Evaluation...

I am really happy with what I have produced for Latest- I really enjoyed making the world and experimenting with retro inspired styling. I also rediscovered my love of Photoshop- I really loved using it in conjunction with illustrator. I think vector artwork can be very flat and harsh, Photoshop really allows you to soften and texturise and I really really enjoyed seeing how my artwork changed once I placed it within Photoshop. Using Photoshop also enabled me to explore the lights within it which helped to clarify what I was going to do within After Effects. My first world (the one that only contained the Duke of Yorks building) was my first real light experiment and though it made my image humungous to allow me to place lights within it I found it really effective. Placing a very soft grain onto the artwork helped to create the impression that this world had been cut out of paper which I further developed within after effects but introducing drop shadows to the various elements. These shadows helped to separate my scene into two different spaces background and foreground. Since the character movement was very simple I also think it helped to really cement the styling of the world.

After Effects wise again I dont feel like Ive done anything complicated at all- after a quick intro into the After Effects light effects - I decided that the best way of making my world light out was by using simple fill circles with a glow on them. Staggering the shapes gave the impression that the lights were turning on in a running movement. It was very simple but time consuming - I had to go back into illustrator to turn off all of my lights- and though turning them on again was easy. There were a lot of lights- all parented to the moving world and positioned accordingly, In the end I think I ended up with about 150 light layers. Although my After Effects usage was simple I dont think that anything complicated would have worked within the animation. I kept my idea purposefully simple (based off the London Film Festival stop motion trailer) in order to allow me to fully develop my Illustrations. Regardless of its simplicity I think that the animation is very effective, playful and it definitely embodies Brighton.

Working with a client was a bit stressful - although I dont think that my correspondence with them was too bad or demanding. Latest Tv were vague and disorganised. I was really irritated that they hadnt provided me with finished music at the start of the project- its my main gripe really. I think that if you have the opportunity to get free work then you should utilise that and they didn't seem to be bothered. At times I felt like they werent ready in the production process to consult with a designer. I also had issues with the presenters- they kept changing their minds as to who the presenters were going to be- and when I asked for details - I got frustratingly vague responses which wasnt helpful. Having said this Val has kept in regular contact and the new producer Richard provided me with his tweaks as a nice understandable list - which were completed for them- Bill was the only one who really irritated me - he seemed to want something completely different to what Val and I had discussed and I was even told by Val to ignore Bills ideas. I appreciate that in the real world there will be disorganised clients out there and I did manage to remain polite and civil. I think the key to client correspondence is to remain polite and to provide them with strict deadlines because otherwise these tweaks could continue indefinitely.  I've also completed what they wanted and have made it clear that I wont have the time to work on it after the deadline. So I can only hope that they will be happy.