Fundraiser
For the fundraiser, I put myself down to manage the social media of the final year animation Instagram, as I believe I could handle it with care. Another teammate put their name down to help manage the page as well, however I managed pretty much the whole page. I was waiting for whoever was creating the posters and branding for the page to post. When I recieved the theme art but no logo, knowing that it was time to post to advertise the pub quiz and introduce our year, I ended up designing it with a little help from the person who worked on the theme art. I am very happy with how this ended up and I am proud to promote our year with this branding.
Once I posted the introduction posts and stories for our year, we gain over 30 followers. I used the couple weeks before the pub quiz to advertise it incessantly in the stories, with the posters. I asked the student union bar to put up the poster of the quiz on their tvs so that all the people who go there can see it. I also took it upon myself to document the pub quiz and craft fair and post them for more exposure on those events. The quiz ended up being a smashing success and we amassed a large number of funds, which I took and kept safe until we figured out how to split between ourselves. While I was managing the social media, I attended all the meetings for the end of year show fundraising and worked closely with Joseph and helped any way I could with the organisation.
I will continue to post and advertise everyone’s work when they are finished with their major projects.
Pub Quiz
Craft fair
Industry research
For my final year, I understood the importance of making the most of it before graduation. In turn, I made an effort in attending as many events, workshops, and classes as I could as those were the best way for me to find out more about the industry and meet local artists. I went in on a lot of the optional Friday classes to gain a deeper insight on 3D animation and its industry. A lot of the people in these classes were local professionals and even alumni and I got to see how they navigated from being graduates to the positions they hold today in freelancing or studios. Becca Blair and Matthew Hamill presented their classes in a way that helped me easily understand deeper about working freelance, travelling for work, and networking as well as speeding up your pipeline yet being able to present your work at a high quality.
In January, there was a month’s long break from classes which was supposed to be used working on our major projects. A week before the break ended, ALT hosted a week long 2D masterclass, bringing in industry professionals from many local studios. I knew that I much preferred the 3D workflow but was still interested to see what kind of skills and knowledge I can apply to 3D from 2D pipeline, and maybe even open my eyes to 2D animation more. This masterclass was filled with lectures, workshops and networking and I was thoroughly engaged. I made an effort to chat with the professionals after their lectures, to have any queries answered and to network. My favourite class was with the character designer from Dog Ears, Simona, as I’m very passionate about character design and thought her story to how she ended up in her job was very interesting and her art was incredible. I had a chat with her and she liked my character art. This masterclass was eye-opening to me as I remained a little ignorant before final year about the details of the industry and how it works and the local studios involved. I believe this was a very important experience for me as it rewired my brain on how I should continue working towards my career and navigate the industry. And I got a certificate.
Another event that happened was the job fair. A large number of local studios came down for us to talk with them and show our work. I was very excited when I found out that Tom Getty from Taunt was coming, as that local studio is what I’ve been drawn to the most for the past couple years. I got to show off my major project progress to him with my teammate and he seemed to enjoy the work we have shown and gave us some advice on the film. Incisive also came up to us and seemed to be interested in our environment work and said that that’s exactly what they’re looking for in their VR video game and that we should apply when we’re done. Overall I think this was a fun experience to show off my work and chat with local studios.
This year I went to the Rendr festival with a bunch of classmates and had a very good time seeing all the talks and video game stands. I have never been to such a large animation event and was thoroughly enjoying it. After talking to some people it finally clicked to me that Linked In is very important for finding work and networking and that it would be the perfect time to start using it more regularly. Unfortunately due to personal circumstances, I couldn’t attend the 2nd day of the festival but nonetheless, I would definitely go again.
Poster Design
When it came down to the poster design for our major project I knew it was important to get it right. So we started thinking about it early on and beginning sketching out designs.
We used some posters from movies with similar vibes of horror or designs we liked as inspiration. We wrote down the themes of our film and used those as trigger words on the designs.
We began with the idea of having a more conceptual or metaphorical poster as our movie is about mystery. I drew up a lot of posters with the yellow king as the main focus mixed with elements of the church and the cultists with the priestess but without actually giving anything away. We wanted the colour yellow to be present regardless of anything as thats in the name of the king. I thought the designs were really nice but they felt more like prints rather than a film poster, so back to the drawing board we went.
These are a few concepts of Joseph’s of the king having a beaming light behind him, he looked into Imperial Triumphant’s album covers and thought they would look perfect for our poster.
When the deadline was announced for the posters to be printed I went away from the main project for a couple days to finalize a poster. But, I was still unsure about the poster look, so I made a few more concepts.
Nothing was working for us and we were starting to become unsettled but the last concept I decided was going to be the design I would choose and work on as it was mysterious, eerie, didn’t really give anything away but still included the elements of the film.
This is what I came up with the poster, I used a high resolution screenshot from Unreal Engine and painted over it and polished up the tentacles of the king and introduced a lot more yellow with the shadow of the king behind her. I kept a little hint of the Imperial Triumphant cover designs with the golden linework. Joseph found the font and I put it all together. I had to convert the poster to cmyk for printing and worked with the dimension needed and sent it off.
Final Year Show Display and Artbook
Joseph took the reigns with the design and look of the display and made a mock-up design for our business cards.
He used my 2D elements to help him make the table display designs and we decided that the 2nd one was probably the best way to go forward. While Joseph made the tablecloth in the shape of the city and king, I was gathering all the artwork and screenshots for our artbook, which we then sat down together and put it together in an evening. I am very happy with our book.
Linktree Joseph made that has the book: https://linktr.ee/ofmindsandterrors
This is what our display ended up looking like. I bought some plates and cut out a placeholder mask for submission. We did not get the artbook in time so we used a placeholder.
Overall the display turned out exactly how we needed it to be, an altar for the King in Yellow. I loved Joseph’s table cloth cut out, I think it adds a lot of character. My poster also looks great printed out. Overall a successful job.
Film Social Media
After discussing with Joseph, I made a social media page on instagram for our film to advertise it and show it off. I posted the poster and we will continue to post screenshots and design processes. If we send the film off to film festivals, which we are planning to do, we can’t post the full movie but we will post a trailer.
CV
QR
Reflection
It has been a long, eventful, and busy year but I feel very proud of all I’ve done and learned. I deepened my knowledge about the industry, attended many events and workshops, and met many amazing professionals. On top of that, I have a final year project that I can be proud to show off. I feel a lot more able and confident in myself to venture into the professional world and succeed.