Romain Laurent. French Photographer

http://www.romain-laurent.com/

Romain Laurent is a photographer and director based in New York City. From fresh, energetic portraits to high-concept ideas, Romain does it all.  He was born and raised in the French Alps, where he nutured a love of extreme skiing, and studied product design at the Ensaama National School of Applied Arts and photography at Gobelins in Paris.

Romain's Gif series of One Loop a week caught my eye with the simplicity and effectiveness of each piece. I like the isolation of motion, this is something that's very common is very visual aesthetic hand drawn animation, it makes the movement the focal point, and also makes less to draw in animation. It's weird to see it in photography because you don't expect everything else to be so unnaturally still. I think there's a beauty in these Gif's, they are very cleanly made, I think the ball spins a bit too fast in the last one, and in the flying arms it's a little jerky, when the hand flicks back up. But that's me being very nit picky. I kind of like how, they haven't been made to tell a story or a narrative of any kind, but to me they come across like they were just made to show off. I quite like that a little bit though. (if you look at the full series there's quite a few of dance movements, skateboarders doing tricks etc.)

I decided to look more into his work after stumbling across his Gif's, (quite literally on stumbleupon.com) and discovered he's also a director, of shorts. Here's the first one I watched for a music video, I'm not sure I was a big fan of the song but I really like how the camera constantly spins around, and there's so much movement across the screen, again to be a bit nit picky it can be a bit shaky but it is really hypnotic. I think the shakiness is only emphasised when the sounds off (I might of just turned it off). It really reminded me of what Yoni wanted to achieve last year.




I much preferred this video. I love how simple the idea is of the man changing clothes, but then the clothes stay in position whilst he walks away, I thought it just oozed coolness. I also really like the lighting and colour palette. I think these are things that as animation students we tend to glaze past quite quickly but in film you get time to emphasise that because the actors do most of the motion for you.  I think we need more coolness in animation, maybe we need to focus more on these types of things to get it.

Inky Mind

http://www.inkymind.com/

INKY MIND FOCUSES ON STORYTELLING, CHARACTER ANIMATION, VFX, POSTPRODUCTION AND TITLES.
THE COMPANY IS BASED IN MILAN & LONDON, IT OFFERS A COMPETITIVE EDGE AND KNOWS HOW TO WORK WITH 
CLIENTS AND AGENCIES AT ANY POINT IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS.

WE DEVELOP AS MANY STYLES AND CREATIVE APPROACHES AS THE OPPORTUNITY PROVIDES, GAINING A UNIQUE VISION. 
IT IS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH THAT COMBINES 3D, TRADITIONAL DRAWING, MOTION GRAPHIC AND 
STORYTELLING, ENABLING ARTISTIC EXPRESSION BEYOND THE LIMITS OF IMAGINATION.



I absolutely adored this animation. The texture's are so stunning and the colour palate just makes it magical. As a short it's amazing, what blows my mind is how a short like this can be used in the commercial sense. I had to look into the people that made it, because I just want to be them. Even reading the description about themselves, words like a unique vision and storytelling beyond the limits of imagination, it's amazing, this is exactly what I want to stand for. This is definitely a studio I'm going to keep on my list for when I've finished third year to apply to.

Skwigly

http://www.skwigly.co.uk/minions-trailer-debuts/

I have taken up freelance writing at skwigly animation magazine, bits and bobs, as an attempt to improve my writing skills for context of practice, but also it gets my name out into the industry so it kills two birds with one stone. For my first article see the link above.

Career Track Tuesday - How To Stand out from the Crowd

How to stand out from the crowd

What is your online presence?

Your professional digital footprint?

Other Social media, Blogs RSS

Resources.

Social media is good to market your business, or get yourself out there, but it’s really good to find and get oppurtunities. You don’t have time to spend a lot of time on all the sites, but you need to think wheres best to spend your time. This is a skill that can be developed throughout time and some sites can be dropped and new ones will come along. 

Facebook: 

Can use a page to promote business. 

Used for social purposes. Appropriate privacy settings? 25% of people don’t have privacy settings set rightly. 

Because it’s widely use you can use it successfully to market events.

Twitter:

Easy to get dialogue with professionals. 

Easy to follow people without needing authorising. 

Instant dialogue.

Google+: 

Used in conjunction with other google apps.

Youtube:

Video Sharing website

Wordpress:

Most people in the uk use wordpress, standardised free platform. 

Instagram:

Photo sharing. Effects and filters.

Flickr: 

Photosharing

Pintrest:

A way to collect images for inspiration.

Slideshare:

can type in a topic and academics, to research a topic. Like ted talks.

Socialnomics video:

Employers in certain sectors will check your profile. You will be googled. 93% of recruiters will review a candidate's social profile before making a hiring decision.

Are you checking your name and email? Check your digital footprint.
http://www.martinwoods.me.uk/social-profile-checking-tool/

Make sure you delete old stuff. Do you want to be found?

