John Allison... Comics!

Thankfully my housemate attended the one comics talk of the week on my behalf and got a front row seat with a nice crisp recording of the event. It was an absolute pleasure to listen to and one I would have loved to have attended personally. He was personable and entertaining and spoke on a relatable level. 

His methods on how to build and audience and subsequently a profile and fan base, were rewarding and fitting to the third year project I have planned.

He stated the need to find out what your audience like along the way. Chances are if they are viewing your work on a regular basis, they like what you're producing already, but take heed of the comments and ascertain which particular aspects they do and don't like, then build upon them for favourable results.

But to also know you can't please everyone, just try and pinpoint the general consensus of what is and isn;t going down well. 

He also states slight changes in approach and design can cause fans to drop like flies. Something to be aware of. There is no market more fanatically stubborn in their likes and dislikes, than that of comics readers. BE WARNED! Also to be relatively timely in your production of the product. If you start by putting out one a week then stick to that as much as you can. Although consumers are more understanding when they are receiving a quality product for free. You will still lose fans if you mess them around too much in terms of release. If you take a long break without giving notice your bound to loose some of the fan base.  

I particularly enjoyed his encouraging talk on getting your work out there. He stated that the artists quick and ready to put their stuff online with no hesitation, are frequently not too good on a technical level. That it's the ones that are terrified to put their work out there that are usually the better illustrators. This gave me some comfort, as I am yet to place my work on the web anywhere outside of a few facebook posts to friends. Usually because the stuff I'm most proud of is in someway related to an original character of creation that I don't want out and about until it's in a physical issue. And also down to the fact that all the other stuff I do, I'm not at all satisfied with, if I can poke a thousand holes in it then do I really want it representing who I am for all to see? It's a hard fear to crunch, but John's advice is to bite the bullet and see what people think anyway... His anecdote of hiding under the bedcovers scribbling away, only to show your cat the finished product at the end of it all, was all hauntingly familiar. Being the hermetic owner of a cat myself. Something to consider indeed. 

His Top-Tips...

Make Contacts- Find others who are doing work like you. Contact peers online and ask their opinion of your own work.

Conventions- Attend them! Get your work out and speak to artists, get their advice. But be realistic, don't    approach your idols until later, when you're more established in the lower ranks. Nobody wants to blunder their first meeting with an idol showing early work and no confidence...

Print you Comics- Do it yourself if nobody else will, it's something to take to conventions and tout online.

Web Comics- Don't advertise till you get big, it provides very little money in the beginning, you look like a sell out, and they're just irritating and distracting. 

  

Freelance- Exposures is meaningless. A job done for nothing but exposure is NOT a good deal.

Learn to be a pain about money, chase people for it. And be aware the lower the payment of a job the fussier the client tends to be, usually because they've saved the money specifically and so want it exactly right. Bigger clients will have money to spare and will settle for work that fits the theme of what they're after as opposed to a very specific vision, though this is not always the case.

KEEP ON LEARNING!...

Overall a rousing and informative speech that I enjoyed thoroughly. I will take much of his advice to heart and apply it to my own future in web based comic platforms!

Chris Woodworth... Character Animator.

I have another recording of a lecture here, it was quite hard to piece together because being a games animator, he had a lot of videos to show. So it was hard to gage what he was talking about most of the time. So I found his website and watch his showreels and then the talk made a bit more sense...

He's worked on all the lego video games, animating various cutscenes to advance the story. Along with doing his own short animated clips in his spare time, with a varying degree of realism to them to show a range of ability. Often taking short lines from films to animate characters to, showing various emotions and nuances in body language or behaviour. 

He talks about the need to keep applying on a constant basis to all the notable and lesser known companies every six months or so to remain in their systems. There's bound to be a wave of rejection at points, whether it's at the start of your career of halfway through, or at intermittent gaps along the way. But to remain strong and keep persisting is key to success.

He says you should be prepared to travel, to stay open minded about the jobs you'll take and to constantly promote yourself online.

All standard advise and all well received, except the travelling part. Being a games animator he was bound to work in an office space, thus had to move close to work. My hopes of being a creator owned illustrator should provide me with the means to work from a home base. 

All in all a good talk, most of it could be attributed to my own area of creativity and thus implemented in the future...

Broken notes...

I have a few quotes and notes from a couple of the speakers, Karen Cheung and Jonathan Edwards.
They're slim and disjointed but I'll do my best to discuss their content anyway...

