Creative Futures 2

My second year trip to the Bradford Animation Festival

 From the 14^th to the 17^th of November 2012, I went on a 4 day trip to the Bradford Animation Festival with my university group. While there, like in our first year we were watching a variety of animation films and cartoon shorts by different film companies. I enjoyed some of the animations, many that had good animation quality and interesting storylines to them, while there where others that I did not enjoy as much, such as when things in the animations get rather gruesome or if the quality of the animation`s story gets a bit dark and depressing. One example of these gruesome animations includes Swarming by Joni Mannisto which featured a boy killing and tampering with ants and insects, who then get revenge on him by swarming over him and eating him alive. And also Robert Morgan`s The Separation (2003) which was a gruesome Stop-Motion video about conjoined twins who decide to separate themselves, I felt they were certain scenes in it that where too frightening to watch.

We even saw a couple of full length animated films like ParaNorman, a Stop-motion film by LAIKA studios, Brave, a computer animated film by Disney/Pixar and The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, a Stop-Motion film by Aardman Animations. I felt I really enjoyed these films as they had some very interesting storylines to them and they had great animation qualities. We also got to see some of the actual animators for some of these films, like Will Becher from Aardman Animations and Mark Shapiro from LAIKA studios. They would reveal the process and methods behind the making of these films, and towards the end of the lectures we got to talk to the animators to give them our views and opinions on the films. Furthermore we even got to see some of the actual Stop-Motion character models from the films, they were displayed by the animators in the main reception and we all got to take some photographs of them.

Overall I feel that I have really enjoyed my visit to Bradford, many of these professional animators we saw are working in areas of animation that I`m hoping to work in and by glancing at their techniques I feel that I have gained some ideas and inspirations for my future animations.

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh moving image festival

From February the 20^th to the 22^nd this semester I attended the “Fresh moving image festival” at my University. It was a festival where a number of lectures where being shown by many TV, Film and animation companies, many of which I attended. There were some lectures like the animation and Games lectures which I found quite useful and inspiring for my animation studies, while there where others like some of the TV or documentary dramas which I did not find quite as useful, as I felt they were not relevant for my studies. I also did not understand some of the stories which the dramas where telling, I found the atmospheres very distracting and very confusing.

Overall I feel that I have quite enjoyed the festival and I feel that I have gained some ideas for my future animation projects.

 

 

Creative Futures week 2

From Monday to Thursday, March the 4^th to 7^th I attended my second year`s creative futures week, where I attended a number of lectures.

I found some lectures like Melanie Hani`s “Heart Election Animation Research”, Linda Mccarthy`s “Making small films on a tiny budget”, and Jason Devitt`s “Make your own Damn movie” relevant and useful. They gave some very useful information which I felt where very important and relevant of how to make some well produced animated films, such as how to plan and develop a powerful story. They also gave me more ideas for my future animations.

They were also other lectures, like Aimme Henderson`s “Art to conservation” and Yasia Williams Leedham`s “Design and Illustration” which I did not find as useful since they represented different forms of art, like art sculptures and book illustrations. They were therefore not relevant to my form of study.

I feel that I have overall enjoyed the creative future`s week. After attending and gaining notes from these lectures I have gained some ideas and inspiration for my future animation projects. Furthermore I feel that I have now gained better knowledge and ideas of how I shall produce some of my future animation projects.