Ryan Woodward

It was an amazing Wednesday to have the pleasure of meeting storyboard artist, special effects artist, and animator Ryan Woodward. Drawing with him on the beach in the morning, then hearing his presentation that night - I learned quite a bit about him, what he does, and how he does it. He started his presentation with a bit of information about himself, how he had broken into the business with no degree as a special effects artist for Warner Brothers. Then went onto explaining the story of how he went from an underdog doing inbetweens to doing storyboards and his own animation.

One piece of advice I really grabbed while listening to him talk was how to be an opportunist. He has a tendency to take on jobs just to learn how to do them. He said its a great way to learn more and it empowers you for future projects. For example, when he started to do animatics, he had no idea how to do After Effects. But when he got the call to do one, he took it, spent all weekend long learning, and put all his effort into doing his best even if it caused late nights. Being a Motion Designer, I think we are all opportunists  We all want to learn more, experience more, especially with the industry we're in today. It helps us solve problems for our clients or our employers or our projects. The more we know, the more opportunities we take, the better and more empowered we are in our own futures.

I also think a very important thing Ryan had to say that I will note is how not to become too attached to everything you do. Artists have a very deep bond with everything we create and it destroys us to see it get taken apart or turned down by other people. This industry is brutal and it will challenge us as artists. Not everything we create is worth what we think it is. Its a very good idea to detach ourselves from the projects we do, very good advice and warning.

The last thing that I really will remember Ryan talking about is how we really need to recognize when something interesting or big happens to us. We need to dig deep into those feelings or that moment and actually create something out of it. Its what we do as artists, visualize important moving emotions for others.

Thinq Collaboratory Story Boards

Hand drawn story boards

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Edited in photoshop story boards

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Project Summary

This project had a lot to do with how to execute process and how to work with a client. I enjoyed having an experience with interviewing a client, it was something I had never done before and I learned how important every question you ask has to be and how to have fun with it.

However, the mood boards where my weakest point in this process. I wasn't sure how to really go about putting those together without thinking of what kind of storyboards I wanted to do. And then when I didn't, I realized everyone else thought of their storyboards during the process of making them. I think next time I do a mood board, I will get a bit more creative with them. I held back a bit too much, which made the process of making a storyboard work out even harder than it should have been.

After seeing a few concepts and storyboard ideas, I feel like mine is very short. However, when I think of a 7 second animation, I don't think of fast paced moving images. I like viewers to savor and enjoy simple things. I regret not having client/peer critique on my first pass at the storyboards. I could have really used more insight and directional help for my final pass. But I think if I handed this over to someone else, they would be able to understand the direction of what I wanted this animation to go in.

Thinq Collaboratory Mood Boards

I didn't want to over think this process. Trying not to imagine a specific direction I focused on just trying to find different types of moods I could work with so the story boards could come later.

Keywords:
Change perspectives
Intellectuals
Simple and identifiable
Strong
Inspiring
Transforming
Calm and collected

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Technological
Light
Dark
Tunnels
Speed
Masculine
Levels
3D

Horizon
Rock
Collision
Breaking
Speed
Ice
Frozen
Broken
Fragmented

Dreamy
Other-worldly
Complex
Soft
Floaty
Artistic
Colorful
Ripples
Eyes
Reflections

Thinq Collaboratory Concept Brief

Initial thoughts


Today we were handed our first project creative brief for a logo build for Thinq Collaboratory. Looking at the logo, I had some initial thoughts and ideas regarding the design. The spiral made me think of breaking out of the box, breaking the pattern. The colors and feel made me think of calm, eerie, technological, thought provoking. Things that I thought about off hand were aztec, stairs, snails, maze, anything to connect to the spiral.


Interview with Thinq Collaboratory


1) What is your objective as a company?
International and thought provoking. They want their viewers to see things in a different way. Their goal is to change perspectives.

2) Who is your target audience?
It is very open, ages ranging from 18-50 years old. 55% male and 45% female. Intellectuals, college educated.

3) What makes you stand out from the other film companies? What are your competitors?
Because they are a new independant film company only 15 years old, they have already won several awards and have been nominated 4 academy awards. They think they are very strong and inspiring. Ron Howard's company and Michael Moore are main competitors.

4) What kinds of well known logos and logo ids are you attracted to? What makes them good logos to you?
Target because its simple and identifiable. Smith & Nephew for the direction. And current Mercedes advertisements.

5) What does the spiral represent?
The "Q" in Thinq, a maze, a thought bubble, breaking a pattern. Open ended. Lack of direction. Calm and collected.

