Sabrina Gardiner

London, United Kingdom
Since very young, I have been fascinated with drawing, writing, and how animations work. I especially enjoy creating my own characters, which can then be used for writing stories and scripts, drawing images, producing animations, or illustrating books and comic strips. Throughout my creative career, I have experimented with different art styles to find out which design best matches me and my characters’ ethos and worldview.

Although I have been involved with creative activities for many years now, I only recently began to apply my drawing skills to animation and moving image. I used Flash on my home computer a few years ago to create several short animations.

Studying Digital Media at City & Islington has greatly expanded on my drawing and writing skills. Through studying two media courses, I have amassed a large knowledge of using the Adobe Creative Suite of creative media applications, but especially After Effects, Premiere, Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator as these are the programs I use the most to animate, edit videos and design images. Recently, I have started to use the industry-standard Autodesk 3ds Max to build and amend 3D models for use in animation.

Work Experience

The Film & Video Workshop

Multimedia Practitioner

I obtained this work placement as part of the Work-Based Learning Module of my university degree.

On the first day, I was given an induction on the workplace and how to operate the different machines, hardware, software, storage media and computers.

I composed emails to my clients and edited online documents and spreadsheets using Google Docs. I also wrote letters in Word to send out to clients.

I re-learned After Effects by making a short animation of white clouds floating across a blue sky, and re-learned some Premiere.

I learnt how to use Final Cut Pro to import and edit videos, downloading sound effects from the Internet to synchronise with the video, cutting at the end of every scene, and adding titles and credits.

At the end of each day, I recorded the details of my work in my diary, which can be read by potential employers as evidence of my work experience.
January 2015 - Present London, United Kingdom

The Old Fire Station

Rotoscoping Animator

We were commissioned to create a short animated film about the then-upcoming London 2012 Olympics.

After the outlines of each scene were drawn onto animation cels, I painted the outlines by using acrylic paint, being careful not to go outside the outlines, then scanned the painted cels into a Mac computer and used Final Cut Pro to log each clip and stitch them all together.
February 2012 - March 2012 London, United Kingdom

Artikal Films

Audiobook Editor

I obtained this work placement as part of my secondary school's work experience programme.

I decided to produce a short audiobook based on my own characters I had created.

First, I made a mind-map about what was going to happen in the story, the settings, and the characters. I then wrote a script based on the notes I'd taken, following the conventions of scriptwriting.

Once I'd finished writing my script, I recorded it using a microphone and audio recorder. The recording took place in a quiet location, so that external noises would not disrupt my talking. I had to adjust my voice according to the characters' accents - audio is not a visual medium.

Afterwards, I uploaded the audio piece onto a computer, where I used Final Cut Pro to edit the sound, such as cutting out unnecessary silence and correcting any lines I got wrong.

Once I'd finished editing my audiobook, I created a CD label and printed it onto a blank CD, then I burnt the audiobook onto the CD. I burnt several more copies of the audio CD using a special CD burner.

I played the finished audiobook back to my colleagues and employers for them to give feedback.
September 2010 - October 2010 London, United Kingdom

Education

London Metropolitan University

Foundation Degree in Digital Media Design

September 2013 - Present London, United Kingdom

City & Islington College

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production

September 2011 - July 2013 London, United Kingdom

Park View Academy

GCSEs

February 2008 - July 2011 London, United Kingdom

Languages

English (Native),
Spanish (Fluent),
French (Conversational),
German (Beginner),

Skills

Actionscript, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Flash, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro , Animation, Autodesk 3Ds Max, Character Design, Comic Life, Excel, Final Cut Pro, Illustration, IMovie, Powerpoint, The Gimp, Web Design, Word, Writing,