Exploring Future Careers

This week I've been exploring set and prop building careers, in particular jobs that require carpentry skills. While I'm happy working on small scale set building projects for animations, I've found that I'd be particularly interested in exploring further into larger scale projects as a future career, such as working for theatres and pantomimes. From my research, I've found out about the 'Creative Venue/Theatre Technician' role. This role is responsible for the construction, rehearsal, presentation and removal of equipment from a stage performance. This role stood out for me more than the other career choices such as being a 'Set Designer' as I'm not so interested in the conceptual/design aspects of the set, but rather the actual building process. 

With this career choice in mind, I looked into the ways I could get my foot in the door in this type of job. There are some apprenticeships running for 'Venue Technicians' and 'Scenic Carpenters' around London, which would be ideal, however there don't seem to be any spaces open currently due to COVID, and competition for them would be high. I have also looked into local theatres near me for any opportunities to get work experience, such as helping build props or sets. Again, everything is currently closed due to COVID so there is no work here. I have put together emails and sent them out to theatres and will hopefully get a response when they open up again.

In the emails I ask whether there are any internships, apprenticeships or work experience opportunities once lockdown restrictions are eased. I also mention how my skills from the Animation course can apply to the roles that I'm looking to get into. I also added myself to a few mailing lists to get notified if placements for these roles turn up. 

I emailed the following theatres/apprentice companies and now awaiting responses:

• Watford Palace Theatre
• Watford Pump House
• Watford Colosseum
• The Globe
• The National Theatre
• Leeds Playhouse
• Royal Shakespeare Company
• HOME
• ATG

I'll be emailing more theatres as and when I find them.

What Went Well

• The course is helping me to narrow down the exact career that I want
• This process has helped practise my networking skills
• I've kept the search local so far for easy commuting 

Criticism

• With COVID, all opportunities to work in this career are currently unavailable. It also means the theatres may take a longer time to respond
• It can seem a large task trying to find somewhere that will accept me for that first bit of work experience
• Some of the apprenticeship schemes don't accept people taking degrees

Documentary Tests (Carried On)

This week, I've been testing many different shots that will go towards the film.

The first tests carried on from the silhouette shots I was working on last week, however I'm now starting to animate them. I used a better camera, and this time captured the forest in four individual sections. 

I animated each of these four layers ever so minutely (by lightly blowing on the moss) to create the effect of wind. In After Effects, these layers were combined together, the lighting darkened and put a background behind. This concept will form the start of the documentary. 

I then looked into creating the fire effects that will be overlaid onto the scene representing the deforestation taking place. This shot will appear midway through the documentary. The oil tests that Daisy did were a good starting point for making this effect (as seen below).

I went about trying to recreate the oil effect here so I could film it instead of just capturing the one photograph of it. This turned out to be very hard to do, and neither of us could recreate the patterns in the photo above. The oil mixture was creating patterns that were too bubbly/separating into small circles. I also played around with having a direct light in the reflection or a flat light across the whole surface. 

I composited these oil shots on top of the backdrops of the scenes I'd been making, with varying degrees of success. 

The red lines are nice and look like a plume of heat but it's too subtle overall/doesn't look like fire.

The colours are more realistic and the forest is a good colour. The yellow flickering is effective, but overall is too slow and again too subtle. 

The oil here is very effective (looking like embers) and its colour is vivid. The added animation with the falling tree gives a lot of emphasis to the power of the fire. The blur conveys the heat.

The final test involved smoke (made of cotton wool) rising from the scene. An animated plume of smoke also rises into the air when the tree falls down. Overall, it just needs some lighting added to the trees to make the two elements really feel connected.

The next test I did involved building up the stop-motion forest set from multiple layers. 

This shot combines eight or so layers of forest that get darker and blurrier the further you go back to build up perspective.

This shot includes the palm oil that takes over.

This is the animated version, combining the forest with the weaving tests made a few weeks back. I really like this effect and believe it looks very natural. (This will appear midway through the documentary, when the message about palm oil starts to twist negatively).

Finally I tested the panning shot that we were going to include at the beginning of the film. I stuck to my initial design to carry out this shot.

The first video is a quick practise shot using my camera, mainly for testing whether the layers green-screened behind would look realistic being inserted afterwards in post-production. 

Despite how rough it is, I was very pleased with how it turned out.

I tried the same shot again, but this time using the stop-motion software and taking individual photos rather than a film. Overall I wasn't as pleased with this attempt as it is very jolty, although it's cleaner than the previous attempt. I will continue working on this next week.

What Went Well

• I got to a good solution for representing the fire in the forest, using oil in water
• Cotton wool in combination with the oil made the fire even more realistic
• The combination of the weaving green paper and the layered forest works really well

Criticism

• Some of the tests have felt slow and not all that rewarding (when they haven't worked out), but in the long run will improve the documentary.
• More work needs to be done on the panning shot
• It was impossible to get the oil patterns to look exactly like they had done the first time around

Brand Identity Presentation

This week I put together a powerpoint presentation about myself and what I do, to be presented to the rest of the class. I made sure to talk about my practical skills as well as my soft skills. I also mentioned the different projects that I'm working on currently, both to do with animation and outside. In terms of my brand identity, I have set up accounts on Instagram and Reddit. However, with regard to aspects like creating a logo, I do not believe this would be entirely appropriate as my focus is on working for a company, where I can expand my knowledge for background construction (either at a small scale for animation or a large scale for theatre productions/pantomime), rather than going freelance. Instead I have chosen to go with a smart photo of myself on my social media and LinkedIn sites. 

