Personal Statement (Blogger Back up)

I have an interest and a passion in the area of animation, watching in wonder at how an inanimate object is given life by the animator, a personality and the ability to inspire awe and emotion from an audience. In the future, after graduation I wish to be able to eventually work in a company such as Disney, to inspire audiences, enthrall them and excite with the animations I create.

The use of claymation gave me some experience and knowledge into the use of clay, cameras and the software used in making clay based animations. College helped me progress these skills, adding such skills as team based skills, both leadership and following specific orders, time management by working to a set and somewhat specific deadline, this will be vital due to the fact in University I will be working to tough deadlines, so it will help in time management. This will apply past that into being able to work to a stricter deadline in the industry. Another skill these will help develop is problem solving, I say this due to the fact in many projects I have often found myself having to use orthodox ways to solve certain problems, and this often made my finished project better than what it would’ve been.

I was once a student representative. In which I had to address concerns and problems to the tutor from students either to nervous or scared to ask, it demanded such qualities and skills as leadership, empathy and power.  I believe these help me due to it giving me the chance to lead a team, while also being sensitive about thoughts, feelings and concerns, all which will help on working in a team for an animation group.

From both Media and ICT I developed my computer based skills, though this is more valuable in Media due to this being done for animation and media based subjects, also on Macs, this helped when I progressed to college as they are heavily based applications and programs such as iMovie. This gave me experience into the software I would use in college and then possibly in University also. I have also done some paper based animation in my spare time, from the ages of 10 stretching through to when I was 13, I did simple animations, such as movement the movement of legs and arms, then progressing to running, this shows my passion and interest into animation. Wallace and Gromit often inspired me towards choosing a course like animation or interactive media, the slick movements and simple look is always something I thought was great, especially after reading into the complexity behind such skillful productions.

I hope for the University to be able to offer me a career path, or multiple. As there are a variety of paths for Animation, stop motion and Claymation being two examples. Gaining knowledge and a deeper understanding into my chosen career will be something I hope to achieve, as this will be key if I do get a job in the animation industry. Also the skills, tools and experience required to be able to proceed and excel in my career path, to be able to work in a well known brand of animations, such as Walt Disney and the software in which I can develop skills for my craft and future career.

Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry is an Academy Award-winning French filmmaker, He has worked on many different things ranging from TV commercials to music videos. I researched a lot into his music video side in which he has worked with a variety of bands, anything from Rock such as the Foo Fighters - Everlong video, to a techno or dubstep style Daftpunk - Around the worlds.

For the Foo Fighters he used quite a few techniques the obvious one being the grayscale which is used over most of the video. Also when the protagonist grows his hand (featured twice in the whole video) the the time seems to slow to something like 75% as it grows. The grayscale is seen in multiple Music videos he has done.
A song he directed by Bjork known as Bachelorette Was also done in the style of grayscale, it seems he does this to add emotion to each emotional piece, though in Everlong it was a comedy, the parts that were grayscale were nightmares and night terrors part, in which the protagonist woke up in a cold sweat. Bachelorette was featured on a stage,as was Daftpunk - All around the worlds, this is a replicated element, this seems like he likes carrying a piece of another video into a new one, such as in the White Stripes videos he directed they had an urban British scene, which in one featured projection and the other stop motion. Carrying on in this theme he also used projections in yet another Bjork video known as Hyper ballad, in which the projection was on the protagonists face. One big thing seen in a lot of Gondry's music video is the big use of CGI, in Bjork's and Beck's video CGI was seen extensively. This shows a pattern of elements which he has used from one video to another, this could be a coincidence but there is some form of, whether purposely or not, reoccurring patterns.

This is to show both he similarities and differences in these videos, above is Daftpunk below is Bjork. Both feature on a stage, this is similar, and could be seen as a purposely done similarity, although the Bjork is a very plain paper and cardboard scenery, where as Daftpunk, due to his music being dubstep (almost futuristic), seems on a simple stage with different, futuristic, multicoloured lighting.