lessons learned from freelance jobs 2009-2013

I did a number of freelancer jobs in the last few years. That helped me immensely in learning to work with clients.

Animation for a documentary intro in 2011
Sometime in my second year of university I got in touch with Elaine who at the time lived in Japan. She asked me to do a 2d animation intro for a japanese documentary about football.
The project got to the rough animation outline stage, which she really liked.

It was going great. However at that time the power plant disaster hit Japan, so  the project was discontinued. I'm not sure that was the cause but it looks like it is related somehow. I did not get paid  yet. She is very nice  - recommending me to other people. Sometimes a project will get discontinued, not because the client is bad or you are bad. It's just life- nothing is certain. So get payment in advance- to guarantee you are not working for free.

Mr Jigglebuns 2013
I was to model, texture and rig a character based on a single reference image- for the front view. The character design is by a guy called Brian. We got this to the end of the modelling part + his requested revisions. He wasn't sure what he wanted for the character. He asked for revisions which were not included in his own concept art (like adding more fur, a bigger and more defined bum and in the end even adding pants)...It's a cat with a big butt that jiggles when dancing. Do you get that impression from the picture? :D


I made sure that the contract I requested for the project includes a clause for the extra features. In the end I didn't get a contract to sign and there was no NDA. I haven't heard from the client in almost half a year now so I  post the WIP screen shots declaring this project to be dead. A few hours worth of work wasted, but at least I have the model and some screenshots :)
This experience taught me about the importance of freelance job contracts. Really really tight contracts with detailed clauses. It's something that I should have started working on after having such a contract sorted. It also taught me the importance of getting to know a client. The more you know, the better for both of you.

The  Salmon Road
In 2009 I made a book cover illustration.

It was a proper paid job with a contract. I worked closely with the publisher to make sure the book looks good when printed.  The client in that case was a smart guy who knew exactly what he wanted and worked very closely with me to get it. He had a lot of input on it. Everything was A-ok, everyone was happy in the end. I got paid as expected.

I learned two things from the job. First of all Printing technology has a limited colour Gamut compared to rgb. It's important to get your colours in that gamut (CMYK mode) and show the client how it will look like when printed. Colours can completely change the mood of a piece. details may get lost in printing. You may have to do lots of colour correction and print tests.
The second thing was about creativity. My first version of the cover was in caligraphy style. It was originally intended to be on one of the pages of the book. The bird had no colour- it was stylized. But the client requested that I put it underwater, give it volume, give it colour. That is when I realized- It's not my vision- it's his. And I must follow it as closely as possible even if I have to loose something that was good in the first place. I may always have an ideal version of the work in my head, but the one that is to be submitted should and must fit with the vision of the client.


The Working Academy jobs
Since the start of 2013 I have been taking part time freelance jobs for
 the working academy at Bradford University.

They are a bit like an agency and have real company clients. I am currently doing some work for them.
There is no NDA in this perticular case, so I can share previous work.
The BBC and The Bradford Media Museum needed three mini games for the big screen in town - and to be used at festivals. The working academy hired me to create some animated sprites for the games. I had to make sure they are made in a way that is good for the programmers - in this case "Gaslight Games" - a local game's company. The highlight of that experience was spending a day at Gaslight Games to finish off the sprites and fix some stuff on other people's sprites.




Some lessons learned over the years

• Do not start work on a project before both you and the client have a contract that you agree on- outlining in detail the work and the deadline(s).
•  Make sure that you get an advance payment upon signing the contract - if you can. Some clients might get you to work on something for weeks or even months before the promised payment. And the payment might never come when the project is suddenly discontinued.
• Break the project into green light stages - keep the client updated and get as much input as possible. Make sure you also break the payment into stages if possible.
• It's a very common case with freelance clients that they make you do much more work than what you expected.  The more they are unsure of what they want, the more problematic it will be for you to deliver it on time. It's important that  they find that vision early. If they don't have any mock ups or concept art, request it or make it. If their project has unclear goals, make them clear things up. Ask all the questions you need in order to fill in  the gaps. If they want you to explore an idea with variations, that should be something you agreed to do in the start. If they ask for more (as a result of changing their mind) then they must pay extra for the extra work. Make sure that's covered in the contract.
• Give them your input as well- early on. Let them know about any potential risks on the project. Explain possible ways to approach challenges. It depending on whom you're dealing with of course, so have that in mind as well.

It will be great to get some input from you folk of the web? Do you have any client stories you'd love to share? Any advice on working as a freelancer? I want to hear from you, learn from you. :)
So far the more freelancing I do, the more it makes me wish I had a normal job.

Soda trip - animatic

For a final year project, I am going to do a 2 minute 3d animation that will serve as a music video for a song by "The Junior Panthers".

