PPP sparked my fire for networking a bit and made it burn brighter than it did before. I always wanted to network more, but I actually never did. I was jealous of some of my friends who are easy talkers, who just could go up to some animators whose work they admired and talk about it, leaving probably some impressions.
While I was at BAF I dared to open up a bit more and dared to ask questions in a full lecture room or just walk up to some people, even if it was to ask for just a photo. I think being in another country, forcing myself in other surroundings, new classes, new people, might've been the start of it. Usually I always waste away in a corner, until I think it's safe enough to open up myself to other people, but I kind of forced myself out of that lifestyle since I was here for only a short period of time.
While I was here I started working on a showreel I could use to contact some studios with, since I'm required to work as an intern in April. Just waltzing into a studio to show my portfolio isn't something I usually do, but when I went to ShoSho for my application, I felt more confident than I did before. So this is a thing I want to continue doing the nest months, even years. I want to go to more festivals (if my wallet allows me to), talk to more people and try to dig more into the world of animators what I wish to be a part of.
Some festivals I have in mind to go to are Holland Animation film Festival in Utrecht (18-22 march), Klik Amsterdam (27 october - 1 november), Playgrounds (October 2015). I wish to go to das Internationales Trickfilm Festival in Stuttgart again (5-10 may 2015), but since I'm having my internship then, I'm not sure what the possibilities are since you need to take days off, etc. However, when working at Shosho, I'm also sort of busy networking, right?
I want to thank everyone at LCA Animation department for guiding me through these past months and I wish to visit again soon!
Showing posts with label ppp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ppp. Show all posts
Monday, 19 January 2015
Business cards Mock ups
To finalise my semester of PPP, I created some mockups for business cards. They are probably not finished yet, but it's a start I could go further on when I'm producing my graduation film (where business cards are required). Since my website is plain with a yellow border, I stuck to it (also on other platforms like YouTube and Google+, still busy on touching up my other networks) and used a basic font for the contacts.
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Rebekah Caputo
Rebekah Caputo is a puppeteer and theatre maker.
What is puppetry?
For anything inanimate to appear alive. (This can be literally puppets, but nature and other resources are used as well)
Why puppets? Because they find them magical. There’s a feeling deep inside all of us that wants objects, puppets and things to be or appear alive. This feeling has roots deep inside since many, many years ago.As a puppeteer you can be anything, no restriction by your own human form. You can do anything. You can fly, move all around, be tall, be small.
Rebekah started off with an acting degree, but the study turned out to be more about theatre making (creating original performances). After graduating she set up with a theatre company. There she encountered extreme physical characterisation with their own bodies, participated in (contemporary) dance, clowning, characterisation and puppetry. This was the moment she started playing around with puppets and found a fascination. She then found another studio that turned it all upside down. Being able to create a world on stage and able to control everything.
After a short while the company split (it was a young company, still unsure of what to do) and she decided to create puppets on her own for two years, learning how to make good puppets and performing in small settings with small audiences, to learn how to do puppetry in front of an audience. This was a big learning experience.
She mainly created tiny puppets which are about 40 cm tall. She had created Lois as well, Lois was full body puppet. The puppet was taller than she is, her hand in the puppets head had to be raised at all times. All puppets are a bit dark and “strange”, influences by these studios:
Faulty Optic
Pickled image (not afraid to use darkness as comedy)
Folded Feather (object theatre, ordinary every objects brought to life)
Suspense festival —> biyearly puppetry festival in London.
Skipton puppet festival —> near Leeds based puppetry festival
Rebekah's other influences are people. She likes watching people, how they move, how they look, how their faces move and look different from one another. Sometimes in process when you get stuck, or you don’t know how the puppet should move —> looking at other people helps with something like that. Other solutions are to give yourself physical “restrictions” so the puppet will move differently because of it (for example to tie something heavy to your leg).
Other influences are
Masks. Exaggeration of the human face in an exciting manner.
Skeletons, looking at nature and how other shapes and bodies are made up for references.
Car boot sales/charity shops, lovely places to find all different kinds of objects, maybe obscure as well. The thought that they have a history (which can be made up again) is intriguing.
Professional practice
Odd Doll Puppetry Leeds based. Create performances able to tour. Unique but homely for audiences.
A quiet word: Leeds based. Shadow art (shadow puppetry) collaborative projects with dancers.
the importance of sharing her practice: enjoys sharing what she does. She runs a night: Animate Live. Every other month. Puppeteers and musicians come together to perform improvised together.
Creative practice.
She is a Master's student of LCA. Creative and professional practices have impact on one another. Celebrating the darkness within.
The uncanny (Freud) The sensation of the uncanny is when you feel weird about something, unnerve. (not really agree with Freud) but the sensation of the uncanny is strongly linked with the art form of puppetry.
combining objects and puppets. combining different looking puppets with objects to strengthen the “weird feel”. combining a body with wheels for example.
Collaboration.
for MA project working together with musicians to create a piece together, experimenting with the puppet, together with the music, but also experimenting with other objects interacting with the puppet like pieces of paper.
After the presentation she provided us with a tiny workshop for the ones who were interested. She taught us how to bring all your energy and focus to your fingertips, so when you lightly touch the object (in this case a crumpled page of the news paper), you get to see and understand how it moves. After interacting with it while it has no character, you had to look at the page and see how you could turn it into a character like thing, make it seem like he's looking somewhere, decide how he moves etc. I didn't participate for I wanted to watch and record it, but it was very interesting and it's real good reference for a later point in time when I ever get stuck with my work.
What is puppetry?
For anything inanimate to appear alive. (This can be literally puppets, but nature and other resources are used as well)
Why puppets? Because they find them magical. There’s a feeling deep inside all of us that wants objects, puppets and things to be or appear alive. This feeling has roots deep inside since many, many years ago.As a puppeteer you can be anything, no restriction by your own human form. You can do anything. You can fly, move all around, be tall, be small.
Rebekah started off with an acting degree, but the study turned out to be more about theatre making (creating original performances). After graduating she set up with a theatre company. There she encountered extreme physical characterisation with their own bodies, participated in (contemporary) dance, clowning, characterisation and puppetry. This was the moment she started playing around with puppets and found a fascination. She then found another studio that turned it all upside down. Being able to create a world on stage and able to control everything.
After a short while the company split (it was a young company, still unsure of what to do) and she decided to create puppets on her own for two years, learning how to make good puppets and performing in small settings with small audiences, to learn how to do puppetry in front of an audience. This was a big learning experience.
