GiffGaff Instagram and Webpage Banners

This week, I've been planning the other requirements for the GiffGaff brief, which includes the Instagram and website banners. I designed the layout of four banners and two instagram stories.

I got my influences from adverts that can be found on the London Underground, which have to be eye-catching for commuters using this transport system, who may only glance at an advert for a couple of seconds. I also researched what the most common type of banner sizes were as GiffGaff didn't specify any dimensions. Roughly 40% of banners are 300x250 and 25% are 728x90, so I decided to use these dimensions. Instagram stories are all 1080x1920. 

First I made the banners as PNGs to get the idea for the layout.

Web Banners:

Instagram Stories:

Then I animated them somewhat like how they'll be animated for the final product. I did this using the Photoshop timeline, however I'll be using After Effects for the actual banners as Photoshop was very tricky to work with and kept deleting elements of previous frames when I was working on following frames.

What Went Well

• I believe the banners look professional and have a similar eye-catching characteristic to that of adverts found on the London Underground
• The banners all feature the requirements set by the brief (font, doodles, logo positioning, black and white noise bars, colour scheme)
• The gif versions of these adverts are very eye-catching, and the style for all of them will match the 20 second advert we're also making
• I found out what the most common banner sizes are in use

Criticism

• The white borders around the images got larger when the images were resized. This took a long time to recorrect, getting each border to the same size
• The PNGs don't show how the banners will look when animated, however I have a good idea of how each component will move
• The banners could be argued to be too safe, however I believe it's important that the adverts are as clear as possible, and of course, were they to be more busy, it would lose the overall message that GiffGaff are trying to get across
• Animating on Photoshop is very hard as elements of the work kept getting deleted of its own accord

Preparing a Pitch

Me and Harry cutout some of the photos we'd taken from the shoot in the style that they'd be in for the advert. This is in preparation for the pitch, where we'll be showing the general style of the whole advert through some examples of the artwork that'll be in it. We stuck to a specific set of camera settings to get each photo in this uniform giffgaff-inspired style (black and white, grainy and with a white border). The white border was a very fiddly job, meaning each frame took about 10 minutes to cut around. Special care had to be taken around the hands and faces of the characters.

Next we compiled all the mood-boards, storyboard, research and requirements of the brief into a short PowerPoint pitch.

The tutors were happy with the pitch. They liked the idea of using old machinery to represent recycling, in particular the money coming out of the pasta rolling machine. They also liked the Terry Gilliam-style that we are using. One critique was that the narrative was a bit straight-forward, however I believe this is necessary in order to make it a clear advert. They also thought the moodboards had a lot of energy however this was lost in the storyboards, and I believe this is because we left the backgrounds black in the storyboard. For the final project however, they will be a lot more busy and in turn, recreate this energy.

What Went Well

• I'm very pleased with the style we've adopted as it looks very fitting for an advert
• The pitch presentation adopts some of the artwork and font that GiffGaff uses for it's own adverts
• The pitch was within the 3 minutes we had and our idea was clear to the tutors
• The criticism will help us to develop our idea - a second viewpoint is important for catching the things we missed

Criticisms

• Despite each frame taking 10 minutes to cut around, I think this will still be a manageable process to get done in the time we have - it is just rather painstaking 
• The pitch presentation is probably a bit long for the 3 minutes we have to talk about our idea, however we won't be talking in great detail about each slide
• We still need to design backgrounds, as without them, the advert doesn't have enough energy

Photo Shoot for GiffGaff Advert

This week, we set up my large green-screen that could fit an entire person on, ready for the photo shoot. We are using pixilation as one of the animation techniques for the advert, amongst stop-motion and some 2D. Me and Harry acted out the roles of the GiffGaff worker and the customer, directed by what we'd planned in the storyboards. We also got help from Bethan, Madgie and Daisy to act out one of the scenes. 

Then we focused on the stop-motion components. These comprised of still photos of found objects such as a phone and a bin.

It also comprised of stop-motion sequences with objects, like stacking coin towers and money coming out of a pasta rolling machine. For the case of the pasta-machine, the spinning handle and the money will be edited together to look like it is happening at the same time

The hardest stop-motion part was the stop-motion sequences that involved pixilation. For one scene, I had to hold a pillow with a phone on it and frame by frame move it off screen. It was hard to keep my hand steady and get the same tilt on the pillow for each frame. 

