Complementary Areas

There are quite a few areas of video practice that are complementary to my other areas of interest. Outside of video my main area of interest is animation, and there's a whole lot of stuff that's equally useful in both. Lighting is an area that is incredibly important in video work, and the same is true for animation. Whether you're physically lighting stop motion animation as you would a video shoot, or creating virtual lighting set ups in maya or AE, the same fundamentals and principles apply. I also have an interest in photography, and naturally lighting well is essential to get the right results. Lighting in general is an area I intend to learn a lot more about, as it makes such a massive effect on the look and mood of whatever you're working on.

Storyboarding and idea development process for video is also exactly the same as the process I use for planning out animation, albeit without the character development. Storyboarding is essential for both video and animation to ensure you know how shots in a scene are going to flow together, and so you know exactly how you want things to look when you actually shoot/compose a scene.

The general level of organisation and planning needed to sucessfully shoot a scene in a video can and should be applied to all other areas of work. The organisation of equipment, people, locations etc and the planning of lighting set-ups, camera tests, shooting schedules etc are really important to a good outcome, and spending that ammount of time preparing for any kind of work will help acheive a better end result.