She mainly created tiny puppets which are about 40 cm tall. She had created Lois as well, Lois was full body puppet. The puppet was taller than she is, her hand in the puppets head had to be raised at all times. All puppets are a bit dark and “strange”, influences by these studios:
Faulty Optic
Pickled image (not afraid to use darkness as comedy)
Folded Feather (object theatre, ordinary every objects brought to life)
Suspense festival —> biyearly puppetry festival in London.
Skipton puppet festival —> near Leeds based puppetry festival
Rebekah's other influences are people. She likes watching people, how they move, how they look, how their faces move and look different from one another. Sometimes in process when you get stuck, or you don’t know how the puppet should move —> looking at other people helps with something like that. Other solutions are to give yourself physical “restrictions” so the puppet will move differently because of it (for example to tie something heavy to your leg).
Other influences are
Masks. Exaggeration of the human face in an exciting manner.
Skeletons, looking at nature and how other shapes and bodies are made up for references.
Car boot sales/charity shops, lovely places to find all different kinds of objects, maybe obscure as well. The thought that they have a history (which can be made up again) is intriguing.
Professional practice
Odd Doll Puppetry Leeds based. Create performances able to tour. Unique but homely for audiences.
A quiet word: Leeds based. Shadow art (shadow puppetry) collaborative projects with dancers.
the importance of sharing her practice: enjoys sharing what she does. She runs a night: Animate Live. Every other month. Puppeteers and musicians come together to perform improvised together.
Creative practice.
She is a Master's student of LCA. Creative and professional practices have impact on one another. Celebrating the darkness within.
The uncanny (Freud) The sensation of the uncanny is when you feel weird about something, unnerve. (not really agree with Freud) but the sensation of the uncanny is strongly linked with the art form of puppetry.
combining objects and puppets. combining different looking puppets with objects to strengthen the “weird feel”. combining a body with wheels for example.
Collaboration.
for MA project working together with musicians to create a piece together, experimenting with the puppet, together with the music, but also experimenting with other objects interacting with the puppet like pieces of paper.
After the presentation she provided us with a tiny workshop for the ones who were interested. She taught us how to bring all your energy and focus to your fingertips, so when you lightly touch the object (in this case a crumpled page of the news paper), you get to see and understand how it moves. After interacting with it while it has no character, you had to look at the page and see how you could turn it into a character like thing, make it seem like he's looking somewhere, decide how he moves etc. I didn't participate for I wanted to watch and record it, but it was very interesting and it's real good reference for a later point in time when I ever get stuck with my work.
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Tom Saunders
Today in the session Annabeth spoke a bit about freelancing, but to explain this further, she invited a graduate from six years ago to talk about his experiences.
Tom Saunders.
Tom is a graduate of Leeds College of Art of the same course (technically not entirely the same since the definition of the course keeps changing over the years. He had no idea what he wanted to do when studying animation. While a lot of people advise you to focus on one, two at the most, different techniques to develop yourself in, he started developing in a broad range of techniques and possibilities. For he had no clear vision of what he wanted to do after graduating, this seemed a good option. Tom had made different contacts with people from different areas while studying and got offers lasting for two years afterwards, giving hem a free ticket to a thing to start working on. He already has done different kind of jobs.
Tom Saunders.
Tom is a graduate of Leeds College of Art of the same course (technically not entirely the same since the definition of the course keeps changing over the years. He had no idea what he wanted to do when studying animation. While a lot of people advise you to focus on one, two at the most, different techniques to develop yourself in, he started developing in a broad range of techniques and possibilities. For he had no clear vision of what he wanted to do after graduating, this seemed a good option. Tom had made different contacts with people from different areas while studying and got offers lasting for two years afterwards, giving hem a free ticket to a thing to start working on. He already has done different kind of jobs.
When freelancing:
Use social network websites wisely and carefully. They are useful tools. When updating a social network (like facebook or twitter), let people know your busy, what you’re busy with, keep ‘em coming. Try and keep your social networks divided in a different one for your work and personal stuff. (It's not really professional to have a photo or video of your work in the same album as your (nearly) drunk experiences the night before) Through social networking you’ll be updated of other people as well; there can be possibilities you’ll come across others close by. When using social networks you're easily reachable for other parties.
Research target clients. When you want to work for certain companies or clients, you must know who you’re working for (and who they’re creating for respectively).
Networking opens doors. Through meeting people, you’ll meet new people, who again know people who might be interested in working with you. Try to get to as much networking opportunities as possible.
Have a plan… sort of. Aim high… why not? When freelancing: how much (money)? It’s a trap. Don’t directly answer.
Keep clients happy is the key point to keep in mind.
What I thought was really funny is how is Doctor Who fanboy side came more forward, every so slightly with every mention of the show or it's actors.
Oh yeah there was a session
A few weeks back we focussed a bit on who is actually a part of the team of a production and who you come across as an animator. Do these people all fit in the same company, or are they perhaps divided into different teams from different studios? The first thing we can say is that as an animator you come across heaps of people from different disciplines. With some you work together more than others, but we're all valuable parts of the team(s).
First we divided us in two groups (well, one table and the other) and we had to scribble down different people you meet as an animator in a production. (our group didn't consist of neato-mosquitoes but squiggly lines galore!)
Afterwards when we finished comparing them and discussing a bit Annabeth had put three more sheets on the wall and started to write down a kind of scheme presenting the process of a production. As already known, a production of an animation is divided in three processes: pre-production, production and post-production. The thing we looked a bit more into this time was who is present in what stage of the production?
Friday, 2 January 2015
I got an internship!
I've been in contact with a studio after sending an email with the question if they would have a spot for me starting next april, my portfolio and showreel attached. (actually, the first time round I sent the mail I forgot to attach them. Oops. No wonder I got no response.) The second time round I sent the mail I got a mail back within a week saying I should come by soon to meet the animators.
I was guessing this was going to be kind of a application/job interview so I was quite excited. At first I wouldn't return to the Netherlands until 22 December, so I couldn't come by since the animation team would be off for Christmas so I was a bit bummed out that I had to wait until the end of January to visit. When I suddenly rescheduled my flight to the 17th, I immediately sent a mail asking if I was able to visit either thursday or friday. And so I came by on thursday.
At first I got a short tour through the studio and met the animators. Then Harold (the one half of the founders) got me a seat next to one of the animators to go through my showreel and portfolio. I think I should change my format of my portfolio. Since we started at the top with my most recent work and we scrolled down and down I started to cringe more and more. That's something for later worry though.
