management and planning. This was my first time I illustrated a whole book so I am really proud of myself for completing the project, but as expected, I'm not 100% happy with some of the pages due to, probably impatience (because oh my god, sooo many pages! I got a little tired) and rushing to get it completed. I voiced my concern with the client about the tight timing/deadline before and they told me that they had no problem with me recycling images, as long as it would correlate with the story on the page, so I did just that to save a little bit of time.

The reaction and feedback from the client however, was a positive one. They were really happy with the completed book and actually have asked me if I'd be willing to illustrate another book for them but instead of a kidney transplant, they want one for the liver. I was of course ecstatic that they wanted my service again, but as I'll be going into my last year of uni, I wasn't sure if I would have the time to do this. 

After thinking about this for while, I decided that this project may be a good starting brief for OUIL603. I think there is the opportunity to develop the project further and maybe actually go on to designing additional merchandise/products that could go with the books, posters for the launch party (since they have postponed it due to problems with the funding arising). Click here for more info.

OUIL 502 Presentation

Finished Promo Pack

Here is my finished promo pack! The internet plays a huge role in our lives now and I think people interact via the internet and use it more to promote themselves (because it is free, quick and easy), so I didn't want to spend too much on the physical pack. I took this into consideration and decided not to go too wild with the idea and decided to only produce the essentials. I am happy with the final outcome and I like the simplicity of the design. I think the pack as a whole reflects who I am and the kind of work that I produce, which I think is the most important thing. There is just one thing that bugs me, which is the colour of the cover - it came out more saturated and the blue is different to the blue on the business card (which is the preferred colour). I think this is due to the stock that I used? or it might be the printer, not too sure.. When it comes to distributing the physical packs (if need be), I think I will only hand them out to important people that I really want to impress/create a long lasting impression! Also, I think my photography and editing skills have improved a lot this year! proud of myself. hahaha.

OUIL 505 End of Module Evaluation

Overall this module has been a real challenge. The module encouraged me to think differently, not just in 2D but in 3D as well. The workshops at the beginning of this module also helped to better my understanding of the printing processes and the steps that I have to take in order for the colours to match my intentions. Researching into production and distribution methods was really useful and helped to direct my work and allowed me to create something that would have a specific purpose/function and would therefore be commercially viable. From undertaking this module I have understood how important it is to research and know the market and the user that you intend to produce the work for, as this will hugely impact the success of it.

Researching into products and packaging gave me a better insight to the type of work that I can potentially do and I really enjoyed this part of it – It made me realise that the possibilities are endless and I feel a little bit more excited and motivated by the prospects of it. As I created a final outcome that was quite informative, that have an aspect of education in it, I was once again reminded of the importance of research and to have an understanding of your subject matter before the planning and production of something.

Like all the modules I have undertaken so far, I have really enjoyed the production of my product but I feel that the development side of my work is really lacking; this was also identified in the final crit. I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with me but I can’t seem to experiment with different processes and visual qualities in my visual journal. As a result, I don’t think I’ve used my visual journal to its potential as I continued to work in my comfort zone. I’ve noticed that this is a repetitive thing across other modules as well. I think this is partly to do with the timescale that I have to work with – knowing that I have to have the projected completed and to produce something within a limited and set amount of time made me work to a method and process that I know will work, which is why I think I always stay within a method I’m familiar with and not giving my self the chance to explore other venues.

I also think the decision-making that went into creating/resolving the final images hasn’t been documented as well on my blog. It was said in the final crit that there isn’t much evidence of the stage that takes the images from visual journal to final images – I’m not sure of the reason for this, I felt it just kind of happened without me even thinking about it.

On the more positive side though, I have really enjoyed the module and really pleased with my final outcomes. I’m glad that people picked up upon the interactivity of the product as its strength, as this was what I wanted to achieve from the start. I did want to portray more dances and make backdrops and other props for the play pieces but the timescale of the module meant that I had to be realistic about the amount of work I put on myself. I think I’ve really improved my practical skills and I do believe that I have achieved something rather high quality and professional. I think I want to develop the product further over the summer – add more pages to the book and create more play pieces and additional products in the range. I would also like to see if I could actually sell it in the future and maybe contact some publishers to see if they’d be interested in the product.

