Portfolio Crit

Jojo Lowes' work. <-- click to view.
Jo is a freelance Designer, but also does photography and teaches.
I went to visit her at her home and showed her my show reel, she gave me a brief critique while watching my work then sent me a message via facebook in detail on what she thought for each.
This is what she sent:

Portfolio Crit

Reflection:-
I particularly enjoyed how the visuals “reflected” the chosen music. As the reflected images came in and out of focus the music pace and volume mirrored this with equally sensitive fade outs. The film covers a wide range of reflections both urban and natural, which all have their own unique effect which still managing to look part of an over all theme.
The piece could be developed into a further project by choosing one place and tracking the reflections that happen over a full day, possibly using stop motion.
Also as most reflections are at strongest when they are central screen adding a vignette to really bring out the main image.

If Relentless did a Fragrance:-
Good clean lines, great 3D effect, smooth transitions between movements. The colour green suggests a lack of association with a specific gender…Was this on purpose? It would be interesting to see this promo a his and hers version of the products and how this would change the overall effect.

Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side Title Sequence:
I entirely say this as a compliment, Oh my days this is one disturbing piece of film. The faded visuals on the screen are a really nice contrast to the realism of the dolls. The lighting on the faces works really well too. From a typographic point of view I would place all the type in the same place. But I really love this piece its very effective.

Kerrang Ident:
Short and sweet. Great choice of track, fit in perfectly with the end of shit explosion climax.

Doorway: Choices:
Great use of juxtaposition, combining the sharp clean furniture, blank 3D room with the paper cut Alice and piano. Great quality audio recording. Red room reflecting experiences of drug really sums up the unsteadyness and lack of control that drugs inflict on your life, this feeling is pushed further with the upside door and moving of the walls. Really love the use of mixed media and the chaos it suggests.

Thoughtful.

Thoughtful lecture.

We were asked to do produce a 15 second ident and a 5 second ident for Do lectures.

We went to the fifth floor to talk about who are our inspirations in life to drive us to do things.
I mentioned my mother as a huge influence in life as she went from being a nurse to a single mum of three to a student again, being a training teacher to being a full time lecturer at a college, educating national diploma and introductory diploma students in health and social care.

She bounced back from nothing and she has been with me all the way and encouraged to do what I wanted, and helped me stay on track, otherwise I don't think I would of come this far in education after school and would of ended up not doing what I wanted and be miserable.

I found the morning intriguing and it helped with a few things, like it gave me a few ideas, like no matter how little the thing is, it always leaves a big impact in someones life and pushes them to do what they really want to instead of doing something they are not really happy about.

Died Young, Stayed pretty.

We went down to the lecture theater to watch this DVD.
It was about the culture and the posters of the underground music scene.

I thought the DVD was good, and I loved the art work, and it was amusing at times but I felt like it could of been better with the interviews and make it less boring to watch
but the things that were mentioned seemed relevant to me personally.

London trip

Double Negative.

While going to London, we had a choice to visit two companies, one being We are seventeen and the other Double Negative, I chose to go with the latter.

We were shown around by Vic who is head of HR and she showed us where they produce the 3D and 2D effects they do with films and such.

Vic told us that their are five floors to Double Negative and started out as a small number of people and has grown to a big company.

Near the end they showed us a show reel of their work and asked us questions on what we were working on at the moment.

Shellsuit Zombie.

In the Evening we got to meet post-grads Shellsuit Zombie, three guys and one girl.
They set us a task to sell one thing to someone that is associated with a particular target audience. So we had to pick two pieces of paper like a lucky dip and work with what we got. Although my group didn't present I found it fun, even if I was too tired to enjoy it at the time. Watching the other groups present theirs was entertaining and amusing to watch and was a really good laugh. Also learned a lot from the experience and got to hear what the guys at Shellsuit got up too after the graduated.

There was also this scrap book that was passed around and you got to fill a page with anything you wanted. However I never got the chance to do anything, too many people hogged in so little time and it just never got done, but it was an awesome idea and I think it would be good if we did that ourselves and have the book stay in our room for other students, past or new to put their memories of their time on the course and what they got up to after.