The final day was set up so that every event could be experienced, so there was no overlap of events in the schedule.
he first thing i saw was the short animations, i had a wide variety of opinions on the animations as they were interesting animation techniques but not entirely interesting animations, the animations covered love, mostly, in the form of lost, gained, familial and relationship love. others were story telling and interesting. My two favourite animations from the films were fresh cut grass, and , my home. Fresh Cut Grass was about a dog going to the big city to find his sister, and for me i found this to be very close as it reminded me of my sisters and so i felt a lot of empathy towards the dogs woes and the heart felt reunion between the dog and his sister. My Home was a lot more abstract in comparison as it gave a vague view of what the story was as it focused on a young boy whose home seems to have been infested by a giant crow but has been accepted by his mother. I thought it had to do with a step father coming into new household and the boy finds the crow as an unusual entity who is taking over his home and his mother.
The Bob Godfrey was a very dull talk i felt. it merely talked about him but i didn't feel like i learnt anything. I think if i had prior knowledge of him i would of been able to appreciate his work and him more. I understand that this is coming across as rude but i didn't know anything about him so i was unable to appreciate the animations for what they were.
The Re-Making of Danger Mouse was another of the really interesting talks i attended, as i learnt more about the animation industry and what people do and have to go through to make the work. The consideration that gets put into making a reboot, the amount of writers used per episode and its story as well as how it has had to grow with the new times but keeping true to its original using features such as photographic backgrounds. The key point that was put across was to not be boring as that is truly the bane of an animation, your point isn't going to be put across.
The final Master class i attended was hosted by Tim Searle, whose work spread across many groups from the 'Have I Got News For You' title sequence to the 'Mr Bean' animated show. Across all his work his main focus has been comedy animation, some towards wide audiences for entertainment purposes and others for political messages. I found the talk to be interesting but again i was frustrated that i was unable to talk or ask questions.
Before the final event i went to, i went to the BFG showing and focused my watching on the interactions between the characters and the background, how motion images interacted with static images. it was also a nostalgic thing as i had forgotten the whole story from my childhood. I also found myself comparing the animation to animation of today which i feel i really shouldn't do.
The Final event was the awards ceremony, the event was unexpected and the nominees that i personally preferred didn't win any awards which i was disappointed about. This was possibly because the animations that won were very (personally) disturbing or weird stop motion animation, which I find to be very scary in most cases, (the movement of dolls mostly). The overall award however i was very happy to see because i hadn't seen it prior as it was part of a group of short films i didn't see. The animation was called 'Guida' a hand drawn and watercolour animation, which was just so satisfying to watch as it left a positive feeling in me, it made me think that the main character, Guida, was possibly based on a real women making the animation and her character all that more real and relatable.
Overall i enjoyed the animation festival, it was my first window into the lifestyle and work of professional animators and animations. Learning both techniques and directions i should go for my storytelling, development and animations. I most certainly hope to go again next year.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Manchester Animation Festival Day 2
This day was the most full and active day as it had so much happen. With some very interesting talks and animations.
The short films were really interesting and used mostly 2d animation, if not stop motion, none were 3d. These animations worked with a much wider variety of themes and meanings and were much more enjoyable than the students grad films, this most likely came down to experience, however it did result in some very, artsy films which could be seen as either confusing or pretentious. there were two animations that i really liked. My favourite was called the orchestra, where people had a mini music band following them around playing a tune to there feelings, emotions, lifestyle or even heritage, (I'm talking about the bagpipe characters there!) it had such a satisfying and pleasing feeling to it the story focused on an old man and his out of tune brass band falling for an old lady and her string quintet and the humour and story fitted it so nicely. The other animation on the other hand turned out quite disturbing and was very thought provoking, The Master, where a dog and monkey were waiting for their master to return however the monkey got out of its cage starting to reek havoc around the house looking like it was assuming the role of the master, an abusive master. It ended with the deaths of both characters but not after they were represented in a way which i saw as an abusive couple as the dog was beaten then treated nicely then beaten and repeated until it died.
How to make Friends and animate people: The art of crowd funding, this was enjoyable purely because of the name. But honestly i found it the most interesting and the most frustrating part of the festival. There were three professionals at the talk, one of the members on the team for Simons Cat, Emma Burch, an animated series whose first video got leaked and went viral leading to public funding and fame to get the series off the ground. The series is on YouTube but it is not seen as a good platform for animations due to an issue over a new system which affects animations to be (i believe) a lower frame rate. The second was a man from Aardman, Merlin Crossingham, talking about how they advertised their kick-starter for the reboot of morph. This relied on an older fan base as well as knowledge of the original to get it up and running. The third professional was from an independent studio that relies upon their fan base and crowd funding, Jon Turner, the co founder of Kilogramme. His Tall Tales series covered various short stories and became its own advertisement through it gradually gaining fame and giving out rewards or merchandise for supporting their kick-starter campaign. He also talked about how you need to work with your budget as it could be very limited and to create the most suitable advertising to get your work out there.
