Business Card

I will be using a frame from my glitter sequence as my business card design as it is clean, neat, and not too over complicated.

I have been trying to work out where to place the text.





I will need to print out a sample of the designs to check the text is easily read and see which works best.

Glitter

Not sure if this is great quality online, but this is what I have been working on for my innovation project. I really like the effect i'm getting! Just want to try and make it loop better.

Glitter from Holly Brocklesby on Vimeo.

Professional Practice

As Part of our professional practice module, we have to create a design for business cards and post cards to hand out to potential employers.

Using the screen shot I recently uploaded of my animated glitter, I have begun playing around with ideas for business cards.

Innovation Project.. Take One!

I have begun experimenting with Trapcode Particular to produce an animation for my innovation project.

I want to make an animation that sums up my style, as well as the style and fashion within clubbing in the noughties. I feel animating glitter, or something similar, will help me answer my brief.

I have encountered one problem so far. In the particular settings I don't seem to have an option to make my particle type 'custom'. This means I can't get the texture to be the layer I have made. I have had a play around just using simple colour, and the screen shot above is what I managed to produce. I am fairly happy with this as a first attempt, but aim to work out a way of getting the clip to loop properly. I will also ask a technician to see if they can work out how to find my custom setting!

Here is a clearer abstract for my innovation project, as my other paragraph sounded like I was focusing on the use of drugs more than the visuals at that time:

I will be looking into fashion and visuals within clubbing, looking particularly at certain era's and the influence of drugs on these visuals within the 60's through to the 2000's. I aim to experiment with Trapcode particular, a plug in for Adobe After Effects, eventually producing a clean, attractive abastract animation that sums up the style of the noughties.

Type ERROR

OK, I have just sent my CV off to a few jobs... and only gone and made the most ridiculous mistake. To any potential employers.. my website is:

www.hollydollydesigns.moonfruit.com

I am stressed with work! And not usually this thick!

Oh eck!

Sorting my life out...

This week I have been trying to get myself a bit more organised for after university.

I recently uploaded a creative CV, but think its a bit OTT and not enough info, so ive been writing a proper CV and going to illustrate it next week to make it a little more attractive.

Today I have been updating my website (www.hollydollydesigns.moonfruit.com) I have used the background of my old CV, as I think it represents my style. I just need to upload some more work. Any comments on that would be greatly appreciated.

I want to design some business cards and post cards to hand out after university. I would like those to be in a similar style, although I am going to wait until I have made some animations using particular and prehaps get a screen shot of some glitter or something.

I have also been emailing my mentor, Blake Evans, who makes adverts and music videos. I really like his range of styles. I will hopefully get to meet up with him so he can look at more of my work and we can have a proper discussion.

As many of my animations are going to be used by VIA and US+THEM, I cannot put them online. However, I think I am going to watermark a couple and put them on my website, as its a bit pointless without animations on there!

I have also been thinking about how I want to present my personal showreel, and think I will try and do a VJ mix for about a minute, just using my own visuals, so I need to get cracking making some backgrounds.

Innovation Project

For my innovation project I will be looking at drug culture, fashion and visuals within clubbing.

My research will involve looking at the history of partying and clubbing, right from the 60's when substances such as LSD and marijuana became popular, along with all night parties and the acceptance of a more relaxed lifestyle including casual sex. This new kind of lifestyle was reflected in the fashion, and today when we hear about the 60's, we automatically think of the vibrant psychedelic prints. Similarly, the 70's saw the introduction of the discotheques and with the 80's came the 'rave' with bold neon colours and a quirky fashion. Here is an example of the psychedelic feel of the sixties as a visual:



Drug use has continued right through to the noughties, with some drugs now being classed as 'club drugs' due to their popularity amongst clubbers. Today, the clubbing scene is extremely glamorous, with men and women making mass efforts with their dress. It's all about looking good, clean, and tidy with lots of glitter, sequins and sparkle. However, raves and house parties are also still popular, as well as festivals and music events where drug abuse is expected. Live acts and visual effects are now played in some clubs and festivals, enhancing the 'trip' that some drug abusers may experience.

I aim to make one final animation that can be played in clubs which represents the style of the noughties. I will be using Particular, a plug in for adobe after effects, which I have never used before. I am considering attempting to animate glitter, lighting or sequins. Here is an example of something similar to what I would like to achieve:



Abstract

I will be looking at drug culture, fashion and visuals within clubbing, eventually making one abstract animated loop to be played in clubs as part of a vj sequence that sums up the style of the 2000's. I will do this using Adobe after effects and particular.

Creative CV

Here is my Creative CV.

It may need a bit of tweeking. Ive left work experience off for now, as I don't have any in the creative industry. Not sure a reference from bargain booze would be any good! But it has a link to my blog and website so hopefully employers will be interested anyway.

Update.. Easter Time!

Its the Easter holidays at the moment so I have returned home for a month. I decided to give myself a little break from editing footage, although I will be starting to work on this again this week. Over the past two weeks I have been designing my creative CV which I hope to be able to upload over the next few days. I have gone for quite a graphic look, similar to some of the work I have been producing for the US+THEM visuals.

