Post University - Exit Strategy

My exit strategy for after University is pretty straight forward. I want to mov down to London. As a storyboard artist, I want to make sure that I am around the place where all of the work is.

As is shown here, from a simple google search . the top most options for Storyboard artist are based in the London area. Also of the people I have contacted; Bianca Ansems, Jez Hall and Douglas Ingram, have all been London based and are some of the biggest storyboard artists in the UK right now.

I feel as though this is a logical step in my career, and as my family own a flat in Kent, I will try to move into it temporarily, with a friend of mine, and commute into London from there.

Overall from the flat, to the station and then into London, will take about 2 hours, which will be a pretty horrific commute, however for a temporary/cheap compromise with moving down South, it will meet our needs well enough. It will be a needs must sort of situation where we will have to make sacrifices for cheaper living costs, as straight out of Uni it will probably not be realistic to move straight into London, as living costs are much higher than the North.

Business Cards - Redone

After my big re-brand, I needed to make a new type of business card. I wanted to include my website this time as I had not before.

This is the front of my business card, it is literally just my logo and the related text.

This is the back side of my new designed cards, it is much more in line with my standard branding now. I have also included an example of my work, and looking at Moo.com, I will be able to make variations of this to create a different style of board on each card. I am looking to get my new cards printed on Moo with the 25% off voucher I can get.

Bluezoo Clean - Up Board Artist Application

Today a clean-up storyboard artist position at Bluezoo opened up, and although I have applied for the internship, I wanted to give it a shot, as Jez and David Bunting have given me the advice to go for clean-up and revisionist as an opening position first, so that I can get a feel for the role first, before stepping into the actual storyboard position.

This was my cover notes for this position, I will see if anything comes of it, although I have not heard anything from Bluezoo in the past regarding anything to do with my applications, so I will be cautiously optimistic, as I have applied with my latest CV and also my new website as my portfolio, both of which I am quite happy with.

Website Rebuilding + Market Research

After my talk with David Bunting, I decided that my website needed revisiting, to try and make it a little more concise, and in line with what I wanted to show off. SO I took a look at some other storyboard artist's website, to see how they were showing work, and how I could improve mine to seem a bit more professional.

First I had a look at http://www.buntinganimation.com/ . David's own website, to see how he was showing his Storyboards. I found that he puts a lot into what he is . trying to achieve with his boards, and explaining his creative decisions, which I found fascinating, as it is both personal and professional.

I then had a look at https://www.biancaansems.com/ . The website for Bianca Ansems. This was cool to see as it is very minimalist, like mine, but a bit more spread out, so you can see the boards straight onto the page, there is not much text, it is very to the point, which I also quite like, as it shows off what she can do straight off the bat.

A bit of a change of pace, but I had a look at http://www.douglasingramart.com/ . Although this is a live action portfolio, I thought it necessary to have a look, because I know Douglas outsourced the design of his website, so I thought it interesting to see. Douglas has again, quite a different approach, splitting his by project, but with not much text, which is sort of in-between the 2 others I looked at.

This is how I chose to lay out my storyboard section. I took out the animation portion of my portfolio just for now, and decided to focus on making the storyboard section really strong first. I decided to split it into 2 different sections, personal, and University work, and I can add a third "Professional" section after I have some work under my belt. Now there is a small descriptor of what is happening in each board, and it is formatted much nicer, so you can see everything on one page, as opposed to having to scroll through masses of posts. I also decreased the roundness of my top bar, as with the new logo, being more angular, the rounded edge didn't quite fit. The drop down menu is also an improvement, as it no longer needs to go onto a specific page before you can access the portfolio section.

I also adjusted the home page slightly, so that it plays my showreel from the off, as a sort of taster of what you can see in the rest of my web page. I decided to take the music off my showreel for this version as music playing as soon as you click on a webpage can often be off putting, and people are more likely to click straight off.

Bluezoo Internship Application

The 2019 Bluezoo internships opened very recently, including one in 2D storyboarding. I decided to apply for this, as last year I had applied but nothing came of it. Last year I felt unprepared and I felt as though I hadn't got enough to offer anyone, whereas this year I already had a creative CV ready to go and apply for jobs with, as well as a portfolio website which I can link to without problem.

This was my cover notes section to Bluezoo, I tried to be professional and personal, and relay that I want to do storyboarding as a career. I feel as though my chances are pretty good for this position, and I can definitely get a lot out of the opportunity. I imagine I was also one of the first to apply, as I applied 20 minutes after they were put online.

