PPP2 Evaluation

In the PPP2 module we have to engage with the professionals working in the creative industry, market ourselves and develop our personal interest as an artist. Although it is simple and straightforward, it is the most challenging to me because I keep on delaying PPP work until the last minute. Time management is rather non-existent and I think I did poorly in this module. Most of the blog posts are done a few days before the deadline. I have no passion to get in contact with professional creatives. In conclusion, I actually have underestimated the PPP module, and so I did not benefit anything throughout the year when it comes to trying to get to know more about the industry. I did not benefit on the Professional side of things. Despite all these grim outlook to my engagement with people working in the animation industry, I feel that I have grow as an animator by the end of the year. I have a more distinct interest than last year, and I definitely have clearer definition of the things that I want to pursue in the future.

What goes wrong in this module is my fear to interact with strangers of higher social standing to myself. I always have a preconception that they are always busy and they are not the most humble person to talk to university students unless they are old enough to have free time to look at all the messages. Moreover, I did not know how to make connections in the creative industry in the UK as I found the norm of getting in contact with strangers here is awkward and not an easy thing for me. So, I keep on telling myself that all the emails that I sent to professionals are pointless because of this negative preconceptions, and this takes its toll at the end of the PPP module. I do not feel fulfilled towards the end of PPP because I did not push myself enough to overcome this fear to talk to new people. Professional work has been quite traumatising for me as well with the bridezilla incident. My self-esteem have been at its lowest point and gives a reason why I am reluctant to get out of my comfort zone. Studio Brief 3 is no better for me. My group consist of people who just want to get PPP out of the away instead of being passionate about marketing themselves in the real world. Their expectation does not match up to mine whose ambition is to make a real collective with like-minded people. I would not lie that PPP this year has been hell for me. Hopefully, I will be able to overcome this toxic attitudes towards my professional practice in the future.

In terms of animating skills and work ethics towards projects I feel confident this year. I tried to better myself by keeping the SWOT analysis as a reference point. From where I stand I have seen a lot of improvement in drawing skill while still keeping the flat aesthetic of my drawing. I am accepting my weaknesses of not being able to draw solid forms and make the style of my animation deliberately flat and stylised like that of modern cartoons. I am drawn towards experimentation with the consideration of shapes, textures and colours within the screen composition rather than the classical realistic type of animation (like that of Disney). In the future, I want to develop my creative practice towards this direction.

To sum up, I am unmotivated since the PPP started because it involves going out of my comfort zone and I started to get to work a week before hand in. I do not feel that I have accomplished anything in this module in terms of Professional Practice. We also failed to pitch our collective idea for Life’s a Pitch with the lack of passion. I made a lot of mistakes for PPP, and I think it is the worst module of the year because I cannot bring myself to step out of my comfort zone throughout the running time of the module.

Hi Stranger

Hi Stranger from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

To compete PPP2 blogpost I want to dedicate this last post as an appreciation to 'Hi Stranger' an experimental animation made viral by the Internet. I ditched Mr. Madila, and this animation has become my current favourite animation. The main appeal of this animation to me is the alluring voice of the naked character and the sense of genuinity in the way he talks. The dialogue offers warmth, comfort and zen, making the audience distracted from obligation and seek comfort. The oiled plasticine material purposefully makes the naked character looks uncanny and the mysterious gestures that he does incite curiosity. Keeping things secret is an element that keep this short successful to engage the audience emotionally. Therefore, it has the quality to be rewatched over and over again.

Derpy Projects of The Year

Some of the projects that I made randomly throughout this year, while not putting in much effort to it, but I decided to post it anyways.

Otong means dick in Indonesian slang language. The idea is to paste this derpy dick men on the small toilet's door in my current house to distract people from looking at their phone. Displaying otong in the bathroom also is a psychological mind game in the bathroom because his derpy face encourages people to vandalise the print. Otong proves to be an effective distraction from the mundane - and even leads to overthinking - toilet ritual. I am proud of Otong.

Si Otong 'anarchy in the loo' Toilet Wallpaper

A study task that I took too far because I like the character design for it that I did in my doodle book. I even got to make a nice vector of my derpy pigeon character and put the extra effort to put on sounds. 

Pigeon Walkcycle from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

In conclusion, I am good at initiating random and spontaneous project and I show more passion doing trivial study task. I also like to make derpy character designs.

Who am I Now?

