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.
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