Here’s a website that has been really useful to me in thinking about designs:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/01/10-handy-tips-for-web-design-cvs-and-resumes/

I’d like the CV to display a bit of my own personal style, so I have brainstormed the things that I think sum up my work:

I then wrote down all of the things that I think are essential to include which are:

Next I tried to come up with some creative design ideas. My favourites were:

- A hand drawn tree and hanging off (or sitting on) the branches are each section of the CV

- A hand holding a sketchbook with printed text on

- A simple design but with one of my paintings as the header or in the background

- Text surrounded by a flock of birds in different colours

Eventually I thought I didn’t want to make it too over the top so I went for the idea of the hand held sketchbook. I used Photoshop and Illustrator to produce it and I almost wanted to leave it as just the sketchpad but then I tried adding in things to give it some extra interestingness/personality…

I think I prefer the ones with a bit of colour so I have decided on this one below as a final:

]]> http://ginatratt.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/updating-my-cv/feed/ 3 ginatratt my style brainstorm what i need to include grassy CV Gina Tratt CV circles zebra print swirls with pattern dots pink swirls http://ginatratt.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/career-planning/ http://ginatratt.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/career-planning/#comments Sat, 07 May 2011 00:13:08 +0000 ginatratt http://ginatratt.wordpress.com/?p=1815 ]]> Now that the professional project is over there are a number of things I can do to start planning and preparing for my career of choice. Here is a list of things I want to do over the next few weeks:

1. Produce a show reel of my best work so far which I will be able to send to potential clients and show at job interviews.

2. Produce a professional-looking online portfolio which is easily accessible to possible clients and displays my work and personality.

3. Get in touch with bands/artists and companies who might want videos made for them (even for free) so I can add it to my range of work and list of clients

4. Come to a decision about what I will be doing for my fmp in the third year and start researching and planning out how I will go about it.

5. Think about what I will be writing in my dissertation so that I can start it early on and write and reference it to the best of my abilities.

Session singer website: www.hazeltratt.co.uk 

_____________________________________________________________________

Music website: www.thehazelnut.co.uk

I had two main clients for the project; the first being a singer/songwriter called Haze and the second was a lighting designer, Mark Cunniffe. For these clients I had been given very different tasks and altogether I would not only be using all of my skills but acquiring new ones too. For ‘Haze’ I offered a promotional package, and we agreed on making her two websites, a music video, photography and business cards. The overall project would be split into two parts because one half was dedicated towards her music and song writing, whereas the other would market her as a session singer.

Mark Cunniffe was approached by a stage design company who needed a promotional video for their new creation ‘Soundforms’. This is a specially shaped stage that projects acoustic sound for a long distance without amplification. Mark asked me to create a virtual 3D environment to place the stage into and display the possibilities of lighting the interior walls.

The project started off really well as I was very excited about the amazing range of work I had been set. For my first client, Haze, I began by having an in-depth listen to her music and writing down everything I sensed or picture in my mind. I wanted to capture the overall feel of her music so that I could create a consistent theme in her music website and music video. A lot of the songs had similar ideas and thoughts running through them which I noted down and discussed further with Haze. I also asked a lot of questions about what she wanted and researched thoroughly into examples of websites and music videos she liked, to ensure I was going in the right direction.

I’d planned to work mostly on the websites for the first few weeks, and at the same time I would start pre production for the music video (e.g. brainstorming and storyboarding). I managed to follow this plan fairly well although I feel I underestimated the amount of time structuring the websites would take. I had decided to build a simplistic website in Dreamweaver for the session singing, and the music website seemed logical to build in Flash because I wanted a moving background and interactivity. However I had never built a website or used these programs before so I was teaching myself as I was going along, and it turned out to be a great deal harder than I had first envisioned!

When the arranged filming dates for the music video took place, I put the websites to one side and focused on the task at hand. It was in these filming and photography sessions with my client that I realized making a video like this on your own is almost impossible and I really could have done with a team of people with individually assigned responsibilities. There are so many things you need to remember and it’s very hard to be in control of everything at the same time such as directing, camera work, lighting, music playing for lip sync, wardrobe and make up, carrying all the equipment, making sure public don’t walk into shot etc. It was unfortunate that I didn’t realize the extent of this before making the video, but in the end I shot to my best abilities and I feel I will be more prepared for next time.

In the editing stages things went quite well apart from the software not being able to cope with HD footage. This meant I lost a fair amount of time and quality through having to render and then re-edit many sections. I had also sadly lost some of the shots I had storyboarded so had to make amendments to the video’s structure. As I was going along I would send clips to my client to make sure I was producing what she wanted. There were a few choices she made that were rather painful for me to carry out because she wanted to get rid of some of my favourite shots. But I learnt that you just have to bite your tongue and continue with the clients overriding decision. By the end of it there were plenty of things I still wanted to change or redo such as improved indoor lighting and colour correction, but overall I was moderately pleased with the final outcome. When I presented the video to my client she was ecstatic and proud to display it online, which I felt relieved about! She was also delighted with the photography which I had been working on at the same time.