If I were to undergo the project again, or take on a similar self-directed project, I would definitely make the identification of my target market/audience top priority. I believe that this would save me a huge amount of time and would allow me to focus and plan my work based on that, than having to go through the process blindly and without any guidance. This was what made me struggle for the first half of the module – I just wanted to produce every product under the sun and have everyone as the audience, which I later realised that this was not the wisest thing to do. All in all I believe that I have achieved something that is pretty thoroughly researched and informed, that is appealing to my target audience.

Chris Sasaki - Pixar

Today we were really quite lucky to get a visit from Chris Sasaki who works at Pixar as a character designer! I was utterly excited, as you can imagine, when I was told he was coming because this is quite literally what I want to be doing! below are some notes I took:

applied to Calarts - didn't get in.
internship at Dreamworks animation - got put in the art department
like animation but not focused on it - so did the artwork - developing characters

people like his work but they didn't think he had enough experience
tried again - and people said the same
eventually got his first job - Beer fest animation
then Disney tv etc, then Pixar
first movie - monsters university

when he gets an assignment they tell him to focus on a character
- work looks stylised but was driven from research/reference - to make things believable to the audience - authenticity - feel real. gets feedback from production managers/art directors once he gets sketches done

has to present work on pitch boards -
walks them through his thought process
- what/who the character is - the purpose in the story
important to bring in personal influences into character - so people can relate to them as well
he makes a list of ideas - whats important about the character - and walks them through it, with research he's done.

digital, traditional?
depends on timescale
likes to do things by hand/traditionally as much as possible
but tight timescales - digital, because more time effective.

when he was a student he wished he didn't rush straight into a particular/someone else's style. second year is best for figuring out what we're about. TIP: the best you can possibly do is to put your personal experiences/influences into your work - makes it more authentic - people will find it more believable.

it's important to spend a lot more time thinking when creating/designing something (a character) - why you are doing it? spend a couple of weeks researching.
why its important to you - reasons why
This will come though in the work - people will instantly be able to relate/attach themselves to the characters

Talking about school; Calarts - what makes the school so strong is that they do a lot of research before going into the production.

He didn't go to the best animation school - but its what you make out of it.
he's still learning - sculpting - because the end product at is 3d computer animation. Best if you can show them the work closer to envisioned final product.
a lot of problem solving in character design.

last year - senior year as student (portfolio):
need to have a foundation of everything - because you will need the knowledge even when you decide to focus on a specific area.
put everything in portfolio - show of all your skills
lighting, colour, design,
He had 3 portfolios - character design, environment/visual development, feature films

Character designer: requires you to think in detail
E.g. costumes: really specific - stitching, folds, type of fabric

When working on a movie, in the art department - 12 artists on a film usually at a time.

When character designing - character silhouette - important - clarity, strong gestures (exaggerate) - he was pushed to think this way from day 1 of animation school.
use characters body to tell story - shape of character should be clear by the type of personality.
constantly thinking about performance. study a lot of performances - study the characters in films. understanding why they made those decisions etc.

If they have someone already in mind (voice) character is built around on that to compliment actors voice. but usually they focus on design first.

rejected characters go into their archive - sometimes go into a show and gets put into art books. (but mostly forgotten)

Important to have your own personal projects - to keep pushing yourself as an artist - he is writing his own stories right now, and he wants to illustrate a book.

Work your way up, you don't have to go straight for the big ones like Disney, Pixar, etc. slow but steady.

So grateful that he was able to spare his time to come talk to us! It was really such an insightful thing and I will take into consideration all of the things he said and I hope we get more people from the industry come to talk to us because I really enjoyed it! aaaahhhhhhhh!

uhhhhh.. did he just follow me on instagram?

*flips out*