Bradford Animation Festival: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

Now, I had seen this animation prior to going to BAF, but that doesn't mean it didn't make me feel as uncomfortable and creeped out as it did the first time around. This animation is just plain weird. Don't believe me? Watch it for yourself.

The first "Don't Hug me I'm Scared"

The second "Don't Hug me I'm Scared" (The one we actually watched at BAF)

I'm not even fully sure I like these animations, they just mess with me too much. I mean I think they're brilliant and they are hilarious in the most deranged way possible, but my days they're so weird. To begin with it seems as though it is aimed at children, as the characters seem quite childish and brightly coloured, and they are singing/discussing concepts and ideas suitable for children. I.E. Imagination and Time. You soon realise that this is not the case, and the animation is very unsettling as they begin to rub organs in glitter and other acts of a similar nature. There is a massive conflict between the method used & the way it looks visually and the content of the video, and I think that's why I like it, that and the "random" things they do and say, as well as their tone of voice. The combination of all these things leaves you baffled thinking "What in the world have I just watched?", and that is why I like it. 

Bradford Animation Festival: 365

I can't seem to find the whole version of this animation, so here is "April".

This is one animation that I saw at BAF that stood out to me quite a lot. It's called 365 and was produced by "The Brothers McLeod" and in my opinion it was stunning. Everyday for a year they had produced one second of animation and put all the clips together to make one film. Every single clip is different, and the vast majority of them are crazy.

I thought this was such a good idea for animation, and would be something that I'd be interested in doing myself if I found the time. I think it would be a great way to get ideas onto paper, and to practice my animation skills. I also think it would be a good opportunity to test different materials, unlike this animation where they have used the same method for each clip. The animation would allow me to see how I progress over the space of a year, and I could also use it as a source of inspiration, much like my visual language sketchbook. Instead of jotting down my ideas I could animate them, and return to them for larger projects if needs be. I could also do the opposite, and turn my sketches from my book into a quirky little short, to test how they could move.

I found the animation very hard to follow. As each clip was only one second long there was a lot to take in and not enough time to do so, but I think this adds to the beauty of the animation. It made some clips stand out more than others, which in turn made them more amusing. I also like that there is a mixture of happy and sad clips, as well as different characters and settings, some being more imaginative and bizarre than others. I also like the sounds they have recorded for the animation, as it gave the characters more life and made it more interesting to watch.

I really enjoyed watching this animation, and I love the variety of characters and drawing styles that they have used. I think it would have been nice to see a mixture of different techniques and materials, for example paper and stop motion, but I can't fault what they have produced, and overall it is a beautifully quirky piece.

Bradford Animation Festival: Pomme Frites

Just when I thought I couldn't laugh any harder, BAF go and show this animation...

Pomme Frites is a short animation that uses a combination of 3D computer and stop motion animation, and was produced by Balder Westein. It. Is. Brilliant. This is another animation that had the whole room in stitches, I mean, my eyes had started watering because I was laughing so hard. Maybe I only found it as funny because everyone else was laughing and this made it hard for me to stop, but either way it s hilarious.

The first thing I noticed when the animation started was just how much detail was put into the setting. It was beautiful. It felt very realistic and lifelike, especially the waves that crashed against the cliff edge, as well as the features of the street, for instance the cobbles and the wood of the doors and window frames, etc. I also like the use of the lighting and the colour scheme in this animation. They, again, look very realistic, and the colours of the sky are just perfect. It sets the scene very well. I like how they have been able to portray a typical october night with the dark colours they have used along with the sounds of the wind. It actually made me feel quite cold watching it. Then they were able to create a contrasting warmth with the soft glow of the street lights and the light escaping from the windows of  the houses in the street.

Another thing I liked about this animation was the contrast between this realistic setting and the design of the characters. They were realistic in the sense that they had human characteristics, but they differ massively from the style of the background, so they really stand out. Westein also hasn't tried to hide the fact that they are puppets, which I thought was a really nice touch.

To sum up, this is truly an amazing animation visually that I just couldn't stop laughing at. 

Bradford Animation Festival: MUTE.

 

Mute by Jobs, Joris & Marieke was the first thing I saw at the Bradford Animation Festival, and it set the bar quite high for the rest of the week. I thought this was a great short, and I'm not the only one who must have thought so, because the whole room was in stitches over this animation. For me, it was just because it was so unexpected. I really wasn't expecting the animations to be shown at BAF to be weird like this, and never have I been so wrong...

But more on that later.

