Today as a part of PPP we had a visit from Aardman Cinematographer Dave Alex Riddett, who provided us with some interesting insight into Aardman's creative process from a pre-production perspective. He shared with us his experiences working for Aardman over the past 30 or so years, working on projects such as The Wrong Trousers and the more recent Shaun the Sheep movie. He also shared with us some of the challenges of adapting animation in an ever changing media landscape, such as incorporating more digital technologies, going on to show us the elaborate process in which he composited a scene from multiple takes in the Shaun The Sheep Movie and went on to explain how such a feat was virtually impossible in the days of Chicken Run and The Wrong Trousers.
I asked him a few questions regarding what companies such as Aardman were looking for in a pre-visualisation portfolio, as that is an area in which I am interested in. He responded by saying that what is most important is the ability to effectively communicate ideas effectively and quickly. He stressed that it was not so much in the presentation of ideas but rather the effectiveness of the ideas themselves. A good grasp of mise en scene was also required in order to succeed in previsualisation he said, with a clear and concise understanding of elements of design such as the construction of a scene, the lighting, staging, tone as well as some of the more practical and technical elements.