It was really fun meeting the animators and it all felt really natural. I didn't feel uncomfortable while taling about my past projects. What's a bummer though is that I wasn't able to show what I am currently working on since I didn't make a recent playblast and he wasn't able to open my file (backwards incompatibility, damn it!) But overall he seemed quite enthusiastic about my work so that's a relief. Furthermore I got a sneak peek at their recent (finished) projects to look a bit more into what they're working on, since not all of it is visible content on their website.
I had an amazing experience doing the "internship interview(?)" and I'm glad to say that I was welcome to come working there for my internship next april!
I was guessing this was going to be kind of a application/job interview so I was quite excited. At first I wouldn't return to the Netherlands until 22 December, so I couldn't come by since the animation team would be off for Christmas so I was a bit bummed out that I had to wait until the end of January to visit. When I suddenly rescheduled my flight to the 17th, I immediately sent a mail asking if I was able to visit either thursday or friday. And so I came by on thursday.
At first I got a short tour through the studio and met the animators. Then Harold (the one half of the founders) got me a seat next to one of the animators to go through my showreel and portfolio. I think I should change my format of my portfolio. Since we started at the top with my most recent work and we scrolled down and down I started to cringe more and more. That's something for later worry though.
It was really fun meeting the animators and it all felt really natural. I didn't feel uncomfortable while taling about my past projects. What's a bummer though is that I wasn't able to show what I am currently working on since I didn't make a recent playblast and he wasn't able to open my file (backwards incompatibility, damn it!) But overall he seemed quite enthusiastic about my work so that's a relief. Furthermore I got a sneak peek at their recent (finished) projects to look a bit more into what they're working on, since not all of it is visible content on their website.
I had an amazing experience doing the "internship interview(?)" and I'm glad to say that I was welcome to come working there for my internship next april!
Monday, 15 December 2014
Studio I like 3: Shosho
Another studio I tried to contact is Shosho, located in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
Shosho is a studio with different disciplines: Film, VFX, animation, design and interaction. In Amsterdam the main focus lies with film, animation, VFX and interaction, while in Rotterdam it's design and motion-graphics for film and television
The offer a varied set of services for companies interested to hire them:
Shosho is a studio with different disciplines: Film, VFX, animation, design and interaction. In Amsterdam the main focus lies with film, animation, VFX and interaction, while in Rotterdam it's design and motion-graphics for film and television
The offer a varied set of services for companies interested to hire them:
- VFX for film, TV and commercials
- Animation in 2D and 3D
- Motion-graphics for leaders, title sequences and corporate films
- Illustration and character design
- Graphic design, film posters and illustration
- Films combining all of the above
- Development of interactive projects.
When looking at their site the first time, the thing that struck me was the video for Philips Senseo they put up on their homepage. I wish I could embed the video in here but I can't because of its privacy settings.
I really love how the studio provides such a wide range of services, this way there's a great change you'll be in contact with people from different disciplines while working on certain projects.
Thursday, 4 December 2014
BAF17 - Overall thoughts
Overall I'm really glad I went to the festival, even though it was quite draining for me. When I went to Stuttgart this year I already thought it was pretty exhausting and that was 3.5, so five days was a bit madness! Because I have a really bad sleeping pattern and a shortage of sleep because of that, I dozed off quite some times during events, which I'm really ashamed about.
A good thing: I stepped a bit above myself and spoke to some of the speakers, a thing I never really did because I was scared. During the small set "meet the speakers" I came up to them afterwards to ask to take pictures. It's not much, but it's a big thing for me to just walk up to these big figures, almost 'heroes', and flat out ask them for a photo, so that was a nice first step. Then I stepped up a bit more and asked a question during a big talk in the big lecture hall. My heart beating in my throat I managed to ask the question decently. I was always afraid to ask questions in big settings like this, first because I'm afraid I'll mess up (especially if it's an unknown setting in a different language. I have no difficulty talking up in a big lecture hall during a lecture while being with people I know though), or because I'm afraid to look like a fool.
I know there are also lots of people, newer to this world than I am who talk to these people, just like that. I'm really envious of those, but these two steps I took during this week are not just steps to me, they're leaps. So I hope in future events like this I'll be able to push myself even further. This world is all about presenting yourself, sitting quiet in the background won't get you far.
Aside of me stepping out of my comfort zone, it was a pretty enjoyable week. I've seen lots of shorts for the second time (that's what you get for going to multiple festivals, but that's a good thing, right?) but also many new ones. It was really nice to see what's all out there.
My main things for a next festival or event like this are to get some proper sleep so I'll be awake through it all, and to step out of my comfort zone more and more, talk to people!
A good thing: I stepped a bit above myself and spoke to some of the speakers, a thing I never really did because I was scared. During the small set "meet the speakers" I came up to them afterwards to ask to take pictures. It's not much, but it's a big thing for me to just walk up to these big figures, almost 'heroes', and flat out ask them for a photo, so that was a nice first step. Then I stepped up a bit more and asked a question during a big talk in the big lecture hall. My heart beating in my throat I managed to ask the question decently. I was always afraid to ask questions in big settings like this, first because I'm afraid I'll mess up (especially if it's an unknown setting in a different language. I have no difficulty talking up in a big lecture hall during a lecture while being with people I know though), or because I'm afraid to look like a fool.
I know there are also lots of people, newer to this world than I am who talk to these people, just like that. I'm really envious of those, but these two steps I took during this week are not just steps to me, they're leaps. So I hope in future events like this I'll be able to push myself even further. This world is all about presenting yourself, sitting quiet in the background won't get you far.
Aside of me stepping out of my comfort zone, it was a pretty enjoyable week. I've seen lots of shorts for the second time (that's what you get for going to multiple festivals, but that's a good thing, right?) but also many new ones. It was really nice to see what's all out there.
My main things for a next festival or event like this are to get some proper sleep so I'll be awake through it all, and to step out of my comfort zone more and more, talk to people!
BAF16 - Double Negative
Chris McLaughlin, a sequence supervisor from Double Negative, came to talk about the special effects of Hercules, mainly about the creature development for Hercules. He first showed the Showreel (which was uh-mazing by the way) before starting to talk about the process.
For Hercules Double Negative had to create environment extensions, digidoubles, crowds and five creatures. Each his own mini sequence and their own environments. The creatures were the Erumenthian Boar, Lernaean Hydra, Nemean Lion, Cerberus and the three wolves. They were provided with some material; concept art, sculpt references, Cerberus previs (provided by "the Third Floor", which was shown.) They realised they had a few challenges ahead: hair and fur, a lot of it and many close ups. Creature in the water, interaction with actors and snow. The RND team created a groom tool Furball, a GPU based procedural node based tool, to help themselves when creating the fur. They created fur simulations, v5 physical plausible shading, Fluid simulations and a crowd rioting.
