Professional Project Evaluation
The opportunities presented doing this unit have definitely broadened my mind to my future prospects. Working on the live briefs has brought complications that I’ve had to tackle and think up technical and creative solutions. Right from the start having one potential brief fall through due to lack of communication (Hedkandi), we chose to offer our ideas to the Fda Fashion show.
Working together as a team, Mike Cosgrave and I already lay down some of the aims we wanted to achieve such as experimental projection, some post-production and motion graphics etc. I had already been knocking around a few ideas in my head for a fashion show, mainly involving a sort of touch-sensitive catwalk, where the model would walk on and imagery would react with her movement from beneath. We pitched this to Fashion people and shown them examples. They loved the idea, along with the also pitched 3d video mapping, which we proposed we could make the entire area of the catwalk look more exciting whilst people are waiting for the show. Once we got the go ahead, we began researching more coherently. Although we had started to get an understanding of the software to do some motion tracking and reactive visuals, when looking into the costs, it was just becoming impractical. It was about £150 for a square metre of plastic that could be strong enough to walk on, as well as project through, and LED are majorly costly. A logisitcal nightmare, we started to drift away from that.
As that happened, we were offered another job of working on a production of Dracula for the BA Acting course. They wanted some visuals made and projected on a sheet behind the actors, and it would have to be cued up live. We sat in on some early rehearsals and draft up some ideas, took on what the director wanted and even heard from the students their ideas. We only had about 2 weeks to get this all sorted properly, so once on it we were focused.
As well as our visuals, we were to be given a map to project that would be tracing the route, made by 3rd year animation student called Kavon. He had more time to work on it than we did, and days before we had to go to Lighthouse in Poole for the performance, he handed up a rather shameful attempt that could’ve been done in 10 minutes. It was aptly discarded and I asked my friend Joe Barnett to help us out with a drawn map (rather than one from google images). Evidently, that experience right there was great on a professional level, essentially someone doing a bad job and being told to go away, and getting someone more competent to do it. And it felt good to be on the judging and sorting it out end of it.
The rest of the Dracula experience also great. We gained experience working with large and powerful projectors, working under pressure and live. After we had done 3 performances, it sunk in that we had shown our efforts to over 1000… considering it was a success, especially the final show, it was a massive boon to my confidence. And because of that project, it’s now something I’d be interested in carrying on, to do similar projects as a career option.
Once finished with that, we organised a meeting with Sarah Charles to get back on track with the fashion people. We sat down and discussed what they wanted etc etc. The students set out to make the entire thing have a black and white theme. After agreeing to it, I went away and then thought about it. Technically, we can’t project black (absence of light), and projecting white onto a white screen is just unreasonable, considering we’re back projecting and the front it going to brightly lit. So it seemed the best option to overcome that would be to change the material we’re projecting onto, thus I fell back on my previous unit’s research. I felt sure the the best technical solution would be to make a Water Screen to project on to. This would even allow a certain amount of creative flair as well, as it would give the visuals a look of being suspended in mid air. I pitched that and the students and Sarah loved it. And since then I’ve been majorly working on making this work out. As the show isn’t till June the 16th, I’ve got a bit of time to further develop it, but it’s taking longer than I expected. What I thought would be simple has turned into a costings and design war to keep it practically, moveable and keep to health and safety standards. I’m determined to do it, despite any worries. I’ve set out to prove this will work, because I believe it can. On a professional level, I haven’t’ discouraged, and have developed and ulterior motive for this screen. Once we’ve got a working frame, I’ve thought about the possibility of renting out the water screen. Proper precision made ones cost thousands of pounds to rent, so this has a small scale commercial potential, and I’m currently thinking about £500 rental per event, with extra services coming with additional costs.
Finance has been a vital aspect in all our work, most evidently in the production of the fashion show looking at cost of materials. Working on Dracula, we got informed that the 9000 lumens projector that was hired cost £1,000 a day to rent. When it came to working out the budget and invoices, we used the guidance from the rate card and adapted it. Everything for Dracula was as it was recommended, price per visual and per days etc, with a budget of £4,450. However, the budget for the fashion show we put a total of £10,000. Now, our expenses are only just under that, so I’m worried that it might not of worked out correctly. But I believe I’ve got the grasp of working in a self-employed/partnership aspect. Adding up the profit of both and finding out what National Insurance class I’d be in was enlightening. I’d estimate that a good years worth of work would get me close to £15,000, more or less. And because it’s a partnership, we’re able to work around VAT.
Overall, I’d say all of these experiences over the past 3 months have given me a lot more understanding of what I want to to and how to do it in the next few years. I feel confident about starting a live visuals and experimental projection partnership, and if we keep at it, I’ll start building a good amount of contacts.
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