Alumni Stories - Daire Powell
"This award has helped boost my confidence in that my more personal stories and worlds can be understood outside my own space"
NCAD - Alumni Design Competition Achievement Interview
Designer: Daire Powell
Occupation: Animator/Filmmaker
Course/Graduation: Moving Image BA 2023
Discipline(s): Animation & Moving Image
Residence: Dublin
Design Competition Awards/Achievements:
▪ RSA Student Design Awards 2023 (Marketing Trust Award)
▪ Institute of Designers in Ireland Graduate Award 2023 in Animation
Briefly describe your design project?
The Friend, The Dove & The Deer is a conversational piece on the societal pressures and predetermined roles of individuals from contrasting life origins. This anthology film follows four characters, each in their own narratives, and how their experiences with the noise and pressured livelihood have impacted their mental state. A selection of media processes are used throughout the piece to convey the different perspectives of each narrative, mostly linking to forms of imagery inspired by childhood memory or pastimes.
I knew from the beginning of the project that I wanted to create a film that had completely original assets, so I decided to collaborate with my friend Fionn Brennan from Search Results, who composed the soundtrack, and my sister Caoimhe Powell, who was the designer of the wardrobe for the stop motion chapter in the film.
I had actually originally written each chapter of the story as individual short stories while I was having observational thoughts on public transport or in my room. As soon as we were told to think about our “topic” for our final graduation piece, I realised that these worlds and characters that I was creating had similar themes of pressures and societal influences. I was heavily inspired by the film “The House” by Emma De Swaef, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Paloma Baeza and Marc James Roels, which is a beautiful stop motion film that contains chapters of different stories with thematic links within those world, so I decided to combine my short stories into something larger and anthological.
The process of animation on this piece was definitely a struggle in the time that I had.
Overall, it probably took about 4-5 months to animate on top of the months I spent building the physical set and scenes in Blender prior. I feel as though I did give myself a bit too much work in the time that I had for production, especially while working on all the visuals alone, but I do believe putting myself into the project as much as I did helped as a learning curve for time management and was definitely worth it in the end.
Briefly describe how you look for high profile design competitions to enter?
In the beginning, I didn’t really think about design competitions or entering my work into anything as I was only creating for the purpose of expression and worldbuilding. I do think it is important to originally think about your ideas somewhat on a “personal level”, asking yourself if the topic you are exploring is enough to satisfy your own interests even if you don’t receive any recognition. But as I had conversations with my tutors and peers, I realised that it is also important to put your work out there. Especially if you think that your work can benefit others in a public space. To figure out for yourself if a certain design competition is for you, I would recommend visiting those specific organisations' social media pages and websites to understand their views and goals for the world and how your design will be used or represented by entering those Competitions.
I found out about the RSA Student Design Awards and the IDI Graduate Awards through my Moving Image tutor, Rory Hanrahan, who told me to enter towards the end of the year and referenced students from the year before that had entered. So the only advice I would have for finding out about competitions or festivals is just to stay socially involved with your peers and others that have experience in a creative space. I know networking can be a daunting experience for other people as it was for me, but even just following certain artists on social media, keeping an eye out for the creative events that they get involved in, is a great way to network whether it's done through social interaction or just in the form of research.
Briefly describe the work that goes into submitting a professional design competition entry?
I think it’s important to document your process as you work, with creating an entry in mind or not. For Moving Image works this would include still frames from the piece and possibly some GIF previews. Some competitions will ask for you to supply documents that include your rationale or production research so they can further understand the thinking and process. I definitely had familiarity with collecting and organising my work mid production because I have been working as a freelancer for around seven years and clients usually ask for drafts of the work to make any revision process as smooth as possible. I specifically remember that my other submission, Travelling the Maze of Concrete Injustice, to the RSA Student Design Awards went very smoothly because I had already created a research board which they asked to supply during the Interview stage. Not all competitions will have interviews, such as the IDI Awards, but it is also something that can happen in the judging process, especially if there are different stages in the decision of the winners. So definitely something I like to have workings prepared for!
Something that I think also really helped me for submissions is having a concise description/rationale of about 250 words on your entry. In Moving Image Design in NCAD we were asked to write something along these lines when we were finishing up on our pieces, so that made the submission a little less time consuming. I would recommend writing this before or during production as it can actually help you fully understand the important aspects of your work. Having this description before completion helped me to make fine tuning decisions that would benefit the overall effect of my film. I think it allowed me to step away from the details of the piece that I was so focused on for a very long time and look at the overall picture that I had created so far.
Briefly describe what was it about your submission that made it stand-out from the competition?
There was a lot of dynamic growth throughout the process of making The Friend, The Dove & The Deer. From making the decision of combining my writings into one piece, to exploring the different media processes that I was experimenting with at the time to help suggest the perspective storytelling format. I had been influenced by many different sources other than modern Moving Image work which allowed my visuals to become something unique to me.
I think that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what made my piece stand out the most to the judges of IDI but I would like to think that they understood the hard work and dedication that I put into creating a world and story that was unique in feeling and spoke to the viewer in a relatable way. Having a completely original soundtrack and hand crafted asset collection definitely helped my piece strongly amongst the competition. The story of The Friend, The Dove & The Deer is supposed to be interpreted in a personal tone in response to upbringing versus societal adulthood; the loss of childhood innocence in place of worries or anxiety. I hope that this message successfully broke through to the judges and allowed them to reflect on this personally.
Although there is a rise in this behaviour in filmmaking these days, I think my use of different visual styles and processes, mixing both digital and practical, may have made my piece feel fresh to the judges and given me their respect.
Briefly describe what impact will your design competition success make?
I think the process of animation is still misunderstood today by the general public as something that works as easy as it plays on screen, so I am very grateful for the gratitude that was shown by the judges during the ceremony’s winning announcement. I think on a general level, any animators being offered awards in both design events and film festivals allows the industry to commend and respect the strain that the process always will be, whether certain processes get more automated or not.
Personally, this award has helped boost my confidence in that my more personal stories and worlds can be understood outside my own space. After a very long and 12,683 frame process it can be very motivating to hear a positive impact on other viewers. I also think that because of how the film industry works, awards from organisations such as IDI and RSA can help bring a larger audience to my work and help me become a more established filmmaker.
The financial award that I received from the RSA Student Design Awards for my piece Travelling the Maze of Concrete Injustice has helped me save money for expenses that are necessary for faster and higher production value which would not have been easy to get my hands on after graduating from NCAD. It is important to me that I make my process of animation as smooth as I can in such a fast-growing media while also allowing time to enjoy my life outside of my work.
Portfolio/Social Media Links
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