Flip Animation Festival Day 2:

The second day of flip was a lot more relaxing for me as i was not all stressed over having to go up on stage. There was lots going on this day, starting off with a screening of shorts, a behind the scenes on model making chat and Q&A with Jim Parkyn from Aardman animations, the amazing Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall the founders of Cosgrove Hall gave a chat on their time in the animation industry and the Brothers McLeod screened their new very funny 2D half hour animated comedy Isle of Spagg.

As well as going to all the screening and presentations it was great to finally meet some of my online contacts and have a chat face to face:  Ben Whitehouse who i ended up spending most of the day with, Gareth Hirst who has got some great stop motion work on his blog and Ravi Maheru whose short 3D film Caged won an award at the Flip Festival so a big congratulations goes out to you Ravi. 

They had some amazing sculptures on display from Mackinnon & Saunders of RaaRaa the noisy lion with his friends and Nine and Lottie from Frankenstein's Cat. Looking at these sculpts I found it amazing to think they are just plasticine painted over, with acrylic eyes pushed in, they looked so smooth and solid. 

The talk that Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall (the founders of Cosgrovehall) and Marc Silk gave was fantastic. They spoke about all the big programs they are known for: Dangermouse, Wind in the Willows, Count Duckula and Chorlton & The Wheelies. They also showed some rear behind the scenes clips from them. Everyone in the audience got a photocopy of an original storyboard from Count Duckula, I got mine signed by Cosgrovehall at the end of the talk.

I had a fantastic to days at Flip I met some grate people and all I can say is bring on next year!

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!

Viv & Mandy to play at Flip Animation Festival!

Exiting news everyone I found out last week that Viv & Mandy in the Big Clean Up Part 1 has being short listed and will be screened at the Flip International Animation Festival on the 28^th of October!

 I’m very excited by this news and im looking for would to seeing my work on the big screen in a room full of animation lovers. I’m very grateful to the people at Flip for give this me this opportunity, thanks very much!

 

For more information about the Flip International Animation look at http://www.flipfestival.co.uk/ to book tickets and see what great things they have going on there this year.

And for anyone who is going come say hi or let me know as I want to meet as many of my online animation mates face to face this time: D

Conflict of self university project:

I have being double busy over this last summer as well as working on Viv & Mandy Part2 i have being working on my conflict of self summer project for university.

This project was given before i left university for the summer break, for this we had to fill out a 30 page sketchbook with one half full of designs using good attributes from my personality. With the other half full of bad attributes of my personality.

My bad attributes: 

When I started this project I was working on the bad attributes first, as I felt I could do that side faster as I knew there would be so many different ways to take it. 

 Here are some of my drawings that show the design process I did

Settled on a design I liked I started working on different variations on the way the skin and muscle texture could look on this design.

Using the design I did a final 3 way turnaround on paper, from this I did 3D sculpt of the character in clay.

Taking the sculpt into photo shop I did 4 different variations of the colour scheme. 

Choosing the best bits from them to make this final design. 

My good attributes:

Now that my bad side was completed it was time for me to repeat the same process, this time to reflect the good attributes of my personality.

And there are the final two sides of my personality, the next step for me is to start working on the fully articulated puppet versions of them, so keep an eye out for upcoming posts were I will show how the making of these new puppets goes.