What Went Well

• The pixilation and stop-motion we've captured is very choppy and fits GiffGaff's style when it comes to their stop-motion adverts
• The coin towers and money coming out of the pasta-machine were ideas that we had after the storyboarding stage but thought they would be good to include
• Apart from the stop-motion sequences, most of the animating will happen in After Effects, giving us more control on how things move temporally (the speed of the motion and when the scene will be cut) and spatially (the composition with other elements of the advert)
• Blu-tac kept the coins in place so they weren't jogged when the next coin was placed on the pile

Criticism

• It was hard capturing the pixilation sequences (my arm would move about too much between shots)
• We won't know whether the pixilation sequences will work until we see them animated in After Effects
• We had to retake the sequence with the pasta-machine handle spinning around as it was too jumpy to understand that it was spinning

Industry and Practice Lectures

Here I talk about the lectures we got on becoming industry-ready and what I learnt/what I went away and worked on afterwards. 

Copyright and Finance

Copyright gives rights to the owner on how their material is used. Anything can be copyrighted that has been made through an independent intellectual effort. If the artefact is made in the UK, you don't need to apply for copyright as it's automatically covered. It covers the author/artist from their work being copied, distributed, adapted or publicly performed without their consent. This can have negative effects as well however, such as making busking illegal (which is why permits are always required for people to do this). Copyright cover lasts for life plus 70 years with regard to literary, dramatic, artistic and photographic works, however with sound recordings, the cover only lasts for 70 years from publication. 

Copyright is also something that can be bought and sold to another party. This would be required were another party wanting to use the work for commercial purposes (like advertising). It is however not required for non-commercial, educational, research or private study purposes. 

Alternatives to copyright include copyleft (gives permission for software or artistic work to be copied, reproduced, adapted but without financial gaining from it), and Creative Commons that allows work to be distributed, remixed or tweaked as long as credit is given to the original creator. There are also different types of Creative Commons agreements including BY, NC, SA, ND, which allow differing levels of lenience on what can and can't be done with the work produced. 

I learned a lot here as I've never explored what it means for work to be copyrighted. I didn't realise there were different levels of what could/couldn't be done with the work and that there are different laws for each country on copyright. I will definitely consider how I share my own work from now on, and how I can best protect myself from having work plagiarised. 

Freelancing

I learnt that freelancing is the main way people enter into the animation industry. To budget for a year of working freelance, you have to imagine you are working roughly an average of 35-40 weeks as briefs may not always be constant. There is also no cover in terms of sick pay or holiday leave so these need to be counted in with the budget.

A starting salary in the south of the UK is roughly £18-23k a year, so you have to make sure when freelancing that you are not undercharging. A good way not to be undercharged by the client is to set up a daily rate, rather than an hourly rate as this makes it harder for clients to haggle down the price. You must also never agree to lower your prices at all. An acceptable price would be between £150-200/day. Were you to charge £100/day and get this consistently across a year, that comes to a salary of £26k/year.

When considering your prices, you have to consider overheads (electricity, software, broadband, heating, tax, insurance, pension, office space, materials). On top of this is general living expenses (food and accommodation), which is roughly £8k (it is more around London).

After the lecture, I thought about some of the expenses that being a set constructor/model maker would include:

• Laptop
• £1200 (average price for a Mac)
• DSLR camera
• Between £80 (second hand) and £400 (brand new)
• Stop-motion software
• Between £10 (Stop Motion Studio) and £300 (Dragonframe)
• Materials for sets (wood, screws, cardboard, glue, paint)
• Between £50-100 per project
• Equipment for building sets (drill and drill bits, hammer, saw, screw drivers, pliers)
• Drill - £50, Drill Bit - £1-2, Saw - £6, Hammer/Screwdriver/Pliers - £5
• Materials for models (plasticine, felt, wire, putty, foam, wood)
• Wire - £15, Foam - £5, Felt - £2/ A4 sheet, Wood (usually found)
• Studio space
• Can be upwards of £500-1000/day depending on area, or included within the price of rent by working from home 
• Studio lights
• Between £50-100 (high-end) or £2 for Torches

All of these specific elements cost a lot of money and these would need to be considered with the budget on top of day to day expenses. 

Social Media and Marketing

This is definitely an area that I need to focus on as I don't have a large social media presence when it comes to my art work - I don't even have a phone. I made an Instagram account a while ago for my work however I haven't updated it for a long time now. Consistency is the key to growing a following as well as posting relevant things that you are enthusiastic about. The lesson just so coincided with a period in which I've been making a lot of cut-up poetry and I thought this would be a great way to revitalise the account. As it is an account for my music, creating music is a long process and something I wasn't sure how to post about regularly on the account, however introducing these cut-up poems is a quick and (hopefully!) an entertaining form of post.

