Category: Unit 3

I find showreel and portfolio reviews, like our class had just the other week, to be one of the most intimidating things out there! The notion of having to make a brief video to summarize my entire practice, and comparing it to that of my classmates, makes me feel a little hopeless, to say the least.

I challenged myself to create a showreel in spite of this, for the sake of our industry portfolio review session. Not because I believe any of my work would measure up to the standards of BlinkInk, but because this would basically be my last chance to do one of these without paying for it.

The showreel I created starts and ends with my lip sync work, interspersed with footage from my LIAF project, my one minute film and my (at the time of editing) soon-to-be completed grad film. These shots are pretty inconsistent in quality, and there’s not really much avoiding it. Most of the feedback I received focused on exactly that. I was told that I’d need a lot more consistency if I want to make a good impression, but that this should come naturally with time, as I take on more projects under my belt. 

It’s not bad advice, but it does feel a little demotivating. Animation is so time consuming that the suggestion to simply make more of it is something both obvious and the last thing I want to hear. Hopefully, at least, it’s something that should get easier and faster to make with practice. 

The edit I made was just under 30 seconds, but I was still told that it had too much filler. Ideally, I’d like to revise most of my previous animation work so that it’s all up to the same standard. For example, I was told to remove the quadruped dog walk, since it didn’t mesh with anything else in my reel. If I had more character walks in there, however, I imagine it wouldn’t stick out quite as badly. 

Exposing my showreel to critique was a very difficult task, but it’s a band-aid I had to rip off at some point. I at least have a basis to work on moving forwards, even if it’s far from perfect. There certainly isn’t much point in complaining. More than anything, I need to keep my head down and not stop working, even when I no longer have the structure of university to adhere too.

I’ve been very excited to submit my film to festivals. With my last two projects, it never felt quite right. But I’ve put everything I have into this latest film, and if I put a bit more work in after the deadline, I would feel fairly confident in submitting it. But where to submit it to?

I’ve always conceptualised LCD as a horror film, and the benefit to that is having the opportunity to not only submit it to animation film festivals, but also horror festivals. In London, the biggest horror film festival is FrightFest, with a five day event from August 27th to 31st. 

The idea of competing with live-action filmmakers on top of animators seems a bit daunting. But with the submission deadline for short films being on the 18th of June, I have around two weeks to prepare an Electronic Press Kit and make some extra touches to my film. This is a pretty exciting opportunity to show my film to a wider audience, and it means my work on this film isn’t done yet! 

Also with a submission deadline in late June is the Dead Northern festival in York, which thankfully has a discount for students. With all these application fees, I can imagine that the costs of submitting films to these festivals could quickly add up. I’ve also been considering applying to GRIMM in Manchester and BAFF in London, but both have application fees over 30 dollars.

To avoid putting all my eggs in one basket then, it seems smarter to apply to a number of relatively cheaper film festivals. Brighton International Animation Festival has a student deadline costing only $13 dollars, ending all the way in November. LIAF’s late deadline is still only $20 dollars, and though I expect it to be more competitive, it also has a horror themed category, Cardiff Animation Festival also has an exceptionally cheap submission fee!

And last but not least- I’m also considering applying for festivals in Brazil, my home country. Though it has a significantly smaller animation industry, that means my work should stand out more, and I’ll be able to make more connections through speaking Portuguese. Unfortunately, my hometown of Florianopolis only has a film festival for children’s cinema. But since I plan to visit the country sometime in the coming year, I may also aim for Rio’s AnimArte Festival deadline on the 15th of June.

The time to start applying for festivals is now- since so many film screenings will refuse to accept films that were made after a certain date, and many of them offer discounts to students. Still, I’d like to make a good impression, and if I have time, I definitely plan to add a few more inbetween frames and clean up the backgrounds for my film.

With my grad film finished, I can get started on something I’ve been putting off for a long time- self promotion! I’m typically quite bad at self-promotion, and during the course, I’ve been too panicked with reaching my deadlines to make something clean and polished enough for social media. 

My graduate film is the most finished project I’ve worked on, so this time, I actually have some fairly polished screenshots to work with. While I won’t post my film online until I can submit it to festivals, it should be included in the BFI screening, and so it would be helpful to have a digital record of this fact. 

I created an Instagram account for posting my own artwork. Though I considered making a separate account for my film, I don’t have a lot of previous work, so it felt more appropriate to use this as a means to begin posting more frequently. After I graduate, I plan to keep this account up-to-date with any personal work I create.

I’ve also started making plans for short-form content. I want to polish my character design skills, for one, and during a personal tutorial I was given the idea to make animated character turnarounds. This would be a good way to show off one skill I feel somewhat confident in, as well as improving my consistency in solid drawing and line weight. 

Walk cycles always look good on a showreel – I have the guest lecturer Aya Suzuki to thank for this advice- and so I wanted to try my hands at a few of those. I recall we were shown this walk cycle tutorial from James Baxter, but at the time, we didn’t have enough time to study it properly. Animating walks for a variety of characters, with different sizes, weights and personalities, would play to my strengths and hopefully be fun enough to keep me occupied.

I could get a head start on making social media posts by working with what I already have. My animation exercises from first year aren’t polished enough to post at the moment, but with some cleanup, colouring, and extra inbetweens, they could become strong showreel pieces. I still have some fondness for my quadruped walk, and the mood change walk. 

Another thing I’d like to do for social media is to animate a brief transformation sequence. Most professional 2D animators seem to have dynamic 2D shots in their portfolio, but I tend to work with very safe, front-facing angles. I need to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone, drawing different angles and perspectives.

As great as it would be to get hired straight out of university, I need to be honest with where my skills are at the moment. My showreel is nothing close to the level of a professional, but I need to start somewhere. Keeping a consistent presence on social media should, at least, give me more confidence to keep applying for jobs, and updating my portfolio as my skills improve.