Bristol Animate Encounters Day 1

On the 18^th of September I was getting ready for a 4 day trip down to Bristol for the Animated Encounters festival. This was my third year going down to this festival but the first time that I’ll be going down on my own. This gave me the perfect chance to catch up with as many of the online stop motion twitter gang as I could, as well as some old friends who left university my first year. 

I also wanted to make something that I could hand out to people as a gift and so that the people I know online would recognise me and come say hello. I came up with the idea of making some badges 28 to hand out and 2 different designs for me to wear.

Day 1:

After leaving my house at 6am been stuck on the train tracks for over an hour I finally arrived at Bristol for 10am after getting my tickets for the day’s events I had a look around the lobby of the festival and unlike previous years they have models sets and props on display. They also had some live animation going on.

 The creator of Angry Kid Darren Walsh was animating a new Bob episode. Like angry kid this was shot using a real person wearing a helmet were the front face can be replaced with a number of different masks to create lip sync while the actor has to stay very still and get moved like a puppet. This was fascinating to watch and amazing to see it all come to life over the 4 days.

 After I looked around I got to meet up with a stop motion twitter friend and hostel room buddy Gareth Hurst. We got are passes, programs and headed over to the next screening. 

The Trials of Life

This was the second set of animations to be screened at the festival as I missed the first one thanks to the train delays. All the animations in this set were all loosely themed around the everyday lives of people and have some very hart felt emotional shorts. My highlights from this screening were: Head Over Heels, De riz ou d’Armenie, I Am Tom Moody, To the Heart of The Matter and Being Bradford Dillman

Aardman: Early Years Claymation

This was the first of 3 Aardman themed events of the day. This one focused just on the very early Claymation work of the studio. All the shorts shown in the screening are available on the Aardman classic DVD. However it was brilliant to see them on the big screen and see all the small details, With an introduction by Aardman cofounder Peter Lord  My highlights from this screening were: Next, Pib and Pog, My Baby Just Cares for Me, Adam, Loves Me … Loves Me Not, Early Bird and Not Without My Handbag.

Aardman: From Pigs to Pirates

This was the second set of the 3 Aardman events.  Like the last screening this was showing allot of the shorts that can be seen on the Aardman classics DVD. However this time they played the most recent CGI, Stop Motion and 2D shorts. It was brilliant to see a lot of these short on the big screen and there were some that i had not seen yet, as they were made after the Classics DVD. My highlights from this screening were: Stage Fright, Humdrum, Angry Kid, Fly, So You Want to Be A Pirate?, Len’s Lens and Blind Date. 

Aardman: In Conversation 

This was the third Aardman themed event of the day. Unlike the last to this was not a screening but an interview with the 3 company directors Peter Lord, David Sproxton, and the creator of Wallace & Gromit Nick Park. I have meat David and Peter before a number of times and they are very open and friendly chaps but I was most excited to see Nick Park as he hardly dose talks of this size. Although most of the stories they were telling I have heard before from books, interviews and DVD extras there was something about hearing them from the people themselves in-person that was just unbeatable. I could of listen to them tell stories all day but sadly it came to an end. When it did the 3 of them got mobbed by the fans, myself, Tommy and Gareth stood back and waited for them to be less busy.

I first got to speak to peter, were I shook his hand told him thank you for doing the talk and was great to see him again. I gave him my card and he said “I think I seen these before?” then when I gave him a Viv & Mandy badge he said “ah now yes I have seen these two before! I hope you’re doing more?” well as u can guess I felt like I was going to pass out with joy when he said he knew and remembered my work. Peter then did me this little singed drawing of Morph on my festival program, that I will be getting framed very soon. 

I then moved over to Nick Park and got to shake his hand and have a very small chat with him, I was trying not to focus too much on W&G as I did not want to boar him with just how much of a fan I am! I gave him a card and badge told him a little bit about Viv & Mandy and that he may have seem them before as I post them on the Wallace & Gromit creations site. 

He took a good look at card and said “oh thank you I will take a look over your work” he them looked at the badge and said “yes I think I may have seem them before I like their faces…very funny” well once again you can bet that i felt like I was going to freak out when Nick Park says he think Viv & Mandy are funny!  Be for I said anything daft I shook his hand and said a good night and thank you 

Here is a photo of me, Tommy and the man himself Nick Park!!

Me and Gareth when back over to Peter and we evented him to come to the after show drinks with us. To are shock he said yes and we got to have a 30 minuet chat and walk to pub with peter lord, in that time we got to hear some interesting stories and news that I can’t go into on here sadly. When we got to the pub Peter then got in a round of drinks and went to around pub chatting away. Me and Gareth stayed till bar shut and said a hearty good night to Peter and friends and made are way back to the hostel.

What a night I will never forget!!!

Viv & Mandy are now 2 time Award Winners

Way back in in May I found out that Viv & Mandy in the Big Clean up Part 1 is now a 2 time Award winning animation. It won in the categories of, The Best Stop Motion and over all second Place of the Staffordshire University Animation Bites society festival. Sadly I could not make the festival as I was on my way back from my first day working at CITV, but I did make the after show drinks, where I then got handed the awards. I would like to say a massive thank you to all who voted for my Film it means a lot to me and makes all the hours spent animating and editing worth it!

Here are Viv & Mandy posing with their Awards.

 “oooooo isn’t it lovely”

Viv &Mandy in the Big Clean Up part 2 is here!

The time has come! and I am very happy to say that Viv & Mandy in the big clean up Part 2 is now out, I hope you all enjoy it and as wall ways your comments and feedback are very welcome.

Viv & Mandy in the big clean up part 2 is coming!

Good news everyone! All the editing on Viv & Mandy In the big clan up part 2 is now fully completed and is all ready for its online release next week on the 12^th of April. 

I have been given the opportunity by Marc Spess form animateclay.com to have the first online screening of Part 2 during their weekly animators live chat. I will be showing parts 1 and 2 back to back, showing photos form the making of, giving out some behind the scenes information and will also be taking any questions from the viewers. 

The animateclay live chat will take place on Thursday the 12^th of April at the UK time of 2am. i hope to see some of you guys there but if you can’t as I know it is late the film will be online to everyone straight after! 

Once the film is released i have a ton of information, behind the scenes and making of images to show you all that I will be posting on here over the upcoming weeks. 

I’M BACK and it’s time for updates!

Hey everyone I hope you all had a grate and relaxing Christmas. As you may have spotted I have been very busy with university work and sadly I had no time to update my blog with all the new photos and videos of what I have being doing. But now with Christmas over I can now get back in to the swing of things and get you all up to date on how everything has being doing.

So keep an eye out over the next 2 weeks for all my news and update on my university work, puppets, videos, oh yes and finally I will be revealing all-new news, photos and the final trailer for Viv & Mandy in the Big Clean Up part 2!

And as all ways your comments and feedback are always welcome.

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!