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.

Final Movie Poster Design

Here is the design that I have just completed for the Fall North movie poster. It will be A1 in size and printed on matt paper. I can't wait to see it that size!

Safety Videos Freelance Job

After our portfolio visit with Matthew Davies he got in touch with myself and Matthew Geeling while we were in London to see if we were interested in working on 4 animations for a safety video he was working on. After discussing fee's and what would be asked of us we accepted and began some tests. The safety video was loosly based on one that was already out there doing its job and we were asked to produce some animations that would go between footage. These are the 2 I worked on:

Inhilation:-



Injection:-



Matt created the character for the first and we both came up with the colour scheme based on the reference safety video. I was happy with how my particles and fluid dynamics worked considering it is one of the first times I have tried to use them. I used Realflow for the liquid in the syringe and it was great to try. We had a short space of time to produce these so over a weekend we managed to put these together which went well and is good practice for future jobs in the industry. I'm sure now I could probably produce better results but at the time with other stresses going on I think it went well and did what it needed to. Matthew Davies was very pleased with the results and hopefully there maybe more work with him in the future.

Final Pieces for Jon Maxwell

These are the final pieces I have produced for Jon Maxwell for his film "Fall North". After a lot of conversations and changes Jon has decided not to use the titles for his short but is continuing to use the credits. As I have spent a lot of time on the titles and a lot of time on the build of the Golden Gate Bridge I am still handing them both in as part of my Major Project and I am continuing to build my own response and body of work.

As I have said before there have been a lot of ups and downs with this project but it has been more like a job I would actually get when getting into the business and I feel I have grown as a designer and gained a lot from the experience. I have enjoyed working on something that was actually going towards something. Even though the job was unpaid I still had the drive to get my name out there and on a project that is going to be going around festivals and hopefully collecting some awards. It has been a pleasure to work on something like so early in my design carrier. I know I will only get better and having an experience like this before leaving university and going off into the big bad world I have found has already helped. It has helped develop my professionalism, communication skills, creativity as well as my time management. All these skill will still be developed but it is great to gain what I already have.

This along with the Tandem Films and Neighbourhood briefs have helped prepare me for the future and given me the much needed experience.

Fall North Titles

Fall North Credits

Fisheye Test Berlin

When in Berlin on our final morning me and  group of friends decided to setup some photographs and play around with composition. These are some of the examples of the shots I managed to get.

Finally I had the idea to try filming in the fisheyes as when looking on the viewfinder while walking created great results. Because of the curvature of the piece of footage it makes it look as if I am walking on a sphere or globe of some kind. I really like how this looks and I would like to use this technique in a future project.

Making of Nexus

This is a short video I have made showing the stages and processes I went through to create the nexus piece. The music is taken from the film, Snatch and is called Disco Science by Mirwais.

Nexus

Noun:

- (the means of connection between things linked in series)

- (a connected series or group)

This is an experimental piece I have produced in response to a self initiated brief. The brief was to study chain reactions and show / express this in a different way. It is meant to show how one object / decision can effect surroundings and outcomes.

I wanted to communicate a few messages so I wanted to leave the description of the piece short to let the audience take from it what they will. This piece could be perceived as...

- a chain of events where, one decision could snowball and develop into something else, something huge.

But on the other hand it could show...

-how something small, whether it be a person or a moving part, can play a large role in the 'bigger picture' and how everything works together to produce an outcome.

JDO Competition

These were my entries into the JDO branding competition. The brief was to just use the lettering in the typeface provided to create either a moving or series of stills that can be used in a poster campaign. I wanted to use bright colours to emphasis the letters so they would stand out on a display somewhere. I was unsure whether to use full colour reflections or darker versions so I sent of both versions. I created a curvy almost liquid type surface for them to be stood on to deform the reflections and create more interest in the composition. Unfortunatly i found out this morning that I was un succesful in reaching the finals but I thought I would put them up here because I am still quite happy with them.

