hello everyone out there

as i have said in another post, i have just finished my final film and with it my degree. i want to share my film with you all and get some feed back and crits.
im really happy with how it came out. i have learnt so much in the last 3 years. we were constrained to a strict 3 minute lenth, because some past years films were too ambitious and didnt get finished. i tried to keep it as simple as possible so as not to fall into the same trap, but i think ive managed to maintain some appeal too. the animation isnt as crisp and smooth as it could be due to the time limits and me only really starting to animate in 3d about a year ago and only really looking at character acting properly at the beggining of the year. anyway hope you all like it. let me know what you think.

cheers
Tom

nice work dude.
I really enjoyed the look of everything and the backgrounds were pretty sweet.
Very nice poses, and very nice use of negative space throughout the whole film.
On an animation level its pretty nice, I think you cheaped out on a few spots with some clever cutting. We missed his whole body collapsing on the big fall, we also missed him standing up and lifting the dog at the same time twice, which would have been really nice to see how you would have tackled animating that. Also would love to have seen you give the dog a tongue, never seen a dog drop a ball from its mouth without a tongue falling out immediately. Also would have been nice to some sort of breathing thingy for the dog in the chest and stomach area for a couple of the shots cause hes just dead pixels for those shots.
Good work dude. Looking forward to seeing more from you!

thanks matthew

yeah your right about most of the comments youve made. i had to find ways around tough sections of animation due to things like time and lack of experience. i wanted to keep everything really simple so as to not risk an unfinished film for my deadline. although i somtimes think i kept it a little too simple. but im happy with it and i can use some of the better scenes for my showreel. with regards to the dogs tounge, well i must confess i wimped out of attempting to rig one as i hadnt done anything like it before, but now i think back to it, i could have probably fudged somthing that would have done the job. i might go back and add one to the dog rig jsut for fun.

thanks again for your comments

Tom

Tom, I just watched your short and it was great! Especially given the fact that you have only been animating for a year! Wow! Very cool stuff! Love the models, the animation, the backgrounds, pretty much everything! How long did it take to create it from start to finish?

Hi Andy, thanks for the great comments on my film. all in all it probably took about 9 months plus a bit for throwing out story ideas. it was really hard work but i tried to keep it as simple as possible by not using textures on the characters and having 2D backgrounds. im really pleased with it.

thanks again for the comments.

Tom, I also just sat down to watch your film.

Nice work!

I'm sure you'll look back and value it more for what you learned from it than the film itself, but you've also managed to make quite a nice piece of film as well!

What are your plans for the future? Do you want to work as an animator, director, producer?

Again, great work! I can't wait to see what you're working on next.

-DJ

Thanks DJ

yeah you're right about looking back at what ive learnt from it. i already look at it and tell myself i could have done this scene better or that scene better, but i did learn so much.

my plans for the future are to work primarily as an animator, and who knows, maybe a director one day. but im also really interested in character design and storybording.

im in the prosess of trying to get my first job, its really tough, but i'll just have to keep at it and send my reel out everywhere.

Do you have any advice on reels and cover letters and applying to studios?

cheers

Tom

My advice on reels is to keep them as short as possible.

1 minute is a good length for an animation reel, believe it or not. 3 minutes is getting a bit long.

As for cover letters, write something SPECIFIC to that company. Let them know that you know who they are by talking a bit about them.

I also like to print my resume onto the back cover of the dvd case and include my shot breakdown as a leaflet inside the dvd cover.

Also, put your name and contact details on EVERYTHING!!!

Your dvd will at some point, in some studio be separated from its case. If your name and contact details aren;t on the disk, they aren't going to pop it in the dvd player just to see who it belongs to, it'll most likely be thrown out.

So, keep it short, simple, and clearly labeled! And good luck!

Don't forget to upload a copy of your reel to the videos section.

-DJ

I really enjoyed your film. Shows a lot of promise for future films.
What helps is letting it rest for a while and do a fresh edit. You`ll be able
to improve the timing a lot which in its own way will improve the story itselve.

Showreel wise its a matter of sending out LOTS of reels and keep working on your reel as you go. You`ll see with some searching you`ll find there are TONS of companies out there that could need you.