A great piece of advice you'll hear everywhere: Reference is the most important in VFX
Each creature had the same kind of pipeline: the model, displacement, texture base, details and shading. When creating the creatures, they started off from the sculptures they were provided, and altered them in a manner that they fit better with the visuals they wanted to create. Then they added lots of different maps on top of it. Displacement maps add ton of details and realism with not too much effort. For the fur of the lion they used multiple shaders with different tones to achieve a realistic effect for animals never consist of the same colour over the body.
They also used a lot of digidoubles or pieces of it for Hercules for the live acting didn't fit the sequence. They used the doubles for both far and close up shots. The digidoubles (also others than just Hercules) were useful for things like costume variation, for they were easy to add in. Key thing with acting when you know you'll add a digidouble is to use contraptions while shooting a scene. The contraptions add weight to the acting. Instead of acting to hold on to the jaws of a wolf, act while holding on to a contraption which you can edit out later and add the CG on top.
To try and achieve more "realisticness" in the creatures they used a normal rig with volume joints. This way, when they move, the amount of volume stays the same. Instead of just folding in when moving a joint, the volume gets displaced to achieve a more realistic feel. The first thing to do with the creatures is to create walk and run cycles to see if the volume distribution is allright. Then the muscle mesh is attached to the rig with a skin mesh wrapper around it. This creates the illusion that the skin is gliding on top of the muscles, just like it would do in real life.
Pipelines of two sequences:
The hydra sequence:
Key the blue screen
Environment extension
Add the hydra
Add water fluids
Add water on Hercules (no digidouble, on top of the actor)
Extend camera movements for more drama.
The boar sequence:
Real life footage
Blow up a tree for reference
Add the boar
Environment extension (or entirely CG)
Add CG Hercules
Add snow interaction.
It was really nice to see how VFX really work and it was an eyeopener for me. I must say I opened up my mind a bit more towards visual effects. I was always really envious of people who were really good in creating VFX, and I have much respect, but I never thought I would be interesting in doing them myself because I always thought of myself as a character kind of girl. Well done Chris, you caught my attention.
For Hercules Double Negative had to create environment extensions, digidoubles, crowds and five creatures. Each his own mini sequence and their own environments. The creatures were the Erumenthian Boar, Lernaean Hydra, Nemean Lion, Cerberus and the three wolves. They were provided with some material; concept art, sculpt references, Cerberus previs (provided by "the Third Floor", which was shown.) They realised they had a few challenges ahead: hair and fur, a lot of it and many close ups. Creature in the water, interaction with actors and snow. The RND team created a groom tool Furball, a GPU based procedural node based tool, to help themselves when creating the fur. They created fur simulations, v5 physical plausible shading, Fluid simulations and a crowd rioting.
A great piece of advice you'll hear everywhere: Reference is the most important in VFX
Each creature had the same kind of pipeline: the model, displacement, texture base, details and shading. When creating the creatures, they started off from the sculptures they were provided, and altered them in a manner that they fit better with the visuals they wanted to create. Then they added lots of different maps on top of it. Displacement maps add ton of details and realism with not too much effort. For the fur of the lion they used multiple shaders with different tones to achieve a realistic effect for animals never consist of the same colour over the body.
They also used a lot of digidoubles or pieces of it for Hercules for the live acting didn't fit the sequence. They used the doubles for both far and close up shots. The digidoubles (also others than just Hercules) were useful for things like costume variation, for they were easy to add in. Key thing with acting when you know you'll add a digidouble is to use contraptions while shooting a scene. The contraptions add weight to the acting. Instead of acting to hold on to the jaws of a wolf, act while holding on to a contraption which you can edit out later and add the CG on top.
To try and achieve more "realisticness" in the creatures they used a normal rig with volume joints. This way, when they move, the amount of volume stays the same. Instead of just folding in when moving a joint, the volume gets displaced to achieve a more realistic feel. The first thing to do with the creatures is to create walk and run cycles to see if the volume distribution is allright. Then the muscle mesh is attached to the rig with a skin mesh wrapper around it. This creates the illusion that the skin is gliding on top of the muscles, just like it would do in real life.
Pipelines of two sequences:
The hydra sequence:
Key the blue screen
Environment extension
Add the hydra
Add water fluids
Add water on Hercules (no digidouble, on top of the actor)
Extend camera movements for more drama.
The boar sequence:
Real life footage
Blow up a tree for reference
Add the boar
Environment extension (or entirely CG)
Add CG Hercules
Add snow interaction.
It was really nice to see how VFX really work and it was an eyeopener for me. I must say I opened up my mind a bit more towards visual effects. I was always really envious of people who were really good in creating VFX, and I have much respect, but I never thought I would be interesting in doing them myself because I always thought of myself as a character kind of girl. Well done Chris, you caught my attention.
BAF15 - Panorama 2
Lots of stop motion in this collection of shorts.
Seafront, directed by Claire Lamond, stop motion.
It starts with a couple who are musicians, playing in a tavern or something of the same sorts. The man has to leave for World War 1. We hear his letters directed to his love accompanied with visuals of her and their son trying to get through the day, connected with each other through the sea. A recurring object is a seashell, the shells are a symbol for their connection but leaves him upon his return with bad flashbacks for the sound reminds him of the horrors of the trenches. For they are together again they face the shells down in the sand.
Even though the story was quite interesting, I didn't feel like the short altogether was very captivating for the voiceovers were pretty awkward in combination with the animation. The style also seemed a bit rough to me so it wasn't very inviting.
Interview, directed by Mikkel Okholm, 3D animation.
Interview was a really funny and clever piece of animation. The short is set in a boring, pretty empty room except for a few chairs and a table. A guy is there for a job interview without knowing what job he is applying for. (Even though it's the most important job of all time, he only doesn't know it yet!) The man enters with good intentions but is quite confused with the sudden appearing and disappearing of his interviewers, who also seem to ask quite strange questions. Even though failing the interview in the first place he gets the job anyway since he's the only applicant left. Congratulations, you are now Adam.
The short was cleverly constructed and had funny segways and transitions between shots. Cheekily placed references which only make sense after the short has finished, really added up to the short. At the start of the film it seems like a regular job interview with a slightly off side to it, filling all the plotholes when it's finished. The play with environment and locations made it all feel even more weird, for we don't exactly know what's going on. I found this short very funny for it's made in a pleasing style and has my kind of humour. (I must say, my taste can be quite terrible for I like horrible jokes as well, but this one was brilliant)
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
BAF14 - Watch_Dogs
I made really little notes on this talk, but because I really enjoyed it (until I fell asleep from exhaustion) I want to talk at least a bit about it. What really touched me was the enthusiasm of the guy, Colin Graham, talking. He spoke in such a manner that he wanted to keep doing this for ever and ever, in the meantime grabbing each and everyone of us by our collars to go on this wonderful journey with him.
