Drawbacks to Competition & Live Briefs

        While we have discussed some of the benefits of entering competitions and accepting live briefs, there are inevitably some downsides too. 

        With any competition brief, the client likely gets more out of it than the student. After all it is cheaper than paying a professional to do the job, plus they get the good publicity that comes with setting student competitions and providing opportunities for flourishing young talent. Often, when big companies set competition briefs it is because they are loosing money or customers, and are looking to reverse this decline without spending great amounts of money. 

        A particularly cynical view is that student creativity is being exploited, as there are incidents where successful entrants' ideas are used, without the student receiving any credit.

        Much of the time, briefs can be broken down into the following categories:

Problem-

• People don't know about us!
• Multiple audiences (we don't know who the audience is).
• Fun, but also serious.
• We don't know what we want!
• We want something pretty, but at the same time practical.
• We are dull & out of date.
• Adding value.

Proposal-

• Produce a product.
• Produce a visual concept.
• Persuade through a campaign.

Achieve-

• Publicise their brand.
• Expand their audience.
• Restore customers.
• Attract kids.
• Edge out competition.

Audience

        The audience is a key consideration in producing a successful, or indeed exceptional, response to a brief. Knowing who you should be aiming your work at, where they go and what they are interested in is an invaluable tool in bringing your work to their attention and, ultimately, fulfilling what the brief requires of you.

        However, while the brief often gives a firm idea of who the client believes is the target audience, there may be other audiences you should be considering, For example, with the Save the Children campaign, the charity defines the audience as low income fathers, particularly those with children under 11. The audience should perhaps be the children themselves, as getting a child interested in reading with their dad is half the battle, as they can then bombard and pester him. The audience could also be the child's mother, who could again pass on the message to the father.

        Why might the mother or the child be a more suitable audience than the father? By targeting these alternate audiences, you could still fulfill the brief's aim to raise awareness of the Read On. Get On. campaign, but coming from his loved ones the message may have more of an emotional impact on the father than if it came from an advert (pull on his heartstrings).

• Who is the audience? (Intended)
• Who should the audience be? (Actual) 
• Who could the audience be? (Potential)

        So assuming that the children are a more likely audience than the dads, we need to know where they go, what they do, and what they want to be; anything that might aid us in communicating our message with them.

• What do they do? Go to school, play, pester, read, watch TV, go online, talk to friends, do homework.
• Where do they go? Home, school, extra curricular clubs, shops, public transport, cinema.
• What do they buy? Sweets, toys, books, comics.
• What do they want to be? Happy, popular, successful, make their parents proud?

        The key is to identify the main demographic and figure out how best to communicate with them and capture their attention. It is hard when a brief is trying to communicate with a broad demographic who have different wants and needs, for example you can't pigeon-hole all children, as they have so many different personalities and interests. Try to make the audience more specific; what kind of child or father do you need to address? What kind of lifestyle do they lead? What are their lives like?

Standing Out

        When starting out with any brief there are 4 questions you should always ask yourself, and the answers to these questions should be a point of referral throughout the project to remind yourself what your initial ambitions were and whether you are fulfilling them. It is also good to write down your thoughts before other have had the chance to influence you. These questions (and the answers) are as follows:

1. Why have you chosen the brief? The brief stood out to me because of my love of books, and fond memories of being read to by my parents, so my passion for the subject balance the challenges of branching out and expanding my visual communication skills.
2. What do you want to get out of it? I hope that this brief will help me to develop my skills as a visual communicator/experience of how to convey a fairly complex and serious message. I also wish to gain experience of working to competition standards and requirements.
3. What do you need in order to respond to it? What are the requirements in the brief? A 'creative resource' that will inspire and motivate the target audience (dads) to read to their children, and show the importance of a father's input. The resource needs to raise awareness or the charity and the campaign in order to attract ambassadors. Must include Save the Children's logo.
4. What do you want to produce in response to it? I envisage producing a short animation (possibly using pre existing literary characters) that highlights the core message that as little as 10 minutes reading to a child per day can improve their future prospects and offer a way out of poverty. As the campaign is aimed at the dads themselves, it may be sensible to use characters they are more likely to be familiar with.   

What are the 5 most important words in the Save the Children brief?

• Children
• Reading
• Future
• Potential
• Fathers/dads

What are the 5 most important considerations?

• Fathers reading to their children has a significant impact on their reading ability.
• Each year 130,000 children leave primary school with inadequate reading skills (many from low income backgrounds).
• There is a strong ling in the UK between low pay, unemployment and illiteracy.
• Reading is the key to a child's future.
• Low income fathers are less likely to read regularly to their children.

What are 5 related products?

• Books
• Posters
• Information films
• Adverts (online? apps?)
• Writing equipment

What are 5 related places?

