Today i started to prepare and make my showreel for BA8 as well as the degreeshow, after having a catch up session in Final cut pro i felt more confident in using that software to make my showreel in. I also thought it would be worth while learning this software while making my showreel for future purposes. The practicality of the software is good as well as the user interface. after have a play with the general text effects, transitions and colour balance i chose to design a background as well as a small avatar to cleanly contain my work in the area of the screen. I thought that is would bring the viewer attention more towards my work as well as give of a simplicity and refinement.

 Here is the background:

 

I choose to make a 'loose' avatar of myself to sit in the corner of the screen to give off a feeling of character and to show my personality, i personally feel that it makes the border less dominate and less plain. I designed the avatar quickly in illustrator.

 Avatar:

I next started to piece the showreel together, i started with a simple animated text shown in the image below. It has my name, area of design, degree, course and university.  Its a non distracting animated text and easy to read, i also gave it plenty of time to be read on screen. I animated the avatar to appear first before the background as a que to the audience that its now starting, as well as to look at it before it becomes part of the background. i will also be using the avatar appearing as a starting point for the music to enter.

I next added the background and started to place in some images, i have started with my latest pieces and more stylised to me to get across my character and my personal preference to design rather than showing older work that may look better but not what i want to go into. I've kept as many images as i can using a white background to fit with the background. In animatic terms i didn't want to make anything overally fancy or moving as it can be a large distraction. I have used mostly fade as the transition for the images as its clean and the next image can appear in the same spot as the last. I also have shown a transition from line art to coloured to show how i work. As i feel this makes the showreel look better.