Bradford Animation Festival - Day 4

The last day of Bradford Animation Festival, I only made it for the Aardman talk and the screening of The Pirates film but even just those 2 was worth the trip. Will Beecher was a character lead animator for the Aardman film 'The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists'. I decided to go along to this as even though it is stop motion, Will Beecher is still an animator and any advice or experience from an animator will be very useful, and I was not disappointed.

Will showed us his student film which got him into the industry and highlighted the fact that even though his character did not move around, the interaction between the two characters is key. This is an important thing to show and this is something I will keep in mind when it comes to animating my two characters together.

What I really enjoyed about this talk was the fact that Will gave us a demonstration on how he would go about changing the faces on the Pirate Captain and moving the rest of the body for animation. It was great to see how the faces were changed as this was something I was never sure about, for Aardman the faces are held on with magnets so it's easy to swap them in and out. There were all these small pieces to the character that you could alter such as the Captains beard; when changing the mouth shapes the beard needs to move with it or else it would break away from the believability of it all. In order to do this there was a small allen key that cold be insert into his beard and depending on which way you turn it, the beard would either move up or down. This was great to see as for myself, I would have never have thought about this. It makes me realise that I really need to understand and breakdown a character before it comes to animating. I need to work out what parts of them will move and how much they should be moved. There will be some things that only need to be moved subtly, however if it is not moved at all, that one small thing could be quite obvious. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative talk and once again just as LAIKA did, we got to see the puppets up close.

I watched the film itself after the talk and really enjoyed it, I had never got round to watching it when it came out so this was the prime opportunity to watch the film. It was interesting to see how even though both LAIKA and Aardman used the replacement animation technique, their style was still different and obvious in each. Unfortunately after the film was over I left Bradford as I had work that needed to be done. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to make it to the closing award ceremony and after party, however I think that is something I will be definitely attending next year. It's something not to be missed, another opportunity to get a chance to talk to more people in a relaxed setting and it would have been a great way to end an amazing week.

This whole week has been enjoyable, informative and inspirational. It has opened my eyes to new things and got me thinking about techniques and processes. Bradford Animation Festival is something that I shall be attending for quite some time from now on, even after university. It has given me so much motivation right now to be the best that I can be and to push myself further in my animations. I'm planning to book my Animex tickets soon and hopefully it will be just a inspirational and motivational as Bradford, if not more.

Bradford Animation Festival - Day 3

Friday was the busiest day of the festival, lots of talks to attend and I planned to go to a networking event that All Animated had organised. The day began with a talk from Jason Theaker a freelance animator and tutor from Bradford Uni. He spoke about how at Bradford Uni they have a programme where students, along side tutors work on a professional brief. This gives the student more experience, skills and knowledge about working with a real client. The short that was shown had been nominated for a national prize so this would have given the students a lot of exposure. James Thompson, a student who worked on the short film was there to give us his point of view on working on it. He took us through the process and spoke about a few things that I had never really thought about before. If you're working in a group as long as the rigger has a rough model (all proportions should be correct) even if it's not completely finished, they can get started on the rigging process while the character is still being completed. Once it has been finished it can be passed onto the rigger who can then just apply the rig and send it on to the animators. This is a good way of using time, especially if there is a strict time scale on the project. After this talk, it really got me thinking about possibly doing a masters after my 3 years.

The next talk was given by Amanita Designs and Red Kite Games. They spoke about animation and games for new platforms and why they chose to produce mobile games. Jaromir Plachy who is an animator and graphic artist, showed some of his work that led up to him creating Botanicula for Amanita. I really enjoyed the animations that he created, they were so simple in terms of design but his humour translated through the characters and created a thoroughly enjoyable watch. It goes to show that even something so sim sole can really engage with the audience. Simon Iwaniszak, Managing Director of Red Kite Games previously had worked at Rockstar Leeds but decided this was the right time to go ahead and set up his own company. By being an indie studio you have more of a creative say with what goes on and with mobile gaming becoming ever more popular; you have the ability to create a game that you want to make.