I have also been thinking a lot about my innovation project which we were set the brief of just before the easter break. I want to try and tie the work in to my major project, so have decided to look at drug culture within clubbing and the visuals from the 60's and 80's when the rave was really big. If we think about the 60's, most people think about the psychadelic fashion, prints and visuals. During the 80's, people really began to express themselves with differet fashions, but when it came to clubbing neon colours and paints, ra ra skirts and fishnets were the way forward. I want to make at least one visual that could be projected in a nightclub that would sum up the fashion and trends surrounding drug use in the noughties. This will be innovational for me as I plan to use Particular, a plug in for adobe after effects, which I have never used before. I have always wanted to learn more about special effects and computer graphics, but have not pushed myself to learn so this is my opportunity. The noughties have been more glitz and glam, people make effeort to look beautiful when heading for a night out, so I am thinking along the lines of animating glitter effects as a visual.

I will continue my research over the next few weeks.

Editing Footage...

Since the shoot I have been in the studio using Premiere and After Effects to edit the footage. As we were filming all day, there is a massive amount of footage and clips to go through, picking out the best bits to silhouette.

I can't put any of my completed clips online, but here is a preview:

I have silhouetted the dancers black, and placed them on a white background. When put in the vjing software we can delete the white and be left with the dancer on their own which can then be layered on top of abstract graphics.

I will be editing footage for the rest of the term.

Green Screen Shoot...

Yesterday was the big day! Over the past five weeks I have been producing the dance shoot production, meeting people from the university, and sending MILLIONS of emails! But yesterday it finally all came together. Five choreographers from Dartington university travelled to Falmouth for the shoot, and they were AMAZING! I also had a fantastic crew, who without, the day would have been a complete sham! Paddy Jennings from V.I.A, Alex Darabi from Us+Them, and Jackson Tayler and Alex Joliffe from second year animation were all on hand to help set up the green screen, lighting, cameras and music.

We had two P2 cameras, one which was static, and another which we filmed with from alternate angles and also did a couple of interviews for the Us+Them documentary which will also go on the final DVD.

The choreographers were great because they all knew each other well, and there worked well together. Each dancer had their own unique style, from simple and sexy to crazy and contemporary. Although Paddy and I gave some stage direction, they really didn't need much and were fantastic at improvising!


We did experience a problem at the start of the day when one of the dancers tried to spin on the green screen, but as it is a felt drop, it twisted with their foot. This would have made it very difficult to edit the footage in post, but luckily we managed to find a piece of cardboard which we placed on top of the screen and used the camera to zoom in so the cardboard was barely visible. This means some of the clips will need extra editing, or we can cut off the feet. We will have to play with what looks best next week when we start editing the footage.


We will be using keylight in after effects to edit the footage, but first we must go through all the footage with a fine tooth comb to get the very best clips. The plan is to silhouette the dancers and have them o a plain background to be used with other clips when projected.

I have some ideas which I would like to try out using the footage for my innovation project. I spent a small amount of time shooting legs, and the plan is to animate something to replace the body.

BIG BIG THANKYOU's to Alex Darabi, Paddy Jennings, Jackson Tayler, Alex Joliffe, Natalie Mason, Sheri Burt, Rebecca Camilleri, Nicola Rayworth and Bella Miller!!

Online Presence

I OFFICIALLY have my very first web page! It is very much still under construction, but the ad is:

hollydollydesigns.moonfruit.com

The plan is to scan in lots of work from my portfolio over easter, as well as upload animation clips as they are made over the next few weeks.

New Pixel Style

Last week, V.I.A were invited to a charity gig in London to raise money and awareness to the Haiti disaster appeal. As we now have some second year students on board the project, we suggested they make animations for the gig in the theme of 'hope'. Jackson Tayler, a new member to the collective, made a brilliant animation in a pixel style similar to eboy. We have now adopted this style, as we all agreed that it looked fab. A video I particularly like in this style is Junior Senior - Move your Feet:



I have began working on my very own sprite sheet to make simple animations in this style which I will develop over the next few weeks. Here is some ideas I have been working on:

Green Screen Dance Shoot

I have spent the past few weeks organising the dance shoot that I will be producing.

I met up with Leslie-Ann Eaton, performance producer for Falmouth University, who contacted Dartington University to help me get hold of some dancers. Leslie-Ann works for Exeter Animation Festival, as well as working for the university. She was interested in helping me as over summer 2010 she has to organise a number of events around Falmouth to attract people to the place. She has offered the US&THEM team a gig over summer, as it would be a great opportunity for us, as well as something different for her to have on her event listing.

I have managed to attain five female dancers to come to Falmouth on Saturday 27th Feb for a full day in the green room. I have asked for the dancers to bring along costumes and props which would make good silhouettes.

I have also been doing tutorials on After Effects to experiment with motion graphics. I would love to make animations in a similar style to the ipod nano advert.

End Of Term... Future Plans..

