PPRD2 Report – Elliott Trent
Entering the second year, I was full of crazy ideas and overtop enthusiasm, after a long summer break I was eager to get started on our new units and throw myself fully into them, after such a successful first year. Returning back in October we were presented with two really exciting units, Future Cinema and Performance video. Still being pretty swept up in my heavy CGI/compositing work I was intensely optimistic about these units, what’s most interesting is that this all would change half way through the year – not to say these units didn’t go well, but I’ll explain later. Throughout this essay I will discuss through how I’ve developed and changed, most importantly I will discuss the fact that I have changed my viewpoint entirely on what I want to pursue after graduation.

So the first unit we started this year was called Future Cinema, this unit basically was about addressing the changes that have been made in cinema recently and how we think they might develop further. Our task was to create an entirely different cinematic experience based on technology that we can see developing whilst studying. I decided to work with two people who are pretty much on my level, Phil and Mike, we all heavily into post production and have a very serious attitude towards our work, which is always helpful when you’re trying to get a really slick piece of work done. The ideas process was very interesting, starting out with Mike and myself looking at projection work back in the summer (yes, we looked at our unit titles before starting). The big building projections that tell a story really got us interested in that sort of thing, looking at the work of some guys who we would later meet at a visit to our university – MOTH TV. It became apparent that this was leaning a little towards the non-narrative performance video style of things, however we made sure to keep all this information we had researched stored ready for the next unit. Our idea really started going when Phil came up with a really cool ‘curved’ screen idea, and the idea that the audience would be looking out onto this screen as if it were a real scene. We were getting obsessed with the concept of emersion, throwing the audience into the film, and this is where it really got interesting. We came up with a rough idea of an end of the world style scenario, taking a really generic easy to understand genre, and making it far more exciting. My involvement on the group was predominately on the visuals side of it. It was basically my responsibility to sort the screens out, get the footage for it, composite it all together and render the final outcome. This was a very lengthy procedure, I experimented for a while with video, capturing scenes and creating synthetic panoramas (separate plates shot and then re-composited together, 2+ cameras). This was partially successful, although the whole procedure was very difficult to get to look perfect – and to be honest with you the quality wasn’t all there even on a very high end camera. So one day we had the bright idea of shooting some visual effects style ‘plates’ instead. Take 5 images and stitching them together, reanimating it entirely, this is a commonly used procedure and I think that it was a highly important one for me to discover. I managed to attain such a sharp looking super wide image, in which I could pretty much do anything with, it was super high resolution too, which is always helpful when you need to apply it to a variety of situations.
So, this project was very enjoyable, I learnt so much and I don’t quite think I’ve ever put so much work into one project. I was just filled with constant enthusiasm and it had some great moments, travelling up to London to get the plates, working with two people who I really have complete trust for from a work point of view. What was most interesting though is that it changed everything about me. Up until then it was my dream project, I’d wanted to be a visual effects artist since early in my first year, the ideal job just graduating and going up to London to work my way up the ladder. But the more and more I thought about it, the more and more I worked on this project (no matter how much I enjoyed it) the more I realised that that sort of career might not be for me. I found it tedious, repetitive at times, the whole idea of being a software operator just became less and less appealing to me. This is where my path changed, just after Christmas my view on my career was totally flipped on its head – I will explain this later. That’s why I think this project is so important to me, it gave me the chance to throw myself into a heavy VFX based project, it had everything I could ever want in it – 3D, massive rotoscoping, huge layered composites, synthetic lighting, the list goes on. I was able to get a real taster, and know that maybe it might not be for me.
Another project that has made a big impact on me is my Professional Project, this basically is a project in which we are put into a professional environment, and our task is to maintain high levels of professionalism throughout. My project was a very fortunate one, working with students at Bournemouth School for Girls in collaboration with the British Red Cross. I got involved with it through a friend and was then taken onboard to help with it, the project’s basic premise was to create a short video promoting refugee awareness, particularly highlighting a big problem in Calais border. This was fantastic for me as I really wanted to get heavily into filmmaking, and being able to lead this sort of project was a fantastic opportunity. I would be teaching the girls, shooting it, and doing the post production so it would be massively demanding, but heavily rewarding. As the project went on the most important thing I learnt was the level of sensitivity that you encounter when working with a charity and a school, there were a few issues, but due to the more professional reaction I gave them they were able to be resolved. It was very important to work with a client like this, as it meant that if I were to work in a similar situation I would know what issues could arise, meaning I could definitely avoid them. I really enjoyed being able to talk through all the filmmaking techniques, and being able to execute the project in a very strictly professional manner – creating storyboards, shot lists, scripts and so on – you can see the heavy extent of it on my dedicated professional project blog (http://humanitarianmade.wordpress.com). This was just such a good experience to encounter, and I worked with so many people that were really eye opening. Aside from the work I got so involved with the charity side of things, and I think that’s such an enriching thing to do, anyone should get involved at some point in their life. I wouldn’t hesitate to work on a project like this again, and I really hope I get the opportunity to.

So I mentioned how these projects have influenced how I’ve changed as a Digital Media student, and how I have entirely changed which direction I will be going with my career. Moving from a heavy visual effects focus I have decided I want to go for something more film based, more specifically, I’d love to create a small multimedia company. This would be offering a massive range of services that I have been fortunate enough to pick up in my time on the course. We would offer live visuals, camera, music videos, installations, short film and so on. Offering such a wide range of services should open our doors to far more of a range of people. The main reason I’d love to pursue is due to the fact that it just has so much creativity involved, I know I could just go for the industry thing, learn stuff and come out. But in this age of viral networking, blogs, YouTube, why not just go out and try for yourself? Give yourself ultimate creative freedom and be able to offer people something that no one else can. That is my ultimate aim and honestly where I want to be, for sure, if it falls through I’m confident I have the skill and drive to go for a career in industry based post production. But aside from that, I want to spend my final year on the BA developing my skills, creating an amazing workflow for when I graduate.

Blogs
www.elliotttrent.wordpress.com – Click on category ‘SECOND YEAR’ you will get all my posts (massive amount for this year!) There is no professional project on there I have a separate blog for it, see below.
www.humanitarianmade.wordpress.com – All of my professional project work, indepth and intellectual.