There was just so much I liked about this animation, but I think the story is what did it for me, and how well the characters helped tell this story. I thought the idea of the characters not being able to talk and open their mouths was brilliant, as well as how imaginative the producers were at showing how much of an inconvience this was for them. I thought the animation was going to get very dark, very quick as the baby was headed for the knife, but instead the short took an unexpected turn and it just got plain weird, but oh so funny. I especially liked all the little jokes that were thrown into the story, an example being that the word they are trying to guess at the beginning of the animation, turns out to be 'Mule' even though it is suggested that it is going to be otherwise. Well, Mute.

I also liked the style of the animation. It has been created in 3D using the computer, and I think it has been done brilliantly. I don't really know how to explain why I like it, other than everything looks so smooth and squishy, yet objects still look realistic. The carrot that the lady is chopping at the beginning of this is a good example of what I mean. everything just looks very 'friendly', especially because of the bright colours they have used. It makes what the characters are doing to themselves seem less weird, just because of how it has been presented, as well as how they are reacting.

All in all it is a very cheery and bizarre animation that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Bradford Animation Festival: PETER LORD.

 "Then I got to animate, which was borderline annoying" - Peter Lord

When I bought my tickets for BAF I had no idea that Peter Lord was going to be there, giving a talk on Aardman and their latest works. I also had no idea that I was going to end up MEETING PETER LORD and having the chance to talk to him. It was fair to say I was VERY excited, and was practically in tears when I met him. He was such a LAD.

 See, I wasn't lying.

This was, by far, the highlight of my week at Bradford, and was easily one of the most interesting talks I have ever been to. There's probably a hint of bias when I say that though, because it's PETER LORD, and just thinking about Wallace and Gromit, Pingu, Morph, Etc, gives me great nostalgia. Having said this, the talk was generally interesting, and Peter was such an adorable guy. Just the way he spoke and his personality and mannerisms made it worth while to watch, I mean, as he was talking he was crafting a Morph model out of Plasticine (WHICH I TOUCHED BY THE WAY). 

The talk was both very inspiring and very daunting. I loved how he was self-taught and never even went to an art college, yet he was able to start up an animation company with just the help of one other guy. I also liked how he told us the origin of the name Aardman (which is the unspoken name of the character in his first ever animation he produced with David Sproxton, as well as being a combination of the words superman and aardvark) but not so much when he was saying that animation now-a-days is hard to get into. Which is most likely true but it's still not what I wanted to hear. A little sugar-coating might have been nice.

Peter also commented on the importance of knowing when and where to use simplification and exaggeration in animations, especially when it came to portraying everyday movements. He said that you can exaggerate these movements to make them seem more real. Which was a nice piece of advice. Thanks Peter, mate.

In the Q&A session after the talk, Peter was asked whether he thought the market for Stop Motion animations was still the same as it used to be, and he said he didn't think so and raised a good point of "Does the audience actually care that it's handmade?". The answer to that is probably no. He personally loves stop motion as there is no illusion with it. You can actually pick up the subjects of the animation, and he loves this appeal, but others not so much. Granted there are still going to be those that favour this method over others and will truly appreciate the effort that has gone into the production, but others maybe more focused on how realistic it looks and the final outcome rather than the process itself. It was a very valid point, that made me really appreciate the work that he has done, as well as the process of stop motion altogether. It also made me really excited to try it again, and I can't wait to try it out in more detail, especially now that Peter has given us a tip for working with Plasticine ("don't get me bitching about the bad quality of modern plasticine" - Peter Lord). He actually put chalk in his plasticine, as he found it easier to work with it that way. Might have to give that a go.

So yeah. Peter Lord.

Copyright ©

In yesterday's PPP session we were taught about copyright. I was aware of it's existence and that basically you shouldn't steal people's things and copy it and make it your own, but I never really knew a great deal about it, as you've probably already guessed from the description of copyright I just gave.

So lets rephrase it.

Copyright basically means that you can't copy, adapt, rent, lend, or distribute an authors work without the owners permission. If you are using the work for non-commercial reasons, for example things like education, research, private study, you don't generally need permission to use it, but you can not make copies without an agreement.

But then again there are different types of copyright that have different leways, which I had no idea existed. One example is Creative Commons. Creative Commons is a non profit organisation that provides legal frame work so that people are able to share their work and ideas. It basically allows others to take your work and tweak and distrube it provided that they credit you and licence their new work under similar terms. So basically it's a good way of getting your name out there the way I see it, as the minute the new work becomes copyrighted and they start taking credit for the entire work they are infringing the copyright licence.

I found this class very useful as I didn't have the foggiest when it came to copyright. If there's one thing that I took away from the talk is that I should start putting the copyright "stamp" on works that I am proud of, especially when I reach my second and third year of university, and because there is no registration system in the UK. So why not?