This was my account before:

Link to my Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/jack_osmond_music/

I've since updated my bio to make it clear the things people can expect me to post about. 

Within a day of posting the first poem and labelling it with micro-hashtags, I was getting a few likes and even one response from accounts that were beyond my friend circle. I'll keep going with marketing my poetry and see if my following grows at all because of it. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdp0rn1rA-vr7P__GmDo1rQ

I've also slowly been updating the branding on my YouTube channel, which is ultimately where I want my following to go to. My instagram page link directs people to this. I started with the web banner. I'm keeping everything in the same blue colour to create a unified brand identity across all my platforms. 

In terms of marketing, this is all about understanding what the customer wants. By identifying a customer you can develop a project, promote it to that market, assess the performance of the product and finally develop the price for it. It is important to research what is already out there and how you think you can improve on what's out there/where gaps in the market are. I filled in a SWOT sheet to write down my own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. 

Sitting Comfortably Lecture

While I feel that I'm very good at keeping my mind healthy, I definitely don't consider my physical body as much while working. I definitely spend too long hunched over computers as well as sitting cross-legged on my bed for long period of times. This could lead to pains later on in life that otherwise wouldn't be an issue if my posture was better. I don't struggle with any pains at the moment but focusing more on my posture will make sure that I definitely don't get any pains in the future. I do take a lot of breaks however to get up and move, which definitely helps. Also with stop-motion, I have to be moving a lot of the time, which is also much healthier than sitting down constantly.

When considering hand strains, it is good with stop-motion that I'm required to do many different actions compared with 2D animating where drawing is a very repetitive action, which is more likely to lead to RSI. Some actions to help with strains could be pushing against a wall, squeezing stress balls or stretching your wrists from time to time. 

GiffGaff Storyboard

This week we came up with the plot for the advert. We drafted together a very quick storyboard that captured all of our ideas. The storyboard was good for collecting our ideas and for seeing if we missed out any features that we wanted included as well as any features that are common to GiffGaff's brand. 

I then neatened this up in a digital format including the script and details of the actions in each scene.

Finally, Harry replaced the drawing placeholders with the images we shot, which are a much closer representation to the final product.

What Went Well

• The plot should fit to exactly 20 seconds and will be a manageable amount to produce in the time we have
• The plot is easy to follow and not over-complicated
• The plot fits with GiffGaff's brand and includes many common features seen in their adverts
• The finished storyboard is a good representation of what the final product will be

Criticism

• The initial drawings were simple, however we developed the storyboard until it was clear how we wanted it to look
• The story could include more old-fashion technology to emphasise this as being a running feature of the advert
• We still have to decide what the banner and Instagram story will look like

GiffGaff Script

Me and Harry came up with a script to go with the 20 second advert space we have. It wasn't until we started timing ourselves saying the script that we really understood what 20 seconds was, which turned out to be a very little space of time. I discovered that around 40-50 words is a natural number that can be spoken in 20 seconds, however our early scripts were nearer to 170 words so had to be cut down. We had to remove the facts and figures in order to keep the message very brief by the end.

Script 1:

Wo hold on a sec! You weren’t thinking of binning that, were you?

Did you know in the UK, 40 million gadgets are going unused in people’s homes contributing to Earth’s natural resources being put under pressure. And while other phone company’s contracts are causing the average person to renew their phone every 23 months, at giffgaff we’re different. We’re all about giving back to the community and through recycling we are able to do this. By recycling your phone with us, we’ll give back to you through our cash reward scheme, making now no better time to help protect the environment.

 

Step 1 – Get a price for your phone from our website.

Step 2 – We’ll send you all the prepaid packaging you need. Just pop your phone in and send it back to us.

Step 3 – The giffgaff team will give it a once over

Step 4 – You get paid while investing in the Earth’s future. After all sharing is caring.

 

Recycle your old phone. Get some cash in your pocket. Cha-ching.

Script 2:

Hold on a sec! You weren’t thinking of binning that, were you?

Did you know, 40 million gadgets are going unused nationwide (contributing to the pressure being placed on Earth’s natural resources). This is partly down to mobile company contracts causing the average person to renew their phone every 23 months, but at giffgaff we’re different. We’re all about giving back to the community. By recycling your old phone with us, we’ll give back to you with our cash rewards, making now no better time to help the environment. 

 

Step 1 – Get a price for your phone from our website.

Step 2 – We’ll send you all the prepaid packaging you need. Just pop your phone in and send it back to us.

