Manchester Animation Festival: Tim Searle's Masterclass

I think this presentation was by far my favourite event of the whole festival, and I think it's mostly down to Tim's character. From the get go (or rather not, considering he experienced technical difficulties before he had even started) you could see that he was a down to earth guy which made his presentation very interesting and entertaining to watch, and not only this but I found it to be very beneficial.

Like most of the other speakers, Tim started off by telling us about his background and it was interesting to learn that he was initially studying Photography at Farnham. He got into animation by going to Annecy "for the laugh" which "changed everything" as he discovered he "needed to entertain". From here he worked on a number of different projects with a number of different companies (including Triffic Films, Baby Cow Animation,Viz) before he began working at Tiger Aspect Productions (previously known as Tiger Television) and working on Mr Bean.

To make it an "official Masterclass", every so often Tim would throw in some top tips, these are a select few:
- Don't be a dick.
- Keep your shower short.

On a more serious note:
- Create a business plan. Be aware of finances and keep cash coming in.
- "How many times have you heard 'I can't draw'". It all requires PRACTICE. Don't rush straight to the computer, instead draw first as "the illusion of it being all natural" takes practice.
- Be an enthusiast. "If you're going to do it, DO IT".
- Have a plan.
-Take a few chances.
- COLLABORATE, and again, don't be a dick.

In all seriousness though, his points were very valid and this talk - as well as the majority of the others I attended this year - have really stressed the importance of getting your work out there and showing your enthusiasm in the animation world. To put this to the test, I approached Tim after the talk hoping to chat with him and I was lucky to do so. He was a very friendly man and was happy to answer all of my questions. He told me that it's not so much as important to specialize but to do whatever it is you're doing well, and advised me to keep my animations short and precise and to not try stretch my resources too far. It's better to have a short, well made animation than to try to make it seem more impressive by making it longer and dimming the quality.

I have since added Tim Searle on Twitter and he is now following me too. He also requested to see my project once it is finished, and I can't wait to show it to him!

Manchester Animation Festival: Making it in Manchester

Speakers:
Phil Chalk - Factory
Leo Casserly - Flix Facilities
Chris Bowden - Mackinnon & Saunders


The Making it in Manchester talk that I attended on the Tuesday was also really insightful. The speakers all talked about their experiences and how they made their way into "this crazy business" and I found it really useful to hear about these different ways. It seems that the general theme running throughout these talks is to just get your work out there, but here are a few more things that I took away from this talk in particular:

- Don't say no. (Debatable depending on the client and the brief, but on a whole don't say no to projects. Some maybe a little challenging and different to the work you're used to doing, but it is all experience and it gets you doing work and building your skills).
- It "doesn't hurt to have more than one string to your bow". Not all clients are looking for someone who is specialized in one area, sometimes it's also useful to know how to perform in a variety of different areas.
- It isn't always about "raw talent", sometimes it's about the understanding or being able to project manage. Sometimes it's about the CHARACTER.
- "Get your foot in the door, it's a people business".

On a slightly different note: It is very rare that you see text in a pre-school animation and this is so it can be easily translated for other languages and countries. This also means that there doesn't tend to be puns, instead the humor is more universally understood.


This talk definitely made me feel less worried about not knowing fully what I want to do/specialize in, as it was made clear that different people are searching for different things, and in front of me sat animators/creative professionals some of which had a variety of different skills under their belt.

Machester Animation Festival: Will Becher's Masterclass

On Wednesday, I attended Will Becher's masterclass and it was truly fascinating. I had always loved watching Aardman's work growing up, so it was great to hear what Will had to say. I know I had met Peter Lord at BAF last year, but Will showed a lot of clips that were from 'behind the scenes' and the inner Aardman-fangirl in me was unleashed once again.

Will went into a lot of detail about how the puppets and sets were made, and how important it was to make them as sturdy and solid as possible. They would do a lot of planning ahead to make sure they would only make what they needed to in order to be time conscious, but also think about the camera camera angles they were going to use and how they would maneuver in more awkward sets. This usually meant making the sets which detachable parts so they could make their way around the set.

Positioning Models on a Shaun the Sheep Movie Set

Will talked a lot about the company's history and their production progress (he would tell us things like they would typically animate 3 seconds a day on the Shaun the Sheep movie) but the part of his presentation that I found most interesting was the section on Live Action Video. Sadly I don't have an clips that I can show as we were asked not to photograph this section of the presentation, but it was great to see where the team got their references from. Usually the producer and other members of the team would act out different scenes so that they could "capture the essence of the performance". You can tell that this was a huge benefit for the team as the animation clearly captures the emotions that were acted out in the LAVs, and is definitely something I'm going to take away from the presentation. Not only does it look like a great way to collect reference material that is going to benefit animating, it also looks like a lot of fun and a good way to interact and build relationships with co-workers. Hopefully one day I will have built on my confidence and people skills enough that I can be as crazy and outgoing as the people displayed in the LAVs that we were shown.

Will ended on a note that can be summarized in just one sentence; GET YOUR WORK OUT THERE. He said that he got his job at Aardman by being persistent and ever so lucky. By showing his enthusiasm and persistently contacting the studio he was able to find work as a runner where he got experience in model making and it was from here that he was able to work his way up.

