3rd Loopdeloop entry ( empathy of a boxer)

Mood board to get my brain juices flowing.

I wanted to create one more Loopdeloop animation , I wanted to do this  for a few reasons, for example, I believed my other ones were good yet they did not loop that well, I needed to think of something that could be seen as going on forever. I thought very hard about what scenario would work well, then it hit me "Boxing", they could be having a never ending fight, or in this case a never ending cycle of two boxers about to fight as the topic was  empathy, my idea was   for them to just shake hands instead of fighting, as they know how much it hurts to get hit. In my animation they  just decide to shake hands instead after the bell goes, signalling them to fight.

Below are my first rough sketches of what I needed and below that are some shots from the animation.

Youtube (career Ideas)(freelance)

Youtube Is a great way to promote ones self, Youtube is the new T.V, if your'e famous on youtube you are like a celebrity. After University I plan on creating a youtube channel, I am going traveling and I plan to video most of it. I will use the skills I have learnt in after effects and Illustrator etc. to give the videos an extra oomph. I also bought a go pro camera. I chose a go pro for a number of reasons, its small, it shoots great quality videos and it is easy to carry on long distances as its very small and it weighs near to nothing. I first got the idea for making a youtube channel when I went to a talk in uni. I cant remember the name of the company that gave the talk but I do remember them talking about how  after  they tested a.game on their channel , the selling figures of the game was increased by a lot, a lot more than i expected, it actually amazed me how well it worked.

Soundcloud (promoting myself)

To promote myself I have been using Soundcloud, Soundcloud is amazing, it is used  to share music around the world, it also gets your name out there.
 I plan to try and promote my page even more in the future. Every time I think of an idea for a song or beat I record it and upload it on to soundcloud. You just don't know who could be listening, It will hopefully help me in my career in the future. It also helps me by letting me remember beats from years ago and it keeps me enjoying life. I could even use it to promote my art work, I could start to make album covers for all the songs I create, getting me better at drawing in the process.

Showreel

I created my showreel in after effects, I used after effects as I am familiar with it now. After creating my showreel I showed it to my mate James, He thought it was ok but he thought some bits just seemed to carry on too long, For example the title sequence was too long, I did have it saying Hello,,,,,, Are you ready?,,,,,,,, To go on an adventure?, I cut this down to just "Hello", I believe it works a lot better this way as its fun and engaging and it gets straight to the point.
Sound:
I wanted my showreel to get the viewer to want to see more and have fun at the same time, I started off using the original sounds from the animations,  all the different sounds defiantly did not work together. I decided to just one track throughout  to fix this problem. Im happy to say that I am pleased with the outcome.

Improving and learning new Softwear ( Flash,Illustrator and Photoshop)

I was looking around for jobs on the internet when i noticed  their qualifications and what they could use, I was hit back for  a second, Everyone I clicked on (freelancers) had many skills, for example some of them knew over 10 programs some 20 and some even 30.....
With this knowledge I knew I needed to get my ass into gear, this is when I started to learn how to use flash. I found Flash very enjoyable, the layout of flash  is very clean and simple, and I must say that I love the brush tool on flash, I don't know what it is but it just feels good to draw with compared to photoshop.
I also found a guy called Jazza, I talk about him so much but yet there is a reason for it, he has helped me so much, yes he has only  taught me about flash but the way he made me find flash enjoyable gave me a spurt of inspiration to become a better artists and after watching his videos I can see a clear improvement( the trick is to make it SIMPLE) everything breaks up in smaller shapes, for example, eyes are normally made up of circles feet triangles etc.. ( my method now)
When I walk around the shops I sometimes look at people and think well yeh your made up of shapes. Its quite funny actually I sometimes just stare .....
I have also learned a lot about how to use Photoshop, After Effects and Illustrator. This will indeed help me in the future when looking for jobs, the more things you know, the more valuable you are to a team and the more likely you are to get a job.

Another Animation idea For LoopDeLoop comp (empathy)

I am gutted and quite disappointed in myself for not bringing this animation to life,  but i did have my reasons, I think it could of worked quite well yet I was not sure about if it was about empathy. The idea was to have 2 people racing amongst traffic, when they come to a red light, one of the drivers just carries on and laughs, not taking the red light into consideration. I also added a person into the mix, he was about to cross when the bad driver wooshes past( bad driver not empathising with the guy crossing the road), then suddenly he gets hit by a train  just to add a bit of comedy value.

2nd Empathy Loop de Loop

The empathy of a baby
Below is a video of a ted talk I watched on empathy, The talker is a lady called Helen Riess, she talks about the topic of the LoopDeLoop competition ( Empathy). At first she talks about her experiences of witnessing empathy among others. She talks about something that she noticed, something that amazed her, Helen observed peoples behaviour when babies cry in a crowded place, she starts off by telling you how most people would just run to the front of the plane to get away, but then she talks about how one reaction amazed her, the reaction of a baby, the baby that she spoke of gave up his own pacifier because he empathised with the baby crying.
I knew then that My next idea was definitely going to be about  this topic as it seemed very touching.
Good animations always come out of good stories and this was definitely one.

Below are Snapshots from my animation  on this idea, I was very pleased with the outcome but I believe it missed something, If I was to do it again I would defiantly pay more attention to the storyline because I knew what was going on but when I showed my friend he said that he thought the baby was throwing the pacifier to himself as you can not see the baby in the pram.
When designing the baby i had to think about how i could get across the feeling that he was infact a baby himself. I remember from Jazza  (youtuber) he says something along the lines of , "to make them look young, give them big eyes", so I gave him Big eyes.