He spoke about this new game Watch_Dogs, which uses a slightly different approach to gaming than usual. The games asks you to use a smart phone for real life hacking in the game, which is a 3rd person shooter set in Chicago. This "NewGen" in gaming asked a lot of stuff from animation, so what does it mean? Over the years, game consoles progressed a shit ton on the area of memory. Even between the two latest models there's a significant difference. While the PS3 and XBOX 360 both had about 20-40 MB of animation render memory, the PS4 and XBOX ONE have 150-200 MB of memory. This huge difference in memory made it possible to add whole lot of new features to improve on the animation in the game. (Since animation compressing equals "poopoo filter", MEMORY MATTERS PEOPLE!)
Why does memory matter?
More memory means more space for variety in animation and less compression which requires better animation. Is your pipeline ready to double, triple or quadruple?
For Watch_Dogs they used a lot of real life footage through Motion Capture for the animation. Because of the better memory it's possible to use more different movements, differentiating styles and personalities. Even though MoCap still has its limitations (no minor movements like fingers and subtle details), it's a nifty piece of technology which helps out a lot animating simple movements like walking, running, jumping etc.
I like gaming and I absolutely adore games created by Ubisoft. Not because I love playing their games, but because their games look really gorgeous. Especially nowadays because of the growing technology and the growth in memory they are able to make it all look so beautiful and realistic. Of course the animation quality will look different in the gameplay than in the promotional posters, but it's still incredible how we are able nowadays to make it look like this when ten years ago we tried to use as less polygons as possible otherwise the game would crash.
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| Watch_Dogs 2014 |
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| Assassin's Creed 2013 |
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| Half-life 2 2004 |
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| Lara Croft in Tomb Raider 3 for Playstation 1998 |
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| Lara Croft in Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris 2014 |
Going back to Watch_Dogs, I want to share a funny thing he shared with us about animating the character. The main in the game, when walking leisurely, has his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. To have his hands in the pockets without them sticking through the fabric, they scaled down his fingers, leaving the hand like a stump. To quote Colin: ICONIC!
BAF13 - RSA
The RSA talk was kind of interesting, I'm not gonna lie (even though I feel like I should be honest and tell I also may or may not have fallen asleep at some point. ehem.)
Sara Wishart, an online innovation developer, was telling about what the RSA is doing. The Royal Society of Art makes students resolve world issues through design through competitions. The briefs of the Student Design Awards this time are Creative conditions, Moving pictures, Water for all, The daily diet, Human by nature, Fair play, Mobility city and Heritage by design. The awards challenge emerging students to tackle real-world social, economic and environmental issues through design thinking. They encourage animators to communicate world changing ideas though curiosity briefs.
Judging criteria consists of the following:
- Social and environmental benefit: 15%
- Research: 20%
- Design thinking: 20%
- Execution: 15%
- Magic: 30%
Animation needs to speak to social impact: for example, Greenpeace using Lego against Shell.
One of the shorts shown was The Power Of Empathy
The short uses the audio of a lecture about empathising with others instead of trying to give people useless advices. I must admit, it spoke to me in a way animation shorts usually don't. I watch a lot of shorts in my free time on internet but most of the time they are just for entertainment. Using the audio of a lecture discussing such an important issue which a lot of people deal with on a daily basis, gives the the short another vibe, while still being entertaining.
Another fun thing I liked about the video is that the animation style which at a first glance really reminded me of Julia Pott, an animator who also uses recorded audio of, in her case, conversations she ignited with people to tell their stories.
Sara Wishart, an online innovation developer, was telling about what the RSA is doing. The Royal Society of Art makes students resolve world issues through design through competitions. The briefs of the Student Design Awards this time are Creative conditions, Moving pictures, Water for all, The daily diet, Human by nature, Fair play, Mobility city and Heritage by design. The awards challenge emerging students to tackle real-world social, economic and environmental issues through design thinking. They encourage animators to communicate world changing ideas though curiosity briefs.
Judging criteria consists of the following:
- Social and environmental benefit: 15%
- Research: 20%
- Design thinking: 20%
- Execution: 15%
- Magic: 30%
Animation needs to speak to social impact: for example, Greenpeace using Lego against Shell.
One of the shorts shown was The Power Of Empathy
The short uses the audio of a lecture about empathising with others instead of trying to give people useless advices. I must admit, it spoke to me in a way animation shorts usually don't. I watch a lot of shorts in my free time on internet but most of the time they are just for entertainment. Using the audio of a lecture discussing such an important issue which a lot of people deal with on a daily basis, gives the the short another vibe, while still being entertaining.
Another fun thing I liked about the video is that the animation style which at a first glance really reminded me of Julia Pott, an animator who also uses recorded audio of, in her case, conversations she ignited with people to tell their stories.
Monday, 1 December 2014
BAF12 - Professional 2 screening
Rainy Days, directed by Vladimir Leschiov.
What really stood out to me was the medium this animation was created: black tea and ink. It gives a lovely atmosphere and ambiance to the film. It also fits with the flashback format of the animation. The short is about an old Japanese man boarding a ferry with a (to him) unknown destination. When it starts raining he sees flashbacks of his past. He remembers some of the stormy/rainy days in his past with a woman as a recurring figure. All the flashbacks have Mount Fuji in common as well.
I thought it was a gorgeous animation and beautifully done, really enjoyed all of it.
Hasta Santiago, directed by Mauro Carraro.
Created with a mix of 2D and 3D computer animation, it really has 2D feel to it lovely mix between the two media. (One of things I wish to do in the future, creating a crossover between 2D and 3D animation). The man starts on his journey of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It seems he gets lost at one point, meeting lots of different people in his path. We encounter him in many different places and locations, getting along with the different travellers who seem to share a bit of their journey with each other.
I thoroughly enjoyed this short without feeling it was a story which took a long time to tell (13 minutes). The colour gradation was beautiful and gave me a really nice vibe which I can't really describe. The colours also made me think of those illustrations in children books I used to read when I was little.
