Throughout the 3 days at MAF, I attended many viewings as I wanted to get the most out of what there is out there and experience the animations people create to show. I'd like to highlight a few animations and talks that caught my attention and what I learned from viewing.
A few animations that stood out amongst the others were, White Horses, The Red turtle, Cold Coffee, the Witch doctor, HSBC short, In other words, Invisible Barriers, Blue zoo VR, Phantom Boy, Modern love: a kiss deferred, Morph, Once upon a line, Mr Madila and various others which I could list, there were so many animated films that spammed over the three days that each showing/viewing had a few interesting animations.
My favourite short Animations were Witch Doctor, Modern love: a kiss deferred and Once upon a line as each had a particular take on creating animations. Witch Doctor focused on 3D animation, It's a music video that includes a singer in the middle surrounded by hundreds of 3D male figures going around him and interacting to his hand movement, here is a link. I'm amazed at how 3D animation is just progressing.
Modern love: a kiss Deferred animation was based on a real-life story. What really caught my attention in this animation was the way the story was conveyed through simple transitions of simple flat stills, it shows that you do not have to do much movement in order to convey a story. I loved the simple lines that shift around to express emotions.
The last Animation I mentioned above was Once upon a line, The reason behind what I loved about it lies in the way it showcases a story without needing any dialogue, it slowly progresses through the same pattern of a man going to work every day and how his life changes bit by bit. what this shows to us the audience is that we slowly begin to connect and watch this character progress, which was the entertainment and the purpose of the animation.
All the shorts were good in terms of the story, composition and audio that was conveyed throughout the each animation, and I could write a blog for each one but I'm only highlighting what I learned and what inspired me throughout the 3 days.
We the had the films we watched that includes The Red Turtle and Phantom Boy. I really enjoyed each film and not only for the story but how it was portrayed through it's medium,
Walking into The Red Turtle viewing I was expecting it to be a small preview of the film which turned out to be the full film, I'm not sure why the ticket had preview, but besides that, the film was absolutely amazing, Even though there is no dialogue we are able to connect with the main character as he develops on this island he got left on, each scene was composed in certain ways that it either focus on the background taking most of the shot to signify that they are bigger than him or placing the character in one of the rules of thirds point, which is important as it's a way to frame. I heard about studio Ghibli working on this film so I was expecting something from Miyazaki, One scene that felt like it was done by Miyazaki was the main protagonist flying on a bridge; the reason as to why I feel as though he did it was because of an interview I listened to about how Miyazaki loves the aspects of creating flying scenes as we see in most of his films, which was animated beautifully. Another aspect I enjoyed about this film was the fluid animation and colour palette that was used to keep the viewer engaged within the atmosphere the character is living in. I learned a lot watching this film, such as how to make the audience engage with the character, how to place the character in a scene which the background can take advantage of, and to change camera angles within each scene.
Here is a gif of one scene that tells you everything that is happening within a few seconds:
The next animated film that I watched was "Phantom boy", this film explores a young boy that has a special power that has an effect on his body but allows him to become this kind of ghost that helps a detective solve a problem within the story, will this cause any problems to the boys body find out by watching it. I really enjoyed the story, how it connects everything together, for example, the meeting of the boy and detective was seamless. I can see how it was put together.
Plot:
Boy is already in hospital because of his condition
Detective crosses by the villain of the story
gets injured from chasing the villain (plot devices to show the first failure and that he can't do this alone)
ends in the hospital where he meets the boy who helps him.
There are many other plot devices scattered throughout the film allowing the viewer to piece up everything to figure out what is happening which is what I loved. I'd love to make a story that not only progresses with the character but how they can meet in a way that does not cause the viewer any distress to figure out how they meet.
The animation was an eye opener as it explored the world the characters lived in, which allowed the viewer to understand what the characters have to go through. The film's style is unique in that it is all done entirely with boiling point animation, this combined with the flat colours and lighting really suits the story.
Some of the viewings I entered were kind of disturbing and questionable as to why they were made, but everyone has their own opinions as to what they like, for example as everybody laughed at the short film about this teacher acting like a dog and then suddenly progressing into bad habits. It felt really worrying to think that people would accept such a concept, but I guess I've grown up to not respect such concepts.
but besides the viewings, I got to experience VR for the very first time. which was an amazing experience and it was interesting being able to interact with the characters within the animation, This was made by Blue zoo Hoodoo who also had a masterclass explaining the process involved in making the interactive VR animation. This opened a new world to me into the production of VR creation, they talked about how it started with an idea which was chosen from the team, the person who created the idea becomes the director and leads the team as to what is needed to be done in order to achieve what they wanted. They then went on to explaining the methods of animating, which seemed complicated as they had to draw out the whole landscape, here is an example of what I mean:
They stated that it was done by 4 perspective points on a horizontal line that works as you can see from the quick example I did above, the lines also curve towards each point. They then talked about the animating process, all of this is done in the sketching stages so that the team can quickly understand what is needed to be done before it's translated into 3D programming, every viewer is going to have a different experience, in terms of what they see as they move around the space, it's not possible to view everything that happens.
It was a very interesting talk about the production and I would like to do something similar hopefully in the future if I get into VR animation.
I also went into loads of talks each talking about different aspects of animation and how the industry is developing with young animators, Aardman also celebrated their 40th Anniversary showcasing all the animations they created and how they got to the point they are creating stop motion animations. Other talks included people from studios such as Studio AKA who work on many projects, they also showed their work and gave advice on what to do when starting on projects, which I hope to adopt for the projects I will create this following year.
Like I mentioned above I could explain each aspect of MAF in single blogs but I'm only trying to give the overall view of my experience, which was similar to last year.
I'm surprised I managed to watch so much and listen to talks within 3 days, and I would like to try to reflect and use ideas from what I watched throughout the year, and I hope I could one day produce something for MAF.