• Identify 5 things you have learned so far on the programme

1. MAYA
2. Don Hertzfeld
3. Cinematography
4. How to email creatives
5. Presentation skills

• Identify 5 things that you want to know more about

1. Experimental animation techniques
2. Composting
3. tips and trick in applying for internship
4. Independent animation studios in the UK
5. how to interact with strangers in Britain without coming to be awkward

• Identify 5 skills that you think are your strengths.

1. 2D traditional and Photoshop animation 
2. Sense of colour and composition
3. Character design (but Ive had enough of it for now)
4. Layout design for animation
5. versatility when using new medium of animation

• Identify 5 things that you want to improve.

1. Overcome the awkwardness and interact with professionals
2. Looking for volunteering opportunity in animation and film festivals
3. Putting emotion into my animation
4. Social skills in general
5. idea generation

• Identify 5 practitioners that demonstrate your interest in Animation

1. Lara Lee
2. Ross Hogg
3. Bronwyn Maloney
4. Don Hertzfeld
5. BlinkMyBrain"
6. Chris Simpsons

• Identify 5 websites/online resources that demonstrate your areas of interest within the creative industries.

1. Vimeo
2. Edge of Frame
3. Short of the Week
4. It's Nice That
5. Skwigly
6. http://www.stanvanderbeek.com/

Studio Brief 3 - Life's a Pitch Presentation

We are supposed to make an animation collective for the brief, in which we have to pitch the collective idea to the class. The idea of forming a collective is to bring our names out there, having websites, releasing print publication or even an exhibition of the collective work. I am in a group with Tess, Vlad, Alex, Luke Chandler, and Bash. We call ourselves Blob TV. Our collective idea is to compile each other's work and put it together in the format inspired by The Animation Sketchbook.

I do not contribute much to the group because there are a lot of people in the group. My roles is just helping Tess do a clean up for the layout of the presentation and making the example page arrangement for the print publication. All the research for marketing and others have been done by other group mates. 

The presentation is disorganised and the idea of Blob TV was not strong enough. The main concern from the tutors is the name of our collective: Blob TV because we are not presenting our animations, yet we are putting 'TV' into our group name, which is contradictory. Also what I found from the group is that no one is actually keen to realise the idea. Majority of the people in the group are clueless and remained silent during the presentation. I enjoy the least Blob TV pitch presentation compared to other group works that I am doing throughout the year because the team lacks passion to realise the idea, so the idea does not project well in the mind of the audience.

Starving Artist Podcast

'Artists don't like to talk about money. Perhaps because they don't always make very much of it—or because they risk being dismissed as sellouts if they do.'

"What I find interesting about these conversations is that they very, very quickly stop being about money and start being about ethics, values, and priorities. How you live a good life and create art at the same time"

https://starvingartistpodcast.com/

Honor Eastly is the podcast producer for the podcast series: Starving Artist. She was motivated by the haunting thought of child-bearing's financial effect into her job to financially support her children through making art or even attaining success in art before giving birth to a child. I completely understand where she comes from since making a living through art is not easy. Starving artist podcasts are not meant to be a formula of success, rather than how Honor follows her curiosity and finding out how different people do it.

As quoted above, although the podcasts tackles money matters, different artists have different ways of dealing with their financial obligations. The factors that surfaces when discussing this money issue is much profound because they start to bring in personal considerations, such as ethics, values, and priorities, into the discussion.

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/careers-and-money/like-many-female-artists-im-told-i-work-too-hard-the-reasons-are-complex-20170331-gvb2ni.html

https://creators.vice.com/en_au/article/starving-artist-a-podcast-that-gets-real-about-money-creativity-and-privilege

Creative Report: Lara Lee

The work of the Royal College of Art graduate Lara Lee concerns the human condition, visualising audio into playful imagery in her animations is what makes me want to know her creative practice as an animator and illustrator and also her lifestyle as a freelance artist through an email interview. I have prepared a list of question for her if she were to reply my email, which I unfortunately did not manage to get before the PPP deadline. I blamed myself for this because I procrastinated until less than a week before the PPP hand in to send out the email.

Some of the questions are:

• How do you promote yourself as a free-lance artist who has a specific subject of interest?

• What are the considerations when deciding to work on free-lance projects?

• Is there any financial advice from your experience starting as a free-lance artist?

• I like how you use wide variety of animation techniques in your portfolio. What are the main considerations when choosing the animation medium for each projects?

• In relation to professional practice as a free-lance artist what advice you wish you had known when you are still in the university?

