Student showcase - James Hatton takes Monty for a stroll

Recently our first year Animation and Visual Effects students completed their second formally assessed animation exercise. This time the project was to animate a series of walk cycles, combining different character walks into one shot. The brief included sound effects and music, collaborating with sound designers to create a miniature short film.

Many students came up with very imaginative work, understanding that as an  animator it is necessary not just to be technically good but also to be entertaining. Good animation combines creativity with technical prowess - after all, animators are actors with a pencil - or a mouse.

Monty - a green pea with legs - and a great way to learn animation

Above is one of the most successful films - a short submission by James Hatton, titled "Monty's afternoon stroll". It uses the excellent Monty rig by Raveen Rajadorai, a great little free rig, perfect  for learning the essentials of character animation. The action is well timed, funny, tells a short story and has great music and sound effects.

Here at Bucks we encourage all our students to master the technical skills involved in making great animation, but we also want our students to be story tellers as well. Good animation, even at its most simple, should tell a story that engages the viewer. James's film pulls off this trick, taking a basic animation brief and turning it into a charming miniature film.

---Alex

(Editor's Note: For more impressive work done by our students and recent graduates here at Bucks, check out Ben Gray's Moonbeam, and the architectural visualisations of Sabah Masood. Also take a look at the work of Andy Thomas here, see our latest commercial project for Rocketseed, our short film done for a global aid agency, and take a look at the excellent work of designer Monika Dzikowicz, architectural visualisation specialist Krsytof Michalski, Alex Whitfield and the 3D artwork of Mike Swan.)

How do animators work with sound designers? Six rules for success

A sound designer hard at work at Bucks

One of our students' tasks in their first year of studies is to work together with a sound design student, collaborating together on an assessed project. But why collaborate? Why should our animators not do their own sound design? The answer, of course, is that when you join forces with other students who are experts in their fields, you tend to get a better result than you would achieve alone.

One of the very best things about studying at Bucks is the first-rate facilities that we have in the Gateway building, bringing together students of different disciplines to create excellent work. The tricky bit, however, is finding a way to work together successfully. But then, this is good practice for a career in digital media - almost all of our students' projects will be collaborations of one kind or another. Finding a way to get the best work out of yourself and your colleagues forms a major part of building a long and successful career.

Gateway - our media hub, opened in 2010

So how, in practice, does an animator get the best out of such a collaboration? And what does an animator need from a sound designer? Below are six rules for a successful collaboration.

Rule No 1 - Figure out what you need
What sound work is needed for your film? Do you need sound effects? Voice narration? Music? If music, does it need to be an original composition (lots of work) or some library music (much less work). If there is voice narration, you will need to find an actor, and record their voice(s). You don't have access to the sound studios, but the sound design students do, so they can help you there. Start off by making a list of what you will need.

Rule No 2 - Figure out what you want the sound designer to do
Your sound designer's first question will be "what do you want me to do?" The best way to answer this is to show him/her your rough animatic, cut to (ideally) the correct length. The animatic will show exactly what will happen in the film, and what sound work will be needed.  It need not be finished animation, but it should show what you have in mind. Agree up front the scope of the sound work and what you are looking for.

www.freesound.org

Rule No 3 - Add in some rough sound yourself
One good way to help the sound designer is to rough some audio in yourself (you will have to do this in Premiere). Free sound effects can be found online at www.freesound.org and other websites. You might pick some music that you like (even if it is not what you intend to use in the final edit), and drop that in to your animatic. The more work you sketch in, the easier it is for a sound designer to take what you have done and improve on it. And the more specific you are, the more likely it is that the sound designer will understand the brief and give you what you need.

Home of the Bucks Media Collaborations Page

Rule No 4 - Find the Bucks Media Collaborations Page 
The Bucks Media Collaborations Page is a great place to start looking for for a sound designer. Or indeed any artist at Bucks. In fact, you can find just about anyone you need - actors, dancers, musicians, camera operators - all the disciplines at Bucks are represented here. For a full description of how it works, see this post.

What if no-one at the Bucks Media Collaborations Page responds to your request? If you're not having any luck, send me an email and I will contact one of the lecturers in sound design. There are always ways and means of finding someone to help out.

Rule No 5 - Leave plenty of time for the sound designer to do their work
Remember that the sound designer will need you to have completed your work in good time so that they can do theirs. If you are used to finishing your animation late on Sunday night for a Monday morning hand-in, think again. Find out in advance how much time the sound designer will need to complete the job, and then make sure you hand over your finished movie file in time. No-one likes a rush job.

Rule No 6 - Don't panic when things go wrong
Whenever you collaborate with other individuals, things tend to go wrong. Typical problems include misunderstandings about the scope of the work, failure to deliver work on time, confusion about deadlines, and general miscommunication.

Good advice from Douglas Adams

When these things happen (and they will) rest assured you are not the first person to experience this.  All group projects experience problems. Part of the purpose of the exercise is to get our students used to the idea of working in groups - preparing you for reality of workplace collaborations. The only way to overcome these difficulties is with patience, good humour, clear direction, and lots of cups of tea.

(Editor's note: for more on collaborations, see this post. For more on the Bucks Media Collaborations Page, see this article. And to find out more about how to work successfully on group projects, check out this piece. )

Collaborating on Group Projects - how do you pick the right people?

Animators need sound designers

One of the most important aspects of studying any form of film-making,  whether it is animation or live action - or any other media - is learning to collaborate with other people. As a film-maker, you cannot possibly hope to become an expert in everything; you will always need help from other departments. Animators may need help from modelers, designers, texture artists - finding people with the skills you need to finish your film is all part of getting the job done.