What is your brand? What promotional image do you want people to see?
What are your unique selling points?
What do you want to get out of the world?
Transferrable skills? Confidence, communication.

LINKEDIN
professional social networking site launched in 2003.
313+ million users worldwide (Aug 2014)
30+million students and new grads
13+million users in the UK
2.9 million companies have a page on LI

CV online. But can be more than that.


Benefits
- can build a professional online presence
- add connections
- research companies, industries and grad programs.
- explore opportunities for undecided students
-learn professional networking etiquette

Aim for 100% profile completion. Include deatails of current and past jobs roles.

Everything on Linkedin is public.

GOLDEN RULES
- need a photo to be trusted by employees, think about your photo. What does your picture say about you?
- Your headline indicates who you are! If you put in key words you will come up in more searches.
"Seeking Oppurtunities" People will browse.
- Join relevant Groups.

People aren't going to connect with you unless they know you.

Never send the standardised linkedin request. Make it personal to stand out!

Careful with big chunks of text.

Build your profile, grow your network.

You can have 32,000 connections.

When blogging, employers look for quality not quantity.

Join ACID, anti copywriting in design.

Aesthetica Blinkink Studio Talk

http://www.blinkink.co.uk/

Destination Directors - those whose portfolio is so good they get clients coming to them all the time. Jack of all trades with a unique flavour.

Solution Directors - those who come up with solutions for clients to get them to like them.

Blinkink wants all their creative directors to ultimately be destination directors. To get this they encourage and put a lot of emphasis on storytelling. Especially on how they want to make the viewers feel, and encouraging the narrative to work with the viewers eyes closed, not just relying on a set of visuals, the visuals need to be the icing on the cake.

In order to get their creatives to this stage they encourage their creatives to make shorts when they don't have paid work on and use these as "bullets" when they approach advertising agencies, to pull in more paid work.

"Bullets don't need to be expensive but to be strong, have soul, say something about your directorial flair."

The speaker then went on to show videos off the website, which I had already watched in preparation of the talk. Also he showed work that's now a year old if not older (for example last year John Lewis advert and the making of) But on there website they have the latest john lewis advert and he didn't talk about the new stuff which was frustrating.

Joseph Mann's Bullet:


Keaton Henson - Small Hands from Blink on Vimeo.

They found this pulled in a lot of depressing work for Mr Mann so had him make another one, which in turn pulled in the work for the cravendale advert.


'Sandy' by Joseph Mann from Tim Allen on Vimeo.


Cravendale-Barry the biscuit boy from Joseph Mann on Vimeo.

Cravendale - The Making of Barry The Biscuit Boy Sets from Yamination Studios on Vimeo.


 It was a little bit upsetting to have spent 8.50 per ticket (I bought two and made my step dad drive) and then eight pound on parking, to have him only say this. What he said isn't actually anything I don't know. He was a little bit disorganised in his presentation style and kept going on tangents and there didn't seem to be much prep gone in to his talk before the show. I was amazed at how many people in the room (at least 60 if not more), and I felt very disappointed. I was also disappointed by the organisation the signage to York St John was appalling and the staff working were quite rude. I think I'll think twice about ever going again. It was just far more hassle than it was worth this year.

Embroided Music video.

A music video for the band Throne in production with Channel 4 and Dazed Digital, helped funded by Kickstarter a large number of backers.

I did textiles at A-Level so I know a thing or two about sewing, now don't be fooled by this video, it's not rotoscoped and it's not hand stitched. What they've had to do is hand draw every frame and then print it through a Machine Sewing Machine. One very similar to those that do polo shirt logo's and emblems. I thought this was genius. It's animation technique is so innovative. I am also amazed at how long it is to withstand all these frames that have been printed, because that will have been a long time to wait for each one to print. I wonder how much thread they went through. When I looked into it I was able to find these super cool photos. I love seeing behind the scenes, I'd be really interested to see what the animation looked like before it was printed.

It does remind me of the Tame Impala video I looked at last year by Becky and Joe where every frame was drawn and then "coloured in" with plasticine, to make individual frames so you could see the finger marks. I love the lengths we animators go to, to find the perfect visual aesthetics. I'd love to use this technique there's just so many ways you could push it. I just wish I'd thought of it first! (also note to self remember to turn the sound off when watching ).

http://www.nicoslivesey.com/

David Szakaly

I really liked these gif's, they are hypnotic. I think I prefer the black and white ones, They kind of remind me of the music video's by Arctic Monkeys, well they weren't by them, they come from the studio BlinkInk, the one I coincidentally saw at Aesthetica. What I like about these is the simplicity of them, but they would make for a great filler in a showreel.

http://davidope.com/

www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/03/the-hypnotic-animated-gifs-of-david-szakaly/
http://www.iwantyoumagazine.com/davidope/