Volunteering - MAF

Manchester Animation Festival was the other festival that I was fortunate enough to volunteer at. Like with Bristol I was able to get to know the volunteers who all had an interest in the animation and film industry. I got the opportunity to build connections. I was also able to meet many industry professionals, some of which I had briefly met before.

I went to two workshops - Andrew Burrell's script writing workshop and a character design workshop.
The character design workshop reiterated a lot of familiar concepts that I had previously researched and was fun but unfortunately was not as beneficial as I had hoped.
However the script writing workshop I found fed into my extended practice script writing. I also got to talk to Andrew afterwards to gain a better insight into how much editing happens after the script writer has finished with the script.

Halfway through MAF was the Northwestivus, a networking event where industry professionals got the opportunity to drink and network. During this I was able to meet people I had previously met at Annecy and Encounters, as well as animators from Brown Bag studios.

I got to speak with Reg Issac about the role of 2D hand drawn animation as this is the area I want to go into. he said that the industry is currently looking for 2D animators as this is coming back and being used in advertisements and TV shows.

Of the events I went to and films I saw, I really enjoyed the shorts screening, especially the short 'Grandpa Walrus'. This film created an incredibly relatable and raw story that was animated in 2D so appealed aesthetically to me. The other animation that I loved was 'After All' which was a stop-motion animation about a son who is clearing out his mother's house after she had passed away. The message the film was trying to get across was very real and straightforward with the weight of its subject matter.

I was able to leave MAF with the possibility of a studio visit to Bluezoo in London which I was excited for. Overall I was able to meet more people and get to know people I had already met more and am finally feeling more confident with approaching industry professionals at events.