Tuesday, 12 April 2016

PitchPerfect:presentation and feedback

so we had our presentation this morning and I think it went quite well. At least I didn't panic like I usually do during presentation and successful talk about every point I want to give to the audience. Me and Matt are the ones who talk in major while Greta only talk about her part.


We got some feedback on our present that it is a bit too broad and not specific enough to show our professional area and how we are competing with our studio. The logo needs to be in high resolution and talk about the learning curve of Unity and other game engines. I think there are so many external elements that we should have spent more time researching on such as more accurate statistic on the cost and other spending also introduce more depth of our studio like how could we compete and how could we promote. Also by studying other's presentation, it might also be a good idea imaging our future clients, who would they be and how could we sort their problem.

I have never thought about setting up my own freelance business and I do not think I am going to because i am really bad at managing money and all the complicated laws and taxes. I am happy just being an employee and interacting with studio people. also it is more likely for me to work inner studio but it is true what Mike said that we need to do a bit of everything. I don't mind challenging but what I like to do is still studio work.


PitchPerfect:finalise ideas

Our team has created a logo for the studio which is going to be very simple design just text. But we think it will be better to actually have an emblem that can also represent our studio and therefore the curly thumb is created! These logos are designed by Matt and also he managed to get them animated which look very nice and very stylish as well.

 At the end we still haven't confirm the font yet but personally I prefer the most simple ones on the left because I like simplistic theme across out our studio and also it looks more convincing as a professional animation studio.


Before the presentation day, I saw a lot of other people built a proper website for their studio and make it so realistic. I didn't think about this before and only have been focusing on statistic and not really dedicate to make it real. But soon i realise that we might only touching the surface of the project but did not go far enough, however it is a bit too late to change and to research therefore I made this fake website page in photoshop in order to give a brief ideas to the audience what styles we are looking. I reference a lot of webpage from other animation companies and what should the site has like contact, showreel and introduction of our company. Through making the fake website, I learn what information we need to put on the homepage of our studio and how our work should be on the first page i border to catch attention. At the end it is about the quality of our work and the web is helping us to sell it.


Molly helps making a floor plan for our future studio after we break-even. We are going to have 4 hand drawn animation desks, 4 computers and scanners and sound booth. Since we might be using Duke studio before break even, this plan is going to be our expansion studio when we also have money to hire more professionals.

Monday, 11 April 2016

PitchPerfect: Research(2)Discovering game engines

Unity showreel
Unity is notable for its ability to target games to multiple platforms. Within a project, developers have control over delivery to mobile devices, web browsers, desktops, and consoles.[3][8] Supported platforms include AndroidApple TV, iOSLinuxNintendo 3DS line,OS XPlayStation 3PlayStation 4PlayStation Vita, Unity Web Player (including Facebook), Wii,Wii UWindows Phone 8WindowsXbox 360, and Xbox OneUnity Web Player is a browser plugin that is supported in Windows and OS X only. Unity is the default software development kit (SDK) for Nintendo's Wii U video game console platform, with a free copy included by Nintendo with each Wii U developer license. Unity Technologies calls this bundling of a third-party SDK an "industry first".

All of us have not made a game before and this is my first time to look at game engines. There are a lot of familiar names I see when playing online or video games like unreal engine and I did not know that you can buy to use it to create your own game. The quality is so good and available for window and mac as well! We can also export to mobile/ desktop/ web and also consoles.
 I made a list to compare different game engine and find unity and constructs 2 the most appropriate to use and can export to various media also with a good reputation.
From online feedback on both game engines, I also state the pros and cons for both of them. At the end we agree to use unity because it support 2D and 3D also available for mac whereas construct 2 only avaliable for window with bad performance issues on mobile devices. Our studio would aim to create quite a lot of mobile game since mobile game is so popular now and it is very important that we can asset in that media. It is not easy to make a game so we would all need to learn about programming which would take some time developing this skill.

Pitch Perfect: further research

Greta and Matt is joining or group but sadly molly cant come to school and Matt always disappear from the studio so it were only me and Greta who did research at the early stage. Obviously we found out that there are a lot more to consider about starting up a animation studio not only financially but also like promotion, competition etc. 
Since we didnt know how to start so we look at the advices questions on e-studio
  • What skills and services do you have to offer?
  • Who is your target market?
  • Who is your competition and how will you compete?
  • What are your costs, charges and financial considerations?
  • How will you structure your studio?
  • Who will be responsible for what?
  • How will you promote your services? To who? Using what media?


We both started researching from scratches, I am researching about target market, competition and posts while Greta is in charge of the costs and money. 

To be honest, I am not so familiar with local animation studios which I shouldn't and therefore this is also a good opportunities to look at various firms and how they run and set up their company. It might be great to look at their website and what they have been involved in. I found this website that provides a lot of website to local animation studios and I did went through all of them.


There are a lot of bad website that not even attractive like only with a sentence describing their work with no supporting images. It is hard to attract clients and audience when having bad PR. If we are making a website, it should be quite clean but fun, with bold element like interaction with visitors that could make them stay at our page for longer so we could also have more time to promote.
For example http://www.illusionanimation.com/services/
Illusion Animated Productions. I am not fond of their page because there is no interesting elements also the composition is very boring. 

I would like my page like the slurpy studio where they have a texturised background and a lot of colourful work and effectively introduced their style at the first page which I really like. The whole page is very professional and making clients feel confident to purchase them.



Other Amazing studios:


ATTACK

 BLUEZOO

 AMANITA DESIGN

FRED&ERIC

All of these website are clean and simple but very impressive because of the quality of work. Therefore I think at the end what matter is still the quality of work but online web is also an very effective tool to promote the studio.

Sunday, 10 April 2016

Cost of living


This tells me that I might only need 2,555 pounds to keep alive but I must aim higher than this because I totally not satisfy with this income. Therefore aim high!!

Pitch Perfect: Initial set up with Molly

Our brief this time is to set up a studio, working in small groups (no more than 4) and to construct a
 business proposal for a creative studio, collective or collaborative practice and present it to peers and 
tutors in an formatively assessed, oral presentation.
Your plan/proposal and presentation should be based on the analysis and content that you have been 
introduced to throughout the module.

Me and Molly wanted to set up a local studio called THUMBS UP studios which produces mobile/web games and virtual comics with 2D traditional animation methods. Our target group is kids and actually everyone else, we wanted to be entertaining and interactive and hopefully we can make educational animation for children in cartoon network.our style is very friendly, crafty and mainly 2D, mixing different media. 

Our Roles
I focus on Studio organisation, scheduling and budges inside the studio; as well as producing material such as animation and illustration. Molly will focus on external representation such as admin (including emails, phones) and will host as a representative for the studio. Since I am more introvert and I think molly would be more suitable for communicating with others with her good personality.
Both of us are also animators/creatives workers and dual with financial costs as well (including pre-production, prep, animation, art production, post-production and fees/tax). We did not think about cost at that point.