The main feature i found from this talk was the use of kick-starter and indie gogo sites that get independent content off the ground as well as being a good way to advertise your content. A prominent part that often came up was the target Audience which gives direction to your content.
The Master class with Will Bescher, an animator from Aardman and gave us an insight into the development of the animations at Aardman, from the characters to the sets and the actual animating. I found it interesting but at the time i was unable to apply it to anything as i had yet to do stop motion work, features such as having multiple faces and expressions for each characters weren't needed in something like 2d animation where it gets drawn in. None the less to see armatures and models from a professional company was still incredible.
Because of the Will Bescher talk i ended up really wanting to see the shaun the sheep movie, which was fun and entertaining, but i also focused and looked at things that had been brought in the previous talk, looking at the little details that were brought up like thumb prints in the models or flat characters. I found it enjoyable as i felt it widened my view of animations to actually focus on the finite parts of the animation.
I found the day enjoyable but frustrating as i wanted to ask questions and talk to the professionals but failed to because i felt my questions were irrelevant or nonsensical, what further frustrated me was i didn't have any of my own work to show, feeling i needed a specific style to interest people. However this is not needed as it is only my first year and its better to have a wider range in drawing style to be able to adapt, while still developing my own work.
The short films were really interesting and used mostly 2d animation, if not stop motion, none were 3d. These animations worked with a much wider variety of themes and meanings and were much more enjoyable than the students grad films, this most likely came down to experience, however it did result in some very, artsy films which could be seen as either confusing or pretentious. there were two animations that i really liked. My favourite was called the orchestra, where people had a mini music band following them around playing a tune to there feelings, emotions, lifestyle or even heritage, (I'm talking about the bagpipe characters there!) it had such a satisfying and pleasing feeling to it the story focused on an old man and his out of tune brass band falling for an old lady and her string quintet and the humour and story fitted it so nicely. The other animation on the other hand turned out quite disturbing and was very thought provoking, The Master, where a dog and monkey were waiting for their master to return however the monkey got out of its cage starting to reek havoc around the house looking like it was assuming the role of the master, an abusive master. It ended with the deaths of both characters but not after they were represented in a way which i saw as an abusive couple as the dog was beaten then treated nicely then beaten and repeated until it died.
How to make Friends and animate people: The art of crowd funding, this was enjoyable purely because of the name. But honestly i found it the most interesting and the most frustrating part of the festival. There were three professionals at the talk, one of the members on the team for Simons Cat, Emma Burch, an animated series whose first video got leaked and went viral leading to public funding and fame to get the series off the ground. The series is on YouTube but it is not seen as a good platform for animations due to an issue over a new system which affects animations to be (i believe) a lower frame rate. The second was a man from Aardman, Merlin Crossingham, talking about how they advertised their kick-starter for the reboot of morph. This relied on an older fan base as well as knowledge of the original to get it up and running. The third professional was from an independent studio that relies upon their fan base and crowd funding, Jon Turner, the co founder of Kilogramme. His Tall Tales series covered various short stories and became its own advertisement through it gradually gaining fame and giving out rewards or merchandise for supporting their kick-starter campaign. He also talked about how you need to work with your budget as it could be very limited and to create the most suitable advertising to get your work out there.
The main feature i found from this talk was the use of kick-starter and indie gogo sites that get independent content off the ground as well as being a good way to advertise your content. A prominent part that often came up was the target Audience which gives direction to your content.
The Master class with Will Bescher, an animator from Aardman and gave us an insight into the development of the animations at Aardman, from the characters to the sets and the actual animating. I found it interesting but at the time i was unable to apply it to anything as i had yet to do stop motion work, features such as having multiple faces and expressions for each characters weren't needed in something like 2d animation where it gets drawn in. None the less to see armatures and models from a professional company was still incredible.
Because of the Will Bescher talk i ended up really wanting to see the shaun the sheep movie, which was fun and entertaining, but i also focused and looked at things that had been brought in the previous talk, looking at the little details that were brought up like thumb prints in the models or flat characters. I found it enjoyable as i felt it widened my view of animations to actually focus on the finite parts of the animation.
I found the day enjoyable but frustrating as i wanted to ask questions and talk to the professionals but failed to because i felt my questions were irrelevant or nonsensical, what further frustrated me was i didn't have any of my own work to show, feeling i needed a specific style to interest people. However this is not needed as it is only my first year and its better to have a wider range in drawing style to be able to adapt, while still developing my own work.
Monday, 14 December 2015
Manchester Animation Festival Day 1
The Manchester animation festival (MAF) is a new festival that started this year celebrating the work of animators and animations over the past year(s). The festival spanned over three days and covered animation from 2D to Stop motion to 3D and each day there was a multitude of events going off in one of two cinemas or in the event space.
