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.

Phone Call - Square One Resources

During PP, I had applied for a lot of different storyboard artists roles, hoping that something would come of it and I would potentially gain feedback on my work. This was slightly upheld by the phone call I received from Square One Resources, who were aware that I was a student, however wanted to have a talk with me about my plans for after University,

We had a brief talk about my areas of interests and where I would like to end up, and said that obviously he could not offer me any sort of positions right now, but potentially after University, provided I would be willing to move down to London.

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.

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.

Website Building

As I have been contacting more and more people for this module, I have discovered that it is absolutely imperative in this line of work (storyboarding) to have a professional website, and therefore I have decided to create a website using Wix.com. I needed to go with the pro version (the paid version) so I could connect the domain name I bought last year so that my professional accounts are all linked up. Link to my website : https://www.thebritsonian.com/

I sub-divided my website into 4 sections which I believed to be incredibly necessary towards people seeing me as a professional. On top of this I used my regular colour palette, which is used in my logo, and on my showreel, to better conform all of my media accounts into a cohesive entity. I wanted my website to be simple in design, and easy to navigate. I have heard from industry professionals that you will not even be considered for a job role if you do not have a website based portfolio, therefore I made this. I think it reads well, and I have gained some feedback from industry professionals as to what they think and it has all been positive so far, so I will continue to develop this as I try to give myself more of a professional presence.

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.

Manchester Animation Festival - Storyboarding Masterclass

On 14th November 2018, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the IEA storyboarding masterclass, run by industry professional Peter Western. Peter Western has worked as a storyboard artist in animation working on such productions as "The Snowman and the Snow-dog" as well as live action productions working on productions headed by such Directors as Steven Spielberg.

I found this masterclass to be incredibly useful and inspiring, as we were given storyboards to work on during the talk, with opportunity for feedback by Mr Western and also co-founder of BlueZoo Tom Box who was also in attendance. Mr Western was also kind enough to include his email on our worksheets so that we could use him as a connection after the masterclass.

Mr Western started the masterclass by giving us a bit of insight as to what it is he does when approaching a storyboard, and the worry that sometimes board artists forget the basics in an attempt to finish a board quickly as opposed to properly, which he admitted to have been guilty of in the past. He revealed that his general approach was to thumbnail straight onto the production script, and then get those thumbnails approved by the director. I found this a nice story as thumb-nailing straight onto the script is a practice that I like to do myself.

Mr Western also stressed to us the importance of the line of action, which is sometimes known as the 180 degree line, or action line, or other names which mean more or less the same thing, which relates to the rule in cinematography where the camera will never cross over this line to be the opposite side of the characters through a cut, as it can confuse the audience.

Proceeding the main talk, we were allowed to take some time just to work on our storyboard work sheets. Throughout this Mr Western and Tom Box walked around the room giving some feedback on our boards as well as asking us what we thought of the workshop.

After the workshop, I contacted Tom Box about the workshop, and the following was the correspondence that took place.

It was good to get the feedback and also have some input into storyboarding tutorials which were in progress at the time.

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.