Monday Feb. 16th – Today I had a tattoo appointment which took up most of my day. I didn’t really do any work, but the tattoo came out awesome.
Tuesday Feb. 17th – I went in to LCC to finish up my first shot for Little Death. By this point I was pretty much in the groove of it and it went by quite smoothly.
At 2PM I had arranged a meeting with Ariadna Gomez Kelly, from New Earth/Hekate Tales. I had a whoole buynch of questions prepared about Pitch It! and starting a studio, and she gave me some really great advice. We talked for an hour and a half, and it gave me a new direction I want to take Sawtooth in. Obviously, because this is a collective/co-operative, I would need input from the rest of the crew, but my main takeaways were 1) to focus on the unique direction. It is not enough to just say we are leftists whoe want artists to be paid, because who among us disagrees with that? I want to ham on the fact that we are a radical, punk-rock studio, really trying to create a whole new approach to production. the second thing I learned, was to really focus on whether we want to do client work, or original IP, because you have to commit fully. Our main goal is to create our own IP, probably starting with short films that can act as concept pilots. So, when we go to Pitch It!, I want to have a few very solid film ideas ready to go. However, client work, like the blood drive campaign will still go forward, as I want to use these pro bono collaborations as tests for how we work as a studio nad production, in order to work out our style before heading into bigger projects. Because I’m working with Ariadna on New Earth, she is a very consistent and reliable source of information for me, and also just a very cool person. I’m excited to keep working with her.
After that meeting, I went back to finish off the Little Death shot.
In the evening I had a meeting for Creative Shift x the KUSP. By this point I had a massive headache, but I pushed through and went, because I didn’t want to miss anything. It was a session with Roxanne Peters about IP and ‘Creative Rights’, which was very interesting to me, as someone who is trying to establish new models of artistic ownership. I took some notes on resources and Roxanne also sent me some stuff afterwards to look at.
Last thing in the day was to follow up on some production work for New Earth. This was just updating some spreadsheets, which went by quickly and easily.
Wednesday Feb. 18th – Wednesday, was a bit of a personal logistics and housekeeping day. I did receive an email confirming I was accepted for the GOBELINS summer school program, which I am very excited about. It’s quite a lot of money, but seeing everything that has come out of that school, I am very optimistic about it being a great investment for my portfolio.
Thursday Feb. 19th – Today, my Blink brief group met up and discussed our plan for the next week of production. It is quite a small brief for 4 members, but we were able to divvy up the work and everyone seemed satisfied with their load. For the rest of the day I worked on this brief, as well as various tasks in my house. I also had to do more production work for New Earth
Friday Feb. 20th – Yesterday, I got sent two new shots for Little Death. Those of us with two shopts were told we didn’t have to finish within the week, however the shots were shorter than last week’s. I went into LCC today to check the shots and I decided I could finish one of them in a day. I’ve gotten a lot more used to TVPaint and I entered a bit of a flow state. I’m seriously enjoying the work for this film. Even though I am only doing cleanup, it feels really cool to be part of a real production where I don’t have to perform 200 roles. I am given my tasks and then I finish them. I’m sure eventually the job may get a bit tedious, but it is a very nice respite to just sit and trace for a few hours a day, and when I finish each shot, I get to see the whole film slowly come together. The team is also really nice and supportive, and because a few oof my classmates are also working on it, we often run into each other while working on it, and we can have noce chats. This year had me feeling quite burntout and hopeless about the state of animation. We are all working so hard for no recognition and no pay, and it can be very demnoralizing. But having an actual studio take a chance on me (even with no pay), which will give me an actual IMDB credit, and some very polished work for my showreel is really exciting.
In any case, at 2PM I had to take a quick break to fulfill my student liason role. I picked up Tom Baker at reception and we got a drink at the cafe. The lecture before us ran right up until we were supposed to be in, which was a bit frustraqting because I still hadn’t been taught how to set up all the A/V stuff. Luckily, Stuart was able to be there and he helped us all get set up. I got to talk to Tom a little more abvout animation which was nice, and I would like to add him to my list of people to intervierw for help with Sawtooth. Overall, it was a pretty easy job for 60 quid, and a chance to talk more intimately with industry people.
After that, I went back to the animation room to finish off my shot for Little Death and send it over to production.
Saturday Feb. 21st – I was at work.
Sunday Feb. 22nd – I woke up early before work to spend an hour working on my Blink animation. I got a few roughs of the lettering, but didn’t have time to do much else after that.