The first event i went to was the graduation films, as i felt they would have the most relevance towards what i will be doing in the coming years. Over all i found them unfortunately depressing as almost all of them included the theme of death, or more specifically suicide. This was a great disappointment for me because i love to watch animations which factor in enjoyment, but i feel sad thinking that the animations in the coming years could also possibly include such morbid topics. In the case of animation quality however it was all really impressive ignoring some of the story lines. I also found that the most prominent form of animation used here was stop motion.
Tomm Moore is an acclaimed illustrator, comic artist and animator, he is the co-founder of Cartoon Saloon the studio that created the film, 'the song of the sea' and his master class gave us an insight into how his studio worked and how they went about making the film 'The Song the Sea'. The talk was interesting in the sense that it gave us an insight into the work and life style of a studio. how they had to spread the work across multiple partner studios, working to a deadline and making the film accessible to other countries as the film was initially in irish/gaelic.
There was a second set of graduation films which had a much wider variety of subject matter which included a wider variety of animation, still mostly covered morbid subjects which i understand are needed at times to get messages across. There was animation that i found to be most absorbing, Chiaroscuro, a film with no dialogue, and its characters being a gas ball and solid particles but i felt it told a better story than a lot of the other animations because of the way the objects got characterised by there actions, there speed, velocity and strength showing the change. The quality of its animation as well was fascinating and it almost looked lifelike but not at the same time.
Skwigly Online Animation Magazine show cased many of the animations from its website. The magazine covers everything animation. In comparison to the graduation films these were a lot more light hearted and funny, i found myself laughing and enjoying the animations that they showed.
The main event of the festival was the Fellowship Award which awarded Brian Cosgrove for his contribution to animation over the past 25 years, the evolution of his animation work and the future of his work. The talk was wide spread covering almost every aspect of his work which i found to be very detaching as it started to feel like more of a list, merely going through his achievements. I was happy to have realised where some of the animations o grew up on came from which was interesting, especially in the case of the BFG.
Over all i enjoyed the first day, i was nervous and unsure as to what would come of it but it did start to open up my view on the animation industry however i also found i want to make a graduation film in three years time that doesn't work towards a depressing plot point, as i find while they get emotional responses a positive emotion, causing a person to smile or laugh were very few and left a much better feeling in people. (i don't disagree with negative films as sometimes it is to get a message across and it isn't always a positive message so seriousness is needed.)
The first event i went to was the graduation films, as i felt they would have the most relevance towards what i will be doing in the coming years. Over all i found them unfortunately depressing as almost all of them included the theme of death, or more specifically suicide. This was a great disappointment for me because i love to watch animations which factor in enjoyment, but i feel sad thinking that the animations in the coming years could also possibly include such morbid topics. In the case of animation quality however it was all really impressive ignoring some of the story lines. I also found that the most prominent form of animation used here was stop motion.
Tomm Moore is an acclaimed illustrator, comic artist and animator, he is the co-founder of Cartoon Saloon the studio that created the film, 'the song of the sea' and his master class gave us an insight into how his studio worked and how they went about making the film 'The Song the Sea'. The talk was interesting in the sense that it gave us an insight into the work and life style of a studio. how they had to spread the work across multiple partner studios, working to a deadline and making the film accessible to other countries as the film was initially in irish/gaelic.
There was a second set of graduation films which had a much wider variety of subject matter which included a wider variety of animation, still mostly covered morbid subjects which i understand are needed at times to get messages across. There was animation that i found to be most absorbing, Chiaroscuro, a film with no dialogue, and its characters being a gas ball and solid particles but i felt it told a better story than a lot of the other animations because of the way the objects got characterised by there actions, there speed, velocity and strength showing the change. The quality of its animation as well was fascinating and it almost looked lifelike but not at the same time.
Skwigly Online Animation Magazine show cased many of the animations from its website. The magazine covers everything animation. In comparison to the graduation films these were a lot more light hearted and funny, i found myself laughing and enjoying the animations that they showed.
The main event of the festival was the Fellowship Award which awarded Brian Cosgrove for his contribution to animation over the past 25 years, the evolution of his animation work and the future of his work. The talk was wide spread covering almost every aspect of his work which i found to be very detaching as it started to feel like more of a list, merely going through his achievements. I was happy to have realised where some of the animations o grew up on came from which was interesting, especially in the case of the BFG.
Over all i enjoyed the first day, i was nervous and unsure as to what would come of it but it did start to open up my view on the animation industry however i also found i want to make a graduation film in three years time that doesn't work towards a depressing plot point, as i find while they get emotional responses a positive emotion, causing a person to smile or laugh were very few and left a much better feeling in people. (i don't disagree with negative films as sometimes it is to get a message across and it isn't always a positive message so seriousness is needed.)
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