Review of Bradford Animation Festival 2010

This is a review of the 17th Bradford Animation Festival, which I attended with North Wales School of Art and Design, NWSAD. Although the event is a four day affair I only attended the first two, due to illness, but the seminars that I did sit in on were rather dull and uninteresting from an animation point.

Over the two days that I personally attended the event I sat in on a number seminars and screenings by professional and students in undergraduate and postgraduate studies, after watching these works, I began to get the impression that a lot of the students in the student films section of the program had only done basics on the story, and then took a leaf out of the design courses book, and farmed the work out to companies, in fact in the credits of a number of them their was names like ILM, Image G and Skywalker Sound, all big Hollywood names. I personally feel that some of these entries where to well polished to be the work of students when compared to the work of the previous year.

Of all the screenings I attended I personally enjoyed one called "Metropia" by director Tarik Saleh, from Sweden. The story of Metropia takes place in a not so distant future in a time when the world is running out of oil and the underground train systems have been connected into a gigantic subway network beneath Europe. Although many of my class mates felt that this was a slow and uninteresting short, I enjoyed it and found the use on sepia tones relaxing and the use of a few colours every so often pleasing to the senses, as many films appear to over whelm the visual senses with information.

Scene from 'Metropia'

Another event I enjoyed was the student networking event, which was hosted by Animated Yorkshire, this was a interesting event as it gave me a much needed boost in my confidence as I normally tend to feel that my work on story boards and character art is lacking development when compared to the work I do on sci-fi concepts, space ships and submarines, but a number of the people that I spoke to during this where encouraging, I only wish I had taken some business cards with my e-mail, blog and portfolio addresses on, oh well.

I wish however that I had not been ill over the last two days of the event as on the final morning of the event there was a screening of my personal favourite film, Jason and the Argonauts, with classic stop motion visual effects by Ray Harryhausen, which was screened as part of the BAF 2010 Life Time achievement Award.

I look forward to attending next years as I hope to get a portfolio of work together so that I can show it to the gathered animators and professionals from the industry to possible get an apprentice ship with a company with links to the Canadian animation industry or even the Japanese anime field, to that end I plan to attend the upcoming Manga and Anime expo in London in October 2011 with a sample of my best work in an attempt to make some contacts with in the industry as part of my professional development and to generate more contacts to increase my chances for future job opportunities.

My first pice of published work

Right so I was going through my old research files and folders the other week, having a general tidy of my stuff ^^; and I came across a file filled with old copies of Neo, the anime and manga magazine

its from november 08 but as I had forgot about it till now I am only just getting round to shoving it up on here.

concept art piece for neg 1

Luna Class on a deep space patrol

Neg One Prep 2/9/2010

This link is for where I am displaying my Neg One Prep work

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69862&id=1520471523

that train 2 game tv advert

right so you will undoubtedly have seen that TV advert for the train2game, see below if not,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lryse0HsQO4 (copy and past in to the address bar)

well I got sick of the advert being in my face, as it offer people the chance to do a computer game/ animators course with out going to university and still have the same qualification as some one who has for three years, so I sent off for an information pack just to compare it to the information I have seen from the game students in Glyndwr University game course, and from what I can tell about the course it is identical in the type of work that the people on the course and in the animation course animation course have to do.

After reading this information it really makes me wonder are these last few years of my life been worth it, sure I'll have a degree from a university but tell me this;

a) Whats the point of going to university and getting in debt?

b) Are these sites that allow you to train and gain professional qualifications even legal?

after all the whole point of going to university is to weed out the best of the best from the worst of the worst, but if the are websites that let you train at home with out any help, support or yes even access to tutors for real time comments and feed back, don't give me that look Ms Maguire and Mr Townsend, even though 99.9% of the time they never allow you to use creativity the would rather have us churn out more of what they are used to seeing, or some CGI maya Hippo that can dance,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9i7Numw9Xo (copy and past in to the address bar)

Clash of the Titans Review

This is a a review of the movie Clash of the Titans, with Liam Neeson as Zeus and Sam Worthington as Perseus. The movie is an update and remake of the 1981 film which is based, however loosely on the Greek myth of Perseus.

The movie opens with a narration by Io, Gemma Arterton, telling the story of the Titanomachy, war of the Titans, which goes into a short sequence of a casket floating to the surface after a storm and is found by a fisher man,which he opens and finds a baby boy , the story then flash-forwards about ten years and the fisherman, his with and a young Perseus are sitting by a fire on the shore and talk about the boys destiny, at this point the story is very much like the 1981 version with the boy living in a small fishing village with his family, the story then jumps forward by 12 years and the now adult Perseus, Sam Worthington, is aboard his families boat when a group of soldiers destroy a 50 - 60 foot stone statue to the god Zeus as a open sign of war against the gods, up to this point there hadn't been much use of CGI or any other animation techniques which I found refreshing as most movies that came out around the same time had a shit load in the first act of the story.

The second act of the story opens and is as fast paced as the original 1981 version, the next major use of CGI animation the fight sequence with the huge scorpions this is pretty much it as far as the high lights of the second part of the animation goes the rest of the animation in the second act of the is confined to simple in camera effects and make-up magic.

The third and final act of the story starts of well as the heros of the story face off against Madusa in an mixed media layer, mostly green screen, with the hero decapitating her head, but the final part of the story is predictable and slow, the only feature of the final sequence is when the hero, Worthington, destroys the kraken, the enormous sea monster, with the decapitated head of Maduse.

All in all the movie is enjoyable through out the first two acts however at the end the story seems some what rushed and unfinished, as the story leaves a number of minor plot points unresolved and up in the air.

Command & Conquer - Movie Trailer

if this is ever made into a real film I am so first in the Q to see it