Ual Mentoring program
I had my initial meeting with my first mentor on 10/02. We mostly spoke on initial questions that I had, for example, about entering the industry, what areas specifically I’m interested in and how to approach other industry professionals. I felt that it was a good meeting, but overall, I would say that I think my mentor didn’t have the experience I was expecting a mentor to have, as it seemed as if I was talking to a friend within my course rather than someone who had a bit more of a standing within their career.
Meeting with new assigned mentor – 22/04/26
In my intro meeting with my mentor, we mostly used that time to get to know each other and ask questions. For future sessions, we settledd to have them run for 30 minutes instead, as it worked better for her schedule, as well as we found an hr was too much to do at once. We planned to have our second session be a portfolio review where shell give me feedback on my website.
Little Death Clean Up Trainee start- 11/02/26 end – 03/04/26
Starting this cleanup was very exciting, as this was my first time working with a studio for their short film and also since we would be getting trained for the shots we were cleaning up. For my first shot i had to get used to how they work and the thickness of the outline, which was initially a bit challenging, as I’ve only worked on either my own projects or doing just the roughs for a film so overcoming that took a little bit of time though it wasn’t too big of deal as we can just as for feedback if anything felt too wrong. As well as this, the environment, I think, is a bit more relaxed in terms of the deadlines for completing each shot, though I’m unfamiliar with what working in a proper pipeline would be like, so it would be interesting later on, once I do get the chance to work in a normal role, then I can compare this experience to that.
I think overall that was a great experience, as it was my first insight into working within a professional project, as I had a glimpse into how they plan and break down each shot and the layouts they separated BG and exports, etc., which I’ll use that knowledge in my future projects, especially preparing for the third yr grad film. This experience also taught me how much went into the cleanup and to make sure I have enough time to dedicate to it, though, since this project required more texturing, which made it take longer, but just colouring frames took a bit. I also learnt a lot more about how to use TVPaint, which was very useful as I plan to use it more in the future, especially on different features that make clean up easier.
helping with the third-year grad films-
I helped with the cleanup on one of the third-year films, since I worked with them previously, I had no issue with communication, and it all went well. It was also nice to be able to contribute to helping with those films, and also just practising working on other styles.
Museum of Brands – 14/04 15/04
Workshops 1 & 2 – These workshops were fun and engaging. It was interesting to look at the collection and also know some history of the museum and how it started, though I did think I preferred the second day of workshops better, just as I thought the first two workshops on the first day were a bit more on the business side, whereas the second day felt more creative.
Workshop 3 & 4 – on the second day, we were focusing on the marketing/adverts and sustainability, which I found a bit more interesting and also more fun to discuss within our tables. Overall, both days were interesting to think about what brands do and change to maximise profit, whilst trying to keep customers happy and also interesting to think how it could possibly change in the future as we see the turn back into trying to be more sustainable and if brands might revert back to their older designs as people look more towards nostalgia.