I went back to the website design after the music video was on it’s way and managed to finish the session singing one in good time. Unfortunately it seemed with the Flash website there was a new problem round every corner, and even the simplest things became the most tedious and problematic tasks. But eventually after many stressful days and nights I managed to produce a presentable website which I was happy with. The feedback from my client in regards to the websites was also very positive so I feel as though I was quite successful with the whole project for Haze.

The Soundforms project didn’t start until after I’d done a time schedule for Haze, so I didn’t give the work allotted times but simply let the projects run alongside. This worked well as I was able to prioritize it when I had a meeting or deadline approaching. The project ran very smoothly and contact with the client was perfectly placed at each stage along the process. I feel as though we communicated well and both had similar ideas about where the animation was heading. Most of the time I was able to do the required tasks within the time frames which I think Mark was impressed by. I did have a few technical errors when trying to render in Maya, but eventually these were solved by using a number of computers, and being very patient about the time it would take. We had some pre-deadlines when Mark wanted to see the project 75% finished. This was a great idea because it meant I could show him what I had so far, and then we could iron out any issues or improvements he wanted.

When I showed Mark my final animation he was very pleased with it and told me it was exactly what he wanted. I really enjoyed working with Mark because he made it quite clear what he wanted, but also gave me a bit of creative reign to put my own ideas into it. Mark’s feedback suggested I should be a bit more confident with my own input at the earlier stages of the project, but apart from that he sounded very positive and would now recommend me to other clients.

Looking back on it now I can’t emphasize enough how much I have learnt from this project. It really has put things into perspective for me and I’m more certain about the areas I want to specialize in now. I have learnt that it’s essential to set yourself pre-deadlines to ensure that the work is finished on time, as something will always either go wrong or need improving. I have also realized that it can be difficult working with a client, and that you have to be extremely patient and understanding if you want to get paid. For example I found it frustrating when the client frequently changed their mind, but in the end they decide they preferred what you started with after you’ve made all the alterations. However I think this was a blessing in disguise and I’m so thankful that I have experienced this now, as I am now more confident and prepared for a real life work situation.

Invoices

There are still a few things that I would liked to have improved but unfortunately I haven’t had the time.

Firstly the colour correction is a bit dodgy in places, especially in the second verse. I really struggled to get some of these clips to fit together because the colours were so different. The shots in the park were the worst because there was a large spectrum of saturated colours at once – the bright green grass, bright blue sky and Haze’s red jumper all seemed to clash and I couldn’t balance them properly.

Another thing I’m not totally happy about is the high level of grain in the first verse. I feel it is quite noticeable and I tried to remove the noise but it hasn’t worked very well. The footage looked quite a lot better in my project before rendering the video, but Premiere seemed to reduce and compress the quality when I exported it into a .mov.

- Adding a backlight to the stage to give a bright glow around the rim

- Adding mini spotlights around the bass of the stage

- A bit of smoke or fog to create some ambience

- Possibly adding an audience

After this we set a final deadline for the 5th April.

_____________________

I made all of these changes apart from adding an audience because there was no way to build it in a week unless I used 2D images (which I tried and didn’t look good).

In this week I also composed some music in Cubase (here’s an image of the project):

I used a mixture of acoustic and electronic instruments which created quite an interesting modern/classical feel. I hoped to give the impression that the stage is new, exciting and innovational.

Finally in After Effects I added some text to bring the animation to a tidy ending.

Here is the animation I showed Mark at our next meeting on the 5th April:

Mark said he was very pleased with the outcome as he liked the contemporary feel I had created with the whole look and sound. There were however a couple more things that he felt could be improved. These were:

- More saturation or even a texture on the exterior of the stage

- A different film/animation to replace the cars which are projected onto the stage.

- A fade out to the text ‘Soundforms’ rather than an abrupt entrance

I also personally wanted to change some things which were:

- Adding two more bars to the music

- Taking away the glare of light inside the stage

- Re modelling and animating one of the spotlights

- Changing the order of the animations inside the stage.

After making all these changes here is the final promotional video:

I tried doing this and thought it looked quite good. However this opening section was quite long and the clip that I was rewinding had to be so fast for it to work, that it only covered a tiny part of the chorus.

So I picked out some extra clips that I hadn’t used in the song yet and started placing these in the timeline. I edited them in time to the music so that they started off being 2 beats, then a bar later each clip was one beat, then half a beat etc. until it reached the very fast rewound visuals.

I had to edit the whole introduction in two sections because there were so many clips that Premiere kept crashing. This was quite frustrating because it meant I would have to render more sections before putting together the whole video.

I did about 20 test renders as I went through editing because it was quite difficult to get the speed and timings right as the tempo wasn’t constant throughout the song.

_________________

Then…..Unfortunately after finishing the entire sequence, the project I was working on just stopped working completely so I had to re do the whole thing!

I didn’t use exactly the same clips because I didn’t have time to hunt through and make it exactly the same. But in the end I managed to reproduce the sequence and render it.

I’m not 100% sure the fast/rewound bit works very well at the start of the song, as I think it might be a little bit too long, and maybe slightly confusing for the viewer. But when I showed it to my client she really liked it and didn’t want me to change anything (sigh of relief!).