A Talk with David Bunting

Today we had a storyboard pro workshop with David Bunting.

http://www.buntinganimation.com/

As he is a storyboard artist by trade for children's TV, I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some feedback on my work face to face, and not over email or LinkedIn as I have done with my other connections.

Here were my main takeaways from our conversation:

• Most recent work is good, at a very similar level to Bianca Ansems and Catherine Salkeld  when they were in my position. 
• My website is a bit too clumsy, a bit too open, it would work to be a bit more condensed. 
• It would serve me well to attend life drawing sessions "for a storyboard artist it should be like going to the gym" is something which he said to me. 

The comparison to 2 of my storyboarding heroes was something I will takeaway with me as it is a real confidence booster in my own abilities. He gave me a lot of constructive criticism, which I will take with me also, as it is very important to my development as an artist, also as a board artist, I will need to be able to take director feedback and respond in turn, as storyboarding is such a necessary part of the animation pipeline. 

He also recommended to me that I look into Lupus and Aardman, as both companies have been known to take on interns and he also learned storyboard pro through his work at Aardman, so I will contact both companies to see what opportunities they could hold. 

CV Building Redone

After much review, and after my big rebrand, I decided I needed to amend my CV ever so slightly to better reflect my new brand, and also to include some of my previous work experience, which I had left out of the last one due to not thinking it relevant. I have also added a reference as my tutor as I think it might be a bit better to list a referee on my actual CV so that they can be aware that I have people who can vouch for my work.

Again I have made sure that the links go to where they need to, I have also still kept the same colours so that it is more in line with my business cards, and the rest of my portfolio. 

A Big Rebrand - AlexTStoryboards

After much reflection, and talking to Jez Hall, as well as my peers, I have decided that I needed to rebrand myself with my own name, as opposed to more of a company name. This will make me come across as more approachable, as I am just a person, as opposed to a persona. There has also been an issue where people have assumed my political stance due to my online name being "TheBritsonian". This is something I have been considering for a while, however talking to professionals has convinced me that I need to update this online presence a lot.

This is my usual logo, which I have been using for about a year now, under the tag "TheBritsonian" I like the logo, however it is not very me.

This is my new logo, text included. It is a mixture of the A and T initials in my name, still using the same colours, as I have taken quite a liking to that red which I have been using. I feel as though it is a better representation of me as a person, and immediately tells the viewer who I am and what I do as a professional. The red is now the front section of the logo as it puts more emphasis on the T, and yet is still readable as an A. When the colours are swapped it gives more of an emphasis on the A and the T gets a bit lost in the colour, so this was a more readable option.

Obviously this has led me to change all of my social media's, including my website, so I used a website to check if my new username "alextstoryboards" was taken, which luckily it was not. So I changed everything.

As is shown here, I have also changed my twitter so that the colour matches all of my other branding, using what I now call "The Britsonian Red" which I have used for everything else. It is a pretty significant change in my branding, but it gives me a lot more freedom to explore what I want to show on my social media pages.

This is the code for my Britsonian Red which I have started using on everything, it maintains brand consistency and works well with the white and black, it is not too dark, but also not a pastel colour as I feel pastel doesn't really represent me as a person, so it is a nice medium.

Pricing as a Freelancer

Today I attended a costing and pricing workshop at Uni, where it was explained the process of working out minimum spend and wage to charge as a freelancer in industry. I have realised that realistically that most jobs for a storyboard artist are short term contracts, so becoming a freelancer is probably the most viable option for me.

This is my notes from the workshop, at the bottom there is a calculator, which shows how to work out the minimum I can charge someone to earn what I need to earn per hour and per day, based on hours worked per year. This chart is quite unrealistic as a freelancer will most likely be working to the degree of 34 weeks a year, as opposed to 46, but it was a basic tester as opposed to a definitive cost list. This is also the absolute minimum, as a professional I should be charging much more per day than this.

Based on the BECTU salary guide, this is way less than I need to be charging to make a living rate in London.

The £513 is the day rate for a freelance storyboard artist based in London based on the British Film Designer's guild's rate card for 2017. This means I would be charging way less than the national average, however I am just beginning so I feel like this is somewhat a fair price.

Considering an MA?

Recently, I have been considering potentially taking on post graduate study after graduation, just as an extra push, to make me more hireable for an industry job, as I believe I still have a long way to go in my learning.