The Junior Panthers is an indie rock band that I heard one night while listening to Indie Pop Rocks.

One year ago a strange impulse made me write an email to Edwin - to ask if I can use one of their tracks and make a video.

He responded incredibly well to my enthusiasm and sent me the band's CDs and a T-shirt  (hey hey free stuff!! :D).

Now that made me very happy. However the day in which I received the JP goodies in my mail, the call from Disney Interactive Studios happened.
So the music video was put on hold for a year.

Here is a funny thing about that placement. A big part of the work there was just that- putting together videos, based on the music in them.
Had I not taken that internship, I would have probably done this in a different, less good way.

And today...

The university had me pitch it to them:
ppt@googledocs

Does starting with the music track introduce new challenges for the editor?
Well, it depends...
If the music is picked right, it can do half the job for you.
It will set the structure of your story. The rhythm will set the pacing of the shots.
Music's sound gives a sense of the mood and visuals -  the lyrics inspire abstract ideas.

So listening to the track over and over again and outlining its structure, I timed it in my mind and wrote down what would happen in each section.

Robert Mckee has a great book , which helped  a lot with getting a better understanding of how story writing works. It's not about forcing you to be formulaic.It's more in the sense of giving you the right type of questions to ask yourself when you write.

 For example I started with this:

Then moving on to the animatic:

I used a combination of Kdenlive and Mypaint  this time around.

Kdenlive used to be quite unstable. But version 0.9.2 didn't crash once after hours of work.

The animatic took about 4-5 hours to make.
Some of the drawings are reused in multiple shots- retaining the framing of the camera, but moving the character around. That saved a lot of time too.

Soda trip - animatic from todor imreorov on Vimeo.

Concept art:
When designing the character, it's good to think about what you want to communicate with that to the audience. Who is that character and what are they all about? Does the character drive the plot, or is that character being driven by the plot?
How does the character fit with the rest of the style and what does that style say about the film?

I started with this basic sketch, which I am going to refine later on.

Anyway more on the character models and concept art in the next update!! :)

Jobs I did this year and some musical collaborations

Today I want to let you folks know what has been slowing my ongoing projects.

To do that, I need to tell you about my jobs.
Starting the year 2011, I had a part time job with the University of Bradford which I did for about 3 months. I was the teacher's assistant during lab sessions for the 2d animation module. That was an excellent opportunity for me to meet with the majority of first year students and get to know their work. I helped the class with anything technical Flash cs4, also helped with constructive feedback on animation when asked to give such.

My other job with university was as an open day assistant. That basically sounds like advertising university to people who are thinking of signing up for it. But what it really was - assisting people in their decision to pick a university
; answering questions about accommodation, on going modules, chances one might get to get industry jobs. The tuition fees have tripled this year thanks to the UK government.If you want to work in USA though as a CG artist, then you really do need the diploma to get the work visa.
Education is a topic by itself, which I am going to postpone for some other time.


Then in March this year, I got a job with Cogworks Studios !
Work there continued to end of June- almost half a year. Unfortunately I cant post anything done there because of the disclosure agreement.I did the graphics and animation on two iphone games, using inkscape,toonboom studio and then Adobe Illustrator.




Some time during that period I applied for an intern ship at a couple of places. One of them- Disney Interactive invited me to an interview. A week after that I got a call confirming that the position is mine. There were over 100 candidates from the uk and only two placements.
From what I gather, the thing that gave me advantage over the other candidates was not so much the showreel and the cv as much as my game pitch and ideas.
Signing the one year contract ,I found a disclosure agreement with the size of a book. You will understand if I don't write (or say) anything about my work there. :)

So all I can do now is write about past projects. Here are some of the ones from this year- before starting work at Disney.




The sound assignment
For this assignment I worked with Thomas Mcfadden. The task was to put together an animatic with sound and music. Tom made the animatic. I made the music and helped with the sound effects. What you'll hear is the result of a couple of hours in the uni's sound lab. The music is really an improvisation- stuff made at the spot. They have a bunch of really nice one octave M-audio keyboards there, hooked to mac computers with garage band and Logic.

Tom has an excellent sense of humour and voice acting talent. He's doing all of the characters btw. You might see me doing some cartoon project with him next year ;)

And while on the subject of Music, there was another project that I took part in. A group of final year students from my university just finished an xna game, called

Steamsunk:

They needed music for it. So this time I decided that I want to work with a friend on it. I got Preslav Jordanov assigned to the project. I really needed him to take charge of this one, because I didnt understand the music software really well. He's also more into guitars, while I personally prefer pianos and rpg music. My contribution to this was in adding more progressions to the track, also the boss battle bit.

If you would like to hear more of my music, there is an online gallery where i keep most of the melodic doodles.
http://soundcloud.com/blurymind