Her work that fascinates me the most is a commissioned animation for Harvard X Neuroscience on Vimeo titled Part 7/8 of Poetry of Perception. However, as I tried to find the link for this blog, I found out that all the videos for this series has been deleted by the channel. 

A screenshot from Part 7/8 of Poetry of Perception

Here is another example of work by Lara Lee back in 2011:
It is an form experimental animation that plays around with flat shapes and colours as according to an audio recording of 4 children describing what they favourite animal looks like. By drawing what they say, Lara Lee investigates how descriptions can make the mind visualise totally different images from the real psyche of the real animals they are describing.

I have got a handful of contemporary animators' names in hand such as Bendik Kaltenborn, Alicja Jasina, Alex Grigg and Ross Hogg who are prolific artists. However, I do not see any point on going further to ask questions to all these other professional creatives in less than a week before deadline for the I cannot see any prospects of them getting back to me. 

Visiting Practitioner - David Bunting

David Bunting from Jellyfish Animation came into out college to give a lecture about his career and storyboarding. On a side note, he is a guy who is ruining the 90s kids childhood as he is the new producer for the new Dennis the Menage and Bob the Builder, but he still proudly announces it to the class. He used to work at Disney in France, and continues to build his career in educational animation. Even though I only attended the first half of his talk, Bunting has raised some good points that makes us feel better in terms of looking for jobs after graduation such as luck as a main factor of getting a job and don't show off too much as it will backfire.

From his talk, I also gained insight of the place of animation art in educational context. A few years back, he was involved in a talent development schema in a secondary school in which the art students made hand drawn animation managed to earn prestigious animation awards. I guess Bunting's humble personality contribute a part when it comes to directing and giving teenagers the creative freedom has made it possible. David Bunting gave a more hopeful perspective on the animation industry to encourage those who want to work for corporate clients or big studios, which is good because the definition success is subjective. He also advised those make feature quality animated film to get into working with studios.

Shaun and Bunting from http://www.buntinganimation.com/

Doodle Book

My doodle book is full of characters and unsuccessful experimentation on different traditional media. Mostly done whenever. It is similar to the easter holiday travel log but more experimental and intuitive rather than observational.

This year I went through a significant personal development and my confidence in drawing and become more proficient in making art to express my thoughts in general, while not as much on the professional. I think I have to put more effort into developing myself professionally, which meant doing things outside my comfort zone.

Easter 2017 Travel Log

I decided to bring a small pocket notebook for my Easter Holiday. The idea is to make reportage illustrations on anything that I found interesting throughout the trip. It feels more natural drawing than note-taking or even verbally recalling memories when I have to explain what I did over the holiday to other people. Moreover, the travel log could be useful for future reference to trigger inspiration for making animation.

The purpose of using a relatively thin book to sketch is to exclusively tell the story of this adventure that I had. I also jot down thoughts inside the notebook sometimes which is rather personal, and I decided not to put up online. What I have been good at doing this year is to put down a pen to write and draw whenever I am deep in thoughts or if something really annoys me. Combining texts and doodles are my thing because I can express myself better with them paired up. Two is better than one. I sticked some of the tickets for museums, castles and transport to contextualise where I found the things that interest me.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the process as it has made me more aware of what's happening in my surroundings than ever before.

Visiting Practitioner - Fraser McLean

Fraser McLean came into our college to give a talk about animation, his career and a life-long lesson that he learnt about life in general. He is definitely a special 'corporate media whore' as he referred to himself to, but he has no choice given that he entered the film industry in 1987 when the capitalist cultural pressure is prominent. As a child he is always keen to watch theatrical shows, and having a journalist dad that put forth his kid's interest, is how McLean comes about to become a cultured man - and therefore he did not watch as much Disney cartoons. I am impressed at McLean because he is a leftist since his early age.

McLean, who started his career as a layout artist by painting shadows in a minute portion of Who Framed Roger the Rabbit, told us that animation is about the soul and spirit. These two important factors shows the essence of characters and hence bring them to life. His appreciation towards animation starts off from his childhood hobby to watch theatrical performance. He explained the importance of this understanding in the job of layout artists because they are the one who plan out the mis-en-scene; background, how characters move around the scenes, cinematography, multilevel camera and others. Design is all the things that is not accident. 

I am fascinated by all these insights that McLean shared with us. One advice that sticks in my mind is that commercial work pays the bills and for the more personal projects that is more experimental and artistic. I feel that he is definitely right about this, and his advice is that we should prioritise creativity over reliance to technology and money. In other words, how do take ourselves out from the capitalistic lifestyle in work environment and make stuffs that we really want to make.

