Overall Evaluation

I found the trip and the creative futures week very informative, as a whole. I got some generally great advice that I will take on board and already have started to. During creative futures week, I liked the fact that i could choose which talks I could go to. In London, I couldn't. There were other places available that I would rather have visited, such as the BBC. There were also a few places that cancelled, like Framestore, that i was really keen on visiting. I think this has been beneficial to my studies and am glad I attended both.

You will find no work for other modules on this blog as they are in a sketch book ready to be handed in at the correct deadline.

The Mill

Research prior to visit:
 The Mill has offices in New York, London and LA. We will be visiting their London office whilst on the industrial visit. They are another VFX company. They have worked on various films, music videos and advertisments such as Muller Light, Hadouken - Parasite, Marks and Spencer, David Guetta and KFC to name a few of their vast portfolio.

http://www.themill.com/blog.aspx This is the blog that the Mill writes on constantly. I will keep looking at it and checking to see what new things come up.

Showreels :
http://www.themill.com/showreels.aspx

Contact:

40-41 Great Marlborough Street Soho, London, W1F 7JQ

Google Maps

TV and Film, Brand Services, Beam 40-44 Clipstone Street London, W1W 5DW

Google Maps

Tel: +44 20 7287 4041 Fax: +44 20 7287 8393

After the Visit:

When we arrived at the company, they were not aware of our visit. This meant that we were just sat around waiting for quite a while. Afterwards we just got a tour of the building and a business card. I feel like I didnt take anything beneficial from the talk and may need to contact them further to get any information.

Other networks

I have created my own flickr account to showcase my projects and other work I have created. Here is a link to my flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamitephotog/ . Flickr has become a very popular and useful tool used by photographers. I enjoy using this site as I see varied types and styles of photography. It is also an easy platform on which I can store and show my work.

I have my own facebook account but never really put it to much use. After speaking to everybody in my talks in London and at Creative Futures, I decided to create a page for my photography and film works. Here is a link - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dynamite-Photography-Film/265825453502553

I also learnt that blogging is another good way to get myself known. from then on i started to use tumblr and will soon be making another blog on blogger. Link - http://www.tumblr.com/blog/apologiseforthesummertime
I intend to make a separate tumblr just for my work and inspiration.

A few more sites I intend to use to showcase my work are pintrest - http://pinterest.com/ , Linked in - http://uk.linkedin.com/ and google+ https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.google.com/&type=st&gpcaz=42672086

I have also found sites that may help me find a job and actively use them to search for internships and upcoming placement opportunities. http://www.studentgems.com/ Student Gems is a network in which employees can find students with the skills sets that will fulfil their needs and offer them temporary work to help on projects. It is a really good way to gain experience and skills. It is also a great way to get contacts.http://www.enternships.com/ Enternships is similar and carries the same benefits. however, rather than getting temporary paid jobs, students are offered longer internships. I am currently trying to find relevant work for over the summer so that i can gain more skills and get myself known.

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking site. Before the London trip and creative futures week, I only used it to follow celebrities and my friend. since then i have found it to be a useful place to get my work seen and gether feedback.

Link to my Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/BeckahDynamite

Other useful people to follow:
@gettyimage https://twitter.com/#!/GettyImages
@amazingpics https://twitter.com/#!/AmazingPics

Double Negative

Research Prior to Visit:

Website - http://www.dneg.com/ . Double negative is a Soho based visual arts company, established in 1998. Since then, it has grown to be the number 1 provider of visual effects in Europe and they now have an office based in Singapore, which opened in 2009. Double Negative have won several Visual Effects Society awards, most recently for Inception. Double Negative have also won many more prestigious awards such as an Academy Award, again for Inception and a BAFTA for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

The company has worked on a lot of projects, some large and some small. These include; Captain America, Paul, Scott Pilgrim, Inception, Sherlock Holmes and The Fast and the Furious. The list is extensive, as is the list of awards won by the company.

Showreel - http://www.dneg.com/showreel/

Double Negative offer a wide range of job opportunities. On their website, the list of job roles is quite long and includes; Runners, Junior Programmers, 3D Designers, Production Booking Assistant and Database Developer. The website also tells a prospective applicant exactly what they need to do to apply.

Contact Details:

LONDON

Double Negative Visual Effects
77 Shaftesbury Avenue
London
W1D 5DU
google map

5th Floor
45 Mortimer Street,
London
W1W 8HJ
google map

t: +44 (0)20 7534 4400
f: +44 (0)20 7534 4452
info@dneg.com

After the Visit:

During the visit to Double Negative, we watched how the designers built up the sequences in the film Captain America. In this film, the company produced 630 shots which 200 artists worked on over the course of production. Some of the sequences they worked on were the crypt and Schmidt’s office. They built up virtual vehicles, environments an also did the visual effects.

During the build phase, artists had to research in detail everything and base the visuals on their reference material. Planning for everything is also a must. In this industry it is better to over design than under design, meaning that artists had to design for all weathers. There were some part sets made for filming, such as the train in the alpine sequence. To make this all fit together, designers had to sculpt to the original shape and make the interior and environment identical. Green screen acting was used for this part so keying out the green and making it look realistic was a challenge. In the pod fighter sequence, almost everything was CG, such as the clouds and the pod fighters themselves.  There was a lot of science in this.

After seeing all the work that is put in to CG and visual effects, it seems to me to be a very hard job. It can be repetitive and a long process but is very valuable to the film industry. I am not really looking for a job in this area but it was very insightful to look at different processes of film making.

After seeing what work the company do, we were given a brief talk on the history of Double Negative. It is very easy to develop a career within the company, with most senior people having started out as runners in the early days of the company. The people they recruit at the company are normally hired for the long term. Training and development is given to help new starters thrive and build the skills they need to get ahead. The projects they work on are mainly film with an even mix between huge blockbusters and smaller independent films. Current projects the company are working on are; Dark Knight Rises, Total Recall, Man of Steel, Skyfall and Rush. The spokesperson then told us how to apply. An applicant would need to have a showreel, no longer than 2 minutes, showcasing their best work. He told is it is vital to grab a prospective employer straightaway and show them why you would be valuable to their team. This piece of advice can be transferred across all platforms and job roles. I found this very helpful in furthering my career. It has made me realise that my passion and strengths are what will help me thrive. This was a very helpful talk and I really enjoyed it.

Life in the Afterworld

This talk was about freelance photography and was given by Alison McClean of photofoundry. She taught me to gain some business experience as it would be crucial to further my career. She also says it is beneficial to get a part time job as I would struggle on freelance alone. Most of the information given in this talk, such as making websites and creating links had been reiterated before in previous talks. To me, this just shows how strong this can be to help me on my way. I found out about a website called family stock. This has been a great addition to my knowledge as it means I can look at briefs for extra-curricular work and build up a stronger portfolio along with more skill. Linked in was also useful as it means I can now tie in all of my social network account to make them easier to manage and maintain. This has been one of the best talks I have been to and will help me so much over time. 

Digital Fluid Film

Dan Fox studied Creative Media at the University. This talk was on the transition of Film to digital. It was a very interesting talk, teaching us about the fluidity of digital filming. A key piece of information given was that imagination makes possibilities. I believe this to be true and will be a quote I work towards. This talk was very informative as it toght me about the technology behind film and the advancements of it. However it did not help me think of my future. It was still a valuable lesson to learn.