Reflection

Top 5 places to work:

Double Negative - This is going to be my number one place to work due to many factors. I had a chance to talk to a few of the visual effects artists at Double Negative and they seemed to be much more enthusiastic of a company to work for. I also had a look at the show reel for the company and was amazed by the work done as well as how it was created. This is the main company I will be aiming to get a job at, but before then I want to produce a worthy show reel.

Framestore - This would be my next choice due to it being the leading VFX company in London as well as the work that has been produced for many movies, but I would prefer a job at Double Negative over Framestore due to the factor that I preferred what I saw from Double Negative.

Nintendo - I have always wanted to work for Nintendo and this would most likely be my top choice, but the problem with this is that Nintendo being a Japanese company tend to hire Japanese people rather than westerners. I still think there would be a way in but it's just finding my chance and taking it by the neck.

Capcom - Being a Japanese company once again rarely hire westerners into the company but recently I have seen some work done on a game previously owned by Capcom. This would be a great place to work for but I would Idealistically want to work for any game company that mimics the gaming styles that Capcom produce in their games, Such as Ninja Theory (The company that took over DevilMayCry).

Moving Picture Company - The Moving Picture Company would be my final choice not because I would like to work for them the least but because they are a huge mix of advertisement and film, in which I would rather do one of the other. If I was to pick, I would just like to do film for this company as the films they have worked on look to be really well done but I think I would like to look into it a bit deeper before I took a huge step towards them, but saying that a foot in the door of any of these companies would be a good step forward.

                                   

Top 5 skills:

3D modelling in Maya - I find that modelling is my forte in the animation industry so far, as it interests me the most as well as being my strongest area. I want to learn more towards Visual effects but for the moment I will look to further my skills in modelling.

Creating inspirational idea's to start the group off in thought - I tend to enjoy being the ideas guy for the group as I have found that even if my ideas aren't used, they are developed into the overall idea to give a better narrative and feel to the movie.

Animating characters and objects in Maya - I enjoy animating, just not as much as modelling. I tend to have quite good timing for things but I tend to find it less tedious when it's something I don't find too hard to concentrate on. With modelling I can always go back on any mistakes or changes that need to be made while animation needs to be correct as your going along otherwise problems are a lot harder to solve.

Texturing in Maya - I find texturing to be very easy to do when it is a object but when it's a character I am not as confident so I would say there is more work to be put into learning this fully.

Compositing - I enjoy compositing. This is when you put all the work together into a final piece. I enjoy this because I really like seeing the whole thing come together when you have put so much work towards producing it. I wouldn't mind being a compositor for a company but I think out of the jobs given this would be a much tougher job then what it is now, once I enter a company.

                       

Top 5 things learnt this year:

How to texture a model in Maya

Group Organizational skills

Pipeline of animation

Properly developing my CV for my career

That my preferred area of animation is character and environment modelling

Summery

I need to look a lot more towards my career and see if I can get some experience working with at least one of these companies before I finish my degree would be a huge success in my eyes, but that will be completely down to my own hard work. I need to get my head down and produce a show reel worth giving to these companies.