Some other advices:

• Understand the structure of the industry
• Be interested in many kind of art other than just animation
• Observing classical paintings can help us understand how shades and volumes work (He is a Vermeer fan! :-D)
• 'Make friends with lawyers' (they might save your asses)
• Be nice to people. It will benefit you when working long hours collaboratively.

SWOT Analysis: Who Am I at the First Semester of Level 5?

Long time ago, I paired up with Dan for the SWOT Analysis. Dan has been my partner for the Character and Narrative brief that runs throughout the first semester. I realised just a day before PPP hand in that I have not made a post on this. This analysis is a good guideline for my personal development because it is not made by me, it comes from a person who I work with for a few good months, and therefore it is more valuable. Instead of finding a way to apply the SWOT analysis into my creative practice. In this blogpost, I am reflecting on the progress that I have made based on the SWOT analysis by the end of second year. 

Throughout the second semester, I have been focusing on addressing my weaknesses while dismissing all the 'Opportunities' that Dan have written down for me. It is not done begrudgingly, but I feel that I have digressed a lot in terms of my creative ambition for second semester. 

I did well in terms of addressing weakness such as being really slow. I have become much faster when it comes to idea generation and animating with experience juggling the work between Responsive Individual Briefs and the COP Module, in which I produced a loopdeloop animation with a decent concept in just 2 days. Familiarity in using animation techniques is definitely a factor that determines how fast I can complete an animation. 

Stylised loopdeloop animation

As for putting emotions into my animation, I considered it for my loopdeloop Cute animation and the hand painted background for Applied. I find it more straightforward channeling my emotions through brushstrokes on a piece of paper rather than through animation just because I can't really see the outcome immediately especially when I am doing a hand drawn animation. I still have a long way to go when it comes to putting emotions into movements, but I am passionate to learn more about it.

loopdeloop Cute animation

These are the two weaknesses that I have been addressing because I feel that they are the most prominent one. I don't think I can address short attention span and being a very opinionated art snob, while I can perhaps work on creative writing in the future.

The Wrath of Bridezilla

I am gonna try to explain things objectively, but the client for this project was a pain in the ass so I decided to call her bridezilla. 

At the end of September holiday, the client who is a former teacher of mine back in Singapore contacted me and ask me whether I want to make her wedding invitation using watercolour. I was interested because I can learn more about watercolour. The projects at the beginning was fun because I get to experiment different ways of using watercolour. So, the last week of the break, I used my time to paint all the assets for the invitations and a caricature of the bride and groom. She did not give much creative freedom when it comes to the design and she gave me a list of things that she wants in the design such as the flower wreath, the beetle car and the caricature. I told her that I will be busy during term time, so we negotiated, and I told her I can give her a week to finish everything during Christmas Break. She agreed to that. 

Bridezilla starts to get demanding on the very small details of the invitations. I get where she's coming from because everything in a wedding has to be perfect. I even painted the map even if we did not agree about because initially the plan is to get a screenshot off Google Maps and place it at the back of the invitation, in which she asked for expanding the map in return, which I did. At this point I am starting to get annoyed as she is taking too much of my time and I doubt that I am willing to pursue this project further. So, I did not tell my intention to stopping halfway, but I messaged her asking about payments.

Since this is the first time I have ever had (what I consider) a professional freelance job, I want to be transparent with my client. So, I did the maths and decided to send a picture of my calculation to her. 

I calculated the expected additional work hours too in case I have to continue to pursue this project further.

The number actually scared her, and that was her reply. Reading it again does not make me want to come back to Singapore in my whole life. Her reasoning was not even solid because I have been approaching the project in a professional manner and I did a personally customised wedding invitation design for her, while 'online custom wedding (invitation) designs' that she is referring to might be made from existing templates that is customisable by the request of the customer. 

And, of course quoting dodgy website. Foul play.

She keeps on being persistent when I fought back to get the money that I deserve, while being getting really personal about things. It is not worth the time trying to get money off her since I might ended up hurt my pride as an artist even further. So, I decided to settle with 400 SGD (£240), roughly half the price that I expected to be paid. Lesson learnt: Occasionally, I'll get clients like this, who can't appreciate the process of making art as much as they think they could because they don't think like an artist, they think like a businessman who wants to get the best value for themselves while not thinking about the welfare of others.

