GRANT GILBERT

SHOWREEL

Grant Gilbert, many years ago studied here in Stockport College. Today he has become the renowned name behind the recent rebrand of BBC One, responsible for the contemporary visual style of channel 4, and the ‘eye flash’ break bumper of Big Brother. His clients list I find is the most impressive of all the other guest lecturers working in motion graphics. I believe to have worked on a high level of rebrand for a client like BBC was a very big job for a motion graphic/ graphic designer.

Though very successful, in the rebrand for BBC, he went through a lot of frustrating times with the creative’s involved with the project as he did not have a lot of creative freedom which puts a lot of restrictions on his ideas and execution. This he mentioned is very typical of some clients and that our time in uni is an opportunity for us to explore our ideas and have the freedom we need to create what we want.

The most appealing of his work for me his 4Music Advert. I absolutely like the piece of work and the processes he used in creating it. The fact that it was not entirely computer generated. I really like the bit where he described how the neon light movements where created. He had dancers all dressed up in black with the neon lights wrapped around them in a dark environment which made everything else invisible except the neon lights. This allows for a real time movement of the light and this really works well. I believe that such a high level of fluidity in the movements of the lights / lines may not have been achieved to such a high level if it was computer generated.

Another bit I really like is the movement of the image in the tent. How it appears to be blurred off. Very brilliant piece of work that really captures music as an art.

He talked about the BBC One promo. The promo with the swimming hippos. He said they had a call from a person who pointed out to them that hippos do not swim. I found that shocking to know that they could have had that sort of lapse in their research. This stresses the point that I should always get my research and facts right as a simple mistake in research can brake a project apart.

The More4 idents with the simple shapes interacting in a clever way with each other really works well. The black and green color scheme works. I feel that the progression of the green color from a light green to a darker green ( Blend moods) made it more successful as you can visually follow the rhythm of the shapes. Grant went on to talk about the process of creating it.. That they had to come up with numerous ideas before they came up with the final one. I think it is better to have several rubbish ideas than to have 1 main idea. This point also ties up to the point he made when he talked about a promo idea he had for BBC at the pitch. The idea was having a lot of people with red boards coming together to form the BBC logo. This idea was rejected by the BBC. It suddenly reminds me o f the processes we go through in college when we discuss out project with the tutors. Sometimes they are pleased with an idea but sometimes, they are not. But instead of giving up, we should push out selves for other ideas and who knows, it could become that clever idea.

I really enjoyed the lecture as he had a very impressive portfolio of work which was very relevant to my pathway.