Storyboarding Blues.

Just a quick pointer, while I think of it. If you're ever storyboarding, start as small as you can and with a crappy sheet of paper. And use a pen. You just want to get your basic idea of what's happening on the screen and work from that. Sketch it out, so to speak.

This Is What Happens When You Try To Recreate That ONE Drawing.

P.S. Sorry for not blogging too much lately. I've been working hard on my film. As soon as my Pre Production Notebook is done I'll blog loads of stuff I've done. 

My Workspace.

Accidents.

Accidents happen often in art. Be it a spilled container of paint or a slip of the pen, it sometimes works to make a piece better. I was sitting outside a bar in Manchester City on a sunny day with my sister and her fiancé, messing with my camera. I was telling a story about someone I know and how she shoots pictures. While trying to illustrate my point. I held my camera at chest level, aimed it roughly at my brother in law (Baz) and shot about ten images haphazardly. Without breaking conversational stride, I halfheartedly glanced at the camera to see what the pictures looked like and was pleasantly surprised to see that the picture was actually kinda cool. I didn't aim it with any sort of precision, I never checked shutter speed or aperture, and Baz himself was still listening intently to me, completely natural. Nothing about the picture was staged, and yet it's one of my favourite pictures to date.

Generator.

So I started a new job. I had been working in a large retail store called Homestore + More and I hated it with a passion. I had worked there for four years and I despised every inch of it. I hated the customers, the smell of the shop, the products, everything. I made sure to never do a shift there without using the words "I hate this place". So about two months back I was offered a job somewhere else and I jumped on it. I now work at Generator Hostel. The place is actually really cool and I quite enjoy my job, something I had previously believed to be an impossibility. It's build in an old building in the middle of Dublin but the interior design is really modern and colorful. Anyways, I thought I'd try my hand at some interior photography before the place opened up. This is the first time my subject has been a building rather than a person, event etc. so I really don't know if this is how I was supposed to shoot it but I kinda dig the photos anyway. Enjoy. 

Also, be nice to people who work in retail. They are in now way inferior to you. They have to put up with a lot of shit because you can NEVER be too good at your job when you're selling things to people.  You never know when you might have to depend on the good nature of people. 

Showreel.

I figure I better get this bad boy up now before it's outdated. Some of the work goes back about four years or so and some of it is as recent as May. So . . . yeah.

Faces.

I'm trying me best to carry my camera with me when I'm out, but it's not an easy task. Any DSLR is hefty and when you're heading out for a walk around town or something you don't want that hanging off you the whole time. I guess I just need to get back into the habit of carrying a backpack with me everywhere like when I was sixteen. Anyways. I find that when I do have it on me that I'm shooting faces most of the time. This is not as easy as you may think. People don't act naturally when they have a camera looking at them. You don't, I don't, nobody does. So generally I have to spend loads of time aiming the camera around and shooting everything until people start acting naturally. This means that I have to wade through loads of photos I don't particularly care for until I find that one that actually looks like someone. Here's some of those.

Fairtrade (Failtrade).

So this was my first real animation project in IADT. Fairtrade came in looking for a short animation to use as an informational piece. We were told it'd want to be around the twenty/thirty second mark and could be done whichever way we wanted to do it. I decided to go with Flash as it turned out that was the main animation tool in IADT and I figured I needed to learn it fast. I got about two weeks into the project and then some personal stuff got in the way and I needed to abandon ship for a few months. When I got back to it I simplified the idea slightly and got my little nephew Andy.

I actually ended up getting a fairly decent grade for this and most of the people I've shown have been fairly happy with it. I know it's really simple and a little robotic but it was my first real attempt at Flash and I learned quite a bit doing it. My nephew also loves it and had a great time recording the voice.

Apple Style After Effects Experiment.

This is another little experiment I did in After Effects. This time I used live action footage of myself juggling in front of a blue bedsheet. I actually made the juggling balls out of paper and masking tape on the spot and this was done in one take. So I imported the footage into After Effects, removed everything that was blue, painstakingly masked the juggling balls (I would later learn that we were allowed to use any object, I had to be a show off and juggle). Once I had the balls masked I simply filled them white and we were done. I know it's not exactly going to make Apple's marketing execs jealous but it was a fun little project and I learned quite a bit doing it.

Trees.

So this is a little something a did a few years back. One of my early experiments with After Affects. The Paint-to-Reveal. There's also a little Overlay in there. While this won't win any awards, I have alot of love for this little trinket. I learned loads making this one afternoon and I actually love it's little charm. I'd really like to make a film in this style some day if I could work out what sort of story would lend itself to it nicely.

Life Drawings.

I've always had something of a love/hate relationship with life drawing. When I relax and get into it, I really like what I come out with, but if my head's not in it, it's all fucked. This year was also a bit of a challenge for me in regards to life drawing because it was a big change. When I was in my previous college, Cólaiste Dhúlaigh, the task was to examine the space and shapes and recreate what we see on our page. We would pay particular attention to tone and proportion. So after two years I'd led myself to believe I had gotten pretty decent at it. I had also led myself to believe that was the approach in IADT too. I was wrong. I start drawing in IADT and I see that I'm getting no love. Drawings that are just a few squiggles with a piece of charcoal are apparently "fucking beautiful", pieces that appear genderless are now "outstanding". My new teachers are apparently more into the more abstract side of things. Now, to be clear, this is fine, I have no beef with this. I just find myself having to re-learn everything. Because of this I'm not really that impressed with my own life drawing over the past year. I got a chance to do loads of experimenting but the actual window was way too short and I never really found a style that suited me. Really I just preferred the way I did things before. Hopefully next year I'll get a little time to work on this further. Anyways. Here's some of my life drawing from my Dhúlaigh days.

Pro Tip: Always listen to your iPod when you're doing some life drawing. It makes it easier to sink into your own world and prevents distraction.

Drawings.

These are some old drawings I did while trying to get my first portfolio put together. About four years ago.

A Predicament.

I find myself in something of a tough spot. We have just started the summer you see and I have quite a lot to get done. I decided very early on that I am going to try and knock out a draft of my thesis for next year during the summer. It shouldn't take more than two months really but it's no small task either. In a perfect world I'd also like to have all the pre-production for my fourth year film done as well. The two of these things could easily occupy me for the entire summer. However, I now also want to complete my third year film. It's the first film I've made that I've been truly proud of and I really want to see it to the end. There's a good minute and a half of animation left to be done on it.

To get these three things done in one summer is not going to be easy at all. The real kicker about the whole thing is that I start a new job on Monday. Forty hours per week with a good hour of commuting each way. So, let's do this.

New Beginnings.

So. Hello there *waves*. I'm Graham. I am very new to this blogging business. So I guess I'll start at the start. I'm an animation student, studying at IADT Dun Laoghaire. This is where I'm going to be posting and writing about most of my projects. I'm also gonna throw in any drawings or photos I've taken if I deem them worthy to be viewed by any visitors. So, there you go. Thanks for swinging by.