portfollio reviews back at Flip
Posted: September 29, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Animation, animation industry panel, flip, flip2009 Leave a commentPortfolio Review Sessions 6 November, 4.30
Flip is looking for animators to get their showreel reviewed at this year’s festival. We introduced this session last year for the first time and it went down very well. It’s a great opportunity to get your showreel seen by professionals, to get expert feedback and to open doors to new and valuable contacts. The idea (and the catch!) is that you present your showreel to a panel in front of a live audience who also receive the benefit of the panels’ wisdom. The session is supported by Business Link West Midlands. An adviser will provide all 6 animators at this session with creative business support and in addition Business Link West Midlands will also be available to offer advice and guidance to any creative business attending during the day.
This is only open to animators based in the West Midlands. Interested? contact Peter McLuskie, peter@light-house.co.uk, 01902 716055
Thinking Animated
Posted: September 24, 2009 Filed under: Random bit and bobs Leave a commentI’ll be at Flip this year running a mini-scriptwriting course. One of the things I’ll be talking about will be “thinking animated” which is a clumsy old phrase, but a useful one. It was something that the late script editor Jim Campbell started me and brother Greg thinking about many years ago when we were starting out.
Basically the basis of thinking animated is to ask yourself – why is this idea that I’ve come up with an animated idea? Could I make it in live action? If so, why am I going to the trouble of making it animated? If you’ve got talking heads, why animate them? If you have very little visual comedy in your idea – why is it in need of animating? If you’re planning on blowing up the moon, using a chainsaw to hack up kittens, or need a two headed man who disagrees with himself – okay… that sounds like a good candidate for animation (especially for the kittens one – live action could get you into trouble).
Of course like any rule it’s not a hard and fast thing. One enjoyable exception that springs to mind is from the Depict! scheme – Operator by Matthew Walker.
Operator (2007) from Matthew Walker on Vimeo.
Fancy doing a course in Traditional Animation?
Posted: September 21, 2009 Filed under: Animation events, Classic Animation, Offers, Random bit and bobs | Tags: Animation, courses, evening courses, film studies, light house, training, video techniques 1 CommentLight House, the official home of Flip isn’t just a nice place to come when we’ve animation events on. It’s not just the ONLY independent cinema in Wolverhampton and it’s not just a building with a lovely café that serves a decent cup of fairtrade coffee. It is also a thriving photography gallery with 3 exhibition spaces and a media training centre, who in our opinion offer some of the best Media training around.
This September they are offering three 10 week courses and one of them is :
Introduction to Traditional Animation, Cost £190 + VAT
Starting Monday 28th September, 6pm – 9pm, and running every Monday for 10 weeks. Animator and tutor Steve Poultney will focus on different aspects of traditional animation techniques e.g hand drawn, montage, Stop Motion and digital 2D techniques. The course will enable you to access specialist animation kit including computer software Toon Boom and animation tablets. Steve will also cover timing, movement and sound.
Even if you are more interested in digital 3D animation this course is a great starting point to pick up the basics and for anyone looking to learn a few animation techniques, even if you have had no experience what so ever!
They are also offering:
Introduction to Film Studies – The Essentials, Cost £100 + VAT
Start Tuesday 29th September, 6pm – 9pm, and runs every Tuesday for 10 weeks Led by Canadian born Film Studies Lecturer, Kimberly Forlini-Softley, Introduction to Film Studies – The Essentials explores the basic areas of film covering genre, narrative, the history of cinema, the basics of cinematography, editing, sound and mis en scene. This course will provide you with a good grounding in becoming more ‘film literate’ as well as offering the opportunity to discuss and debate film form.
Introduction to Video Production Techniques, Cost £190 + VAT
Starts Thursday 1st October, 6pm – 9pm, and runs every Thursday for 10 weeks Delivered by our in-house Video Production tutor, Jon Turner, this course is ideal for those wanting to learn the basics of video production e.g. camera operation and functions, storyboarding, basic script development, sound recording, basic lighting techniques, post production and exploring the different roles within video production.
Even better if you are unemployed, a senior citizens or NUS members you will be eligible for a 10% concession, or if none of these apply but 2 or more courses are booked together then they will give you a 10% discount on both courses.
All 3 courses are open to beginners with no prior knowledge required but an appreciation and interest in the subjects will be a bonus.
The World of Arthur Cox
Posted: September 18, 2009 Filed under: Classic Animation, what's coming up | Tags: Animation, flip, Flip Festival, programming, The Brothers McLeod Leave a commentFlip is delighting to be able to welcome director and producer Sarah Cox, from the award winning ArthurCox studio into our programme.
Originally started by Sally Arthur and Sarah Cox in 2002, the Bristol based studio has since grown in size and diversity and has become a home to many other award winning directors and animators, including: Matthew Walker, ‘John and Karen’ (Cartoon d’Or nominee 08); Sally Arthur, ‘A-Z’ (Best Documentary Rushes festival 08); Felix Massie ‘Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight’; Mark Simon Hewis, ‘The Life Size Zoetrope’ and Fig Roll, ‘Little Face’.
Flip will launch with a screening of work by the studio including short films, broadcast and commercial work, followed by an ‘in conversation’ discussion chaired by Greg McLeod, from the Brother’s McLeod.
Next AFWM Event: Shorts on Screens! 30/9/09
Posted: September 17, 2009 Filed under: Animation events, Random bit and bobs, what's coming up | Tags: Animation, Animation Forum, animation forum west midlands, shorts on screen Leave a comment
Wednesday, 30th September 2009, 6.30pm
The Victoria ,
48 John Bright Street,
Birmingham, B1 1BN
Shorts on Screens is the latest chance for Animation Forum WM members to mingle, share an after-work drink and share their animation from 6.30pm on Wednesday 30th September at The Victoria, Birmingham .