• UK
• Schools
• Homes
• Streets/shops around homes - places with words and signs to read
• Child's future work place

        We then handed our brief to someone who had chosen a different brief so that they could answer the same questions and their responses were surprisingly similar:

5 Most important words

• Reading
• Children
• Poor literacy
• Future
• Fathers

5 Most important considerations:

• Getting children to read more
• Dads read to their children
• Fathers have a bigger impact on children's reading
• 10 minutes a day makes a huge difference

5 Related products:

• Books
• Promotional outlets
• Flyers
• Posters
• Films

5 Related places:

• Home
• School
• Bed
• Poorer areas/demographics
• UK

        While seeing someone else respond to a brief in a similar way can be reassuring, as it lets you know you are on the right track and working in the right direction. However, it can also be a disadvantage, as it indicates that many other entrants may have had the same ideas as you, and your work will have a reduced chance of standing out.

        So it may be beneficial to think more laterally and explore what the brief is asking in greater depth, beyond the literal interpretation. Think outside the box!  

Study Task 1 - Brief Selection - What's the Problem?

        Bearing in mind the criteria identified in the previous post, do the three briefs that I initially selected have the potential to help me achieve these aims?

• To what extent will the briefs allow you to achieve your criteria for success within the module?
• To what extent will the briefs benefit you with regards to the benefits of entering competition briefs?
• Any problems that you can foresee with the briefs in relation to the issues discussed in the session.

Save the Children 

• This brief presents a challenge. I have never attempted a campaign before (in face in Applied Animation last year I actively shied away from the campaign option). It presents an opportunity to develop new visual communication skills, and figure out how to effectively convey complex messages in easy to understand ways.
• Due to the fairly vague requirements for this brief (the only specification is a 'creative resource') it is not the most obvious choice for my discipline, meaning that there may not be that many animated entrants. Hopefully this would help my entry to stand out.
• The aforementioned vague requirements mean it could be assumed that the company don't really know what they want, except to raise awareness of their brand and campaign.

Interflora

• Again, this brief is out of my comfort zone and different to previous animations I have attempted. It will be challenging and beneficial to me to expand my communication skills by raising awareness for a new secular holiday that neither I nor anyone I know has heard of.
• As Interflora would like 'highly creative ' ideas which are 'able to work across all channels of communication' there is the potential for there to be a incredible amount of differentiation between entries. Considering how my ideas will function across different platforms will also broaden my creative practice as this is not something I have previously considered.
• The brief is asking for quite a lot. The low public awareness of Grandparents' day creates added pressure (our responses must establish the ideals of Grandparents' day as well as Interflora's fairly extensive brand values) not to mention the need to overcome the potential for cynical backlash from an market already saturated with secular holidays.

Pan Macmillan

• This brief plays to some of my strengths. I enjoy working with character/storytelling. However, it is not a stretch for my skills, not a challenge, won't allow me to develop new skills. It is a safe familiar option (although the books continued popularity and numerous re issues might make it challenging to create original and outstanding illustrations. The fairly rigid demands (illustrations) are also not best suited to animation.
• Practically every illustration student across the country will be entering this brief. It is an obvious choice and will be very difficult to make your work stand out. Therefore, there is less chance of winning.

After reviewing these responses, I have come to the conclusion that the brief which would be the most beneficial to my development would be Save the Children's Read On. Get On. campaign. I then began to analyse this brief in greater depth.

1. What is the problem the brief identifies? Save the Children want to raise awareness & gain high profile support for their Read On. Get On. campaign, which encourages fathers to read to their children on a regular basis.
2. What is it asking you to do about it? Deliver a 'creative resource' which will inspire & motivate fathers (target audience) to read to their children for as little as 10 minutes per day, The 'creative resource' can take any form.
3. What is it trying to achieve? Increase the amount of time dads spend reading to their children. Raise awareness that reading with your child for just 10 minutes a day increases their potential. Raise public profile of the issue. Raise awareness of Save the Children & UK child poverty. Get all children reading well by age 11 by 2025. LASTING CHANGE.
4. What is the message? Reading is the key to a child's future. Just 10 minutes reading a day with parents/grandparents (but especially dads) opens up a world of possibilities. The UK has a strong link between low pay, unemployment & illiteracy - reading well is the best way out of poverty.
5. Who's the audience? Fathers, particularly those with children under 11, and those from low income families, who are more than 3 times less likely to read more than once a week to a 5 year old than those from the richest families.
6. How will the message be delivered? In a fun, personable, enthusiastic & engaging way (through a 'creative resource' in any form). Be positive!
7. Who will benefit? The children, their fathers, but also Save the Children through raised brand awareness.
8. Can you foresee any problems? The message is quite complex, and they wish to achieve a lot. The brief is also vague, suggesting they are not sure what they want!

