Brief Analysis

        A crucial stage in analysing and choosing briefs is identifying how they help you to achieve your goals and improve your skills. Consequently, we needed to figure out what it is we want to get out of the responsive module:

What I, personally, wish to achieve

• Develop my skills as a practitioner.
• Gain an understanding of working within professional industry.
• Improve my ability of working to deadlines.
• Build up a portfolio of work.
• Get feedback to see how my work is viewed by others.
• Get used to working as part of a team.
• Build confidence in communicating with others.
• Through working in a team, begin to understand what my individual strengths and skills are.
• Understand how best to achieve what a brief is asking/looking for (and how much a brief can be changed).
• Learn to work to other people's specifications, not just my own personal taste.

 We were then placed in small groups, to produce a list of our combined aspirations

• To win!
• Learn to work to industry standards.
• Develop professional relationships with clients.
• Network and build industry connections/experience.
• Consider opportunities/briefs you may otherwise have dismissed.
• Better understand working collaboratively/as part of a team.
• Build up a relevant portfolio of work.
• Learn to identify potential pitfalls of live/competition briefs.
• Improve communication skills/professionalism.
• Broaden our creative practice.

Across the entire group of animators and illustrators, the most prominent aspirations seemed to be a desire to

• Build confidence.
• Improve workload management skills.
• Work to deadlines.
• Gain experience.
• Locate where our individual practice fits within the creative industry.

So how does taking part in competition briefs help us achieve these criteria?

• Forces us to do things and projects that we wouldn't ordinarily pick.
• You can't win if you don't enter!
• It gives you publicity/increases your profile.
• Forces you to engage with industry and practitioners.
• Requires you to work in a professional manner.
• Entering more and more competitions builds confidence.
• Ups and downs = experience and knowledge.
• Getting used to critical feedback will improve skills and experience.
• Allows you to compare your work to other practitioners'.
• The brief deadlines are final - no room for extensions or excuses. Self discipline.