I've Moved!!!

Hey guys,

I'm afraid I have some news, I've moved... to Tumblr. I'm sorry, it's not you it's me. I love blogging and want to keep at it but I feel like I want to sort of start a fresh. I just feel like myself and Tumblr work better together. I hope you can still visit me from time to time and keep in touch!

All the best,

Steve

http://stevenswanborough.tumblr.com/

Self Promotion

To promote myself at the end of the course I have signed up to a number of sites to help show my work and myself to possible employers. I have found these have already managed help me expand my network and connections I have in the industry.

Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/stevenswanborough

Vimeo Portfolio:
http://www.vimeo.com/​channels/​ssd

On these I have put all my work I want to show to date but still have some pieces like my Major Project that I have to put up there. This is great for putting my showreels onto, to send to people to show them the kind of pieces I produce.

Behance Network:
http://www.behance.net/stevenswanborough

This is the online portfolio I have produced to go onto my linked in site based on the Vimeo I have above.

LinkedIn:
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevenswanborough

On here I have a professional profile so that businesses can see me, what I do and the past experiences I have had. It is a sort of online CV if you like. It is great and shows that I am not just a student, I am an animator that wants to get out into the working world. On here I also have a link, and an application to my Behance Portfolio.

Twitter:
@SteSwanborough

I have been against twitter for quite some time and didn't want to become a part of it until I found all the studios and designers around the manchester area use it. This is great to keep in touch with them and see what they are looking at and see what openings they have. I have set it up not to keep in touch with friends but to keep in touch with what is going on in my area!

Next Step

I have designed a new business card and other promotional material which I am producing for the show and I also have plans to setup a website and a new blog as I want to continue blogging but I feel as if some other blog sites are more relievant to what I do and are better looking than this one.

Tandem Films Work: The Last Werewolf

This post is a reflection on the work that both myself and Matthew Geeling did for the 'Tandem Brief'. This post has been written by both myself and Matthew Geeling.

This brief came about after our recent visit to London after visiting the Tandem Films studio. Daniel Greeves got in touch with our tutor Christina and asked if any of her students wanted to get involved with a project that they were working on for a client. We were asked as it was felt that we were progressing well with our Major Projects, so that we could devote some time to this. As well as this is was thought that we'd represent the course well and really take advantage of the opportunity.

The brief was to create a few different animations in which we would represent both the transformation from man to werwolf and a victim attack. The animations that we created were an arm bend, a pelvis snap, a rib break and a neck snap. We decided that although working together in terms of ensuring the style was similar, that we would split the animations up and do two each. The way that we decided to split these up was as follows:

Steve

Pelvis Shatter

Neck Snap

Matt

Arm Bend

Rib Break

We started out by finding imagery and creating some style frames to send down to Tandem, to see if we were on the right page. The response to these was that they looked good, so with the go ahead we started producing some tests.

We continued to respond to the feedback we were given until Daniel was happy with where we were at, then we went into full production and ensured that we continued communicating with Daniel. As we were producing work and they were comping as they went along we felt that it was important to ensure that we planned our time effectively, as we had deadlines that needed to be met.

Here are the final animations that we produced:

Matt's Arm Bend:

Matt's Rib Snap:



My Pelvis Shatter:



My Neck Snap:

Here is a link to the final film:

http://www.tandemfilms.com/page/job/the_last_werewolf&play=true

It's great to be recognised in the credits for a project like this:

We feel that it has been a great experience to have whilst were still students and appreciate being asked to be involved in the project. For more information about the process, please see the supporting sketchbook.

Comping Breakdown

When thinking about making my Major project making of I decided early on that I would create a comping breakdown. I see a lot of Making Of's and Showreels using these methods to show how they have built up they're pieces and this also helps show how much work and time has gone into creating the final outcome.

I am happy with how it has come out and think it done to a professional standard. I have rendered this shot out as it is and I will be adding text over the top to explain each layer as it is added in the making of.

Tweak Week Presentation

This week we all presented to our peers and our tutors to get feedback on what we can improve on in the last week. I always find this really helpful and it gave me a great boost. I have enjoyed the project but over the last weeks have just been getting stressed with it (until I got my poster back printing actually). This was a massive boost though as many people on they're mark sheets said I don't have much to do and how they think it looks great. I am really happy they think that as I can't really tell anymore. I'm just sick of the sight of bridges now I think.

This has given me a great boost for the last week and I think that I am happy with the titles and will not change them at all. The text in the credits is still hard to read so in response to that I sorted out that problem with timing and too much movement in the shot. It has been rendering overnight and should be good to test this afternoon. I have experimented with motion blur and hoping that helps the interlacing problem I have had with the text moving so much in the shot. This last week will be an interesting one where I am mainly focusing on the support material making sure that covers all the decisions I have made as well as attempting to finish designing the App I have spoken about in my sketchbooks.

Not long left, and I want to do the best I can so just got to stick at it!

Credits Style Tests 2

These images are tests for how I want the base of the bridge to look in my credit sequence. I wanted to play with textures and after visiting the Humber bridge many times when younger when visiting family. I have tried to translate what I have noticed of that bridge back then to my bridge. When stood by the base of the Hummer Bridge years ago I noticed it was build of layers concrete as opposed to one big solid form. It is for this reason why I wanted to emphasis and stylise this for my piece. These photo's underneith show what I mean by this:-

The Humber Bridge:



I wanted to take this and translate it into the style I have been using. For example, I don't want the base to seem as smooth as I have seen it. I want it to seem weathered, like it has been through a lot and like the bridge has a lot of stories to tell.

My Rendered Images:

When doing the credits for Max he wanted to make a big deal that the sound was done by Skywalker Sound and in the first draft we had a separate section in the credits for the staff there. For this reason, I found the logo of the company online and made a 3D version that I could mount on the base making a real point that that is a big part of the production. I need to play with texturing and how I am going to make the logo stand out but I am happy with where it sits in respect to the bridge.

This is where I have inserted the water layer over the top of the bridge base to see how I can control it, the lighting and the shadowing against the concrete. It works really well here and I think I just need to do some colour correction so there is an obvious change between the air and underwater.


The idea for right at the very end of the credits is to have the name of the film written on the base of the bridge where no-one would usually see it. I also think as the last thing you see from the film this will work well, especially if it is being put into film competitions. You want the audience to remember the name of the piece and this is obviously the perfect way to help that.

Credits Style Tests

These are the initial shots of starting to texture and set up my camera for the credit sequence. I like how they have come out and I need to test how well it works with the time-laps sky that I will be using in the final shot. I am using dark text at the moment as it seems to stand out well against the current backdrop but may have to be revised depending on the final sky comp.

Here I have been playing with how the texture sits on the bridge. I obviously want he images to be interesting to watch as the text goes by and I also want to emphasis the shapes used and the heavy shadows they cast. It has been great playing with this and after managing hide where the texture tiles meet I have a great opportunity to play until I am satisfied.

I have also been working on the support cables on the left. I want them to be textured well and by using occlusion I have managed to emphasis them and how they are formed wrapped around each other.

I have started looking at all the space I can use in the shots and have been playing with some different coloured text. For example I have done it here for the music on the base of the bridge and I think it works well. Plus everything is not so compressed together on the felt hand side. I am happy with how it is looking and I need to start looking at what I am doing with the base and how the credits will end.