6) Keywords that describe your company or films?
Strong, Inspiring, Transforming

7) Where do you see your company in 5 or 10 years?
Always evolving, although wants to keep to the same logo.

8) Any symbolism you would like to see incorporated with your logo?
Open-ended.


9) If your logo lived in any part of the world at any time period, where would it be?
South pole

10) What would you like your audience to remember about your animated logo ID?
The film company.

John A. Lack Presentation

One of the things I remember about the late 80s and early 90s is the song "Video killed the Radio Star" and immediately connecting that single chorus line with MTV due to its amazing marketing and identity logo team. Meeting John A. Lack, the man behind MTV, ESPN2, and Nickelodeon, is like going back in time for me. My childhood was all about watching MTV and Nickelodeon and both were huge staples in any early 90 kid's childhood, when kids ditched running around outside for sitting infront of a tv set. It was a change in society, the beginning of a new generation. And the reason that happened was people like John A. Lack, thinking years into the future, catering to his audience and taking chances on new ideas.

The one huge thing John Lack wanted to get across in his presentation to us, his aspiring creative-driven class, was to listen and only listen to your audience for ideas. This is how all of his tv networks were so successful, even the fact he even got into tv in the first place and changed a whole generation, was that he actually listened to his audience. He saw what they were attracted to, heard what they wanted, and went after making things happen. He wasn't afraid to being a pioneer for tv and making it bigger. I don't even think tv would be what it is today without creative thinkers like John Lack. I think we as designers and creative thinkers need to get outside of our own boxes, listen and observe more about the people around us (our "audience"). The idea of asking open ended questions to potential clients is a good way of opening up. But its also good to keep things fresh, new, and innovative; so its not a bad idea to be inspired by whats going on outside of our own heads and looking at the general audience of our products and designs as well.

The last thing I think is pretty important is to always try to take chances and try to always stay ahead of the game as much as you can. This is why Apple is usually so successful. While their marketing strategy helps them immensely with their success, its generally the fact that Steve Jobs thinks of a design 20 years ahead into the future and slowly works towards his final conceptual design. Lack's example of this was how he had offered Steve to create and sell a phone version of his products in the 90's and Steve turned down the offer saying one day in the future he might have his own phone, which he put on the market in the middle of 2007. Maybe we're not product designers and only go into logos, or advertisements, or whatever. We can still think on this conceptually as, 'well, I have this cool idea, but how can I make it better?' and always looking to improve and think bigger about whatever we create. 

EXPLORATION 4:

Logo Concepts & Thumbnails


  Sony Pictures Animation


Concept statement #1: Let the movement of these fun, gelatin like puffy letters excite you as they move about the screen, dropping in and wiggling and interacting with each other as they start to construct the logo of Sony Pictures Animation before exploding and bringing you into an exciting animated feature.


Concept statement #2: Enjoy bubbles floating calmly into the screen and begin the gather together to form the words "Sony Pictures Animation" in the center, giving you a very light, happy feeling. Then after floating and hovering for  a few seconds, they all start to pop away.


Concept statement #3: Keep the word "Animation" on a revolving floor, the letters disassembling as they are being tossed about off screen, leaving only the "i", that falls onto its side. Zooming in, "Sony Pictures" falls on top of the fallen "i" from off screen and "animation" appears inside.



  Bad Robot


Concept statement #1: You are introduced to the company name "BAD ROBOT" that is resting in a calm grassy meadow. A little red robot runs through the meadow towards the title. He inspects the title and being a very bad robot, starts to pull it apart. After he is finished, he runs up to the screen and giggles at you. This lets the scene cut out into the original logo.


Concept statement #2: A robot is very bad when he runs away from his factory. You will witness this mischievous little robot as he escapes from a giant silhouetted factory and runs into the meadow up to you. He giggles and blinks as it frames his head in the meadow to form the original company logo.


Concept statement #3: You first enter a calm empty meadow that has a dark figure running in the distance, giggling. You're then taken over to a nearby deserted ghost town. Posted all over every building are flyers, some even drifting on the deserted street. One of the posters fly up and hit the camera and you see a little red robot, the sign says reward and the name of the criminal is the company "BAD ROBOT".



  Lions Gate


Concept Statement #1: Peek through a gate and fly into the night sky, above the calm clouds as the sun goes down revealing the constellation of stars that build the Lions Gate logo.


Concept statement #2: You find yourself floating peacefully through clouds until you reach a giant gate that has the lion logo on it. It opens to reveal LIONSGATE and a starry sky that repeats the lion logo.


Concept statement #3: Soaring towards a giant gate, you enter into the keyhole. Inside this mysterious dark keyhole you notice a network of cogs that eventually form the "LIONSGATE" logo.