Unit 1D People & Organisation

We were first introduced to Janette, someone who we had been in contact with through email about attending the academy. She was the director of the academy and one of our pastoral leaders. She introduces us to Drew Roper, Nina Jones, Katy Rice and Idriss assoumanou who were the rest of the pastoral leaders.

Drew Roper owned a studio call Yamination studios, specializing in creating animation. He is the director of Yamination. He has worked with companies to create adverts for their brands, such as coke, Apple, Nike. He’s also worked on the set of Fantastic Mr Fox and has received seven awards. He gave us some tips on how to make it in the industry, he told us networking is key; you must stay in contact people, find ways to be careful; with money and most importantly NEVER GIVE UP! Drew 

Katy Price also worked with Drew at Yamination and had graduated from Coventry University. She wasn’t a 100% sure in the direction she wanted to go in as she did not focus on animation, she knew she was good at drawing and like that, it’s well she was working with Drew she realised she had great organising skills and was great with spread sheets, Drew offered her an internship and has been working for him since as his production assistant in which she helps with budgets creates contacts and sponcers, she also organises kick starter campaigners which she beat as she needed 10 grand but got just under 14. she helps with day to day running such as travels, events and anything they need. Katy was 22 when she realised her passion for work, which lead her to gain experience and worked with people like Drew.

questions which I received from the company:

What has been your biggest job?

We’ve had two commissions of note at the moment, which we’re really proud of. The first was a set build for Coca Cola’s commercial, ‘The Building’. This was high profile project (as it was due to debut at the 2014 Super Bowl in the USA), so we were sworn to secrecy until it was released. Unfortunately due to losing out on a bid for advertising space, it was eventually released online only. To date it has had thousands on views on YouTube alone, not counting the number who will have heard about it or seen through Coca Cola’s numerous social platforms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhTiyQU1kA

The second was the set build for Cravendale’s ‘Barry the Biscuit Boy’. This was shown for a period of 9 months on UK broadcasting channels for ITV in 2014. This was a fantastic experience working to beautiful designs, and we were really pleased with the outcome. The best bit was witnessing something we had created, day to day on television in front of us! Hopefully this is a taste of things to come!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-PfqVlBUuQ

Where are you aiming to be in 10 years?

It’s easy to dream big and hope that everything will happen really quickly for us. In reality, it always takes longer than you think. Drew set the company up on his own in 2009, and it wasn’t until 2012 that the rest of the ‘team’ (as it is at the moment) joined him. Two years on and we’re still in really early stages. In the next couple of years we’ll be working hard to get our short film ‘Oscar’s Flying Heroes’ commissioned so that we can begin building the entire set, and filming. Ideally within five years we might be in a position where we are working on a television series for broadcast on UK channels. In ten years the dream would be to be building and animating on a feature film. It’s ambitious – we’re still a small company with a long way to go…but it may be achievable. We just need to keep working hard and fingers crossed! 

How do you get yourself noticed by big companies?

The UK film and television industry is all about word of mouth and creating a good impression. Lucky for us, Drew is blessed with a ‘show man’ personality, and people warm to him really well. This means he has a fantastic network of contacts, who in turn now know who we are! In a different way Yossel’s (our Head of Art Department) reputation speaks for itself. He’s worked on a number of high profile projects (including John Lewis’ ‘Bear and the Hare’, Disney’s ‘Frankenweenie’ and ‘The Fantastic Mr Fox’). Due to his natural talent, and commitment to the projects he has worked on, people in the industry are interested in what he’s now up to – which leads to us. I’m picking up over time that how you present yourself and your company is so important, as is maintaining positive, strong relationships with your peers. Early next year we are hoping to host a launch party for our new, rebranded studio. We’ll invite lots of big names in the industry (hope that they turn up!) and show off our beautiful new studio, with its big workshops and shooting rooms, and masses of potential! We’re hoping that with enough press attention and word of mouth this could be our catalyst to getting noticed and becoming a serious contender in the film industry. Watch this space!

Nina Jones wasn’t like Drew as she was a freelancer, she specialised in editing. When she started off she wasn’t sure what to do, she spent a while being a runner, she had different jobs, but one thing she knew was she loved movies. This got her studying for HND. She went to Wolver Hampton University and has done work with people organisation like Blue Hippo Studios. she has worked with them for various projects. she mainly focuses on community based documentary and is an experienced in Camera edit. she helps people by training them in film making workshops for a wide variety of age groups and abilities 
She too knew gave us useful tips but they were much like Drew’s. 

Pip Piper is a producer who came in and told us a little about himself. He produced The Bicycle Film. He was originally a youth worker then started working for a media charity, which lead him to Blue Hippo and there he became the producer. He worked with commercials and directed smaller movies. He did a documentary called the last shop standing. The longest project he worked on took around ten years to make, edit and distribute, it was called The Insatiable. To make the movie they originally had £7 million however £4 million of that was taken away as the sponsoring hadn’t been locked which was a huge loss. This made him want to distribute the movies by himself, which he did for Last Shop Standing and The Bicycle Film and they were made by crowd funding as it meant they had more control of how the money was circulated. He is still working on going projects and will be cringing out new documentaries and is still doing an on going project with the Bicycle Film.

 Michael had received a BAFTA for his short film Brown Paper Bag and won a children’s BAFTA. His main directing skills are in documentaries and dramas. We got given a chance to ask him question, I myself am very interested in Directors and their style so I asked what kind of Auteur he was and he replied that he didn’t have a specific style however he liked to focus on characters, which really showed in his movie The Bicycle Film as there was a lot on the people link to the Bike. He is working with Pip on other projects, which will come out later.

Idriss had just graduated from BCU and I found out also went to Joseph chamberlain like me and to prove that it’s a smaller world then we thought he was also taught by the same media teacher as me (Sam) who told me about the BFI. I felt that having Idriss as a Mentor would be brilliant as he was going through the stages that I will go through and has been through things I'm going through so I could ask him for help if needed. Idriss has been involved in films for various people and is correctly working on his own films. his strength lies is being able to create things at professional levels in production sector however his weakness lies in paper works, such as script writing which he is working on.

Networking program to talk to people in the industry. We already met a few as they came earlier in the week however we got to speak to the one on one. I was able to get a lot of cards with people who I could email in order to get work experience and help and had cake and a lot of coffee.

Talking to these people has allowed me to see the different career roles I could go in to, from animation, to producing, directing or free lancer. I myself like the idea of working with a company, something more stable and working with people also makes me happy. When talking to Katy who is a part of Yamination, she told me about the hurdles they faced and how they got over them together making them close friends and a better team. I'd like to work with people like that and I also was able to make connections with people giving me options for my future just in case I don't work in a company I can still manage on my own.