BAF '06 write up

Bradford Animation Festival 2006


November 2006 and it’s BAF time. This year, instead of each student booking individual event tickets we had delegate passes booked for the whole class. With the passes three events per day were booked for us. This may have been a good idea if the class didn’t have such varied tastes. In retrospect, those with interests in CGI and Machinema would have been better with Games passes, which work just like the delegate passes, since those events became fully booked very early. Personally, overall, I don’t think it went too badly. My main trouble was the lack of public transport out of Wrexham after 11:30pm.

The events marked with asterisks are extra events I booked while I was at the event.

Wednesday 15th November
12:30pm Joanna Quinn Screentalk.
I’d seen Joanna Quinn’s Girls Night Out prior to visiting BAF, during the screentalk I got to see Body Beautiful and Dreams and Desires-Family Ties. Each of these short animations features Beryl a robust and lively character with a definite Welsh accent. On the occasions where Beryl appears naked or minimally dressed I am reminded of the life-drawing images that frequented the walls of Yale College’s Memorial Art building while I was a student there. Joanna Quinn had said herself that life-drawing has played an important part in the development of her drawing and animating skills. Her sketchy style adds an extra liveliness to her animations. Quinn mentioned her preference for a minimalist approach to using colour on her animations, which goes to show that you don’t need in-your-face colours to get your point across. Clients from other countries for whom Quinn produces commercial work for don’t seem to agree with this though.

3:30pm Showreel Spotlight Discussion Panel.
This event was an advice seminar on how to create the perfect showreel to impress your potential future employer. On the panel were Paula Moses from Skillset, who aim to aid ‘the development of skill strategies and action plans’ for those working within the diverse media industry. There was Louise Spraggon, Producer for Channel 4’s Animator In Residence scheme. Prior to this her background includes work in education and animation production, she has worked for Aardman Animations, Martin Gates Productions, Hot Animation and Warner Bros. Also Mike Cawood, Senior Animator for Rare, the renowned video games studio, and finally Sueann Smith the Senior Producer for Red Kite Animation, based in Scotland. Important points this panel made were that drawing skills are important, don’t forget to feature those within the showreel, use acting to give the animation personality and character, this makes the viewing more interesting. It is also important not to spread yourself too thinly, focus. When trying to find employment within the games industry try not to use recruiters, especially since they charge a fee, attempt to speak to the games companies directly, though the opposite advice was given to those wishing to find employment within the animation industry. As for what order your samples of work should be presented on the showreel, it was suggested to have the best work at the beginning, everything else in the middle and maybe have the 2nd best at the end, just incase it gets played all the way through. When it came to how long the showreel should be, it was said, anywhere between 1 1/2 to 3 minutes.

*5:30pm Monster House.
I’d seen the adverts for this animation and didn’t think much of it, but since I had the chance to watch it for free i thought it was worth a try. Having seen the film I’m now glad that I gave it a chance, the adverts really didn’t do it justice. The story was amusing, it even had a few laugh-out-loud moments, what I found even more amusing was when I found out that the voice actors had to really work for their money for this film. The director chose to use the motion capture approach to this animation to give the characters as believable motion as possible, the 3D CGI equivalent of rotascoping.

7:30pm Channel 4 AIR Previews 2006.
This is where we got to see the completed films and development pieces by animators given the chance to develop their talents with the aid of Channel 4 from within an animation booth within the Animation Gallery within the NMPFT. The booth is fitted with a one-way glass, visitors can watch the animators work, but the animators can’t see the visitors. Which apparently is unnerving since the booth isn’t sound proof.

Thursday 16th November
12:30pm Paul Berry Tribute
Paul Berry was a stop-motion animator, unfortunately died at the age of 41 of a brain tumour. The tribute screened clips of his past work and had some insight from a few of the people that worked with him and knew him. The productions he had been involved with include The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and the Dairlylea adverts featuring the stop-motion cows.
All of those that spoke of him said the he was very talented, was much loved and will be greatly missed.

*3:00pm Panorama 3
The Panoramas are screenings of the submissions that didn’t quite make it into the final shortlist. I chose this particular panorama after looking through the events guide and seeing the image from the short Guide Dog by Bill Plympton. One look at that dogs face and I had to see the animation. I wasn’t disappointed either as I found the short hilarious. Leap of Faith was another short film I found funny, it featured bungie-jumping robots. Broken Wire had stickmen made 3D as they were CGI modeled as though they were made from wire. I had seen a couple of the other shorts before, either on the internet or because they were commercials that I’ve seen on television.

4:00pm Thirty Years of Cosgrove Hall
I enjoyed going to this screening as most of the animations I remember from my childhood were created by Cosgrove Hall, such as Chorlton and the Wheelies, a short and strange series about a happiness dragon called Chorllton, and it’s great to see that they’re still going strong, excelled even. Their success could be down to the fact that they have never limited themselves to just one specific animation technique as well as employing talented animators.

7:00pm animate! Previews
“animate! Challenges artists to refresh their eyes and minds, to transcend the ordinary and re-vision the world with unexpected tools. The project believes passionately in spirited, radical content, and in film-based work as well as digital process.” (quote from the BAF ’06 guide pg 27)
Of the six films I was shown I can name only three that held my interest for any length of time, Interstellar Stella, according to the guide it’s about the child model, though on watching, it seemed to be more about the photographer, Purple Grey, this seemed to show that the guy really needed more sleep, and Yours Truly, the collage in animation form, I mostly liked this one because I like collages generally. A few of the shots within From Nose to Mouth I found visually interesting, Proximity I just found boring and We Believe in Happy Endings was just an animated version of what happens in any cheap, tacky nightclub, something I left behind when I left my job at a nightclub I grew to detest, and it’s not something I would choose to view.

