The first thing we saw today was the Farnham retrospective. This was actually very interesting with a wide variety of animations including some well known ones, and some not so well known. I thought that 'A is for autism' by Tim Webb was very interesting, it shows the feelings of an autistic person and what they're lives are like on a daily basis. 'Morning stroll' by Grant Orchard was quite funny about that silly chicken and the man getting suspicious and trying to chase him.
I really liked the one about the two armchairs talking to each other that was really funny but I don't remember what it was called. Was it 'Britain'?
Next was Michaela Pavlotovas Master class. This was interesting because she talked a lot about what inspired her work and how she came to make the animations she did. How sometime people wanted her to do erotic things but she wasn't comfortable with it so she tried to make it funny and ended up winning an award for it! That was 'Tram' She does some quite funny stuff but unfortunately, she talks an awful lot. I didn't like her one that she did on split screen and you could play it at different parts, I didn't think that worked. It was just a random picture with a random sentence that made no sense and no story but she was insistent that it was cool that you could make any story and any outcome.
Then we had the double negative presentation which was fantastic! I hadn't really thought about that process being classed as animation. He talked about creating the scenery and the cars and how things had to be done with CGI for safety and things like that. It's really amazing what you can do! They showed us some before and after shots of the film called 'Rush'. It was fascinating! Definitely something I am now interested in! I love realism.
Lastly we saw Mackinnon and Saunders being presented with the lifetime achievement award. Then they spoke to us after. We also watched a documentary by Paul Wells about them and their work. It was very interesting, I had wondered ( having just watched Frankenweenie) how they did it so seeing that was amazing. I had thought there might be rigs inside but I had no idea they were detailed armatures that can be controlled with an Alan key! I am really interested in the designing of these physical characters, how you can physically get your hands on them and alter them and get a real feel for them. It's something I'd really like to try now.
Overall I think the Bradford animation Festival was a really good (if expensive) idea. It inspired me a lot, but now I have to starve myself to pay for it.
Sunday, 24 November 2013
BAF- Day 2
Today we started off with Student 2- I liked 'Rabbit and dear' by Peter Vacz. I thought it was cute! I also like how the used the medium to tell the story. The fact that they started off 2D was part of the story, and how when dear went to clay, rabbit couldn't touch anything cause they were different. But they still made their friendship work which is a nice story :) They should make a kids show out of that!
I think my favourite of this set was ' The odd sound out' by Ida Maria Schouw Andreasen and Pernille sihm. (whats with all the difficult names?!) It was an excellent 2D computer animation about a group of sounds, portraying a mans emotions, but one of the sounds doesn't fit in so he goes in search of new sounds but doesn't find the right group, and ends up back where he was but he fits in now. It was a lovely story with a nice cute character. I thought 'what a fantastic idea'. If someone says draw a sound I automatically think of the shape of the line. It's so clever that this person thought of personifying these sounds!
Professional 3 was next- My favourite here was 'Mr Hublot' by Laurent Witz. I like the 3D computer animation style, its almost like Pixar! Such a lovely story too. I like how his character is portrayed, the little things he does- you know he's OCD and scared of going outside. I also love the dogs character. He's a robot, yet it animated like a real dog, all fun and bouncy! I think that's good because it must be difficult to do when you know its not supposed to be real.
Another one I liked was 2D computer animation called 'My three Grandmas' by Katalin Glaser. I liked that this was 2D, it helped show that it was from childhood memories of the person doing the voice over. A nice story too- I'm sure a lot of people (including myself) can relate to having 3 grandmothers and how they are all so different.
Last on this day was Animated projects: Random acts. I actually didn't enjoy this. I understand that they were done fast and with a budget but... they just didn't seem professional at all. Also I prefer the longer animations with a bit more substance and story. I did however enjoy ' Apocalypse Rhyme' This was a typography animation which just looked utterly beautiful. The way it moved, the art, just beautiful.
I think my favourite of this set was ' The odd sound out' by Ida Maria Schouw Andreasen and Pernille sihm. (whats with all the difficult names?!) It was an excellent 2D computer animation about a group of sounds, portraying a mans emotions, but one of the sounds doesn't fit in so he goes in search of new sounds but doesn't find the right group, and ends up back where he was but he fits in now. It was a lovely story with a nice cute character. I thought 'what a fantastic idea'. If someone says draw a sound I automatically think of the shape of the line. It's so clever that this person thought of personifying these sounds!
Professional 3 was next- My favourite here was 'Mr Hublot' by Laurent Witz. I like the 3D computer animation style, its almost like Pixar! Such a lovely story too. I like how his character is portrayed, the little things he does- you know he's OCD and scared of going outside. I also love the dogs character. He's a robot, yet it animated like a real dog, all fun and bouncy! I think that's good because it must be difficult to do when you know its not supposed to be real.
Another one I liked was 2D computer animation called 'My three Grandmas' by Katalin Glaser. I liked that this was 2D, it helped show that it was from childhood memories of the person doing the voice over. A nice story too- I'm sure a lot of people (including myself) can relate to having 3 grandmothers and how they are all so different.