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.

Responsive

        The Responsive module provides us with the opportunity to undertake a number of external briefs, (competitions and live briefs set by real clients) which will allow us a glimpse of working to professional standards. At first these briefs will be undertaken individually, but as the module progresses we will be encouraged to collaborate with other students, not just from the animation course, but illustrators, graphic designers, fashion, advertising etc. Such collaborative work enables us to begin to form professional relationships, learn about cross disciplinary approaches, and understand how our own skills fit into the creative industry.

        For now however, the focus remains on refining and developing our individual skills by choosing a number of appropriate briefs from websites such as YCN and D&AD. Our first exercise was to select three briefs and summarise why we had chosen them.

1. Save the Children (inspire and motivate dads to read to their children) -  This brief appealed to me due to my own love of books and fond memories of being read to by both of my parents, and reading to them. The occasions with my dad were indeed rarer, which the information in this brief suggests is not uncommon. I had never imagined that just a few minutes reading with their dad had the potential to drastically improve a child's prospects. It seems a worthy cause to attempt to bring something so simple, easy and beneficial to the public's attention, with the intention of bringing about a positive change.
2. Interflora (boost awareness of Grandparents' day) - I chose this brief because it is dual layered. As well as advertising Interflora, it aims to raise awareness of Grandparents' day. This would allow for a little more depth, perhaps even the opportunity to construct a story of the relationship between a grandparent and grandchild. This added perspective makes this brief a more exciting prospect than a simple florist's advert.
3. Pan Macmillan (create new illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's 150th anniversary year) - This brief (assuming it can be made more animation friendly) I chose because it sounded like a challenge, but also like the best option for telling stories (which I love). I had no great affection for Alice in Wonderland when I was younger, and have come to find the obsession with all things Alice quite annoying. Yet in the world of creative industry it is highly unlikely that I will be able to work with characters and concepts that I love 100% of the time, so this would be good practice for me.  

Interim Crit

        Due to my aforementioned trouble with performing in front of my classmates, I was apprehensive about presenting my development work, particularly the video reference. However, after discussing these reservations with my tutor, I realised that it was not the actual video that was important, but the fact that I had developed a performance and considered how it could be applied to the Moom character. So rather than include the video in my presentation, I chose to use the series of screen shots from the recording which show the key frames/most extreme poses, and convey the essence of the performance.

        To demonstrate that I had then gone on to consider how Moom might assume these positions, I used some of the stills as references for posing Moom.

        Despite being nervous about the interim crit, I feel that my presentation as quite successful. I was happy that I had included a comprehensive overview of how my ideas had developed, and demonstrated how I had reached my final decisions.

        The response from my class was also quite positive which boosted my confidence slightly. However, some of the feedback was that I could afford to include even mor exaggeration when applying my poses to Moom. Although I had already exaggerated some of the shapes from the photograph, I can see that there is room to make some areas more extreme, particularly the curve of the spine. What I need to bear in mind is to constantly urn the character in Maya and look at a pose from all angles, not just how I see it in the photograph.  

Storyboard & Animatic

        Whilst recording my video footage I found that I had tried to include far too much in my rough storyboard, and my initial takes far outran the length of the lyrics, no matter how many pauses I tried to include. In the end, some drastic editing was required to streamline the sequence. To choose which poses would make the final cut I looked at which would be the most relevant to the lyrics, or which would be the first/most natural searching gestures a person would perform.

        Once I had recorded a reference video that I was (relatively) satisfied with I could then draw out my final storyboard. Despite having the above sequence of stills which could have served as a storyboard, I felt I needed to draw it out with, so that I could begin to understand how Moom might fit into these poses, and also so that any added frames (over the shoulder POV shots of the arrow) or changed angles (close ups) wouldn't jar with the video frames.

        I also felt that an animatic would still be an invaluable tool despite having the video reference, as some of the timings from the video needed slight adjustments, either where new camera angles needed including or I had performed too slowly. The animatic also allowed me to see how the audio would fit with the visual, as in the end I was unable to project the lyrics while recording my performance. Consequently I recorded the audio separately. I still wish to further work on my voice performance, to get the inflection right, as well as create more ambient sounds, but as a mock up of how the lyrics will fit the animation my initial audio recording will suffice.

        My intention with the audio is to create a contrast with the frantic/agitated actions by keeping the tone of voice relatively collected and peaceful. Hopefully this will suggest Cupid Moom's struggle to remain calm and refrain from panicking in the even of loosing love (his arrow).

Acting for Animators

        "Animators should focus on the acting...make the characters think

and act...start with the body first, next focus on the eyes, and last focus on the mouth.

When reiewing reels we look at the acting first."