The big talk of today was from Mark Shapiro of LAIKA, the independent animation studio that created Coraline and ParaNorman. I was really excited to see this as I saw ParaNorman when it came out and was blown away at the technical side and also the versatility of the characters. Mark showed a wide range of videos that explained how they achieved the look of ParaNorman and the process they used for creating the faces using 3D colour printing. Some of these videos I had seen before, after researching into it once I had seen the film. There were a couple videos though that really broke down the process of the animation, and it really makes you appreciate and gain a new found respect for the animated that work in the stop motion industry. There is so much accuracy and dedication needed to create a stop motion film, objects and characters have to be moved a tiny fraction each frame and if it isn't accurate that one frame could cause quite a lot of problems. As Mark is the head of entertainment, brand marketing he also spoke about how they marketed the film to get people interested and excited about it. They created lots of short videos explaining the making of ParaNorman and placed these on the web with the hash tag 'WeirdWins'. This got people tweeting about the film and spreading the word. What was really interesting was that someone I know in America was really hyped up about this film, before I spoke to him I knew nothing about it but I had seen all his tweets and it got me intrigued about ParaNorman. I think because he ended up being a big promoter of the film by using twitter, LAIKA actually sent him merchandise from the film in appreciation, which I think is really lovely of them to reward the fans out there. It's really interesting to see how social media can affect the promotion of a film and how they use it to get more attention.

Even though I had previously seen ParaNorman, I saw it again but this time in 3D. After having the talk from Mark I found that I ended up paying attention to all the small details he spoke about and really concentrating on the faces. I noticed things I never did the first time I watched it and it made me appreciate the film more for what it was, now knowing more of the process behind it. I am normally not a big fan of 3D films, as I feel that sometimes it is a bit distracting and I find myself not being able to be fully immersed within the film. This was different however, I found that there were some areas that really benefitted from being 3D and made me feel more of a part of the film. I also got a chance to take a few pictures of the puppets themselves after the talk, it was great to see them up close and see all the detail that was put into them, for example for each character their clothing was individually hand made and sew on to them.

After the film I hopped on along to a networking event that All Animated had organised. Seeing as I missed the previous one in Leeds I knew I wanted to take advantage of this one. Whilst there I met the lovely Aaron Wood, Managing Director of Slurpy Studios and Billy Allison who gave me some really useful advice within animation and also a bit more confidence as I always worry that my way of working isn't the 'right' way. I spoke to Aaron about the Animex conference up in Teeside and he said it is definitely worth going as it would suit me very well what with wanting to go into CG, so I think this is the way to go and hopefully I will be able to catch up with Aaron again up there.

The last thing of the day for me was attending the animation pub quiz, this was a first for me as I had never even been to a pub quiz before and I was worried my lack of animation knowledge would fail me! Myself and Alex ended up teaming with Kath and Kim from All Animated, it was a good laugh and I learnt new things about animation I didn't know previously. There were prizes at the end, but seeing as we didn't come first we missed out on the art books, however I got myself a Rango Cactus Cup that I was pretty chuffed about! This is something I definitely want to attend again as it brings everyone together in a relaxed and fun setting and it's just something enjoyable to do.

Bradford Animation Festival - Day 2

Day 2, I was quite looking forward to as Vanessa Boyce from Double Negative would be doing a talk in the afternoon. Before this there was a couple more things to be seen, the first one being Professional 2, it was similar to the screening on the previous day however these shorts were created by professionals. Again there were 8 films shown in total, however due to me arriving a bit late I missed out on two of these shorts. I may see if I can find these online or on their sit as I caught the ending for one of them 'Bendito Machine IV' (Spain) and it seemed very intriguing and the animation was all done with silhouettes. There was an interesting short called 'Father' that was directed by a handful of people all from different countries. They used a combination of 3D and 2D which produced a hybrid of styles. The characters differed from one another quite drastically, some being quite stylised whereas another looked more realistic compared to the others. The story itself was quite haunting and really immersed me into the whole story about a dialogue between father and child that never happens. 'Edmond was a Donkey' was probably my most favourite one as not only did it include a lot of 3D elements, but the story itself was something different and really made you feel for the character. There was dialogue during this film however the main character it revolved around never spoke a work. I find that no dialogue is such a strong thing sometimes and more emotion can be shown just through their actions and expression. I really liked the lighting in this film as well, the majority of it was mainly a grey scale however when it switched it was really beautiful, especially seeing it contrasting against the grey.

I attended a talk after this about creating virtual urban environments. Vanessa Boyce from Double Negative, Martin Walker a lecturer in 3D computer graphics and animation, Ben Hall from Criterion Games and Jonathan Gales founding member of Factory Fifteen were bought together to talk about creating photorealistic urban environments. It was interesting to see the different approaches and what was produced from people who were coming from different areas of the industry. A recurring thing that came up with each speaker was the fact that because these environments are created virtual, 3D programmes have the tendency to make everything perfect and this is not how it is in real life. If they left it now it was, the environments wouldn't be believable and would distract the viewer from the overall experience. To get over this, they would go in and physically make it 'imperfect' adding in little details, textures, making sure lines are not dead straight etc. I had never really thought about this before but it is a very good point that I will keep in mind when I create photorealistic environments in the future.

