STUDIO AKA @AESTHETICA

STUDIO AKA Montage Reel 2015 from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


First agenda was to show there current showreel, as this is the first port of call to show clients to attract more work, the current showreel shows a large variety of styles of animation, recently there's been a reinstatement of hand drawn animation as they can do this on there cintiqs.


There's 42 people working on commercials in the studio and 25 on the tv show.

They are quite regularly only given 24hours to pitch for a commercial and will be against six to eight other studio's.

He admitted in a way its often there own fault work is rejected as the standard they set with the visual concept design is taken almost with everything ready to be animated and is very high.

A nugget of advice was If you have your own personal style don't do it commercially. Commercial work is to pay the bills and personal styles often don't suit banks etc. The good thing about commercial work is the fact that the tight deadlines and pitches means an artist becomes more desicive in own work.

Ideas need variety.

Often work is done on spec and is unpaid especially if rejected after pitching. At this point he showed us a whole host of work that was rejected and some of it was incredible not just drawings of characters but they were fully rendered in Maya with animated tests of there movement.

HOW DO WE PITCH

Pdf's of boards and usually animatics moving work on vimeo.

Example shown: Kraft Mr Wallace then and now.

Emphasis on character and the animatic with some concept art of what the world would look like. It's difficult to make sure you have enough work, and they usually only take 3/4 of the best ones to the pitch.

It's like a lottery and your spread betting and spinning plates.
Bank campaign:

They were super lucky to win that "lottery" with the Lloyds tsb advert, there was a strength in the fact they provide a service rather than a product so they could focus on narrative and the journey of the story development. In total they made 48 commercials with Lloyds and it basically funded the studio for five years.

An interesting fact about the Lloyds commercials is that there is a trainspotter in every one of them.



TRAINSPOTTERSPOTTING from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


HOW WE MAKE A STORY



TSB Campaign: 'Local Banking For Britian' from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


TSB: so this was the first ad they did that was mainly 2D, even though it has a 3D world. Originally they wanted to do it all in 2D but the story they were given by TSB was so long they didn't feel that they could fit in all the action with cuts in the shot, so they used three d for the environment for the 90s advert. In the end TSB loved the hand drawn characters and the studio got away without needing a three d background in the next campaign.

Studio AKA say they do have a moral threshold and there are some companies they won't work with, however they do have a grey area. If you don't have a grey area don't work commercially.

Working With Products:



GREENIES PILL POCKETS from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


There's a trade off with selling products in that you can have really nice character animation for a little product placement. Take for example greenies pet treats. Here they focused on the characters looking like the dogs they owned and the animation of the animal a nice change up in the studio.




THE METH PROJECT - Campaign Montage from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.

The Meth Project:

Charitable work. This meant they could do a more personal darker style rather than being commercial, however it meant as they weren't getting paid they had to fit it in around other work and the first one started off with limited animation being done in Photoshop and After effects. The series is a set of different voice overs of sufferers of teenagers with a meth addiction, and they felt it prudent to do each tale in a different style to individualist them. the series begins with Oriah. The sound for these was very important and unlike Lloyds tsb adverts they weren't given any music but a lot of people dual up on skills in the studio so Nick the guy who edits most of the work also composes music, and he did the sound for the meth project.

FILM MAKING:



JO JO IN THE STARS from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


Jojo in the stars was a short made in 2004. With it being quite dark with shafts of light, this meant for faster rendering times. They really enjoyed making it because at the time they were working on a super happy characters animation for orange and this quite opposite.



Varmints from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.

Varmints - Preteen audience. A film on the environment and sustainabilty and is still used by schools today.




LOST AND FOUND - Official DVD Trailer from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.

Lost & Found - worked with author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, took 2D and made it three d. First ever piece of work for kids. They enjoyed this project so much they are thinking about working with Oliver Jeffers again soon.

About to start making feature length film first ever.



Love_Sport_Trailer_UpRes_AKA_YouTubeHD (720P).mp4 from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


The studio director then proceeded to skip through Love Sport, but insisted we watch it because its all about the detail and finish.



HEY DUGGEE - CBEEBIES TRAILER from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.


Hey Duggee - Children's TV Show funded by BBC. A show aimed at preschool kids, it all about encouraging them to do stuff. There was a really small budget and a small crew. Most of the crew working on the tv show are new parents. The series consists of fifty two episodes each seven minutes long. It benefits from the efficiency of the commercial work experience the staff on the team have it means they can make fast descions and ideas and pump out a lot of work. The series has recently been comissioned for another 52 episodes.


Advice for students:

If you think your work is excellent come and show us.

Everyone must have a sketchbook pencil and paper is the start of it all.


This talk was an amazing eye opener, I loved every second of it, I was super urked when at the end people were talking over the questions. The best thing about it is that after this talk a competition entry was sent out for a pitch for a children's charity, so the deadline for this is the 15th of January which is the day after the dissertation hand in, but after seeing the amount of work Studio AKA put into their pitches I'm just going to go for it. I feel like it's a lot more important than the dissertation but it will be a key piece of portfolio work, and in a dream world this is a studio I would want to work at. At the moment I don't think my work is excellent, but my aim is to get it there to get in touch by february. So key things I would like to do, get a shit load more in my sketchbook, because after the emphasis on this I think this would be a great piece of practical work, boss the pitch for the charity, I already have several idea's buzzing in my head and I think the scream street animatic task no matter what the outcome was perfect practice to ace it on that animatic. I want a solid piece of animation of a monkey for my portfolio, I've also had this idea for an animation piece about babies with holes in their heart so I might see if I can do a little bit on that. And then worry about the matte paintings later.