This is a new storyboarding masters course which I discovered through Tom Box on LinkedIn, it sounds like a great opportunity with a lot of chance for industry feedback. Here is a list of my pros and cons for post graduate storyboarding

Pros: 

• Industry feedback
• London based living 
• Chance of an £8000 scholarship
• Masters level degree 

Cons: 

• Cost association that would come from London living
• Little opportunity for part - time work as it would be a full time course 
• Skills to start with are skills I already have, so it would be a lot of repetition

Ultimately I don't think I need a masters degree, not at this stage in my career. I personally feel as though the cons outweigh the pros in this situation. Industry feedback is something I can get through my own networking opportunities anyway, so I feel as though this would just be me trying to stay in the education safety net, as opposed to getting a job. Also, I do want to be down in London, but without the prospect of a job this would probably not be very realistic. Therefore I will focus more on gaining industry experience, and trying to do a level 7 apprenticeship down the line at a studio if they will let me, I was told by Kate Lander at my Brown Bag work experience that it was possible to do at Brown Bag if you are employed there. 

Contacting Professionals - Part 2

Through my work experience at Brown Bag Films, it was suggest to me that I contact Jez Hall, a story artist and Director in the animation industry. Currently he is a series Director on 101 Dalmatian Street for passion pictures.

http://www.jezhall.com/

I have now had a continuous contact with Jez Hall, giving me answers to all of my questions, as well as giving me a more personal insight into the industry as a whole. I feel like I I have gained a lot of knowledge into my practice because of this, as I have been told what kind of things I need to do to improve and build my portfolio, these are such things as looking at staging/editing, and working from scripts of my own in order for people to gain an insight into what I am interested in.

After looking at my website, he devised that I needed to do more complete boards, to show continuity, and perspective of the scene, showing the audience who's eyes we are looking through in each particular scene. Also the progression of shots will show off how I cut a scene together, and the acting in a scene. He also told me to keep my name front and centre, and suggested that I change my website name from "TheBritsonian" to myself. This way everyone can tell what I have done, and they know who I am from the off.

This was a useful contact to make, and I hope to continue this professional relationship on.

Freelance Work Opportunities

To try and pull in some storyboarding experience, I set myself up on freelancer.com, where people can give their details for creative work.

I used my usual tag "TheBritsonian" as my freelance name, with a rate of $30 an hour, which would roughly be about £22, so a minimum freelance wage for a storyboard artist in the North of England. I applied for a couple of positions on this website, and I was offered the role for one of these.

This was the email I was sent, to work on the pilot episode of "Aychu" a kid's YouTube animated show showing kids the importance of the environment. However, the timeline and payment for this role, were not what I was looking for, and would conflict too much with my Uni work. The payment was $100 as  a set wage, with 5 days to complete a 10 minute storyboard, which I felt was far too unrealistic for the time I was given, as this included deadlines for thumbnails to final pass, which was far too steep. Therefore, unfortunately I had to decline the offer as although it would have been great for my portfolio, it would not be a good opportunity to take at the time.

Point of Contact 2 - Ex Tutor

I have tried to create a lot of connections during this year, but I had missed an important contact I should have looked into before all of this, in my ex tutor Martin, who happens to live in the same city as me. I thought this would be a good contact as he has his own animation studio, so I thought I could gain some work experience through this.

Luckily he gave me a very nice response, and said that I may be able to help out in his studio at some point in May, which would be good as it is when the final hand in is, and would be a great thing to put on my CV as work experience.

It would also be good for after Uni as I know I would have to move home to York for a while before I am able to move out, so staying around York and gaining experience would be a win win for me.

Building a CV

To build my professional profile more, I made a CV which sums up what I have achieved so far. This is my CV so far, with personal information smudged out.

Already I feel as though this CV is far too long for what I want to achieve with it. If I were an employer I would most likely say that the CV is far too long and needs condensing down. Some of it feels like padded out fluff which could be easily condensed. I will rework my CV for submission and try and use it for applications to jobs and internships when I feel as though it is good enough for professional use. There are some things which are unnecessary to be there, such as the use of sketchbook pro, this is not an industry standard tool, and therefore does not really matter to an employer. 

Business Cards

As I was going to MAF, I decided to design a set of business cards. Unfortunately I did not get my cards printed in time due to booking times etc but it was still nice to design them, and they are quite nice quality.

These are the designs for my first set of business cards. I am calling these tests, as there are aspects I would like to change about them, and due to not printing professionally they are quite easy to fray the edges. I have used the same red that I use on my logo and my website, so it fits with my brand, and I like the simplicity of the back being just the logo.

I will revisit this design in the future and see if I can upgrade it and get it printed on a website professionally such as Moo, or vista print, which I know other people have used. I think business cards are a great thing to have at Network events, so it was unfortunate that I was not able to get them printed in time for MAF.