The next talk was by Vanessa Boyce again but this time going into more detail about Double Negative's newest film 'Total Recall'. VFX is something that has caught my attention for awhile now, I love how companies are able to create vast environments that are so realistic, it really amazes me. Double Negative only had about a year to create pretty much everything from scratch so that was a massive job in itself. It was quite impressive how much was achieved in that time and the overall outcome of it. In my notes it explains the process they took when creating the environments. Vanessa is the CG supervisor and made the point that in the film they had 2 different types of vfx to do, putting the filmed shot into the modelled environments but also putting modelled characters into already filmed shots. Both of these ways, even though similar had to be approached in different ways. Seeing this talk it really makes me want to explore the industry of vfx and create some photorealistic work that I could put in my portfolio. I have been looking into internships this year and Framestore a vfx company in London normally do summer internships each year so I may apply for this and see how it goes.

The last talk of the day was from Valerie Kausen, the granddaughter of Chuck Jones. It was lovely to hear what it was like to have an amazing animator like her grandfather in her life and influencing the things she did. We got to see some of his shorts which was really inspirational and really makes me want to study 2D animation more for the principles and take that into my 3D work. I think this will be something I explore further as at the end of the day the principles of animation are the foundations to any good animation. Without a good understanding of them you can't get your animation to achieve it's fullest potential.

Bradford Animation Festival - Day 1

This year I attended the whole of Bradford Animation Festival and was very much looking forward to it as for me, it would be more relevant than the game side of BAF and though I would get more out of it. I had attended a single day at BAF the previous year and was disappointed that I didn't think to go for the whole week, so when I found out that this year I would be attending the whole week I was very much looking forward to it.

The first day consisted of a couple of screenings and a panel talk. The first screening I went to was the Official Selection: Student 2. 8 films were shown in total, all of which were created by students and was up for a possible award at the end of the week. There was a range of different styles and techniques over the 8 films and the stories ranged quite differently. As for someone who wants to be a 3D animator I was slightly disheartened by the fact there wasn't any CG shorts, however the films that were shown we're quite impressive.

Buy Buy Baby (UK), Drawl (Poland), The Other Side (UK) and Snowflake (Russia) were my favourites, mainly for the storyline as they really caught my attention and immersed me into them. Their style varied quite differently from 2D computer, a mix of 2D and 3D computer and 2D computer with drawings on paper. All gave different results and a different feel to them which added to the story itself. With Drawl for example the painted like backgrounds made it really quite beautiful yet contrasted so drastically from the storyline. I really enjoyed these shorts and it gives me inspiration to work towards, hopefully in the near future I can submit an animation I've created into a festival and just see how well it does.

After this screening I went along to a panel talk where the discussion of the 'Student Film', the role, function and purpose took place. Tony Prosser - Managing Director of RealtimeUK, Caroline Parsons - Newport Uni, Chris Williams - Bournemouth Uni and Sophie Jenkins - Recruitment Manager for Double Negative made up the panel. It was good to see that the panel was made up of people who had jobs in different areas. I found this talk very useful and gave me a good insight to what industry people are looking for in showreels or the 'student film'. The main things I took from this talk was that I need to be very pro active and get out there networking and contacting people. Another thing is that when it comes to my showreel, it really needs to reflect my specialism, I need to tailor it to the specific job I want. I also need to be aware of opportunities that are available once I come out of uni, or even before this point. I need to be able to take advantage of festivals and competitions, anything to get my work out there and noticed.

For myself, I already know I want to become an animator and I am already pushing myself that bit further to improve my work and gain a better knowledge of this area. However with this talk it makes me want to push myself even more and make sure I am as prepared as I can be for when it comes to apply for a job within the industry. I am becoming a bit more confident with talking to people so I am trying to network as much as I can to get those all important contacts and see if I can get feedback from any animators to see how I can improve my work.

The last thing for the first day was a screening of films from All Animated. All Animated is a membership and networking organisation that covers animation in the North West, North East and Yorkshire. I had heard of them before but never got around to going to the previous networking event in Leeds as I felt I didn't really have any work to show. The shorts that we saw were from a range of people that had been made by local people and companies and gave a good insight to who was involved and the work they were producing. I got a chance to speak to the lovely people of All Animated afterwards and they were very friendly and encouraged me to attend the next networking event in a couple of weeks. The shorts that were shown were mainly 2D animation with a bit of stop motion but after speaking to Kath, Steve and Kim - the people who run All Animated, they assured me there were other 3D animators about and gave me the names of some. The first day was quite informative and enjoyable and I knew the week was only going to get better and was thoroughly looking forward to it.