Blue Zoo Studio Tour (27/02/2019)

'The external view of Chesterfield House'

'Group photo with Blue Zoo animation director Will Cook'

Yesterday a group of the year 3's head into London to check out the Blue Zoo Studio, located in the Fitzrovia area of central London. The building is perched on top of a Tesco express, overlooking Great Portland Street.

What strikes you looking upwards to this unsuspecting apartment building is the fact it homes the creative team known as Blue Zoo. You might never guess that within this wall of brick is the buzzing hive mind that spurs to life the notable children Television shows 'Go Jetters' (2015-2019), 'Digby Dragon' (2016), 'Q Pootle 5' (2013), 'Mac and Izzy' (2016), 'Numberblocks' (2017-2019), its predecessor 'Alphablocks' (2010-2013), and 'Miffy's Adventures Big and Small' (2015-2019)… their advertising with 'The Tale of Ring Pop Gummy Gems' (2018), and their unique range of short films. The latter yields freedom for creatives to explore interesting forms of animation, that perhaps is intended for the older demographic. Films like 'Christmas with the Moonies' (2018) sees the conspiracy of burying Santa Claus turn into reality; 'Daddy Christmas' (2014) a humorous nods towards 'Alien' (1979), and action packed 'No More Stuff' (2013), that are all part of the seasonal shorts programme. More contemplative shorts include 'Mamoon' (2017); a story about a mother protecting her child at the expense of herself, and 'A Whale's Tale' (2018); a potent tale about a Whale and young boy each dealing with the effects of water pollution.

Often their workload comes from both the companies internal short programme (wherein anyone within the studio has an equal chance of pitching their own idea for an animated short, and everyone votes for which ever one they prefer), and external companies/clients who contact Blue Zoo on the basis of their past work.

Christmas with the Moonies from Blue Zoo on Vimeo

The First Murder from Blue Zoo on Vimeo.

The studio's London team is split across two buildings (one based in 2D production, and the other 3D). We were allowed access to the latter, which spanned 3/4 floors that each housed their own designated project. Projects for Blue Zoo often have a quick turnaround (with around 2 projects every month or less than), to help publicise the company name. Their physical work layout reflects this. Each stage of the pipeline flows onto the next, with storyboarders sat alongside concept artists and modellers, and post-production effects alongside editors etc. Occasionally the company receives premade models, rigs, textures and resources from external sources, or from their existing library, to help with specific tasks and to enforce the efficiency of episode releases. Additionally there's also current experiments into alternative rendering options, so to allow for more time actually working on each episode.

We had the chance to peek over the shoulders of the hundred employees, all hunched over their respective work. Along with the more recognised series, I also glimpsed their current lesser known projects; their newest short that's yet to be released was mentioned at the VFX Festival for using Real-Time to render, and the new Paddington TV series due to be released/aired in 2020. They commented they'd only just started animating last Monday, so the projects still in early stages. 

'The new 'Paddington' TV Series is said to be released some time next year.'

Some of the programs being used included the Redshift renderer, Unreal engine, and other useful plug in tools to aid in animation/drawing; Tween Machine, Anim Picker, Studio Library, and Substance Painter. One thing that stuck with me yesterday was seeing one artist sketching in program I hadn't recognised. I tried to see the name but hadn't wanted to distract them from their work. On further research I found the program to be PanelForge, a visual storytelling tool that allows artists to previsualise each shot by drawing over existing 3D layouts. This helps the artist solve problems with layout/composition before actually animating in Maya. Additionally they can also draw up a storyboard that concentrates solely on character animation, without having to obsess over the smaller elements (the perspective of background elements, etc.). This ultimately helps avoid having an entirely separate layout department in the process.

'Example of comparison between 'PanelForge' Animatic, Layout and Final Render provided by Fizzy Production Ltd.'

All these programs are worth checking out. Not only to help expand ones own concepts/practise, but also for employability purposes. It's also worth discussing and sharing ideas with others in/across the industry, to help expand ideas and build on confidence.
While, for Blue Zoo anyway, you're not expended to know everything, and can be eased into the job while learning certain programs, your shouldn't expect this to always be the case. For many companies needing skilled workers, this applies onto to a certain point.
You're obviously expected to be proactive in your learning and quick to pick it up. Also this leeway for learning is accessible if you're particularly good in one area, and are perhaps lacking in another. Their company recognises that like themselves at one point, you've still a lot to learn that one can only pick up from being in the industry. And in terms of interviews, the very fact a company has invited you/contacted you with the potential for a job proves that your work is technically good enough for the job. Thus don't be disheartened if you're not accepted. You're on the right track.
For additional tips and advice in job-hunting, we were directed by Will Cook to his personal site 'AnimScrawl': https://www.animscrawl.com/blog
There's plenty of content there worth checking out if you get the chance!

All in all, I'm incredibly thankful for Blue Zoo for having offered us the opportunity to visit their studio. Especially while everyone was so busy on their current projects! I feel I've learnt a lot from the experience. It was exciting seeing everyone hard at work, and am eager now to push myself to this standard of work/employability.

References

AWN Staff Editor (2017), 'Blue Zoo Animation's 'Numberblocks' Launching on CBeebies', [Online]. Available at: https://www.awn.com/news/blue-zoo-animations-numberblocks-launching-cbeebies [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]
Editors at Advanced Television Ltd. (2019), 'Paddington TV series from StudioCanal, Nickelodeon', [Online]. Available at:  https://advanced-television.com/2019/02/14/paddington-tv-series-from-studiocanal-nickelodeon/ [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]

Editors of Bluegfx Ltd. (2018), 'Tom Box, PanelForge', [Online]. Available at: https://www.bluegfx.com/expo/107-tom-box-panelforge [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]
Editors of Blue Zoo Animation Studio, (2019), 'Creative to the Core', [Online]. Available at: https://www.blue-zoo.co.uk/feed/creative-to-the-core/ [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]
Editors of Panel Forge Ltd. (2019), 'PanelForce Features: The Complete Pre-production Solution', [Online]. Available at: https://www.panel-forge.com/index.php/features/ [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]
Editors of Panel Forge Ltd. (2019), 'Home', [Online]. Available at: https://www.panel-forge.com/ [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]
Keslassy, Elsa (2019), 'Studiocanal, Nickeodeon Partner on New 'Paddington' TV Series With Ben Whisaw', [Online]. Available at: https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/paddington-tv-series-ben-whishaw-studiocanal-nickelodeon-1203139694/ [Accessed Date: 28/02/2019]