BAF11 - Professional 3 - Timber
Timber, directed by Nils Hedinger, was probably one of my favourite shorts I've seen all week. It's a snowy and cold night, and different kind of logs and branches gather together. Shivering from the cold they decide to light a fire from their own spare twigs and leafs. But one of them is a bit of a buzzkill and doesn't want to give up his leaf to add to the fire. A struggle erupts, the logs are fighting, trying to break twigs and pieces of bark of the other and it goes out of hand; the old log falls into the fire and can't get up. Enraged of the loss the fight continues and only the big log (grumpy guy) and the tiny twig remain. The big one is a bit evil while the smaller grieves the loss of the others. He takes revenge, hits the big guy and he ends up in the fire. In the morning the small twig is left and wakes up tot he sounds of electric saws.
I thought the short was funny and clever. Change the logs' looks to human, make the characteristics fit and you have your basic "survival in a time of need" film. The style was cute and managed to make different personalities noticeable, without going overboard with their designs. There was a tiny build up to the drama of the short, right from the start it was pretty noticeable though how this was going to end up, so it was kind of predictable. All in all, I really enjoyed this film because it was such recognisable scenario from films, but coloured in differently which turned out in a great twist in plot.
Tuesday, 25 November 2014
Contacting Studios and Showreel!
This week I made the first step into contacting some studios for an internship. For this I created my first showreel (as shown above). I created a draft version and showed this to Annabeth first for some feedback. With some lovely critique on how to improve the showreel I left some stuff out, put something extra in, and tried to shorten it a bit for it might've been a tad bit too long the first time round.
I wanted to contact some studios already to ask for some information if they have places for interns or not and if they further require anything from their applicants. I wanted to contact them already because it's never a bad thing to try and get your name known in the animation world. My teachers in the Netherlands told me a lot of studios are likely to prefer you call them instead of sending e-mails, but calling overseas is a bit too expensive for me right now, so I try to stick to e-mails instead for the time being.
I hope I receive some replies soon, but for now it's just wait.
Friday, 21 November 2014
BAF10 - Strange Hill High
Strange Hill High is an animated TVseries for cbbc.
The first one to talk was Mark Oswin.
Mark Oswin is one of the screenwriters for Strange Hill High. SHH is a collection of sci fi short stories in a city school with three main characters with different personalities that complement each other. Oswin illustrated this description of "sci fi short stories" as Twilight zone in a high school".
He first talked about the development:
- One line pitches
- Writers room
- 1 page outline
- SXS
- 1st draft script
- Redrafts
- Polish
They start the production of an episode by thinking of funny oneliners that can lead into an idea for a full episode. After choosing a oneliner they see fit, the gather round in the writers room, to discuss it and develop the storyline that fits the oneliner. Then they create the one page outline which is a description of how the episode is going to develop. Next is scene by scene writing where the episode gets written down in full detail, next is the first draft script, redrafts and finally polishing up the script, ready for recording.
Creating this series they use a three act structure (actually, it's more like 4, but whatever)
Act 1:
- Set up
- Inciting incident
Act 2 (I):
- Playing with fire
- Midpoint
Act 2 (II):
- Down Hill
- Lowest Point
Act 3:
- Fight back and fail
- Out of the bag
This all seemed pretty clear to me. It's a familiar style of creating stories, especially for children. It's one of the structures which have been discussed in a script writing workshop I attended last year in the Netherlands. He illustrated and explained the 3-act structure using an existing episode as an example.
Tips for writing:
- Write what makes you laugh. (Use sophisticated humour though for kids shows. This is actually quite a good thing because you can't fall back on jokes based on sex, violence or swearing)
- Plot/comedy/character balance is important
- Big visual comedy is necessary for TV
- No text! Gags and jokes based on text don't translate well.
- Movie moments
Also. Don't patronise kids. They'll know.
Second to Talk was tim Jones, he is the lead puppeteer for the show. (Of which the puppets are visualised by Ian Mackinnon) They use two puppeteers for each puppet, one to control the main body and the head and one to control the hands. They animate live to storyboards and the recordings made before and they "animate in reverse". (I noted this down but I don't really remember what he meant by that, Danique, bad notes!)
The controls for the puppets consist of three rods. One main rod that basically goes up his bum. Like a muppet! This rod has flicky thingy controls for moving the head like turning it around. The other two rods are connected to the hands with hinges in the wrist, so they twist nicely around when moving the rod.
Because they need two puppeteers per puppet, when they shoot the main scenes, it's quite crowded beneath the set, for there are six people standing really close together, trying to get everything done.
For the animation of the mouth they use 3D animation and through compositing it's placed over the heads of the puppets. A lovely detail to the puppets is that the costumes aren't just really tiny, everything is small to scale. Tiny stitches were used to make the details look gorgeous and to make it feel and look natural.
I enjoyed the talk itself for they both were short and to the point. They both managed to keep my attention the whole time, for I dozed off a bit during the discussion and Q&A. I felt it was all a bit too long and a lot got repeated as well. I might look this series up one time. I'm really interested in it now for I think it might be my humour!
BAF9 - The Boxtrolls - behind the scenes with Mark Shapiro
Below I'll post my notes from this talk of Mark Shapiro.
Mark Shapiro works at Laika studios, which already created 3 well known feature films to date, Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012) and the Boxtrolls (2014).
Mark works in the marketing department of the studio. Laika always uses a bit of behind the scenes footage when promoting a new film. This footage is part of a marketing, one might say. In the teaser for the Boxtrolls they specifically kept mentioning that the film is created by hand, with puppets, and everything is stop motion. To illustrate this the behind the scenes footage was used.
Lead characters in the film each had about 30 puppets. This way they could shoot scenes simultaneously and use different puppets for costume changes. Different puppets of the same character were also made to serve different purposes. For example: the Boxtrolls all wear a box and enter them sometimes, but the puppets are too big and complex to fit into the box. For these scenes they created different puppets of the troll with only limbs, so they could mimic the troll going into his box.
There are around 400 workers in the team, 10 of which are animators, the rest consists of all other kinds of departments, like puppet designers, hair department, clothing department, etc. Even though they promote to have created everything by hand (which is true for the most part), because this film asks for lots of crowds, most part of those crowds are composited on the computer. Sometimes painted backgrounds were used as well. Seam and rig removal was also done digitally. (the seams on the faces and the animation rigs)
Everything is asymmetrical in design, there is no straight line, it's all at an angle.
This film was a tall production, it asked for many tall sets and many, many props. In the film they used both replacement faces as well as mechanical faces. Faces are printed from special 3D colour printers, this gave a theatrical look to the puppets in this production, as opposed to Paranorman (other kind of 3D colour printer) and Coraline (Black and white printed and hand painted.) Mechanical faces were used for characters that didn't have much screentime, or didn't require much animation in the face (for they had no lines for example).
