Going to Channel 4 HQ!

As I was a Channel 4 Pop Up winner for Doncaster, I got an expenses paid trip to London to the Channel 4 headquarters, which was lots of fun.

We got to meet lots of different people who were C4 staff in all different departments.

We got to listen to a panel of apprentices who told us all the tips and tricks for getting into the media industry which I felt was transferrable to the creative industry as it works in very similar ways. Their advice were things like filtering in information about the company into the application or the interview, which proves you know your stuff. They also said to use your age as a tool, as you know things that older people don't, such as the ways that social media works. Also, they said make it clear if you have websites, youtube channel or social medias so that they know you are involved in different things.

Another part of the day involved talking to continuity announcers, where they gave the advice of knock on every door, ring them and then ring again. What I mainly found about the day was that it was really inspiring in the way that I got to hear all of these people's different stories of how the got to where they are, and not just from young people but older too.

Lastly, there was a career goal session where they made us make a goal to achieve in life whether it be for now or later. The way they set this out was with a SMART system.

S - SPECIFIC: What exactly is your goal?
M - MOTIVATING: Why is this goal meaningful to you? How does it motivate you?
A - ATTAINABLE: Is the goal reasonable?
R  - RELEVANT: How can this goal be relatable to your career?
T - TRACKABLE: How often are you going to do things and track progress? When does it need to be accomplished by?

My goal was to 'gain more connections in the creative industry'.

• It needs to be accomplished before finishing university
• It will help my overall experience as an animator
• It's achievable through asking tutors for their personal connections and through LinkedIn.
• It's not completely in my control, however it is if I am persistent.
• It is high priority as it will be vital after uni to have connections and networking skills.

Overall, I think this day was very intended for those who wanted to get into the more business side of Channel 4 such as sales and marketing, however it was still a great experience to get to see the running of a massive distributor. From this day I have learnt that it's very important to have networking skills and get to know your people who might know someone else who could help you further your career. Even though it wasn't anything really to do with animation, I still feel like I've gained a lot industry knowledge from this day, which has helped me know how to get more in contact with people.

Trying Claymation

First Try at Claymation! from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

As part of learning different practices in animation, I tried out a little claymation without any prior planning just to give it go! I really enjoyed doing this and I found 2 hours had gone by so fast when making this little animation. This really helped me start to see another technique of animation that I want to take further. I liked stop-motion, however I had never really tried claymation before.

With this animation, clearly it's very rough and I could have made the movements a little more slow, especially when he's looking at his hands/arms. I feel like I did really well at having quite smooth motion, when the snake goes into his mouth and when he melts. When previewing the footage after making each part I was quite surprised how well it has turned out. I am definitely going to carry out playing around with plasticine and I have ordered some aardman eyes from eBay so I can start making little characters of my own too!

My next steps are to read Cracking Animation by Peter Lord all the way through and look at making a bit more of a planned animation, so I can develop claymation even further.

Looking Into Claymation

As part of my development I want to look more into getting creative with stop-motion techniques and I have ordered some newplast plasticine so that I can have a play around with using it for animation briefs.

Before I get into that I want to look at some examples and tutorials to get me started on how to actually animate using plasticine. I recently bought the book 'Cracking Animation' by Peter Lord which basically goes through all the basics of getting set up and where to start.