Karen Cheung does work for the likes of Perguet and Paramount, through her agent system. She claims there is no shame in working through and agency and subsequently with big companies. She emphasises the range of diversity and the support system offered by an agent is priceless. She's won various awards via this method and claims; "feeding off the business model of the company you work for is being resourceful, not selling out" and that "with someone else managing your logistics you have the time to achieve the standard of work you want to be known for"

It's an interesting viewpoint and one that counter's my (perhaps a tad rant-y) conclusion to my previous blog. Where I stated I would rather die an impoverished cater-waiter, than allow my refuge of drawing to be infiltrated with jobs for a "head office" figure. Especially in the advertisement of products I would more than likely have no vested interest in. Not that I'm knocking her method, it's clearly a sensible system that produces results. It's worked for her, but I'm not convinced it would work for me. Not that the method wouldn't work, I'm sure anyone who tries it, with the same amount of skill and determination as ms Cheung, would succeed in equal measure. I'm just not sure, for me at least, the journey to the top would be a pleasurable and satisfying route to take.

Jonathan Edwards, who I've had the pleasure of bumping into at a few doodle-planets, and via attending the seminars he gave at the previous creative futures. Is an accomplished, highly acclaimed illustrator for the times. His largely editorial workload requires strict time and subject restricted deadline. Having to turn around an illustration in under nine hours or so seem like insurmountable challenges. But his fresh, simple, yet lively illustration style and a keen sense of humour allows him to operate within these incredibly restrictive timelines.

I take my hat off to the man, he's got it down pat. Though I know for sure I'd never be able to function under this kind of pressure. I'd still be fiddling around with roughs by the time the editors banging on the door for the piece. A notable portion of the industry to want to make your way into, however it's not for me...

And we're off...

According to my sources, the initial opening speech was cancelled, and replaced by a talk from the vice-chancellor. An expert on all things Shakespearian, he gave a talk (of which I have a very muted recording from the back row) that shattered the common misconceptions our society holds of Shakespeare. From what I could pick out behind the overpowering coughs and shuffles of the surrounding audience. Shakespeare was not quite the literary originator we're taught about in school.

He was more of a shrewd business man than a prodigy in the field of play-writing. He stole or plagiarised most of his stories from existing old texts and plays. And spent more time building and moving entire theatre's and conjuring up cunning corporate take-overs of rival theatre companies, as opposed to writing actual plays. Not to say his works weren't great, they just apparently weren't his greatest concern.

There's a certain allure to talented con men of the ages, more romantic a vision to me than a tortured, troubled play write scratching endlessly away at a parchment with his quill. I can't help thinking I might have payed more attention to his works in high school had I known this, but I doubt it would have made his plays any easier to comprehend.

So on to the the first speaker I have notes on here...

A Ms Janet Jones apparently gave some very helpful hints on how to protect your work. The myths surrounding copy write become blurred in the realms of the internet. She states; 'everything on the internet is in the public domain, so free to use.' 

This makes sense, although some websites dedicated to selling photo's or artwork don't allow the option to download or save the image, or they impress them with watermarks. These aren't really soundproof, theif-proof methods of security. The latest edition of photoshop comes with intelligent software that can isolate a watermark on a digital image and remove in without much effort at all. And with the option of screen shots on computers these days, the inability to download an image is hardly a deterrent.

If you're going to put digital images or video's on the internet, your ideas are now a free commodity. Although no one can claim the work is theirs, there isn't much to stop them taking it and reproducing it somewhere else... Until the Adobe Cs6 suite comes out shortly, which comes with the ability to digitally stamp all images and video with personal metadata, so should your work be taken anywhere by someone else, the metadata will reveal it isn't n fact their work. A smart and safe tool that can provide an artist with a little more security over their artistic property.

This ties in closely with my plans for my third year project, which I'll discuss in more detail later. But it's going to be produced in a video format released on a weekly or biweekly basis, that will tell a story in a series of episodes. Myself and the people I plan to work with on it all agree it's to be put out there for free, wherever we can host it. 

That current saying, 'the internet is what you make of it' is an honest phrase. There is money to be out there, but to make money you need a presence in the creative market, and the best way to gain presence, in my opinion, is to give your audience what they want for free. To attempt to hoard your idea's and share them with only those who'll pay as you're starting out. Is practically committing creative suicide. 

No ones going to pay for your stuff if they don't know who you are, give someone something they enjoy for free, and they'll soon remember your name...  

I missed it... surprise, surprise.

So due to family commitments back home down south, I missed this years creative futures seminars. A crying shame as I've enjoyed the others that I've attended in previous years.

I am now in the precarious position of having to review these lectures, given to us students by working professionals. Without having seen or heard anything they said. I've done my best to round up what information I can on the lectures given, but few students take extensive notes, especially the ones I know. A fewer still record the lectures themselves. I have a total of three lectures I've managed to get on tape from various sources, and this, I'm afraid, will have to do...