Jim Mortensen Storyboard Resource

I have been trying to engage with Twitter a lot more recently, so I can have a bit more of a personal connection with industry professionals, and so that I can continue engaging with animation outside of Uni. I recently followed Jim Mortensen, who is an American board artist, who boards for the show "Trolls". He made a great resource online that I have been looking at, which I had to pledge money to in order to access, so that I could support my practice and also so that I could see his general considerations.

This is the opening page, I do not want to show individual pages as I feel this would take away from his resource, but I have found it really useful to see his take on boarding, and the advice included I will try and take away into future projects which I undertake.

Who am I now? And where do I want to be?

When I first started University, I wanted to be a 2D animator, telling my own stories with my own independent animation company. Now, however, since the start of 2^nd year, I am a Storyboard artist, wanting to work for a studio on TV, Film or Animation. I knew I wanted a role which could not just be specific to one field, and I have a passion for TV and movies, so I did not want to specify myself into just animation, I felt that varying my skill set was more useful for getting a job outside of Uni.

Currently my skillset is purely in 2D drawing and cinematography knowledge which helps with shot framing in my storyboards. I have a good knowledge of Storyboard pro, toon boom’s storyboarding software, as well as creative cloud applications and Autodesk sketchbook. I would like to expand to using 3D to aiding with my storyboards as this is a common practice which many studios undertake and would make me more of a hireable asset to studios.

My social media right now consists of my own storyboards and artwork, which is mostly fan art work, and should probably be more consistent of storyboards and motion drawings. Right now, as a practicing artist, I am on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and New grounds. My main one which I use is Instagram. I have my own branding which I use on all my artwork, I am recently looking into re working my branding to reflect my storyboards more. I do not think I utilise my social media effectively and I should look into posting more sporadically with more professional work.

Upon the exit of the course, I would like to join a studio as an in-house storyboard artist, however I understand that realistically, as a storyboard artist, most work will come from 6 month contracts or less, therefore I will need to take on freelance work in order to maintain myself. Eventually I would like to be a freelancer able to work on both animated and live action productions on feature films. They are 2 very different mediums but a lot of the skills are transferable. 

The Creative Report

A Link to my Report

When starting out on my creative report, I knew exactly who to contact and what to base it on. I knew I wanted to base it around storyboard art, and the one person who sprung to my mind was Catherine Salkeld of Bluezoo Animation, seen below on her linkedin and instagram. 

When looking further into her background, I realised how close in age we were, which was inspiring to find out how she had made such a name for herself in such a short amount of time.

Catherine's BAFTA win report - Linked here is the report from Sunderland University detailing her BAFTA win with only being 6 years older than myself.

I reached out to Catherine via email and was given a response only 40 minutes later, which was incredibly nice and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak with her as she represents to me how a graduate can become one of the industries top board artists only a few years after graduating.

 This was my original email to Catherine Salkeld.

When researching my creative report, I did research into the background of Blue Zoo animation studio, although this largely was left out due to my already exceeding the word count. Although I did do a lot of research into Catherine herself and her journey from Sunderland graduate to BAFTA winning storyboard artist at Blue Zoo, which I hope comes across in my report.

In future I am going to make a point of contacting professionals to better understand storyboard art as a practice, so that I can further my learning after 3rd year.  

What I will engage with over Summer

Over summer I want to engage more with my practice over summer. For this summer I have already applied for a bluezoo internship, as well as applying for a place to go to Singapore for an animation competition.

After all of that, or before, I want to engage more with my own web comic which I am trying to develop and find a platform for, I also want to revisit an animation that never came to fruition properly when I first made it.

 The webcomic I am trying to develop, with my own characters and designs.

The animation I want to remake over summer is "Pink and Blue" . This is my first animation from my first year, I was far too over ambitious with what I wanted to accomplish with a 15 second animation, and I changed my idea right at the end. Because of this, it never came to be the project I wanted it to be, so I want to remake it into a 1 minute animation which I can make into a proper animated short with the story that was originally intended for it. It is less about recycling stories as it is expanding upon them with more knowledge and experience than I had before. 

Working for no Pay

This was a message I received from a potential client, this is where I was really able to put my professional practice into practice, because although the client was mature and professional, his understanding of the animation industry was limited. Therefore the pay for the size of the project was far too little. Therefore I had to respectfully turn him down. Although it felt bad as this is one of the only times someone has approached me about my work, and the exposure would have been good, I have to consider myself a professional and to be paid as such.