Showreel

Beginning my showreel I followed along with Alec’s week 3 videos. First off getting some helpful tips and tricks as I had never used Premier Pro before. First thing Alec mentioned was music, something with a good beat to it but not overdoing it. So first off I opened up Google and searched showreel music, I came across a website called Epidemic. All I had to do was sign up and access to these songs were limitless.

After looking through some, the one that stood out to me most was Monologue by Splasher. I found it had a nice, powerful beat that felt like it was impacting my work, and seem attracting.

Next up I moved onto learning how exactly Premier Pro worked. Alec’s videos were great in showing how to place markers, which helped to find where the main beats dropped, using CTRL and K to cut clips into sections and how to unlink the music from a video clip.

From here I used YouTube to find a beginners video demonstrating how to add in clips. First off I had to gather some of my first year and second year work and drag them into the lower left side of the screen, from here I simply clicked on the video, moved to the screen above and drag that image onto my timeline. After that I downloaded my music clip and dragged it into the same area, then imported it into my timeline below my videos. It ended up looking like this below:

Next, I selected each of the video clips, right clicked and unlinked them. This allowed the video to be silent so the music was nice and clear.

 The image above shows me starting to gather my clips together and trying to line them up with the beat, the markers were a great help and when adjusting the bar it automatically snapped to the marker. I used CTRL and K to cut some of my longer clips and added shorter animations between them. Once I had the main structure of my videos done, I used the YouTube video from earlier to show how to add in graphics to include my name and email. It was very easy to follow and in a few steps through the graphics tab I had placed text that would last a few seconds then disappear.

The final step in my showreel was to export my scene out and into a MP4 setting. I was able to find quickly the format settings that should be used such as H.264,  which would produce a media file with an .mp4 extension, and using the preset menu to find the vimeo profile with a resolution of 1080HD.

From here I was pretty much finished, I felt like I could’ve swapped a few of my clips round in order of my best to least favourite but I felt some clips would be too short and not show the sections that I wanted. For my first time as well using Premier Pro it was a very simple way of creating video clips and I will definitely use it again.

Below is my final showreel, to improve I would figure out how to record models in Sketchfab without showing the mouse on screen and icons. I would also go back into my first year walk and jump cycle and render them out correctly so that the axis and camera name were in view, it would make the scene cleaner, and also add in a loop so that I could use these clips for longer sections. I’d also add in more concept work which has been cleaned up and some more of my own personal work just to add variety and keep the individuals watching my reel interested.

https://vimeo.com/656279516

Websites & Videos:

How To Export to MP4 Format in Premiere Pro: https://support.shutterstock.com/s/article/how-to-export-to-mp4-format-in-premiere-pro?language=en_US&c3apidt=71700000083936683&gclid=CjwKCAiA-9uNBhBTEiwAN3IlNPgfdPhC_MGWVyrVgj_rUuvt_dneADfVzE3eHctl6eY6nToyVBu6ohoC888QAvD_BwE&pl=PPC_GOO_UK_DSA-523720044174&kw=&gclsrc=aw.ds&cr=c

Learn Premier Pro in 20 Mins: https://youtu.be/Hls3Tp7JS8E

Edit to the Beat Adobe Premier Pro: https://youtu.be/TFvRuvcYsTY

2D Animation Showreel: https://vimeo.com/385455279

25 Tips to Create an Animation Demo Reel: https://vimeo.com/385455279 

CV

When first researching jobs within Animation I used some of the websites linked in Alec’s presentation, such as Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn. I was aiming for a position that covered a little of everything as I’m still unsure if lighting is what I want to head into.

From here I looked up 3D Generalist positions near me, one that did appeal to me was a generalist position at Zerply in Belfast. However, I noticed there were very little opportunities within Northern Ireland and most of them where in the UK.

Another position I came across was a 3D Animator at Mackin Talent, which I found on Careerjet. They are a leading company in VR development based around pharmacology. I found this job very interesting as it seems they are a well established company who have a lot of experience working within VR and providing training. 

These two positions caught my eye but I decided to go for the 3D Animator as it seemed different and would possibly give me more opportunity to meet new people in Ireland.

Once I decided on the job, I grabbed my CV I use for applying to any part time jobs to try get a basic outline for what to include and use some of the information I already had.

First thing I changed was my experience. I thought to keep my retail experience out of this CV and include just some basic information in my profile. I then also did some research on how to write out my experiences, whether to include locations and the position I was placed in during that time.

To fix this I decided to use the VMock website, I uploaded my CV and it was able to tell me… well it needed a lot of work.

VMock was great in telling me what areas needed improving and with simply fixing the wording and repetitiveness of my sentences it had improved significantly.

From here I decided to try out a couple designs for my CV, just to make it more my style. Firstly experimenting with colour and then with images. I did like both of them however I thought it was either too simple or had too much spacing, and so my final design that I stuck with was from the suggested layouts provided by Word.

I was able to reorganise the layout, positioning the name at the top and experience below. I decided to leave out my GCSE’s and A-Levels and keep it simply as my foundation year and my current animation degree, with the addition of the main areas I have already covered.

As well as this I added in the improved work experience section and extended my profile, including my retail experience and some skills I have learnt during my time there. I inserted a logo of RJ in the top left and images of the main software I am able to use. From here I was able to look through previous CV’s on Blackboard and take some inspiration when it came to my hobbies, instead of just a simple list I thought icons would seem more appealing amongst a page of writing, as used by Chloe Huges. . The final additions I added was my showreel and ensuring my font and size were equal and that my titles matched the same colour as my logo.

I’m happy with my final CV, I feel like its equal in both writing and images, making it a lot easier to read. One thing I would change in future is to move my name, and paragraphs below it, further up giving my software images more room. I used Alec’s presentation to give me a good structure and format to my CV and it was able to keep each section to the recommended sizing and content. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome and is a huge difference in comparison to my previous CV.

Websites:

VMock: https://www.vmock.com/ulster/login

15 Expert Tips to Designing a Winning Resume: https://piktochart.com/blog/tips-designing-winning-resume/