Rather than submit animated shorts in advance for a sit-down screening, simply bring along a mobile phone, mp3 player or laptop pre-loaded with your best animated work, and share it with fellow animators over a drink.
Animated work can mean short films, commercial work, experiments, showreels; anything you think would be of interest to others AFWM members. If you don’t have such snazzy mobile technology, simply bring along a USB stick or DVD and play it on one of the many laptops we’ll have setup around the room. If you decide to do the latter, please ensure that you bring the animation as a rendered (compressed) video (e.g. avi, mov, flv , etc), not as an enormous uncompressed video file or with a rare and unusual codec, as these are unlikely to work. Don’t have anything to show? Then feel free just to turn up and chew the fat with AFWM members, be they animators, scriptwriters, producers or voice-actors, you never know what might happen.
Entry is free and to attend simply RSVP using the Facebook Event page or to david.luke.allen@bcu.ac.uk.
Shorts on Screens will take place in the upstairs room of The Victoria (where Shorts on Walls @ Flatpack was held last March ). Directions can be found on Google Maps.
Scriptwriting for Animation Workshop
Posted: September 15, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentSome programme news: on the 5 November, 10 – 4pm, we will be running a one–day workshop, run in conjunction with Script and Animation Forum West Midlands, which will explore the particularities of animation production and writing, leading to an individual 60 second script which will then be submitted to the Flip Animation Challenge (more to come on this) with the opportunity to be produced by animators in residence during the festival and screened on the final day of the festival
The workshop is led by Myles McLeod, one half of BAFTA nominated The Brothers McLeod. They are known for their screenwriting and animations as seen on BBC, MTV, Channel 4 and elsewhere and direct commercials for internationally famous studio Aardman Animations. Myles holds a Masters in Screenwriting and writes for television, short film and computer games.
This 5 hour workshop will include:
- Creating characters
- Three act structure
- Scene structure
- Getting inspired
- Thinking animated
- Taking criticism
- Writing a 60 second script
Cost £25/£20. Tickets available now from Light House box office, info@light-house.co.uk, 01902 716055
A full festival programme will be posted on the website by the end of the month
Flip @ Artsfest
Posted: September 8, 2009 Filed under: Animation events, Random bit and bobs, what's coming up | Tags: Animation, artfest, festival, flip, forum, presentation Leave a commentThis weekend is Birmingham’s annual festival of all things creative Artsfest, and along with thousands of others the father of Flip himself Peter, shall be in attendance.
Not only will Peter be going to spread the word of Flip far and wide to anyone that will listen, he is also part of the programme!
Should you wish to hear Peter speak and catch a round up of last years Flip submissions you can see him Saturday at 12 in Ron Barber Studio at The Crescent Theatre, Sheepcote Street (Click for HERE for map)
There is a futher screening on the Sunday which unfortunatley contrary to the Artsfests published guide Peter can not attend.
Saturday, 12.00PM
PG RATED FILM SELECTION
Broad Street, Brindleyplace & Cambridge Street The Crescent Theatre – Ron Barber Studio
Flip Presents. Flip Animation Festival is now in its sixth year and the quality of films just seems to get better and better. Here are some of the best. Look out for more from Flip on Sunday afternoon too. Terrafarmer (Dir. Will Adams); This Way Up (Dir. Smith & Foulkes); Alien Abduction (Dir. David Han); KJFG NO.5 (Dir. Alexei Alexeev); Muto (Dir. Blu) – Lost Cargo (Dir. Pieter Engles); Showcasing WeVee – Personal reflections on the region’s archive film edited to music.Sunday, 12.45PM
PG RATED FILM SELECTION
Broad Street, Brindleyplace & Cambridge Street The Crescent Theatre – Ron Barber Studio
Flip Presents… Bertha & Bruno (Dir. Michael Rokes) – Love Story (Dir. Lena Von Dohren) – Monster Movie (Dir. Stephen Hammond) – Codswallop (The Brothers McLeod) – Small Bird Singing (Dir. Linda McCarthy) – One Nice Family Photo (Dir. Tom Senior) – Pencil Tree (Dir. Niki Naroz) – Wire and Bows (Dir. Andrew Brand) – The Weatherman (Dir. Will Becher) – Small Thoughts (Dir. James Clarke, Daniel Howe & Robert Green) – My First Crush (Dir. Julia Pott)
For a full round up of all Artfest events and to view their online programme visit their website http://www.artsfest.org.uk
A short update on flip…
Posted: September 1, 2009 Filed under: Random bit and bobs | Tags: Animation, flip, update Leave a commentHowdy one and all, and may I briefly introduce myself – I’m Lucy the flip festival assistant. I have been responsible with filing the hundreds of applications we received this year into boxes, folders and spreadsheets… sending emails, and drinking lots and lots of tea.
A few weeks ago, I passed the films on to the panel of judges, who set about the long task of watching all the DVD’s – 222 in total (a satisfyingly round and yet slightly freakish number)! Well, the results are in and though I won’t reveal too much at this stage, it’s set to be a very exciting weekend…
Continuing with the theme of ‘cats’ from an earlier post, I would like to present my favourite cat animation – ‘Cat Man Do’ by Simon Tofield. It won Best Comedy in the British Animation Awards in 2008. For any cat owners/lovers out there, I think you’ll agree it captures the essence of the cat perfectly!
Flip Festival: 4-6th November 2010 
