Flip Animation Festival Day 1:

Well the big day finally came around, on Friday the 28^th i went to the Flip Animation festival for the first time. This festival was a big deal to me as you may have seen in my previous post I found out that Viv & Mandy in the big Clean up Part 1 will be screened there as part of open shorts 2.

The week before the festival I found out that As well as Viv & Mandy being screened i also would be taking part in this year’s Showreel panel. This is where the panel will sit on the stage and discus the affects of what makes a good showreel and the best ways of making one, this year panel was made up of: Mick Foley, Barry Purves, Glen Holberton and Neil Hall.

After the panel show there clips they then call up the participant’s one after the other. We get up on the stage introduces are self’s say what we do, where we are now and then show are showreels. The panel then gives some feedback and we take any questions from the audience. There were 4 participants that were screening there showreels Terri Matthews, Matthew Waruszynski, Hannah Wright and myself. 

I was the second participant to go up and present, it's a understatement to say I was nervous. I got up on the stage introduced myself told them briefly about my 8 years of animating, Viv & Mandy and my uni work; i then played them my new up to date showreel:

The feedback i got from the judges was all very positive and all mostly saying the same thing, that i need to get my hands on some professional armatures, as they can see the talent there, they like what i have done with the limitations i have when animating at home and Barry Perves went on to say how much he loves Viv & Mandy there characters and on screen chemistry. I got a comment from one judge saying don’t be afraid to make the some of the animation faster and punchy in places, this was grate advice and I will be keeping this in mind when I come to animate on my next projects. 

This was an amazing experience that i won’t forget and I’m very happy that i did it. i would like to say a massive thank you to Drew Roper for recommending that I put my showreel up for the panel.    

Here are some photos of the room were the panel was held:

Once the panel was over I only had to wait 10 minutes before the open shorts 2 started, which included Viv & Mandy Part 1. It was a surreal experience seeing my little animation on the big screen in front of an audience. The screening went down well it got all the laughs in the right places and I was very happy with how it went. 

I took some photos of the film when it was playing.

I have to say a big thank you to flip for screening the film and lest hope I can show part 2 next year!