The film was shot what Canon 5D cameras, using natural lights and shadows in outdoor scenes and practical light in dark indoor scenes. It was shot 24 frames per second with 2 cameras at the same time to produce it in 3D as well. Animatable hair, as well as clothing contains wires. Hair that was not to be animated were printed solid. If it had to move for some reason (for example pulling on a moustache), they printed multiple of the face with the changing moustache, just like normal replacement faces.
A lot of different people from all the departments came from interesting backgrounds that didn't necessarily had to do with film production and animation. The ladies from hair department had a background in jewellery, set designers/producers had a theater background, etc. A lot of the departments work at the same scenes at the same time: for example puppet, prop, green, hair and clothing. (probably some more but he didn't tell, grrrr)
The mecha/megadrill was the biggest puppet they have worked with. It was a tad bit shorter than a grown man. The fire in the drill was an app on an ipad they had placed in the grill, instead of printed fire like in Coraline. Another hard part to animate (besides fire) was water: There's a scene where Eggs is in the sewers. They animated the water in the sewers by using a glass shower door with texture and placing movable lights beneath it. Moving the lights while filming made it look like the water was moving instead.
What is important during the creation of a puppet film is that a stable temperature is required. The temperature has an influence on the puppets and props (expansion/shrinking). Further the character designs and storyboard took 4 years to create.
Every now and then he showed a film as well of the behind the scenes footage, and the BTS footage they used to promote with. After this there was time for questions, and I felt I should try and speak up for once (heart thumping in my throat, afraid to fuck up.) I've always been curious how big productions like these managed to contain an universal style throughout the film, for when we created a stop motion short last year, there was a visible difference (at least to us) between different shots that were animated by either me, or two of my other group mates (we were a group of four, one was the "director" doing everything behind the camera, and us three were animating). So my question was "how do all the animators get on the same line to create the same style of animation throughout the film, for there are quite the few animators and everybody of course has his/her own style. How do you achieve the universal style?" In which he replied (in short) that a lot of the animators have been working since the start of Laika, so they've been working together for more productions already. Production is slow, so through the years the animators developed a common style. Directors also point out characters to certain animators because their distinctive style fits the character.
I really loved the talk, It's always really nice to take a look behind the scenes. I often watch lots of old behind the scenes footages from films to get me motivated, so a detailed talk like this was certainly something. (Even though I have no wishes now to create stop motion films, I really like the process.)
Mark Shapiro works at Laika studios, which already created 3 well known feature films to date, Coraline (2009), Paranorman (2012) and the Boxtrolls (2014).
Mark works in the marketing department of the studio. Laika always uses a bit of behind the scenes footage when promoting a new film. This footage is part of a marketing, one might say. In the teaser for the Boxtrolls they specifically kept mentioning that the film is created by hand, with puppets, and everything is stop motion. To illustrate this the behind the scenes footage was used.
Lead characters in the film each had about 30 puppets. This way they could shoot scenes simultaneously and use different puppets for costume changes. Different puppets of the same character were also made to serve different purposes. For example: the Boxtrolls all wear a box and enter them sometimes, but the puppets are too big and complex to fit into the box. For these scenes they created different puppets of the troll with only limbs, so they could mimic the troll going into his box.
There are around 400 workers in the team, 10 of which are animators, the rest consists of all other kinds of departments, like puppet designers, hair department, clothing department, etc. Even though they promote to have created everything by hand (which is true for the most part), because this film asks for lots of crowds, most part of those crowds are composited on the computer. Sometimes painted backgrounds were used as well. Seam and rig removal was also done digitally. (the seams on the faces and the animation rigs)
Everything is asymmetrical in design, there is no straight line, it's all at an angle.
This film was a tall production, it asked for many tall sets and many, many props. In the film they used both replacement faces as well as mechanical faces. Faces are printed from special 3D colour printers, this gave a theatrical look to the puppets in this production, as opposed to Paranorman (other kind of 3D colour printer) and Coraline (Black and white printed and hand painted.) Mechanical faces were used for characters that didn't have much screentime, or didn't require much animation in the face (for they had no lines for example).
The film was shot what Canon 5D cameras, using natural lights and shadows in outdoor scenes and practical light in dark indoor scenes. It was shot 24 frames per second with 2 cameras at the same time to produce it in 3D as well. Animatable hair, as well as clothing contains wires. Hair that was not to be animated were printed solid. If it had to move for some reason (for example pulling on a moustache), they printed multiple of the face with the changing moustache, just like normal replacement faces.
A lot of different people from all the departments came from interesting backgrounds that didn't necessarily had to do with film production and animation. The ladies from hair department had a background in jewellery, set designers/producers had a theater background, etc. A lot of the departments work at the same scenes at the same time: for example puppet, prop, green, hair and clothing. (probably some more but he didn't tell, grrrr)
The mecha/megadrill was the biggest puppet they have worked with. It was a tad bit shorter than a grown man. The fire in the drill was an app on an ipad they had placed in the grill, instead of printed fire like in Coraline. Another hard part to animate (besides fire) was water: There's a scene where Eggs is in the sewers. They animated the water in the sewers by using a glass shower door with texture and placing movable lights beneath it. Moving the lights while filming made it look like the water was moving instead.
What is important during the creation of a puppet film is that a stable temperature is required. The temperature has an influence on the puppets and props (expansion/shrinking). Further the character designs and storyboard took 4 years to create.
Every now and then he showed a film as well of the behind the scenes footage, and the BTS footage they used to promote with. After this there was time for questions, and I felt I should try and speak up for once (heart thumping in my throat, afraid to fuck up.) I've always been curious how big productions like these managed to contain an universal style throughout the film, for when we created a stop motion short last year, there was a visible difference (at least to us) between different shots that were animated by either me, or two of my other group mates (we were a group of four, one was the "director" doing everything behind the camera, and us three were animating). So my question was "how do all the animators get on the same line to create the same style of animation throughout the film, for there are quite the few animators and everybody of course has his/her own style. How do you achieve the universal style?" In which he replied (in short) that a lot of the animators have been working since the start of Laika, so they've been working together for more productions already. Production is slow, so through the years the animators developed a common style. Directors also point out characters to certain animators because their distinctive style fits the character.
I really loved the talk, It's always really nice to take a look behind the scenes. I often watch lots of old behind the scenes footages from films to get me motivated, so a detailed talk like this was certainly something. (Even though I have no wishes now to create stop motion films, I really like the process.)
