professional review of my work

I decided to look into getting some professional insight about my work from somebody within the creative industry to try and help me move forward with my work and see how i could imporve it.

I contacted the owner of The Layout Pad, a design studio based in manchester which works largely with graphic design and print advertising for a variety of clients but also works within moving image and web design. I chose this contact as i have previously had work experience in this studio and with Stefan (who i contacted) and he has seen some of my previous work from college before. And so thought this would also be a good opportunity to show and hear from him how my work has changed etc. 

I sent of two pieces of work that i was most happy with from this year so far which was my SYFY ident project final piece and my Audio project piece. 

His comments were as follows:

SYFY:

I really like the way you have “eased” and controlled the splits of the “cells” - colour of cells works well too (sort of a mutating artificial sci-fi hue).
Sound works also - reminds me of blood pumping around a body or the sort of sound one hears when under water - perfect for “cells”.

I was very pleased with this comment on the sound as this is the effect i was trying to portray from the cell (suspended in a liquid environment) and he described the sound as blood pumping which would suggest reference to this as blood is liquid. 
I do wonder if a slightly different background may have worked even better (and whether you explored those options).  It might be that a more “complicated “ background may have made the animation a nightmare to render?
This is something i am going to take on as my own personal project for improvement as a different background for this would be effective, i chose to do the white background to be in keeping with syfy's style however a different background especially for my show reel could be a more impressive visual effect as the white does seem a bit too synthetic and bland.

The only other comment I have about this animation is the type that appears at the end - think the entrance of the type needn’t be as complicated - the focus should be on the SyFy lettering (but I do like the sound when the type appears - that adds a lot of extra interest just when the viewer thinks it’s all over. Personally I would have preferred to see a simpler entrance and the type with no effetcs at all applied to it - but then I am fairly biased towards print and “still” images.
I thought this was a very helpful piece of feedback as the text "imagine greater" which i transitioned in at the end was the part of the animation i was most unsure about when i had finished it and i think looking back at my work now i perhaps did get carried away with making its transition a bit too flashy and a fade in transition could have probably worked better. 

None of the above is any serious ccriticism - I am very impressed with all the little nuances you have introduced. 

Audio Project:

Top stuff!
From what I remember, your photographic work and retouching, whilst you were here with us, seemed to lean towards this style - and you have it fairly nailed.  Seems this is your “thing”.
I was very excited to see that he had mentioned this as this is something i have started to notice about my style of work and i myself did think that this project (as i have had the most personally influenced freedom in this project, my style did show through) this is why i think it was a good idea to contact stefan as he was able to notice this also.

Constructive criticisms? Nuffink really - there appears to be a minor hiccup in motion around 7 seconds and 44 seconds - but that could be my internet connection - or it could be that you meant it (after having watched the piece about thirty times I am beginning to think maybe it should be like that - it is a dream after all!)
This is something i had not noticed in this piece of work until sending it off to stefan and looking at my work now i can see this glitchy movements and i will defiantly go back and fix this

I also like the lack of colour in most of the vid - works very well.

Overall the feedback i received was very helpful Stefan mention what had worked well in my work and what in his professional opinion could be improved and highlighted things in my work that i had not even been aware of that i am going to work on. And i was please to hear that i think he generally quite liked what i had produced. I think that gathering a professional opinion on my work like this could be very beneficial to my future work as well.