Bradford Animation Festival - Professional Films

I chose to get a ticket for the Friday of BAF as Andy Schmidt a Pixar animator was doing a talk that day. That was my main pull for the day, but I was also interested in seeing Mainframe, a visual effects company. Along with those 2 talks I was also able to watch a selection of professional films.

The professional films consisted of:

• The Monster of Nix - Dir. Rosto
• Brandt Rhapsodie - Dirs. François Avril, Morrigane Boyer, Thibaud Clergue, Paolo Didier, Ren-Hsein, Tristan Ménard, Lucas Morandi, William Ohanessian, Lucas Veber
• A Morning Stroll - Dir. Grant Orchard
• Plume - Dir. Barry Purves
• Captain Hu - Dir. Basil Vogt
• The Girl and The Hunter - Dir. Jadwiga Kowalska

The 3 that interested me the most was 'The Monster of Nix', 'A Morning Stroll' and 'The Girl and The Hunter'. 

The Monster of Nix was quite interesting as I didn't notice it at first but even though the whole thing was computer generated, the bodies in which the head was placed on seemed to be human. They might have shot the body separate and then added the head at a later stage. This style of this short film reminds me of the work of Tim Burton, the way the environment has been created along with how the characters move.



A Morning Stroll was created by the same studio who made the Lloyds TSB adverts - Studio AKA. It was nice to see a difference in the types of animation they could produce. This one starting off being 2D then on the final section 3D. The story itself was based loosely on a real life event, so from this they have interpreted it in their own way. I like how as the years change you can see significant changes, for example how the people react towards one another and the mannerisms they hold. I genuinely really liked this piece and the ending I found was different and unexpected. Definitely try to check it out if you can, but below is a short preview of it.
 


What really stood out to me about The Girl and The Hunter was the way it had been created. No dialogue is needed to get across the story, the actions have been made clear. I like the style of animation too, the characters are quite simple in the way of their form. The colours are quite dark and muted which matches the overall feel and atmosphere of the background.