Buisness card

This post shows how I developed my business card for future use. Firstly, I needed to make a business card which represents myself and what I do. When first thinking about ideas, I wanted to include my characters from my animations, but I decided against this, as I have many different characters and I aim to produce more work in the future, therefore this would be a mis representation.

I created a simple logo to represent the work I do and to leave it open for development.  I chose these colours and shapes for the logo to demonstrate the style of my work, which I believe is playful, fun and appealing to all ages. The type was included in the middle to be the focal point and to show where all my work comes from. Additionally, the reason I kept the business card extremely simple was because of its small size. The complicated design would be wasted and unattractive but this could be memorable within viewers.    

At this stage... 

.The logo is missing what I do - Animation

 .The font choice is too serious and formal

Front

New font choice is bold, full of character, 

Directly says what it is that i do, also in a different font to give it  a secondary point of focus furthermore 

the shadow beneath the circles shape makes the logo a character itself, an element of life

Back

Fettle (animation company yorkshire)

I have been looking at other animation studios, thinking about the future and also looking at real examples of different types of successful animations. I like the work this studio produces, I'm interested in the fact that they are a small company and yet produce some outstanding animations. i really like the style of much of their animations and the range of work they have done. Their series of interviews with short animations is interesting, when I think of animation I think of it as something that distorts reality, with absurd or fantastical events happening and here animation is  used to clarify reality and to get the viewer to empathise with the terrible reality for some of life during the holocaust. It is extremely effective as a tool. I also like the style of the animations, very SIMPLE but this works as it adds to the story being narrated and allows the viewer to imagine the reality but to stay focused on the accounts being told.

Rattle media (Leeds based animation company)

This Leeds based media company produce many sorts of animations and I was particularly struck by their online marketing section, another interesting way to use the skills I have learnt at LCA. this could be an interesting way to use what I can do now. Their animated advert for some project management software(me & my builder) inspired me to start working on a short animation to help publicise my Mum's work as a Building Surveyor, (which no one understands). i have to say i didn't liek the backgroudn music nor the voice in the voiceover, but it is interesting and is probably not aimed at someone like me! and it shows that to do this job well you have to be able to put yourself in some very different shoes.

Motiv ( leeds animation company)

This is another Leeds based video production company, whose website has a very different approach to others I looked at, basically a load of shots set to some surf music, the editing makes it work though and does make you want to see more. they have a huge variety of clients and approaches, I looked at their animation for Cashwise https://vimeo.com/124310074 an interesting video, promoting a charity which helps people manage a budget and provides someone to turn to and people to talk to when you get into trouble financially. a very simple animation, interesting, again I think it is interesting the voiceover choice. I'm not convinced by the animation though, it is so simple that I think it risks being a bit patronising, but again it is good to see different styles and to think about why the producers chose what they did.

School of contemporary dance project( Live Brief )

I Randomly got a call from a lady named Sarah, She had been told about me by a friend of a friend, She asked me if i would like to help her in her uni project, She explained what she wanted to happen , I thought to myself this could link in very well with what i want to do in the future and it sounds like fun.

The idea was inspired by a few beatbox videos that she had watched, All the videos were of beatboxers  manipulating the air to make it seem like there was actually something there, just with the use of ones voice.

I have performed on a much bigger scale to this so it really did not seem daunting to me. I came out up with tons of ideas, for example  in the end we had included many scene from a eastenders scene, doctors scene and even a scene that was about the film 300( at the start we only had them cooking )

This also linked in rather well with my animating too,  for example  I got to see loads of different types of movement which  got my brain working in a way that I enjoy very much it also gave me a couple ideas for my animations. 

I couldn't get hold of the final video but I put a video of a bit of a rehearsal on my hand in disk.

Below are some snapshots from rehearsals. 

Helping my Uncle out with his work( Live Brief )

This project was set by my uncle, he needed a track for a book that he made about the place he lives, Didcot.

He wanted a track that was nice to listen to but he did not want it to steal all the limelight. This was going to be tricky.

I decided to create a short piece that did not change too much, I tried to keep it all at one pace.

I also had to do the whole track in one go, this took a lot of breath but i am pleased with the outcome and so is he.

When recording  I also made sure that I could see the video, I wanted to get the notes and pitch to change every time the page was turned. It worked a bit  but the pages were sticky when it was filmed so the page turning was not all at the same pace.

The video was uploaded to his Website for anyone to view, this could result in me getting some work in the future.

 I made a video on after effects with my face in it just for PPP But the main video is just of the book.

In conclusion I am very pleased with the outcome and would love to work with him again on a similar project.

I asked my uncle for more information about the book, he emailed me back this 

The video we made uses a technique pioneered by ‘Have a Nice Book’ (http://haveanicebook.com). It is a way of presenting photo books via the internet; showing their scale and textural qualities in a better way than a PDF proof can. It was made because I was approached by a company called Hero Media. They are a film production company who now represent me as a content and commercials director. The video of the book is included to show that my skills as a storyteller span multiple mediums - from stills, to video to books. 

http://hero.appletune.co.uk/portfolio_page/andy-barmer/

Competition animation ( alone at lunchtime)

I was Watching  a show called Educating Essexs on Netflix when I came up with my first idea for my first LoopedeLoop Animation, I Remember how sad it was to sit on my own at lunch sometimes, I wanted to replicate this in an animation. My idea was to have a kid sitting alone a lunch looking all sad, then another kid comes along to sit beside him to cheer him up. (empathy)I thought to myself  this will be easy. I then came into some problems, I did not know how to draw a face looking up and I had to workout how a person would look sitting down in the angle I wanted, I sat down on the floor in front of a mirror to find out how to do it. I drew it again and again till i finally got something that I was pleased with. Below are drawings of my practice work and below that are photos from the final animation.