Doing it the right way!

So the other day I decided that my workflow needs to be correct to the job ill be doing in a company once I leave University.

By this I mean using fellow students on my course to create the correct pipeline in the industry.

I'm a compositor... Which means my skills are going to be specialized in taking live action and other 2D elements and making them look real. This is fantastic! BUT... My previous problems in my workflow have started at modelling. I can model and I don't always mind doing it but my job is to be a compositor and not to model. I find that this is where the quality falls in my work. I NEED to get past the modelling stage, skip over the animation stage and jump into compositing. If I don't do this I fear that my skills in compositing are going to be shadowed by my lesser skills in modelling and other areas of the pipeline.

So because of this my decision is to find other students willing to aid each other in our task of our Final Year Project. My fist steps are to find a modeller and an animator happy to work in a pipeline where they do their specific skills and they take the credit for them. Then they pass the assets onto me and I use my specific skills to composite the assets into a background plate or whatever the shot entails.

I was then stumped in my own thoughts...

What if I don't get into a larger studio and I need this generalist skill. Fear struck me! Yes I can model and yes I can animate but they're not roles that I work well in. Do I take back my last thought and just get on with it?

I cant... My goal IS to get into a studio as a compositor and that will be what I aim for.

So from here on my task is to recruit people with any areas of skills that I feel I lack in and focus on my job and that alone. This way I can get the best out of my work and focus on getting that dream job.

Final year

So it's final year. Time to set down my social life, forget that I'm a student and start treating University as a full time job!

Some of my aims this year which are top of the list. Too many late nights last year when I could be fitting the same amount of time working while there is light.

At least in the darkness I can adjust the lights correctly for colour grading.


So I'm a final year student with two modules with a constant state of "crunch time" imminent. Balancing this with a Film Production Club will be enlightening to see which area dominates my attention. Ive figured that if my university work is being treated as a full time job from 9am to 5pm (and a lunch break if I allow myself) then I can work 6 days a week and have one day break. Then the running of the Film Production Club will be a personal project after 5pm. So my main thought at this point in time is Time Management. Something that has been a progressive achievement from the age of 16. I remember back in school when I was useless at time management. I couldn't even manage my time from getting out of bed, clothing myself and getting somewhere in time without having one sock on or forgetting to wear school uniform. Much has changed in the 8 years but time management is something I have forced upon myself. My experience of university has set my time management into stone and I'm finding myself hitting deadlines with time to spare these days.

I'm constantly reminding myself that University is not to be looked at as a break. Its better to say that University is a time to study and fix some areas of life that creates a more desirable employee. Some may say this is a bit of a mundane way to look at things but I believe it to be the truth. After all if you really love what you're studying then its never going to be mundane and I love what I do and love learning everything I can about it. So connecting my love to study and work with my current state of time management will be an achievement on its own. This year is a year of firsts and ill be happy to confront my graduation with a smile on my face and a tear in my eye knowing that its not just animation that I have studied at university. But I have studied the foundations of my life and from here on I will create amazing architecture through my career.



Deep thoughts but I thought people should know how I feel about the importance of my time at Teesside Univeristy.

I hope you enjoy my blog in the time to come, because I will enjoy rambling on about the passion of my study.