My  professional reply

In the end, I happily stop working for her although I did not get paid what I deserved. Maybe I should be more of a snob when it comes to work because people might take advantage of me for being too nice to them.

So, I ended off the commitment in a professional manner by making an invoice with terms and conditions that I won't give her any more service and printing advice. I don't care of how it turns out, I cut my ties from her, and congratulate her on her wedding day out of formality.

Presentation Follow Up: A Piece of Advice for Summer 2017

In my PPP Presentation, I explain the direction that I want to go into for Level 6. I want to explore experimental animation, but not fully digress from the narrative storytelling type of animation. The most important thing is that I want to experiment how far I can push the hand crafted aesthetics of traditional animation to the subject matter I am exploring. Low-budget filmmaking has also been my interest this year because I am concerned with my survival with little amount of money while making my own animation when looking for freelance work, studio work, or even fundings.

Some piece of advices from my classmates:

• The most straightforward thing to do is to approach people from the Fine Arts course because they will have better understanding of experimental art and maybe collaborate with them.
• www.edgeofframe.co.uk, a blog about experimental animation which explains the making process of it.
• 16 or 35mm film animation will be a good start.

Steve had a good point on the bridezilla incident that no matter how good you are there are always some assholes that does not appreciate what you are doing. Mostly because they don't really care of the effort that you've put in into the work. Clients trying to get away from spending too much money are common when we are dealing with creative work, but you can't do anything about it since they are in better positions when it comes to legal matter.

I gave this a thought, and I am glad that I experienced this early. Next time I'm asked to do a commission, I should give a careful consideration of the brief: 

• Does it align with my personal belief? 
• Am I passionate with the project (not on the money)? 
• Will it helps to build my portfolio?

I also seek some advice from Mike by the end of a lesson on what should I do over the Summer Break, and here are some good points that he raised:

• The purpose of experimental animation is to make people notice something that they have never thought of about the world and make them wonder. A good starting point is by asking myself what I am curious of or start with what I want to say about real life issues, not limited to just politics.
• Some examples of experimental process inspired by curiosity: Material testing, themes, subject matter, experimentation on audio scape, style testing, ways of storytelling through movements and colours.
• Think about context it will be screened on and the audience demographic.
• Since experimental animation will be a big change for me, he told me to commit myself in making a 30 seconds to a minute experimental animation. 

So, I think my plan for Summer is sorted. I want to do more readings on experimental techniques, develop an idea, and make a 30 seconds to a minute animation. One more thing, once I am back in Jakarta, I want to know more local artists and see what they have going in Jakarta's creative scene.

Sooo much things to do

A Creative Strategy Presentation

Expectations at the start of Level 5

Looking back at the start of Level 5, I felt confident in terms of drawing since I spend my entire holiday perfecting my drawing techniques. I wanted to get my hands down on experimentation of more complex animation techniques such as CGI. 

What goes well

I think have improved in terms of discipline and time management as I managed to submit on time for submissions even though I can't do work during Christmas and Easter for different reasons. I got more comfortable with traditional animation. Throughout the year I made animations using variation of traditional media (watercolour, graphite, collage and paint on glass). I think this is the way to go.

On the other hand, I also tried out CGI Animation using MAYA for my Character and Narrative animation, overall I am proud with the result, I do think that I am quite proficient animating and modelling but using MAYA had drained all the energy out of me. So, even though it went well, I don't want to go towards that direction. 

I have overcome my hatred towards the long process of animating and therefore I have become more keen to animate. This is mainly because I have discovered a wider range of animation techniques than last year. I can think of a suitable animation style for different narratives in order to put forth emotions into my animation.

My contextual research for practical briefs are on point! I have learned to thoroughly research subject matters, and use these relevant research materials to develop ideas for animation. As an animator, I believe that every aspects of a good animation has to reflect all the quality work put in the making process.

Problems

I feel anxious about PPP when we have to contact professionals because I am the least proactive when it comes to interacting with strangers and I don't have a strong enough ambition to get in touch with them. Moreover, in terms of researching for people to contact, I think I did badly. So I ended up with contacting just one person called Lara Lee for Creative Report, but she has not gotten back to me yet. I regret all these procrastination and also not asking Steve on how to approach people earlier.

After Bridezilla's wedding invitation project that I did over Christmas Break, getting into the industry has not been my priority for Level 5 since it has successfully run over the time I have planned to use for COP and Responsive. It has also made me question the value that I placed on my work and gave me an existential crisis for quite a while.

