Edwin Nicholson's Year 3 Animation Blog

According to the internet, a show-reel is considered to be short. Edited to some music and show case the best work that you are proud of. So I did exactly that. Here is the Video Link to my Show-reel, Enjoy!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQTJpF2vpNM

 This is my CV for Project Fish

This is my Cover letter for Project Fish Edwin Nicholson 201/3 Tweed Street Appleby Invercargill 9812  New Zealand +64221321406 masterednicholson@gmail.com 25 February 2021 Dear Hiring Agent/s for Project Fish I am writing this letter to apply for a role as the VFX Director of your animated short film Ugly Fish Dinner. I can bring relevant skills and insight to the VFX Director role as I have had experience with VFX. In 2020, I was the Director and VFX Director of the student composite film Fog of Keening , which required a lot of special effects. During this production I learned how to use Adobe After Effects, following a range of tutorials and through trial and error. I would like to learn more about VFX and this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. Fog of Keening had to go through many iterations before it was a finished product. I am determined and willing to go through many times with the VFX team to give you a definitive product that you are happy with. This year I am ...

On Tuesday we got into the discussion on roles. We discussed what roles there are and how pre production, production and post production works. Below is whiteboard evidence of what went down.   After all of the discussion we were then tasked to write down what jobs we, the students, would like to have. I wanted to have a go at VFX Director, Sound, Editing, Writing and Marketing.  We were then told to pick the three roles that we wanted, 1 being the most. I chose VFX Director. It seems that I am the only one who wanted to go for that role but I will still need to sell the class that I am capable of being in that role. So that is what next class is for. We have been instructed to make a showreel, CV and Cover letter to show the class next lesson.

This was the day where we finally discuss and decided the pitch in full. Everyone attended and it was in person. We first talked about the choose you own adventure idea, Then the fish idea, and then the cryptid idea. The discussion lasted for 6 hours, which was great. I believe that we needed this amount of time to talk about all of the projects because the last class we rushed the decision making process. Before we finalised the vote we decided to vote if we were going to do interactive media or a traditional media. The vote went 5 Interactive, 10 Traditional. I am happy with this vote. The last vote was between the cryptid idea and the fish idea. The votes went like this: Cryptid 7, Fish 8 We landed on fish, which I am also very happy about. I am glad that that Fish was picked because of how experimental we could go with it. It is a strong story and I think we can truly use our skills to good use. Below are all the Whiteboard notes for each idea merged together for easier viewing. I ...

A librarian came in today to teach us advances research tips. here is some notes on what went down. Go on to Blackboard, look for organisations in the side tab,  Find Library, look for subject guides, look for Film and Animations. In Business and Hospitality, press ProQuest Central. Log In and you should be good to go. Word Math AND, OR, NOT Example: Surrealism AND media, gives articles with both mentioned Surrealism OR media gives articles with only one mentioned Surrealism NOT media, removes any mention of media "AND", (OR), NOT* Example: Surrealism* OR Fantasy and Media, truncates surrealism searches (Surreal* or Fancy) AND Media, searches for the brackets first (Surreal or Fancy) AND "Digital Media", Finds any remark of Digital Media Ticking full text shows only full texts on a subject that you searched for. Ticking Peer Reviewed shows a subject which has been reviewed by experts. Source Type Searching for Scholarly Journals are recommended, we are not limited t...

The plan has now changed. Early on the Friday we got a message from James to see if we can come into class and have a meeting at 4.00pm instead of the plan of meeting at 7.00 on discord. I believe that a good chunk of the class made it in person, some couldn't make it but they were on speaker phone. In this meeting We essentially were catching the tutors up on our prior two meetings. We told the tutors this: ( Quoted from the Minutes taken) · Animation might not be seen · Very technical to create · Not a lot of people's core talents utilized within the project · There is no room for error · We didn’t get to fully discuss anything before a concept was picked The tutor then brought to the table counter points and their concerns: ( Also quoted from the minutes) · Understanding of something was lost in interpretation (Eh ‘animation’ meant different things for people) · Showing defeatism before project has started · What was mentioned didn’t seem to be the core of the problem · Don’...

In this meeting, we got people who couldn't attend the in person meeting on a call in Discord. In this call we also had some people who and attended the in person meeting join us. We went over the minutes of that prior meeting, and asked if the people who didn't attend had read it. They said yes. In that discord meeting we discussed and decided that a re-pitch was in order. we decided on Friday (The next day) at 7pm on the discord we would go over the three ideas that were selected and potentially new pitches/defined pitches.  As quoted in the minutes "We want to encompass everyone's talents and future endeavors".

 In the prior blog post I mention that as of writing we had finished a meeting about the pitch. The meeting was to discuss and debate the choice as we didn't discuss it well enough on the day of voting. Emma, Corrie, Rach, Vinnie, Max, Thomas, Zeta-Rose and me were at this meeting and the majority I believe were concerned with the technical side of the project. I personally do not think that we could do it in the timeframe that we have, We have never done something like this before and when you draw out o basic plan, things get complicated way to quickly. The prior plan of this pitch didn't have much to go on for a start either. A Heist with Markiplier (1 hour and 30 minutes run time) and Bandersnatch took 2 years to produce, ANd this was with a team of well trained professionals.  I believe the majority were concerned about the same/similar things that I was concerned about. The meeting lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes. We came to the result that we need to suggest a re-pitch...

On the 17th was the day of pitching to the class 11 pitches were made, each being between 5 to 10 minutes. Here are my thoughts on those pitches. Thomas George - Homage to Mecha This one one of my personal favourite pitches. I like the Idea of focusing on a character that you wouldn't expect. This story could have the potential  to send a positive message to people who love the basic jobs or in the stories  case, give praise to the workers to make everything function  ( engineering ). The idea of also having Easter Eggs and Trading card would be a cool idea to help advertise the animation. Zara and Melissa - Ugly Fish This pitch was a good one because of how we could play around with visual and audible gags. I'm  a big fan of skit based comedy and I reckon that this could be a fun one to make. There are many ways that we could work on this too from a animation point of view, surreal can be a option. Also the story is easy to follow. Rach Snowdon - Elevator Pitch I di...

Today I got to 1v1 my Pitch with James, Patrick and Traci. This gave me practice to define my pitch for Wednesday. Here is the refined version of the slide show. Notable changes include definition, Protagonist details. and a Questions page.