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.