BAF8 - Fantoche presents: Girls on the run
At first I didn't really know what to expect for I didn't really read the booklet before hand, but when Nobuaki Doi (Japanese screenwriter, programmer, researcher and critic on animation) introduced the screening with his informative talk, I was really looking forward to spot the difference and if I was able to tell the differences.
He put this screening together for Switzerland before to show the difference between animations created by male and female animators. Especially to show the difference between drawn women by both genders. A lot of women choose to portray a "real life" girl instead of idolised images of girls in real life. These idolised images of girls set a high bar for fan boys of the communities. The change of image of girls in animation is a big, positive thing, trying to put a bit more education into the animations. The animations are to be divided into two parts, those created by men which mostly portray desire, and those created by women which are more psychological, more in the head you might say.
I think for this post I want to talk about a few that stood out to me.
Transfer Fantasista - Utamaro, Kazuma Ikeda
I'll start of with the first one! It started off like a generic (man designed) anime sequence. A girl wakes up (too late probably), gets dressed, gets her breakfast and runs out of the house in the direction of which is probably school. (Knickers-shot tally is already to be counted on two hands by now). At some point I felt it was going somewhere else than I expected it to go because of an inhumane jump, the girl then falling down but still managing to land "normally" and continue her journey. Turned out the sequence kept on repeating but every time with different backgrounds, environments, settings and art styles. The music was a bit indie techno and I thought it was pretty decent. I must say I kind of liked this one (I think because of the music), except for the over excessive panty-shots. (but I also guess that's kind of the point? Easily spotting the difference this way.)
Yamasuki Yamazaki - Shishi Yamazaki
I really loved this one even though it might seem weird at some moments. I really loved the vibrant pink, blue and red used in this video. The description used by the animator is as follows: "When you're insanely happy, you're so happy to be happy, that you forget what made you happy". I think that really shows through the video, there's a lot of dancing, happily moving around and having fun in the video. I really love all the transitions though morph in the short, it adds that bit of weird to it. The song really adds to the visuals, it makes me feel happy, so I think that's a job well done for Shishi Yamazaki. The video flows with femininity and joy, I think it's really lovely.
Tuesday, 18 November 2014
BAF7 - Meet the speakers: Peter Lord, Ian Mackinnon, Mark Shaprio
After the talk of Peter Lord they planned a little session of meet the speakers. The speakers present were Peter Lord and Ian Mackinnon at first, Mark Shapiro joined us later (probably a huge jetlag, we understand Mark, we understand.)
It started off with Paul Wells starting a conversation between him and the speakers, addressing different frequently asked questions about the animation world for stop motion animators nowadays. After the little talking session they opened themselves up for questions from the audience. This time on a smaller scale, which made it all nice and homey.
Upon the question on how to stand out in such a fierce community that is the world of animation they gave some pretty solid advice:
Find a bit that you're very good at and excel in it. Allrounded animators are hard to find because there aren't many. Studios rather have animators who are professionalised in that what they enjoy most doing. "Leech" off other people's skills since you are a collaborator in this world, start collaboration as soon as you can.
Specialism -> Evidence in show.
There are three types of skills important in this world:
Specialist skills. Specialise in that what you enjoy doing to stand out from the crowd.
Generalist skills. It's always good to have some general skills as a trump card.
Transferable skills. This world is all about networking and communication.
It all comes down to three keywords:
Collaboration
Innovation
Creativity
I really liked attending this talk on such a small scale because you feel more involved to the conversation (without even speaking though, still.) They were genuine and nice people and open to any kind of conversation and open to a lot of questions. When we got some free playtime to talk one on one with them, perhaps ask for autographs or photographs, they didn't back down from any question and it felt to me they were truly honest.
It started off with Paul Wells starting a conversation between him and the speakers, addressing different frequently asked questions about the animation world for stop motion animators nowadays. After the little talking session they opened themselves up for questions from the audience. This time on a smaller scale, which made it all nice and homey.
Upon the question on how to stand out in such a fierce community that is the world of animation they gave some pretty solid advice:
Find a bit that you're very good at and excel in it. Allrounded animators are hard to find because there aren't many. Studios rather have animators who are professionalised in that what they enjoy most doing. "Leech" off other people's skills since you are a collaborator in this world, start collaboration as soon as you can.
Specialism -> Evidence in show.
There are three types of skills important in this world:
Specialist skills. Specialise in that what you enjoy doing to stand out from the crowd.
Generalist skills. It's always good to have some general skills as a trump card.
Transferable skills. This world is all about networking and communication.
It all comes down to three keywords:
Collaboration
Innovation
Creativity
I really liked attending this talk on such a small scale because you feel more involved to the conversation (without even speaking though, still.) They were genuine and nice people and open to any kind of conversation and open to a lot of questions. When we got some free playtime to talk one on one with them, perhaps ask for autographs or photographs, they didn't back down from any question and it felt to me they were truly honest.
BAF6 - Peter Lord, Aardman Studios
During this Artist Talk Peter discusses the beginning of Aardman studios to what it is right now.
All that while creating a replica of their key character Morph. Well played Peter, well played.
(What follows now are in short my notes I made during the talk)
Aardman, what doest it mean? Nothing much really. In the beginning there were Dave and Peter around 17 years old. Dave's father fixed them a job: to create something for deaf children for the BBC. After finishing the short (containing Superman) the BBC was content and some guy whose name they didn't know wanted to write a cheque. They called him the aardman, for they thought aardvarks were funny animals with a fun name and the short had superman in it. Aard + man.
Because they were both bad drawers they went into the third dimension: using plasticine and modelling clay. They started creating stop motion shorts with 3D creations. in 1976 they created the character Morph, filmed blindly on 16mm film. Morph did well, they could stay.
Then they got a suggestion: animate to a soundtrack. From this they started something he liked to call "eavesdropping on conversations" and animate those conversations. The conversations turned out pretty lame and the got fed up so they decided to interview people and animate zoo animals to those interviews. (1989)
Before they started to create feature films in the 00's they made many shorts and made their way until where they are now.
The studio nowadays consists of 5 departments
- Feature films
- TV commercials
- TV series
- Digital team (Apps/website)
- Writing
"Pixar is dull. Just a bunch of guys on computers. Aardman is a playground" © Peter Lord.
I really enjoyed this talk and listening to Peter talking. He had a feeling of trailing off a lot and I thought that made it all feel really genuine. It felt human and personal. There was also a possibility to ask him questions and some really nice ones came forward. I never know what to ask speakers on such a big scale. Hell, I don't even know what to ask them if I meet them face to face. I should start preparing myself better.
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