The tutor was pleased with the presentation, especially how I specified the sorts of materials I like to work with. He said that I should look into metalwork more as well as to start thinking about jobs for the future (eg. pantomime set building, which I believe would be a good career idea).

What Went Well

• Concise presentation
• The presentations let me see who I could possibly collaborate with for future projects
• Set building could be a career that spans outside animation, such as for theatre productions

Criticism

• The brand identity online could be stronger (eg. having a logo), however as I'm aiming to work for a company rather than going freelance, I don't think this would be so appropriate

Documentary Background Construction and Silhouette Tests

This week I built the frames for one of every type of tree that we are going to include in the forest, based on the designs I created the previous week. I had to make a few adjustments to the design when building them in reality however (for instance the strings were unable to move the branches when hidden inside the tree, so these will now be outside and will be painted out in rigging). The trees were also very unstable on the cardboard, so I replaced this with a wooden base, and tied them down with elastic band supports and screws.

Live plants:

Stinking Corpse Lily:

Teak Tree:

Fig Tree:

Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree:

Burnt/Deforested Tree:

I then gave these to Daisy to coat with latex, which is a great material for creating a bark texture. 

I also carried out some tests into the silhouette shots of the forest we are going to include at three points throughout the documentary (the first shot where the rainforest is lush and dense, the middle shot where the forest is on fire, and the last shot where the forest has been completely deforested). I started by cutting out rough outlines of trees from cardboard and paper, sticking them upright, arranging them in a way so as to recreate a dense rainforest atmosphere. These tests had varying levels of success. For the later tests, I included Daisy's air plants and bind weeds. 

First shot - Dense Rainforest:

I like the cardboard edges to the trees but otherwise the composition is very flat.

I like the hazy lighting and the composition is much better but the green is too luminescent 

This is my favourite test. I like the blue, however it's slightly too dark.

The oil effect is nice but makes the image far too dark.

The silhouette is too dark making the image too flat.

The grey-scale image is not as exciting as the blue version.

The shot looks better for having more of a foreground.

I like the mix of flat cardboard trees with real plants.

This is another of my favourite tests, which features cardboard trees covered in moss.

Middle shot - Forest on fire:

The oil patterns work well as creating a fire/smoke effect when combined with the original composition using blend modes. 

This composition includes an image with the light shinning directly through the forest towards camera (creating the bright fire in the centre). The shot looks much better for being tinted red as well.

Again, the real plants add that extra bit of detail that I think is needed for the composition.

Cardboard trees covered in moss with oil background. The moss gives even more detail to the cutout trees.

End shot - Deforested forest:

Cardboard tree stumps with dry moss and tree bark in the foreground.

Same composition with palm oil in the background.

What Went Well

• With a few tweaks, the frame building went according to plan
• The frames are sturdy and should be durable enough for animating
• The silhouette tests got me to a final shot that I like and think will fit well within the documentary
• I think the combination of real plants with cutout trees works well

Criticism 

• The initial plan to have the trees mounted on cardboard made them far too unstable
• The cut out trees were very basic for the test, however will be a lot more detailed for the real thing
• Some of the silhouette tests didn't work out so well, but I was able to see what looked wrong with them and how to improve it

Documentary Pre-Production Continued

This week, I devised a very rough storyboard idea so that everyone in the group is on the same page.

Alongside this, I worked on a rough outline the script would take. Overall, the documentary will start positively. The concept of palm oil will be introduced fairly neutrally and towards the end of the documentary, the message will flip and look into all the devastating effects palm oil has on the Indonesian rainforest. I used some facts as examples, however these will be changed when we actually go on to write the script.

I then worked on two different tests. The first test was a rough idea of how the words would appear on screen. 

Positives

• The paper flapping in the wind worked best, the fire test was also successful
• The paper fits with the subject of deforestation

Negatives

• The words will be scanned in on the scraps of paper, rather than as they are here, typed on digitally
• The water test was slightly too subtle

I then tested the transitional point between the stop-motion and the collage. This involves strips of paper (representing the palm oil crop) coming through the cardboard, taking over the floor space.

Positives

• The third test was my favourite and will work in the stop-motion set
• I liked the first test as well, and will work well if combined with the third test

Negatives

• I had to animate blindly as my camera isn't compatible with my stop-motion software
• The camera is shaky because I had to take the photo by touching the camera
• The window was open so the lighting varied from photo to photo

Me and Daisy then split up the designing and building of the plants where she'll be working on the aesthetics and outer layers of the plants and I'm working on the under-layers and mechanisms to move them. We picked 9 varieties of plants to make for the forest. I made these designs for the under-layers of the plants.

As a group, we collated our tests and work together for the pre-production pitch. The tutor was pleased with the amount of work we had managed to get done and told us to carry on with what we were doing.

What Went Well

• The rough storyboard helped me explain to the group the overall idea I had for the film
• The tests worked how I expected them to and will be used for the final film
• The designs incorporate materials that are easy to source and show as little of the nylon thread as possible (so the rig-removal stage is reduced)
• There are a variety of plants for the forest, and importantly, they're all native to Indonesia

Criticism

• Splitting the work on the plants between the outer and under layers will mean that me and Daisy will both need to get the scale right for the two layers to fit together when built
• The tests were loosely put together just so I could get the gist of the outcomes. For the real thing, we'll use a proper camera, animate with proper software, control the lighting etc.