Vice "Rule Britannia" Ident Brief

The brief we chose to work on is Vice's Rule Britannia brief. They need a 10 - 15 second ident for their web series, Rule Britannia, that'll play before every video. It had to be one that reflects the reality of what goes on in the United Kingdom. It had to be well-researched, and effectively portraying the themes of the series. The ident also had to appeal to a demographic of 16-30 year olds. So the target audience is actually a very broad one, and it gives us enough creative freedom to work well with.

Applied Animation Collaborative Project

For the collaborative project, me and a friend (and possibly another friend, not 100% clear) are going to be making a claymation/2D music video about the benefits of eating five fruits and vegetables a day, by parodying the song "Wake me up Before You Go-Go". The target audience for this would be young people aged 11-16 (but that's open to change), and the tone is going to be more lighter and comedic and we really want to entertain as well as inform. I personally hate awareness campaigns, particularly the bleak ones, I'm just against people using art to push their views onto others through guilt. I think realistic themes should be incorporated and observed by art without actually enforcing the artist's view onto the audience. I think this is a good opportunity to educate children while still being fun and entertaining.

Collaborative Briefs: Which to Choose

Having chosen my partner now, we were looking at three different briefs from the website D&AD. There were a bunch to choose from, but we chose to look at these three, because they seemed to be the most likely to do given the time we have (plus it we HAD to because the tutors said we had to choose between three).

WWF: Open Brief to inspire young people to look after the planet:
This was suggested by my partner because she figured we might have more of a shot at this, seeing as it's an open brief and if we were to create an animation, as opposed to everybody else who would probably create a poster, or a web banner or something like that. I'd be up for that, although I do hate awareness campaigns, but this would be a good addition to our portfolios as it shows that we can create an animation for something beyond our comfort zone. The problem, however, is that the mandatory length of a video, if that's being submitted, is two minutes, and that would take way too much time to make.

wetransfer: Create an image of yourself in 10 years:
This is one I figured would be fun and easy to do. That's basically the gist of it, draw how you see yourself in ten years. I figured how this project would work is we'd help each other out with the illustrations and submit our images separately. If we decide to change our minds to this last-minute it actually wouldn't be much of a hassle too.

Vice UK: Create a 10 - 15 second ident for Vice Britannia:
I chose this one as well because it would be easy to make. I for one am not a big fan of Vice at all, but I am a fan of doing one ten - fifteen second animation! My partner agrees as well and thinks this would be a good brief to go for. I think it would be a great challenge to be creative, as a ten second animation can be challenging to be memorable. I'm thinking we could make something shocking and engaging.

Finding a Collaborative Partner

For my brief, I wanted to be picky with my partner. The one I had chosen already decided to work with someone else unfortunately so that left wondering who else I could work with. I wanted to pick someone who is well-organised, and is good at drawing and animating. It also had to be someone I like too, because while I would need to know how to work with someone that's not too close to me, I think when working in twos, it has to be someone I respect, can rely on, and enjoy their company. If I'm paired with a stranger who I risk hating then work simply can't be done efficiently. I'd like to learn, but I would much rather get work done effectively.

I think collaboration is very important for somebody working in animation, because animation is not something that can be done overnight alone, it has be a team of people generating ideas, and working simultaneously. A lot of people celebrate the idea of being more introverted, but that won't actually get you anywhere quickly. There's always something you need another person to help you with, or even do for you.

I wanted to work with a friend, as all as a talent at drawing and animation. I think highly of my own skills at animating, and feel that applying those skills alongside another talented person would result in great results. They would also have to be talented at an aspect that I'm not great at doing, such as painting or background art, I'm more of an inker and a character animator so backgrounds/landscapes/buildings are my enemies. I wanted a friend too because, as I said before, I don't like the idea of working with a stranger at this point in time, especially if I want to get work done and I know if the partner can be efficient. I'm not in the right position to be paired with a stranger at this point in my life.

I want to pick an animation brief. It's not really recommended because a lot of animators will be picking an animation brief, but I don't really care about winning. I'm doing this to learn so actually winning a competition brief is more on the back of my mind than anything else. It would be cool if I did win, but I'm not really bothered either way. Besides, I'm going to be animating with people in the future so I might as well develop the skills now.

Qwertee Design: Ren & Stimpy

I've been looking into doing some designs for Qwertee, to practice my character design, illustration skills, and m ability to reach an audience. Since I'm not a popular artist by any means, I wanted to see how well my designs could reach audiences, because I've always felt there was kind of a popularity contest in this environment; and Qwertee basically picks and chooses which new designs get featured, and they're always the designs that are likely to win. Otherwise, the only way to get enough votes to be printed on a shirt is if you were popular enough for people to vote for it if you asked them too. I figured I would still put a lot of effort into each one because while I am rather cynical towards the system of Qwertee being that the most noticed design wins, I still want to learn new skills, and I might actually get lucky for a change too.

My first design is based on a rather popular scene from The Ren & Stimpy Show, where Ren Hoek gets so mad at Stimpy that he very calmly, but angrily, describes in detail how he's going to kill him. It was a really funny scene that most fans of the show talk about when the series is brought up. I chose to design a shirt based on Ren & Stimpy because it seemed that there were no designs for that show, which was strange because it has enough of a following for people to buy shirts and there is quite a bit of potential for possible shirt designs. I guess it's one of those shows you have to be reminded of before realising you enjoy it. I figured this shirt would stand out, since it's the only design based on Ren & Stimpy, and I might make a few more based on this cartoon in the future.

I first wondered which part of the scene I chose I could develop into the design. It had to be a key part, with a quote that people would recognise. I decided, in the end, that it should be the moment Ren says "I'm so angry", because first of all, that line along with the keyframe summed up the whole scene perfectly; secondly, it has a very specific key frame for Ren as he's saying the line that stands out incredibly well and could work as the image used for the design.

This is how it turned out in the end, and for my first time designing a t-shirt, and being not the most confident about my illustration skills, I think it holds up extremely well. As you can probably tell, I took the frame I mentioned and traced over it, but added a lot more detail to it, since just drawing the same frame without adding anything would be kind of boring. I developed a rather neat shading technique from this, by using heavy black shadow giving it a very edgy look. I tried to make the imagery edgy and comedic to make this memorable and cool looking. I think this has convinced me to continue submitting Qwertee designs, among other designs for sites like this.