BAF- Day 3

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.