Friday 17th November
1:00pm Andreas Hykade Screentalk
I found this talk enjoyable, informative and inspiring. After seeing a selection of Andreas’ work I found I really liked his style of work, he as a simplistic, almost childlike style to his drawings. In We Lived in Grass, Ring of Fire and The Runt, this childlike style is used to get across some very adult issues. His series about Tom, a young boy who spends every adventure trying to get a slice of bread with strawberry jam and honey on it, is his work aimed for the younger audience. Andreas has also done commercial work and music videos. When producing animations for music videos, one of the things he didn’t like was the musicians having a look at the animation, then asking if he could put an image of them in it somewhere, for reasons such as this, he prefers to work on his own films rather than commercials work. He has noticed that some other animators have used a style very similar to his in commercials, when asked his opinion of this copying, he said that he considered it to be a form of flattery.
After the festival, because I liked Andreas’ work so much I decided to have a look at the website for his company, Studio Film Bilder.

4:00pm Mark Craste Screentalk
Mark Craste from Studio AKA, is another animator whose work I quite like. He tends to use a lot of 3D CGI, as with Jojo and the Stars and Pica Towers, a technique which I myself am not comfortable with, but that doesn’t stop me from admiring those that are very competent with the media. His is another style that I’m quite drawn too, in some respects it reminds me of Tim Burton’s style.
Mark had some very useful advice when it came to showreels, he emphasised the importance over quality and not quantity, he said that no-one is interested in quantity and possible future employers are not interested in long showreels “Whatever you’re presenting, edit it down to the best 20%”, and research the company you’re trying to get into, that way you can make sure that what you put into your showreel is what they are looking for.

7:30pm Special Preview: Peter and the Wolf
I was first introduced to Suzie Templeton’s work during one of the viewing room sessions at NEWI, where we saw Dog, an emotional tale of a young boy, who is grieving for his mum and wants reassurance from his dad, who seems to be extremely agoraphobic. At BAF we were shown Stanley, a tale of a man with too much love for a cabbage and his angry wife, Dog and Peter & the Wolf, Suzie’s animated interpretation of Profokiev’s story. I found that Suzie’s style has a harsh realism that draws you in with intrigue. The human characters tend to be highly detailed armatures with large glassy eyes that seem to hold so much emotion that it can be slightly disturbing.

Saturday 18th November
11:00am Commercial Animation Panel
During this event we had a look at commercial animation with some prestigious animation professionals and chair speaker, NEWI’s own, Jim Walker. The speakers for this event were Joanna Quinn, of Beryl Productions, Mark Craste, Studio AKA, John Woolley, Aardman Animation, Andreas Hykade, Studio Film Bilder and Bob Godfrey, Oscar winner.
In between the viewings of animated commercials over the years was interesting and useful discussions and tips on how to be successful within the commercial sector of animation, again reiterating the importance of short, good quality showreels when looking for a career. For commercial animations to be successful they need to be short and memoralble.

*1:30pm Dave Burgess Screentalk + Over The Hedge
My main reason for going to this screening was that if I was going to spend all this money getting here, then I should at least see all the feature films on show, especially ones I’ve never seen before. When Over The Hedge was released in the cinemas my instant reaction was “Meh, another cgi films just been churned out”, as a number of CGI films were released at the same time and it looked just like one great big attempt for animation companies to jump up and down and say “look, look, see I can do CGI too”. TV reviews for any 3D CGI animation always try to lead you to believe that each and every one is the best that 3D CGI has to offer with visuals, they never mention whether or not the actual story is any good. The adverts I saw for this film didn’t encourage me to want to see it either. But since I was at BAF and would get to hear something from one of the animators for the film, I decided to give it a go. Hearing what Dave Burgess had to say and seeing some of the clips he brought with him, I soon discovered that my initial response towards this film was unfair and I soon came to love the character that he had worked on, Hammy the squirrel. Most of the advice Dave had for aspiring new animators was that CGI is the future. I’m still happy to believe that the best future for animation is a diverse one.

7:30pm BAF Awards Ceremony
The bit all the entrants were waiting for.

Professional Award:
Rabbit directed by Run Wrake.

Student Film Award:
Guy 101 directed by Ian Gouldstone.

Independent Award:
Tale of How directed by Blackheart Gang.

Music Video Award:
New York Dolls – Dance Like A Monkey directed by Dano Johnson.

Commercial Award:
Motorola – Classics directed by Smith and Foulkes.

TV Series Award:
Charlie and Lola: But That Is My Book directed by Kitty Taylor.

Films for Children Award:
About A Goat and A Ram directed by Sergey Glagolev.

Films Produced by Children Award:
Rubbish directed by Alex Hancocks.

Jury Prize:
Who I Am And What I Want directed by Chris Shepherd and David Shrigley.

Audience Award:
The Lecture (World Premiere) directed by Clint Cure.

BAF Grand Prix Award:
Dreams and Desires – Family Ties directed by Joanna Quinn.