I will be going home for the Christmas period on Monday, and over that time I will be concentrating mostly on my dissertation.

Yesterday, Pete, Alex and I handed in our pre-production dvd which holds all the files of art work that we have created over the past ten weeks. It is clear to see we have a strong style, and I am now looking forward to beginning production.

We have eight mini productions to complete, which are being produced between the three of us and have a small crew working on each. Here is a summary
1. Dance shoot - Greenscreen - Producer: Holly
2. Motion Graphics - After Effects - Producer: Pete
3. Experimental Designs - Mix media - Producer: Alex
4. Fashion Photography - Pixellation - Producer: Pete
5. Brand/Club Logo's - After Effects/Maya - Producer: Pete
6. Filmed backgrounds - Film - Producer - Pete
7. 2D Viral - Flash - Alex
8. 2D Illustrated characters - Photoshop/Flash - Producer: Pete


I will be working on a number of these projects but my main task is to produce the dance shoot, where we will film dancers on green screen ready to silhouette and manipulate the footage. I have contacts to organize the shoot, which I would like to take place in January. First I need to find out how to get the dancers on to separate alpha channels so they can be used as we hope. The deadline for all of these productions is March.

Yesterday I also had a tutorial with our lecturer Kathy. She is great for helping find influences from original material, as so far I have been looking at graphic designs created in more recent times.

She advised that I look at 1960's textile design and here is an image that I really liked:

:

I think this era could be quite influential on abstract designs. She also advised me to look at designers such as Ben Nicholson and Miro. For the illustrated 2D characters she sugested we look at fashion design, which is a route we previously discussed going down as it would be great to VJ at fashion shows. Some designers she suggested were Zoltan and Mats Dufastan.

I hope to research these people over Christmas so that I can come back bursting with ideas and start making some abstract loops.

Some More Graphics..

I have been experimenting in photoshop making some more graphics. I have been looking at images of foliage and made this composition:



I then began layering it onto some of the backgrounds I have already made, look at how it would work as loops layered on top of each other.

to

I love how the colours work, and how the image is made so much more abstract and interesting just by adding another layer.

Graphics..

I was so inspired by the images I uploaded on my last post that tonight I have been trying to produce something in the same style as the bright coloured one. Seeing as we haven't yet produced any proper designs for graphics I thought this would be a good starting point.

First of all I layered coloured dots into a pattern. I have been doing something similar to this on my background designs, but this is far more detailed and looks really funky on its own.



I then tried adding paint splodges. This could be done by actually flicking paint, scanning it in and enhancing it in photoshop but I cheated and used the paint button instead, again splodging dots to get the flicked paint effect.



Finally I added one of the silhouetted images that I also uploaded on my previous post. I think this would look amazing as an animated loop with somebody dancing, or even blended in with the footage of club signs and lights that we hope to film next year.



I think the dots would be easy to animate, and we could make a series of loops where the dots expand, grow apart, or even just have flashing lights behind them. They could easily be made in a day.

Inspiration..

As I am working on backgrounds and graphics, I have no major character design to do. However, as we are planning on getting dancers to come to the university to film on green screen I have made a turnaround-like page of how I hope the outcome will look like. We are going to silhouette the dancers so the loops can be used over and over.



Whilst I was looking for images online, I came across two pictures which really inspired me. I can really imagine these as animations in clubs, and would love to make some loops similar to these:



I have already been adding circles and basic graphics to some of my concept art images, and think I could easily make the above image into loops to create a really funky set. I also love this image:



I want to begin designing some amazing graphics which could layer up to make animations in a similar style to these images.

New Plans..

Over the past week or so I have been introduced to some new technology which we now hope to use to create some loops. The university has a grey room with thousands of pounds worth of equipment. It is similar to the green screen room, except you can build a 3D environment and film a person in that environment. This would be great for making lots of loops of the environment, as well as some with people dancing. The only problem with using this equipment is that the environment has to be made in 3D, and nobody in our crew can use 3D software to a high standard. We have pitched to the students in second year, and some have shown interest to help us out which would be amazing.

We have also decided to visit London (and I can hopefully get to Manchester over the
Christmas break too) to film some shots of lights, club and bar signs, crowds, and general urban life. I have began experimenting with the combination of my colourful 2D style with photographs of things that we hope to film. Here is an example:



I think it works really well with the mixture of style and colours. I also think the silhouette works well. I am going to contact the college in Truro, the nearest city to Falmouth, to try and organise getting dancers to the university which we can film, silhouette in after effects, and make some quick easy loops.

I also plan to do some online tutorials to refresh my skills in after effects so that I can make some really nice abstract motion graphic animations.

Getting a bit more abstract...

Today I have put together a quick piece of work in photoshop. I was experimenting with squares and ended up doing this grid:



It really reminded me of the clubland font and the way the text is made up of lots of little squares:



I have also seen this sort of thing used as signs or logo's, made up of lots of little LED's. Below is an example (although I don't have a clue what it is!)



Although the colours aren't perfect in my grid, it is something I would quite like to experiment with further as I think we could create some really funky loops.