Animation Demo Reel - Project Proposal

Project Proposal:

My Career Goals:

After University I plan to start my employment by either freelancing and then move onto employment within a film studio or going into an intern ship. This is how I wish to start my employment but my ultimate goal, and dream, is to become a character animator for a large animation studio overseas such as Pixar or Dreamworks.

I really believe in myself to build and improve my skill set enough to be noticed and employed by a competitive studio in the future, although I'm not sure when or if it’ll happen, it is my ultimate fantasy to work for Pixar and I am determined to reach it. I find their work beyond incredible, the worlds and characters they create are gorgeous and the stories are engaging and emotional. I'm really passionate about their ethos and strongly believe I have what it takes to work for them and produce amazing  pieces of art for future generations to enjoy, much like how the work of Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. have done for me.

Skills:

To stand a chance at becoming employed in the future, I have to improve my skills in animation in both 3D computer graphics software and 2D. I also want to improve my character and layout conceptualisation throughout this project and hopefully begin to produce my own design style, especially for characters.

Demo Reel Proposal:

For my demo reel this semester, I wish to concentrate on character animation. This was the most enjoyable aspect of the production stage for our Norman films last term and felt I did well in this field. As well as producing a demo reel using work I have created for myself, I would like to help others, such as third years, in animating for them. I feel this will be very beneficial for me as I'll get experience of working in a team whilst helping others out. 

For this term I wish to produce a demo reel that's more directed towards becoming an animator for a film studio rather than a games studio. This is simply because I much prefer cartoon-esque and exaggerated animation rather than super realistic animation you see in video games a lot. I feel I can add my own personality to the animation and much prefer animating with a style rather than copying real life of sorts. Throughout this project, I am going to try a hint of directing in my reel too. I hope to create characters not through the rigs I will animate but the lighting and textures used for props.

I believe a reel should be personal and tell audiences not just what they do, but who they are. I'm going to develop performance ideas that I'm passionate about and will thoroughly enjoy developing and animating.

Equipment:

My laptop and Think Tank PC and Mac suites with the following software: Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop as well as After Effects and Premiere to composite the work into a reel. I will also need a graphics tablet and sketchbooks along with various mark making materials including pens, pencils and charcoal.

Production Pipeline:

I like to work on several things at once to keep things lively so the production pipeline for each of my demo reel pieces will be different. I will jump between these animations throughout the semester as well. I work best when I come back to something I am stuck on at a later date. 

What I Want People To Know About Me:

When people see my work, I really want them to know that (besides the fact I can animate) :-

- My focus is on character animation
- I can produce animation for both film and games (performance and weight)
- I can use a variety of rigs (knowing their constraints and working with the rig)
- I can work in a team
- I can fuse my own personality into the characters’ performances
- (and perhaps most importantly) I can apply the 12 Principles of Animation

In terms of the animation itself, I really enjoy CG animation more than 2D but I like to see myself as both a 2D and CG animator. I want my demo reel to showcase more CG than 2D, but not so much that people will see me as a sole CG animator.

From my demo reel research and understanding that they act as CV’s essentially, I know I have to include something different and unexpected in my demo reel so that I stand out from the crowd. This will be a difficult task but I am determined to find something that will make people say “yeah, he’s got it”.

I have already started some animation (that was going to be a part of my demo reel before changing my mind about it all) but I won’t be including any of it in my animation demo reel. This is simply because they aren’t good enough and I’m not happy with how they were turning out. My next task is to think about what animation I want in my demo reel.

The pieces of animation I have started were the flour sack stunt and Fawlty Towers lip sync scene.