New Threat Of Exposure

After the feedback from my title sequence piece I've re-rendered my final piece using a different piece of music and syncing it. I have softened the continuous camera movements to keep the momentum throughout the piece while keeping the mood. I wanted to keep the noir look but by using an occlusion layer the whole piece looks a lot more realistic. I'm happy with how it's turned out but if I was to tweek it I would hold the camera a little longer on the first name.

VH1 Ident

This is the ident I have just handed in as my final piece for the 3D Ident brief. I started by looking at the Kerrang music channel but I then decided to move onto VH1 Classic as is is how the Kerrang channel used to be. I really wanted the ident to reflect the channel. I wantd it to be dark and dingy and run down. I also wanted to focus on the instruments as the music from nowedays tends to be more about the money, popularity and the videos rather a guy and his guitar.

I decided to use a series cut-to cameras to keep the animation fast paced and in time with the music. The idea is that a guitarist is setting up to play the main riff to the music in the background but he is not seen as the focus is on the instruments and not on any band or musician.

The final piece has come out slighly darker than I would have wanted so I will change the lighting and rerender for my final portfolio.

Threat of Exposure

This is the title sequence I produced for our title sequence brief earlier in the year. We either had to make a new one for an existing program or for a new one that we could create. I decided to create my own which was similar to some out there.

I wrote a treatment for the piece before I went into production. My program was a detective/crime drama. It drew similarities to programs such as "Waking The Dead" and "Wire In the Blood".

It was all about a photography student that had dropped out of college/uni but carried on as a hobby. He had some mental health issues that weren't so clear when on the course but now they are more noticeable. This was shown by twitching and struggling with his speech as well as his writing. He wanted to be in forensics but without the education was not able to follow his dreams. He ends up help the local police and forensic team trying to find a serial killer in London. They let him help as he is lonely they think he is harmless enough and he needs to be doing something with his time. Later in the series you find that he is in fact the serial killer and the audience have been fooled as well as his new friends in the police force and himself. To start he has no idea he is doing it (split personality) with no recollection of what has happened. He is setting up the murder scene so he can figure them out, impressing the forensic teams and hopefully becoming one of them himself. When he discovers that he is doing it he can't stop and ends trying to cover his trails rather than solving it. Will his friends catchup with his antics...?

In this piece I wanted to show the subjects study where he is trying to track down the serial killer. Around there are clues to that it is the subject that viewers would not realise until later in the series where it all falls into place. Every week his wall of clues would get more and more full showing what had happened in the past episodes. The names of actors and directors are also located around his desk emphasising the discovery aspect of the show.

I think I have been successful with my piece but synchronizing with the soundtrack was rushed for deadline so I will be redoing that as well as using smoother cameras for my final portfolio.

Fast Making of Big Draw Piece

This has taken me a long time to post up but this is the making of my Big Draw piece that I recorded on my DV camcorder before speeding up showing the process i went through to create the stop motion piece. It shows the rigging I set up for the pen and camera. I was very happy with how the piece came out but it was a lot more time consuming than I originally thought. It was worth it though when i saw my final piece on the big screens in the centre of Manchester.

Big Draw Sting

This is the sting I produced to be part the Manchester Big Draw.
It is being used on Friday between information on the screens set up at the Triangle in the city centre. As you saw on my last post the Saab website was my inspiration. I used a microphone to record the pen sound separately as well as the humming in the background. I wanted to incorporate the subject matter into the design to create a more personal outcome. I'm happy with the outcome considering the time scale given.

I have recorded how it was done and that will be posted up soon to show you the processes I went through.

Custom Telecaster

The short time I've been home I have managed to complete my next guitar. This is a custom Telecaster which i stripped back to repair and seal before designing the finish I wanted to apply. As a base coat I've used a matt black and over the top a glossy one for the tree / vine wrapping around the components. It's a subtle design but when it catches the light it looks really impressive. I like to combine my interest with my designs and since music runs my life...