Friday 15 May 2009

bradford

This is a bit late, but what the heck.

12 of November I went to Bradford animation festival.

I saw many films and talks so i will mention ones that stood out to me, so the first thing id like to mention is panorama 2, this had showing ten short films the two that stood out to me most was Zoologic and chicken wings.
Zoologic
zoologic was a brilliant example in my opinion of how to use sound in animation and was also very funny, the minimalist backgrounds make the style like a watercolour sketch and not take away from the action, it also looks like a upa cartoon to me because of the minimalist and stylistic aproach.







i liked this film alot and it had alot of good animation.


Chicken wings

chicken wings was also very nicely animatied and a funny story it was about a cowgirl and a werewolf who fond a chicken and they fight over who gets it. i enjoyed this film and thought the animation was very nice couldve done with some colour though.

Films for children

these were all very good apart from one called peter piper the check up whitch was a cgi animation about a plane i relly dident like this one as the composition was shoddy and the colors were terible and i thought the character desigen was ugly and unorigional.
I will mention 3 of the films these being, A girl who stepped on bread, the tiny fish and the curse of skull rock.



A girl who stepped on bread




A girl who stepped on bread was a really nice looking film probably in my opinion the best looking film at Bradford, the character designs were nice the colours were easy on the eye and the animation was good, the only downfall is that i think it was little bit to long and at points the narrative got a little confusing.
It was about a girl who behaved badly towards the other people in her village and how her behaviour had consequences.

The tiny fish


This was a charming animation about a child that sees a man catching a fish and gets sad about it and makes a drawing of the fish which the child imagines it comes to life and they have to escape the man.
This film looked very nice and i think it was predominantly cut out animation but it could have some computer generated effects. I enjoyed this film a lot and thought part were quite scary and imaginative.

The curse of skull rock


When the film first opened and i saw the pirate captain I thought it could’ve been stop motion but later when i saw the ship and other characters i could tell it was cgi, this film was fun and short and was about some pirate looking for treasure and ending up fighting the un dead. It looked nice for cgi and had fun lighting i thought the character designs where fun and different and all had their own Shallotte.
I enjoyed all three of these films a lot and think they were some of the best i saw at BAF this year.

Commercials
The commercials were very good although I was shocked that the Sony bravia play-doh advert won again as it won last year and i found this a bit unfair
My favourite two adverts were the nspcc handscape ad which reminds me of the psp game loco roco.


Creation museum Eden

Which I thought were very well composed and coloured.

Professional films
3 of these were very good in different ways,

Varmints was brilliant in scope and concept and had some beautiful composition and shots and ideas also very nice character design and some of the best cg ii have seen, it was a bit to long though and i think it over explained itself.


Post! was funny and nicely animated and reminded me of a newspaper comic it had alot of charm.


And Skhiezin was a brilliant and funny idea and story quite unnerving at parts although I didn’t like the style much.

Animated features
Out of the features i went to see Idiots and angels by Bill Plympton.
Before it it also had a shot by Plympton aswell called hotdog.
Hot dog was brilliant fun film and had stylish animation it was about a dog that wants to be a fire man it still amazes me he does them all himself i actually preferd hot dog to the main feature Idiots and angels whitch was about a downtrodden man who finds out one day he is growing wings that force him to do good deeds this is not in his nature though as he is quite mean and problems ensue, this was well animated and interesting in style but i thogut that it was way to long and could’ve told the story in half the time and been more entertaining.

hot dog

Idiots and angels

Waltz whit basher

I did not like this film and was amazed at how many people thought it was good, i found the animation lacking in any character and the acting was nonexistent. Thought the colours were okay but that is all it had going for it, the story was sad and based on real events but i found it boring and unengaging and did not care for the characters the animation was badly drawn almost looked traced form photographs not rotoscope because it didn’t even move much.
personally i think this type of film if not well animated should’ve just been done as life action.

Barry Purves retrospective
I hadent really seen any of Barry Purves animation before and was pleasantly surprised at the quality and richness of it i think in his work you can see a strong sense of theatre and the movement and lighting is superb i cant say i always like the subject matter but the animation and sculpting of the characters make up for that my favourite was screenplay although i think it could’ve ended more interestingly.



Daniel Greaves Tandem films
Daniel Greaves is an award winning animator and made the animation manipulation and flat world this was an interesting talk and most of the films were fun and well animated. I particualy like manipulation for its simple yet entreating idea.


Over all Bradford animation festival was good this year and i found some films that i really liked its a shame most of them are shorts and wont be coming out on dvd, i will also metion that i met the animator Johanna Quin she was really nice person and let uslook at her sketch book whitch was amazeing and made me wanna go practice drawing .


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