Last on this day was Animated projects: Random acts. I actually didn't enjoy this. I understand that they were done fast and with a budget but... they just didn't seem professional at all. Also I prefer the longer animations with a bit more substance and story. I did however enjoy ' Apocalypse Rhyme' This was a typography animation which just looked utterly beautiful. The way it moved, the art, just beautiful.
BAF- Day 1
On our first day of BAF I wasn't sure what to expect and the early morning nearly killed me but I actually really enjoyed it! I liked seeing the professional films, seeing what's happening now and the different ways of animation professionals are using. In professional 1- I particularly enjoyed ' in the air is Christopher gray' by Felix Massie. I loved the colours and the simplicity of the 2D animation. I liked how even though it was simple, the characters still had personalities. I also like that this piece can work so well with not much background- I'm not a fan of drawing backgrounds at the moment. It was also funny which is always a bonus. Is comedy something you just know how to do? or can you learn it?
I also liked 'Boles' by Spela Cadez. This is a completely different style using puppets. In this animation, the puppets spoke different language and it was subtitled. In some of the talks I was made aware that if you cant speak English, you usually don't use language. But in this case it worked! It kind of helped to make you feel you were in a different country. The story line was exotic and tangled and at the end I wasn't quite sure what was real. I thought at first that this might have been stop motion but it's not. I'm still trying to get better at figuring out the difference on screen.
Another film we watched was 'Canis' by Marc Riba. In my opinion, this was a horrible story. It made me feel sick. However, it I didn't want to look away. I guess this is the sign of a good storyline or film maker? Even so, I didn't like it and I never want to watch it again. This was stop motion/ puppets. I don't know if this made it scarier because it was a physical being rather than computer generated? I think that's something to think about when creating an animation. It was a silent film, again because of the language barrier. It added to the effect though, it made it scarier.
Next we come to the student films 1- I was amazed at how students could produce such incredible work! in some cases, better than the professionals! I particularly enjoyed 'The kiosk' by Anete Melece. It was quite humorous. I didn't think I liked that style of cut out animation but I really enjoyed this. I think as long as an animation has a good storyline and is done well, it doesn't matter what media is used, that just adds to it.
'Ab Ovo' by Anita Kwiatkowska (what a mouthful) was so good! This was done using clay to an INCREADIBLY high standard! It was captivating the way it all just spread around making new shapes, making the ladies body change as she got further in her pregnancy. And the inside? how do you do that with clay?! so good! Although it didn't have a story as such, it still had content which was made interesting through animation. Very clever I loved it.
There were a lot of good animations on this one, I actually enjoyed it more than the professional ones.
Next came Lee Hardcastles master class. Now I have never really been into Claymation before but he made it funny. The Yorkshire accent definitely added to the humour. It's rare you hear it in animations. He made everyday things into stories that ended up really gory! It was very cleaver really. I was very interested to hear about how he got to where he is now, through YouTube and what he did while he was studying, that he preferred to work on his own and stumbled across stop motion at film school. Unfortunately we had to leave part way through his talk to catch a train, I would love to have heard more.
I also liked 'Boles' by Spela Cadez. This is a completely different style using puppets. In this animation, the puppets spoke different language and it was subtitled. In some of the talks I was made aware that if you cant speak English, you usually don't use language. But in this case it worked! It kind of helped to make you feel you were in a different country. The story line was exotic and tangled and at the end I wasn't quite sure what was real. I thought at first that this might have been stop motion but it's not. I'm still trying to get better at figuring out the difference on screen.
Another film we watched was 'Canis' by Marc Riba. In my opinion, this was a horrible story. It made me feel sick. However, it I didn't want to look away. I guess this is the sign of a good storyline or film maker? Even so, I didn't like it and I never want to watch it again. This was stop motion/ puppets. I don't know if this made it scarier because it was a physical being rather than computer generated? I think that's something to think about when creating an animation. It was a silent film, again because of the language barrier. It added to the effect though, it made it scarier.
Next we come to the student films 1- I was amazed at how students could produce such incredible work! in some cases, better than the professionals! I particularly enjoyed 'The kiosk' by Anete Melece. It was quite humorous. I didn't think I liked that style of cut out animation but I really enjoyed this. I think as long as an animation has a good storyline and is done well, it doesn't matter what media is used, that just adds to it.
'Ab Ovo' by Anita Kwiatkowska (what a mouthful) was so good! This was done using clay to an INCREADIBLY high standard! It was captivating the way it all just spread around making new shapes, making the ladies body change as she got further in her pregnancy. And the inside? how do you do that with clay?! so good! Although it didn't have a story as such, it still had content which was made interesting through animation. Very clever I loved it.
There were a lot of good animations on this one, I actually enjoyed it more than the professional ones.
Next came Lee Hardcastles master class. Now I have never really been into Claymation before but he made it funny. The Yorkshire accent definitely added to the humour. It's rare you hear it in animations. He made everyday things into stories that ended up really gory! It was very cleaver really. I was very interested to hear about how he got to where he is now, through YouTube and what he did while he was studying, that he preferred to work on his own and stumbled across stop motion at film school. Unfortunately we had to leave part way through his talk to catch a train, I would love to have heard more.
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