Moonraker VFX So Far

Moonraker VFX so far

I started working for Moonraker at the start of October 2019, pretty much as early as I possibly could. In the beginning, I found out about the placement from my Uncle Ian, who had continuously been battering me to email Simon, the managing director of Moonraker. He had been mentioning it to me for some time now; however, I thought I’d never get in.

It was when I found out we needed to do over 300 hours of industry placement I realised it would probably be a good idea to pop Simon an email, introducing myself and questioning him if his company did offer work experience. When I received the Email back (which is quite rare to get in the media industry) I was thrilled, he liked my showreel I sent over, and he did indeed offer me some work experience! We sent a few emails back and forth and after that organised the dates, to see if I could work there every Friday up until possibly the spring of 2020. The deal we came to agree on was to work there until Christmas break then, end it there. However, I have since asked if I could possibly stay until February 2020, however it is all dependent on if they have enough desk space to accommodate me.

So, what have I been up to! On the first few weeks, I was learning the software Adobe After Effects and familiarising myself with the software. After this, I was briefed with my projects, which were to create as many social media shorts (1 min each) as I possibly could for Moonraker’s new website and new social media pages too. These showreels would be compiled on Aftereffects, with a custom animated Moonraker logo for each showreel; this was hard, but also a challenging part for myself.

I have since fully completed two showreels as of December, with two others in the Animating stage. I have found that attending the industry placement every Friday refreshing; actually, it is a nice break from a long week at college and work. The people who work at Moonraker are also really relaxed as is the atmosphere too, we all go out as a group for lunch, and it is just fascinating to talk to them and find out about their stories of how they got the industry.

So how do I present myself to Moonraker, for the first few weeks I always wore a shirt and smart jeans, however the longer I was working there, the more I realised how laid back the company is, so I now wear jeans and a tee-shirt and maybe a hoody, because that is what everyone else does, I am a believer that you also work better when you are comfortable, so I think it helps me too. However, when I was at Icon films, I would still wear my buttoned shirts every day of the week as that fitted their style more.

Overall my time at Moonraker so far has been fantastic, I do not know where else I could have learnt the skills I have so far, it has been an incredible time so far, and I hope to continue learning more and more so that maybe I can incorporate some of the skills I have learnt into my final college FMP.