For their next animation project, our first-year animation students are collaborating with sound designers, making sure that their project successfully incorporates music, sound effects and Foley in an appealing, seamless way. Of course, animators can do their own sound effects, so why ask for help? The answer is simple: a student who has spent years studying sound design will do a much better job.

Where do our students look for help with their projects? The answer is the Bucks Media Collaborations Page, which you can find here at Facebook. It's a great way to find other students to help out with your stuff, and also a good place to offer your own services.

As with any project, when you start looking for help, you may get more than one offer. So how do you pick the right person? On a commercial project, you will always ask to see samples, or demo reels (usually online), so that you can pick the best candidate.
 
For unpaid projects, where you are relying on volunteers, you need to avoid upsetting your talent by making excessive demands. After all, they're not doing it for the money. But it's still OK to ask to see work samples - this is good discipline for anyone who is pitching for any kind of work. We all of us need to have our best work online at a website or blog to make it is easy for people to find us, and see if we are the right person for the job.

Collaborating with other students is where our undergraduates begin to learn so-called "soft skills"; the sort of skills you are going to need in the work place, to make sure you get along with your colleagues, get what you need to do the job well, but also to be respectful of your colleagues, and treat them decently.

If in doubt, always ask yourself this question: how you would like to be treated, if you were in their shoes?

----Alex

(Editor's note: For more on the Bucks Media Collaborations Page, see this article. To find out more about how to work successfully on group projects, check out this piece. )

The Daily Telegraph ranks Bucks in top 14 Creative Universities

Art and Industry - what Bucks is all about

Recently the online magazine Huffington Post ranked Bucks in the top 12 Creative Universities in the UK. Now the Telegraph has weighed in, including us in a list of the 14 most creative universities in the UK.  So why are we in this list? The answer lies in the massive £40million investment made a few years ago in our shiny new Gateway media building - an investment that is now beginning to pay off handsomely.

According to The Telegraph, the list was compiled by the consumer group Which?, who asked more than 16,000 students in the UK tell them if music, theatre, dance, choirs and the visual arts played a large part in university life.

The results came from two separate surveys. One was conducted this past summer and one was done in 2012. There is no order to the rankings. We're not number 14 - we are among the 14.

Gateway Building - opened in 2010

 

I have never taught at a University that had better facilities for making media than we have here at Bucks. Our animation students collaborate with sound designers, dancers, actors, musicians, live action film-makers and - ready to go live in early 2014 - a new motion capture facility. We're even trying to figure out ways of collaborating the fashion students. I don't know quite how yet - but we'll figure it out.

All great film-makers are collaborators, and almost every successful media project that any of us work on will be a collaboration of one kind or another. Look at any great director or film-maker and you will find a hugely talented team standing behind them.

There are many ways that or students collaborate. One of them is the Bucks Media Collaborations page at Facebook, which brings different departments together to collaborate on their projects.

To take a look for yourself at what we offer at Bucks, drop in to one of our open days. In fact, we have one tomorrow, from 5.30pm to 9pm. More details here.

----Alex

(Editor's note: for more on collaborations between departments, check out this piece on the super-useful Bucks Media Collaborations page. To take a virtual tour of some of our excellent facilities, read this article.  And to see how serious we are about making sure our students are technically proficient, find out about why we're giving away free laptops to our new students.)

In Praise of the Bucks Media Collaborations Page

Not many universities can claim to offer the kinds of opportunities for collaboration in arts and media that are available at Bucks. Lecturers love it when their students reach out to other departments; it helps foster creative thinking across disciplines, and it make student projects more reflective of real-world problem solving. When you graduate, most of your media projects will be group collaborations, so getting used to working with other artists in teams is part of getting ready for a successful career.

Need a voice actor? A sound designer? A camera operator to shoot green screen for you? Someone to help out with motion capture? A dancer to choreograph a sequence? Look no further than the Bucks Media Collaboration page at Facebook. It's a closed group (as it should be) so you'll have to get invited by a member, but join up and you have access to a whole roster of talent across almost every conceivable media discipline.

Building a successful career in the arts is about inspiring other people to work with you, developing interesting projects and bringing other people on board. You can't be an expert at everything, but you can get to know other students who are experts, who can help you out. Surrounding yourself with talent is what every good director does. Work with people who are better than you - and they make you look good.

So don't delay - join up now.

----Alex

(Editor's note: For more on the Bucks Media Collaborations Page, see this article. To find out more about how to work successfully on group projects, check out this piece. )

Calling All Animators! Bucks Sound Designers Want to Help You With Your Films!

Sound Design Studio

One of the best things about Bucks is how many departments we have specialising in different aspects of Film and TV production. One of the most interesting departments is sound design, where we have talented students working with state-of-the-art facilities to do excellent work.

Sound designers...waiting for animated films...

Best of all from an animators' point of view, they are delighted at the prospect of helping out with sound design on our animated films. Animated film projects tend to be short, so this kind of collaboration works very well from a sound designers' point of view.

And sound design is not the only department which animators can collaborate with. Here's a link to the super-useful Bucks Media Collaborations page on Facebook where you can find all kinds of resources for collaborating on film projects.

Sound Recording Equipment....animators wanted

And the equipment at Bucks is some of the best in the country. The Gateway building cost £60m, is virtually brand-new, and hosts all sorts of film-making resources - Green Screen, Sound Design, Sound Recording Studios, Actor, Dancers. They are all there, waiting for your films.

---Alex

(Editor's note: For more on the Bucks Media Collaborations Page, see this article. To find out more about how to work successfully on group projects, check out this piece. )