Pitch Perfect: Getting Started

Lauren, Joe, Ciara and I decided that we would work well together as a group to create an animation studio. I feel that this was a good choice to make, as it will allow the company to engage in a wide range of projects and briefs that range from commercial work to narrative driven work, as each one of us is interested in a different element of animation. Not only this, but we all feel that we share a similar work ethic and we share a similar interest in ideas and media preferences.

At first we believed that going broad in terms of technique was a good idea, as we felt that this would make us very appealing to clients, as we were practically saying that we'd do anything. However, we soon found ourselves struggling, as we had given ourselves too broad of a variety to work with, which made it very difficult to decide on what we were and what we wanted to achieve as a company. So we sat down and made a list of what we were interested in individually to compare our interests and focus on the similarities. We found that 2D animation was a common factor amongst everyone and decided that we would predominantly focus on 2D animation, but also state that we could create simple 3D work as well. We also found that Photoshop and After Effects were the key programs that we used as a group and decided that these would be the programs we would initially specialise in. In terms of production, we decided that we would take on all aspects of production, as this would make us more desirable, as we could lead clients through a project from start to finish, rather than having to rely on other production companies to send clients our way.

Once this was done, we started to think about what type of animation we wanted to focus on, whether it would be commercial animation, animation for children, etc. During the discussion we brought our interests and passions forward and it was clear that we all had different areas that we wanted to focus on. Ciara was particularly interested in creative advertisements that used animation in a creative way to get their point across. Whereas, Joe and I were both interested in storytelling. Lauren on the other hand was at a complete loss as she felt that she was interested in too many aspects of animation. so she finally decided that she simply wanted to create and wasn't bothered as what it was, so long as it was creative. In the end we agreed that we would create work that was narrative driven and portray ourselves as storytellers who are 'serious about having fun'.