Step 3 – The giffgaff team will give it a once over

Step 4 – You get paid while investing in the Earth’s future.

 

Recycle your old phone. Get some cash in your pocket. Cha-ching.

Script 3:

Wait! You weren’t thinking of binning that?

Nationwide, 40 million gadgets are going to waste as a result of mobile contracts causing phones to be renewed every 23 months, but at giffgaff we’re different. We’re about sustainability and giving back. Recycle your old phone with us and we’ll reward you with cash, making now no better time to cut down on waste. 

Step 1 – Get a price for your phone.

Step 2 – Pop your phone in our pre-paid packaging and send it back to us.

Step 3 – The giffgaff team will give it a once-over

Step 4 – You get paid while investing in the Earth’s future.

 

(Recycle your old phone. Get some cash in your pocket. Cha-ching)

Script 4: This was the script we settled with and one that fit easily into the 20 seconds of time.

Wait! You weren’t thinking of binning that?

At giffgaff we’re all about sustainability in the community. Sell us your old phone hassle-free, and together we can cut down on global waste. 

 

Step 1 – Get a price for your phone.

Step 2 – Pop your phone in our pre-paid packaging.

Step 3 – The giffgaff team will give it a once-over.

Step 4 – You get paid while investing in the Earth’s future.

 

(Recycle your old phone. Get some cash in your pocket. Cha-ching)

What Went Well

• The final script is very concise and gets the message across clearly
• The script will help dictate the direction of the storyboard
• Scriptwriting is one of my favourite tasks
• Parts of the script (the writing in bold) can be on screen but not spoken so more words can fit in

Criticism

• The script was far too long to begin with. 20 seconds is not a lot of time
• We had to lose the facts and figures in order to make the script concise however in doing so, lost some of the advert's compelling argument 

Brief 2 - Live Commission

This week I got commissioned by a friend to make a model of him playing the piano that he could put on his piano as an ornament. He asked me to make him this after I'd shown him the character I'd made for my previous animation. I thought this would be a great opportunity to improve my own skills, particularly as I want to go down the route of stop-motion background construction. Skills in model making would also be beneficial. 

I started designing the upright piano, and drawing sketches of my friend.

After the sketches and designs were done, I went about constructing it. Concerning this commission, I kept in mind two factors for the project - to keep the cost as low as possible, and to work effectively and with speed, in the case that I had many more commissions on the go at once, but without these factors impacting the quality of the final product. I managed to achieve this by recycling a lot of the materials that had gone into building my previous 'Les Gen du Mur' animation, so the profit I make from this will not in any way be reduced by material costs.

I transformed the gown worn by the main character of "Les Gen du Mur' into a grey suit that I know my friend tends to wear when performing the piano. I trimmed the length and cut a v-shape down the front to make the suit. Then I added a black tie and white shirt. The hands and feet were replaced with wire hands that had individual fingers covered in plasticine, for playing the piano, and black plasticine shoes.

Finally, the head was made by layering white plasticine on top of a carved wooden head. This was the hardest bit to make, to get it to look as close to my friend as possible. It could have looked more accurate to how he looks (the model makes him look a lot older) however, overall I'm pleased with how it turned out. 

Next I made the piano. The hardest part of this was making the individual piano keys (from cardboard and wooden skewers). This was because I had to decide how many keys would fit into a piano proportional to the model of my friend.

As wood is my go-to material for making sets, I used this to make the sides, back and lid of the piano. The stool for the puppet to sit on was made by sawing the back off a model chair and using the back rest as a stand for sheet music (very little of the materials went to waste). Once again, this commission would increase my experience of using this material and develop my skills. This wood was also used on the previous animation set so my profit margins stayed high.

I still wasn't happy with the hands and face of the model however. I thought I could make them look more realistic so I re-sculpted these features. I'm much more pleased with the final result as was my friend when I showed it to him. I also painted the piano, making it look newer. 

Final Product:

What Went Well

• Overall I was pleased with the result of the product (once I'd gone back and improved it), and it's one that directly improves my skills in set construction and model making
• By reusing materials, I kept the profit margin very high and was able to produce something efficiently, were I to have lots of commissions on the go
• I was able to balance this commission alongside the 504 project and other 502 tasks
• My friend was pleased with what I made and that is the most important part of a commission

Criticism

• The initial face on the model could have been more accurate as it made him look older than he is!
• Postage was a price I hadn't considered to profit as well as the durability of the ornament when it's posted
• Certain aspects like the piano keys and puppet's face needed a lot of time and attention
• I would have more moveable parts on the piano in future beyond the lid, such as the keys