GradAcad day 19: Zed Nelson, Mother and The Park Study. 19th July.

Today was left quite free to allow people to recover from last nights party. I decided to do a little bit of shooting for The Park Study, which went alright until it started raining. But  I did meet this little squirrel, who was very friendly.. probably because he wanted food or something!

This afternoon GradAcad had a session at Mother with Sam Payne, there is a little exhibition inside the Atrium at Mother by Zed Nelson and it is about the transformation of Hackney, as it used to be seen as a dodgy gang-ridden borough of London, but now it has transformed into the trendy hipster part of the city. The series explores the merging of gang culture and hipster life within Hackney, it is titled "The Tale of Two Cities" and rightfully so as it explores two very different cultures which can both be found within Hackney. Another reason why I found the series so interesting is because I have been living in Hackney for the past month, I recognised a few of the places and also found out that a girl had been shot through the window of a fast food shop just round the corner from where I am staying, so it is a little bit haunting. 

I definitely recommend that you check out Zed Nelson's work: http://zednelson.com/

Our session with Sam Payne was great, he talked all about Lies Vs. Culture, so how adverts can either lie to sell their product or they could be culturally accurate so that their product appeals to the right audience. It was really interesting and the things which I learnt were easily transferable into my own photographic work. So thank you Mother and Sam Payne! 

http://www.motherlondon.com/

#GradAcad

www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

The Park Study

As I mentioned earlier I went for a shoot earlier, but I also went for a shoot after our session at Mother, I shall definitely miss working on this project as tomorrow is my last day to get everything shot as it is sadly my last day in London!

http://www.ruthjones.org

http://www.facebook.com/RuthJonesPhotography

GradAcad day 13: Dan from Scriberia, Mentoring, and the Moving Picture Company. 11th July.

Today started with a session from Dan Porter who is a Creative Director of Scriberia, a company which creates visual illustrative minutes of meetings. After learning a bit about the background of Scriberia we had the opportunity to engage with two activities; the first activity was a little bit like Pictionary... we were given 12 words (one at a time) and we had 30 seconds to draw the work, the words varied from "Snag" to "Garage"... it was interesting to see how everyone translated each word into a drawing. The second task we had took a little bit more thinking, we had to draw the shoes of the client we are currently working on a brief for, and then we had to draw the answers to five different questions around the shoes. I quite enjoyed the session, I do not have and talent within illustration.. but I didn't find that it limited my responses to the tasks.

You should check out Scriberia, their work is amazing: 

http://www.scriberia.co.uk

After our talk from Dan we spent time meeting people from the industry and they helped mentor us with our progress in the briefs we've been set. This was incredibly helpful and now I have a final idea which I need to strengthen and prepare a pitch for.

We then all crammed onto the #55 bus and headed over to MPC - Moving Picture Company, these guys are massive! They have three strands: MPC Film, MPC Advertising and MPC Creative. MPC Film has produced the post production work for films such as Harry Potter, Narnia, and Pirates of the Caribbean.. they are also Tim Burton's post-production company of choice... I had the chance to see part of their showreel from 2011.. and it is pretty amazing. MPC Advertising have also post-produced some really great ads for clients such as Cadbury's and Channel 4. MPC Creative are the team behind the Fox's Biscuits adverts, we spent quite a bit of time looking into MPC creative and the character work which they have done. 

After the presentation we received a brief and were placed in teams to complete the brief in an hour, our brief was to create a character which would be used to represent "Souper Stars" a new soup company (the soup company doesn't exist, it was invented for the brief). So we set about brainstorming ideas of hamsters, rabbits, the "SOUPer BOWL" and other crazy characters.. but then we settled on the idea of "Brian the Soup Spoon"... Brian is a "Ladles Man" and acts very much like a 40 year old John Cleese (the Basil Faulty era)... he also used to work at the Ritz before going self employed and he now owns the successful "Souper Stars" company.  

All the groups then had to pitch back their character to a panel of people from MPC, the best team would win and there was also a runner up... sadly my team didn't win, but we were the runner up! The winners were a team who created a "Diva Bird" who performed to people by the whistling that came out of her lips as she blew over her soup, so a pretty good idea for a character!

http://www.moving-picture.com/

The office at MPC was pretty amazing, there was a screening floor in the basement and on the top floor (where we worked on the brief) there was a bar.. and the walls were large glass windows so you could look over some of the London skyline, it was pretty impressive!

#GradAcad

http://www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

GradAcad Day 8 - Dan Germain from Innocent, Mentoring sessions, Spring Project and Bauhaus at the Barbican. 4th July.

After last nights lack of sleep I had a very packed morning! We started off the day with a great talk by one of the founders of innocent, Dan Germain, he is currently the Creative Director of innocent. He talked to us about the brand identity and how the branding of innocent has created such a successful and interactive business. 

Afterwards our groups had motoring sessions with a great selection of top industry professionals, where we talked about the progression we had on our briefs. We got to talk to about 10 different people who all had useful feedback for our work, both positive and constructive. We have one day left before we pitch our concepts back to moving brands, but we are confident that we will produce a great pitch and concept. I'm really looking forward to my first ever professional pitch.

We had a short session with the Spring Project; we learnt that if there are a group of crabs in a bucket and one tries to climb out the other crabs try to pull it back in! We also stood on a number line and discussed how we thought we were doing in the graduate academy.... it was interesting to hear everyone's points of views and experiences.

We went to Barbican in the evening, there was an exhibition for James Bond (which I didn't visit), but this piece of work was in the atrium of the centre.

We visited the Bauhaus exhibition, where we had a tour by the exhibition designers, it was very interesting as the tour helped me notice loads of small details in the exhibition which helped enhance how the work was presented. The work by Bauhaus is incredible, especially when you consider the art school was only around for 12 years, as the progress during it's duration was really drastic. The exhibition featured around 500 pieces of work, each piece was hand couriered to the exhibition (by personal couriers worldwide) and then it was hung with specific hanging and lighting instructions. It was amazing to consider how much effort went into the design, layout and architecture of the exhibition. I would highly recommend seeing it if you are in the London area any time soon.

I have never visited the Barbican centre before, but it's architecture is amazing. The outside area has two streams running through it with fountains dotted around the landscape. The whole area had a very peaceful and reflective feel to it as there were many people sitting, laying and relaxing. The architecture was stunning aswell, even when you leave the centre you are surrounded by a mass of wonderful concrete architecture. It's a great place to visit!

#GradAcad

http://www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

The Park Study

I apologise that I have not been able to shoot for the project again today, but it has been crazy trying to fit everything in with the move. I may have to focus my shooting on another park which is more local, but ideally I can still access the park where I have previously been shooting. Tomorrow there shall be images!