By Ludo Thomas

Kick it up 

The term started with a bang, a few changes to the normal routine and perhaps we were thrown off a bit, because as a group we let ourselves down pitching to Metro, lesson learned the hard way after a stern talking to and it’s something that I know Fat Penguin won’t let happen again.

I don’t like the phrase, ‘New Year, New Me’, it’s not only cringy, but it’s a bit of a cop out. In order to feel good about ourselves we allow for a ‘clean slate’ or a ‘fresh start’ simply because we pass from one year to the next, for me it doesn’t sit right. I mean, if you want to change something about yourself accept you weren’t doing it right before and just get on with it, be mentally strong and be disciplined, simple.

After speaking to Marc at the end of last term I can hold my hand up and say that I probably slipped into this bracket because although I was getting on fairly ok, I knew I was nowhere near my peak and I definitely still had a few more gears to climb. Marc told me I needed to be doing more. More scabs, more topicals, more scamps, more problem solution and more putting into practice the skills we were being taught, because this was the quickest way to learn and thus the quickest way of becoming a better creative.

So it’s term 2, week 2, and with this in mind, for now, it’s all about productivity. And certainly comparing it to last term, I feel I’ve kicked things up a notch and I’m happy about. It’s taken me a while to get my head around topicals, and perhaps the fact that Pjotr Pan and I have had about 3 or 4 of them declined in the last two weeks probably says I still need to work on them, but I only attempted 1 in the first term, so term 2 is looking good. It was also nice to know that our idea for one of them is actually being made for real by a top agency, we missed the boat by a matter of hours, but the crit offer was a nice commiseration. We’re on the right lines.

It’s all about making good habits, and after listening to advice from mentors, senior creatives and the very useful scab by Adam Newby (thanks) it’s something I’m now trying to put into practice. We are told that quantity leads to quality, so in keeping with this I’ve been getting into the habit of scamping in the mornings before school, I can’t admit to doing it everyday, but it’s something I’m working on, and something I’m trying to cement into my routine.

Scabs, I still find them a bit alien if I’m honest. I’ve never been a big one for writing down my feelings, I tend to keep them bottled way deep down. So I’ll probably just stick to the rota on this one.  

Problem solution is there or thereabouts, I’m keeping my eyes out and trying to be more vigilant and it’s certainly becoming one of the first thoughts when tackling a brief.

Lastly, I’ve found it isn’t just about being proactive in the classroom but also good to do stuff that I wouldn’t normally do outside of school. This new inspired me came about last Friday thanks my French/Welsh comrade Le Harry who persuaded me and a few other Penguins to go to the London (Animated) Short Film Festival in Charring Cross. I was so glad I went. Squashed into a narrow auditorium for an hour and thirty minutes, we were subjected to some of the most wonderfully weird animations I’d ever seen. They were brilliant, and not only did I encounter some new styles of animation I had never seen before, but it also demonstrated the limitless potential storytelling has to offer. Mind blowing. And another habit I’ll be continuing with.