Slapstick Festival 2013 January 24-27

 

Bristol was my first destination this year for Slapstick Festival 2013, this gives a great chance to meet people who have a love for celebrating silent and classic comedy, this year the face of the programme was the third genius a Mr Harold Lloyd after last year being my favourite Golden Cinema performer Buster Keaton.

                                    

The much anticipated talk between Nick Park and Peter Lord Slapstick Animated did not disappoint in the slightest, speaking about live action that has influenced then like Norman Wisedom and the Marx Brothers, how gags have been reinvented to their own characters like Morph and Wallace and Gromit. 

The night was finished up with the like of drinks with a crowd that run the festival to discuss the films and how the next festival with be held with Chaplin being the main focus of the festival which should attract many new guests.

Fridays first talk was Harold Lloyd the Third Genius with Kevin Brownlow who did a great talk on Buster Keaton last year talking about the Third Genius documentary film and showed extracts with that anecdotes about time spent with Lloyd which was most amusing, later spoke to Kevin Brownlow about Street Act my student film which i got his opinion on last year.

Gala poster

Gala event

Main event of the slapstick festival the Silent Comedy Gala which featured films from Harold Lloyd,Buster Keaton and George Melies with live accompaniment, with Victoria Wood introducing the films and towards the end and before the interval was the greatly funny comedian Barry Cryer with Ronnie Golden on guitar with fitting songs which made the audience ball up with laughter.

Some fitting photos taken from Bristol

Blazing it up ahead of going to the first event enjoyed the first beverage!

Frankenweenie-The Art of Exhibition 17-21 October 2012

Frankenweenie is a 2012 3D stop motion sci-fi family film directed by Tim Burton. 

It is a remake of Burton's 1984 short film of the same name which i always enjoyed and glad he came back to it in stop motion. The film was from start to finish Burton which i like then add the fact the whole film is shot in Black and white i really appreciated after my own student film Street Act being shot in b/w.

Sadly i was unable to see the film before going to the exhibition yet i couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the sets and Characters from the film up close. Interesting to see the sizes of the characters but more than any of them get to see Mr Rzykruski up close being my favourite from the film also all his different mouth shapes which were on display.

Shots from Pre-Production

Director Tim Burton Looking over Pre-Production

My Favourite Character from the film Mr.Rzykruski

Early sketches of Sparky!

Stages Victor and Sparky took.

 The trip to London was very eventful staying at my friends house and getting to see the Exhibition was such a great opportunity and look out for more opportunity's like this at festivals. 2012 coming to an end with meeting so many new people from the animation world through networking in the year which i will continue to do so this year.

 Pre-production already starting with my set and after Christmas the books will come in hands to expand my knowledge for my animations and further more starting my career, feel free to check out any of the 2012 posts in the log. i hope everyone had a great New-years and look forward to seeing you all again with new posts on the horizon.

Canterbury Anifest 5-6th October 2012

With recently getting a new job to pay for supplies and networking purposes to kick start my career as a Stop-frame animator, this gave me opportunity to go to a festival i've been looking forward to go to since last year i couldn't make it due to other commitments, at first i was going down as puplic but found myself as a volunteer from the night before the festival meeting people i knew who were already taking part from Birmingham City University and other festivals.

Sophie Graves and myself

First task as a volunteer was to prepare the plastercine characters for the 'Plastercine people: Masterclass From Animate and Create Studio' later on in the day, which was great to get to know other people of mutual interest over some plastercine and a great set of tools to work with.

Tony Dalton and myself before - Ray Harryhausen-The Godfather

Later on that day i got the chance to go to a talk on Ray Harryhausen the Godfather of Stop-motion with the curator of the Ray Harryhausen collection and auther of five books about Rays film work Tony Dalton was a delight to meet such a nice guy and willing to talk about so much of Rays work.

Jessica,Cassidy Curtis,Sophie and myself

DreamWorks - Meet the Lion tamer

Cassidy Curtis is Dreamworks supervising animator for the summer blockbuster Madagascar 3 animating Alex the Lion and from the moment the volunteers and myself met him we kind of saw a resemblence between Cassidy and Alex the lion wether that was coinsidence or character driven choice from the director.

Cassidy was a great pleasure to meet as Dan the festival organiser said "you've got to love Cassidy because he's just one big yank". The talk was great having a whole range of things to talk about from working on a range of films including 'How to train a Dragon','Shrek' and 'Madagascar'.

Talking about the age old question for cg animators 'Do you Have to be able to draw to animate well?' and we got to the reasoning that some people can still animate really well without drawing but it will always help and elevate your work and so answer being it can always help your animation skills what ever level of an animator you are.

Then also as you see in the image above here Cassidy was pointing out the difference in Shrek in 3d and in 2d to show how the points in the arm and shape of the pose can focus the eye of the audience intentionally very well. Then in 3d this doesn't come so easily.

Aardman- How to talk Pirate

Pirate Captain From Pirates

Jim Parkyn talking through the making and animating of the models, including the rapid prototyping mouth technique which enabled the characters to speak. There was also behind-the-scenes clips which were great to see as more studio shots from pirates were shown of sketches and photos of the puppet building process.

Charles Darwin from Pirates

Also looked forward to talking with Jim again at Flip Festival in Wolverhampton where i volunteered.

Double Negative- Making Monsters

Eamonn Butler talking about behind the scenes of John Carter was great because i was surprised how much i enjoyed the film as because of the reviews before it came out. The special effects had so much thought into it was great to see what they'd use in the green screen before made for the audience to see.

Pixar: Inside the toy box 

Dan McCoy Pixars technical director discussed some of the complications and problems that pixar have tackled from the technical side with telling us how some things could be re-used for more than one thing same with cheat techniques.

My hotel room view instant view from anytime of the day of the Canterbury Cathedral

anyone not been to Canterbury Anifest i recommend its a great festival and worth volunteers so many great speakers, also check out Animate and Create.

http://www.canterburyanifest.com/what-is-anifest/

http://animateandcreate.com

Pictures from Slapstick 2012

furthering my knowledge in the art of slapstick from a animation perspective

all boxes in bristol had Keaton in them

Slapstick 2012 was great for many reasons first one finding myself going for nearly the whole festival made the trip far better than going for just the day, there were many new eye opening things i came across first being the ability to talk to people who share the passion for silent films and the art of physical comedy in slapstick.

Throughout the festival i got the chance to speak to many people including Kevin Brownlow pictured below on the right,Kate Guyonvarch Chaplin expert from Paris and the greatly kind Rob Davidson who wrote many books on Charlie Chaplin and had part in what was to be played in the Chaplin feature with Robert Downey Jr.

Many networking chances gave me the chance to speak with Peter Lord director of the newly anticipated 'Pirate's in an adventure with scientists' and co founder with Peter Lord is David Sproxton Chairman of Aardman.

Buster Keaton talk with Kevin Brownlow

taking in the local graffiti

silent slapstick gala

My father with bill oddie

Hes not the messiah he's terry jones

Sanjeev baskar with Terry Jones

Rob Davidson with Sanjeev

Great seats throughout, great talk in depth about chaplin from two who knew from experience and as a fan

Terry Jones and Myself

Also wrote notes from every show,unable to take many photos but these were the best of what i did take.