Future

Based on what I have enjoyed this year, what I might do in the future is to try out more experimental ways to make things move. I've looked at experimental animation videos on Vimeo, and I am intrigued by the artists' creativity to investigate unconventional ways of animation filmmaking that works.

I felt overworked this year. Thus, for the beginning of summer break, I want to have a proper rest in order to give some headspace to think for Level 6 later on. I am determined to find a tone of voice that I am passionate about and to research things that triggers curiosity. Recently, I had an interest on the idea of low-budget, sustainable filmmaking processes. I think I had found a handful of artists who focused on these processes, which is a good start to define my point of interest when it comes to animation and art in general.

Study Task 3: Animation Studio Research

Moth Collective is a collective of animators, who now owns an animation studio located at East London. The three key people in the company are David Prosser, Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits and Daniel Chester. I am interested with these bunch because I am interested in their approach of making animations that resonate with their feelings about sociopolitical issues, and ultimately make an impact on societal level. Moth Collective has build a strong body of works since their time at Royal College of Art, which attracts clients such as editorial, charity and NGOs. The first film that makes me interested in their work was 'The Last Job on Earth'. Oscar, who is now on his 3rd Year in the course, showed me this animated film. It was not my favourite work from them, but it got me into doing further research about the Moth Collective. 

Moth Collective is pretty selective of the projects they are doing; they only take projects that trust their creative instinct as filmmakers. They admitted that they always did thorough research of their clients before accepting any projects offer because they prioritise trust and creative freedom, which at some instances clients do not want to compromise.

It looks like that they had it easy, being approached by business and never the first one to seek for projects. However, the collective had worked their way through building up a unique portfolio since they were studying in RCA. They have their own stylistic approach to animation, which applies strong understanding of visual language such as the use of negative space, textures and fractured images reconstructing. Unlike a vast majority of animation artists nowadays whose inspirations are mainly from mainstream animation features, video games and YouTube, the artists of Moth Collective are influenced by some avant garde art movements including constructivism and post-impressionism (Henri Rousseau).

They are quite easy-going as a company. Terrible at business and fights a lot for a good story. Dave, Margaux and Dan focuses on getting 'a few individual voices that go to the same direction', agreeing on ideas and combine style together. On one of their interviews I've listened to, they shared a pretty pragmatic advice on making animation (within time and budget constraint): 'keep the animation for the most important bits that need to be punctuated with fluid movements' also be realistic with the clients, don't just do whatever they told you to do, instead negotiate. I have to add to this: Don't negotiate on the last minute, establish a clear expectation from the client before even starting the brief so that you won't get into a quarrel. (I've learnt it the hard way from working for a mad bridezilla)

I can't get in touch with them because I've only sent the email last week, but I have learnt a lot about the Moth Collective just by listening to their podcast interviews.

Here is a prove of the e-mail that I sent them:

In conclusion to this, I would like to bring into light Tom (Hallgarten)'s protest in today's presentation. I respect his bravery in voicing out his contention regarding the PPP2 module and its incoherence to the social responsibility of artists; to make art that we believe in and that we hope will benefit the society. His protest gets me to re-evaluate my purpose of making animations and whether it is good enough to benefit others. Despite having read a lot of books that recapitulate the potential of animation art as a medium to communicate beliefs to the masses, fun aesthetic is a go-to solution whenever I make my animation. I realised that it is easy to get fixated on the superficial things, not putting much thoughts in developing a meaningful narrative for an animation that can potentially improve current sociopolitical conditions. I hate to conform to the capitalist system, which is why the protest gave me a sudden existential crisis. Settling with a day job after graduating from the college would be a worse case scenario for me because I cannot afford living a day without thinking about and doing art, but at the same time I do not want to be forced to work for clients that do not trust and do not give creative freedom. There is no quick way to discover my own unique tone of voice as an artist, but having my own opinion on things is probably a small step forward to figure it out. Ultimately, this protest serves as a reminder to pursue what I believe is right, and not be a 'corporate media whore'.

Sources

(websites)
https://www.moth.studio/
https://www.creativereview.co.uk/animation-studio-moth-collective-on-film-making-sensitive-storytelling-and-choosing-clients/
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/advertising/moth-collectives-forest-500-animates-reality-rainforest-destruction-125281.html
http://www.skwigly.co.uk/moth-collective-deliver-the-last-job-on-earth/
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/search?q=Moth%20Collective

(Podcasts)
http://podbay.fm/show/848275029/e/1403085782
https://soundcloud.com/animalators/22_moth_collective