Manchester Animation Festival: Making Friends and Animating People - The Art of Crowd Funding

This is an event that we didn't actually have a ticket for, but we had a lot of time throughout the day to ourselves and I thought this event sounded like it would be benefical to me so I picked up a ticket and attended the talk. I was hoping it would be more about how to approach people and networking, but it was very much focused on crowdfunding. Though it wasn't so much what I was expecting, I can definitely see the information I received being useful/helpful for in the future, not so much now as I'm not in a position where I need to raise money to complete a project.

The talk was presented by Emma Burch, Merlin Crossingham and Jon Turner. Emma started by introducing herself and explaining how she and the rest of her production team were looking to raise money in order to produce a Simon's Cat film (Off to the Vet). They were debating whether to go with Kickstarter and IndieGoGo and in the end went with the latter as they thought their system worked better for them. She then went on to dicussing budgets and how you can work them out so that they are sensible.

 Emma's Slides (Terrible Quality Photos, Sorry)

Merlin spoke next. Merlin Crossingham is a director at Aardman and he spoke about their Kickstarter campaign to Bring Back Morph. The crowdfunding came about because they were getting a lot of suggestions from fans to see new morph episodes, so they put out the campaign and it was their pitch video that sealed the deal for them in Merlin's eyes. They were able to reach their target budget within 8 days of starting the campaign, and were able to do this as they received good publicity from different newspapers but also because they were giving good rewards to their backers. Everyone that gave a pledge received access to a production blog so they could see behind the scenes footage and production, but you could also get yourself some special gifts if you pledged a certain amount of money, for instance old plasticine that was once an Aardman model, T-shirts and even a tour around the studios.

Aardman Kickstarter Pitch

The last to speak was Jon Turner from Kilogramme. He had started a campaign on kickstarter as he was interested in producing a part two to his Tall Tales 'series', and needed funding in order to do it. He thought the crowdfunding route worked the best for him and his company as with crowdfunding he had complete creative control; He didn't have to work towards the needs of a client, but instead he had pitched an idea and questioned his audience "do you want us to make this?". He knew the audience was out there from the success of his first animation, but by pitching the second idea he could get a general idea of who would be interested in seeing it, and the pledges on kickstarter confirmed this. 

 Tall Tales 2 Trailer

The presentations were really interesting and informative, and it made me realise that crowdfunding could be an option for in the future as it's not something I had thought about before; I hadn't needed to. The answers to the crowd's questions were just as helpful too, as it made me realise the benefits and issues of using crowdfunding. For instance, I found that it may not always be useful to use crowdfunding, as it can depend on the time you have and what you are wanting to do. People are more likely to back your idea if it is DIFFERENT and NEW, and whether your idea is interesting and well pitched. The panel had a mutual thought that you had to wait a while inbetween each crowdfunding campaign too. 

Manchester Animation Festival: Masterclass with Tomm Moore

Today marks a very good start for MAF, and I definitely think that listening to Tomm Moore's presentation has been the highlight of my day. The graduation film screenings were lovely to watch (even if some were quite weird to say the least) and it was interesting to see what is happening currently in the world of animation outside university, but I think Tom's presentation was the most beneficial to me/the event I was most interested in.

For starters I learnt more about the company he works for - Cartoon Saloon - which was formed in 1999, and once we had learnt a bit about this background and their first feature film, Tom went on to talk about "Song of the Sea", the company's second film. I was absolutely blown away. The film looked absolutely stunning and I'm actually upset that I haven't already seen it. 

I found it really interesting to learn about some of the decision making that was undergone, and more about the process of making the film. I would really like to try to talk to him more about this, so I hope he sticks around for the remaining days of the festival as I didn't get the opportunity to speak with him today. If not I shall ask him on his social media that he provided (which I am now following) to show my interest and to hopefully gain some more insight.


Update: Unfortunatly Tom didn't stay for the remainder of the festival as he flew out to LA for another event, which is a shame as it would have been really interesting to chat with him about his work. Still, I really enjoyed his presentation and it was uplifting to know that he isn't too great with perspective drawing (he said this himself, this isn't me critising him) yet he has still been able to produce an amazing feature film. I should really try to not get worked up over my weaknesses, instead try to improve them where possible, or just play to my strengths. 

Golden Rules of Social Media

In today's PPP session we talked about the importance of having presence on social media sites, and how we need to start thinking about keeping our professional and personal lives separate. We were considering what social media we already have and thinking about how we could use these websites to help us in our studies/career paths.

Our agreed 'Golden Rules':
- Associate with care. If we allow certain people to associate with us on sites, this could allow access to our profiles by people we want to keep our information private.
- Post carefully. Be positive.
- Post Frequent.
- Post Relevantly.
- Consider the work you choose to document/post.
- Build and maintain using all of our accounts, not just one.
 -COMMUNICATE.

The session made me reflect on my own social media. In the holidays I had actually set up a couple of blogs/social media but it openned my eyes to keep using them all. Now that I have an Instagram account I tend to update all of my other social media (Tumblr, Twitter) through this app when I post updates of work, when really I should think about posting separately BUT cross reference my different sites.

I have also revisited my Facebook profile that I use personally, and made sure that my privacy settings are set to friends rather than everyone. By doing this I can keep my details and personal life private and more importantly keep unwanted information away from potential employers or professionals if they happen to try and find out more about me.

I am also going to create a Linkedin account so I can build up a network of professionals in my field of interest, and use it to potentially communicate with them to help build said network.


My aim is to continue to use my social media sites, but to make sure I post more frequently.  I also aim to at least try to double my follower count on said sites by posting often and expressing my interests in my field of work.