-John Lasseter

        Animators are performers. They act through their drawings, through their puppets, through all of their creations. They use mirrors to constantly check poses and gestures, and record video footage as reference. It is through these techniques and an in depth understanding of how bodies move and communicate that they imbue their creations with that magic ingredient...a sense of life.

        A character's performance should be so refined and expressive that the audience can understand what is being portrayed, how the character feels in themselves and about those around them without even hearing the soundtrack.

        It is no surprise then that many classic animators took cues from the giants of silent film. Disney's animators attended workshops analysing the performances of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton; hugely expressive performers who manage to communicate with audiences with minimal to non existent dialogue.

        Aside from highlighting Chaplin's powerful performance, this clip also demonstrates the importance of timing. The contrast between the frantically spinning corn spit, the temperamental soup bowl and the calm, collected napkin emphasize the comedy, but also allows each component of the feeding machine to have its own simple personality.

        The eating machine scene largely relied upon facial performance, but body language is just as important a tool for communication, not just of mood and emotion, but also for creating anticipation and expectation, whether it be for comedic or horrific purposes.

 

        However, I am not a natural performer. I used to greatly enjoy being in school plays and dressing up to be a different character, but somewhere in between then and now an extreme sense of shyness has developed in me and I find it near impossible to perform what I envisage in my head. Consequently I struggled greatly to record a video reference of my rough storyboard, and had to do it on my own at home rather than in front of my classmates. After much practice and many takes it was by no means perfect, but good enough I think to inform how my character will move, particularly in conjunction with my observations of searching poses.

Observing Movement.

        From the outset of this module I have been observing how people move, concentrating on them when I am out in public, studying Eadweard Muybridge's photography etc. Since choosing my lyrics and beginning to develop my ideas, however, I have begun to focus more closely upon searching gestures. How do people look for things?

        By asking my family to act out how they would search, as well as finding films, TV programmes and animations where the characters have lost something,I have begun to build up a library of poses and facial expressions that my character might assume. The animations are particularly useful as the poses are often extreme and exaggerated; my favourites are Monsters Inc. where Scully looses Boo in the company toilets, and the way that Pingu's flippers tremble tensely when he begins to panic. However, live action programmes have also given allowed me to pick up on some of the more subtle and realistic cues that characters give off, such as the Friends episode where Phoebe babysits the triplets; on turning around to discover one of them is missing she freezes momentarily in shock. 

        With all these helpful influences, I began to build up a rough storyboard of how I expect the animation to pan out. This first draft will give me something to work from when it comes to recording our own video reference which will in turn inform how we animate Moom.

Environment Concept

        To further establish my character, I felt that it would be sensible to try to create an setting for the animation where the audience would believe that Cupid might strike. Aside from the bow and arrow, the ideas forming in my head would require a table and chair for Moom to interact with, and their design could greatly influence how the audience interprets the environment.

        In my head, I picture the animation taking place in a romantic restaurant (no doubt one of Cupid's favourite haunts), so to fit with this concept the furniture needed to be quite fancy and decorative, of classical rather than contemporary design; perhaps reminiscent of a French bistro. With that in mind I came up with these designs. I only hope that they don't prove too complex to model.

        To carry this theme, when it comes to lighting the scene, it will need to be kept quite soft and warm, possibly with a rosy tint. Perhaps two spotlight could even be overlapped to create a heart shape, as with theatrical/stage lighting?

Character Concept

        Once my initial idea of Moom portraying Cupid had taken root, it seemed to gain more and more potential. The character came with ready made prop ideas in the form of a bow and arrow. Furthermore, the arrow could act as a physical representation of the 'love' that the lyrics describe as being lost. For Cupid to lose love would be a fairly important and therefore unfortunate event, allowing for more exaggerated and frantic searching gestures.

        So I ran with the idea. Moom unquestionably does not resemble any classical depiction of Cupid, meaning I would have to rely on other tactics to communicate who the character is. Having previously worked with wings in last year's Process & Production module, and knowing how complicated Maya is to work with, I knew that it would be a lot of work for me to model a pair of wings for Cupid, and I would most likely be unsatisfied with the result. Instead, I judged that my time would be better spent focusing on the bow and arrow which if modeled well would be just as effective as a pair of wings.

        I drew a number of options for each prop, to see which would be the best visual indicator might be. For the bow, most paintings depict Cupid with a fairly small and decorative bow, with a shape closest to the third from the left. In terms of the arrow, those with heart shaped heads would undoubtedly contribute to the 'arrow as love' metaphor, but which shape heart to use? Long and thin? Short and compact? My favourite design is the top left, but if this proves too difficult to model, then it is my opinion that the more compact heart would be more instantly recognisable than the thinner one (top right), which may at first be mistaken for a regular arrow head.