Bradford Animation Festival

Whilst on our trip to Bradford Animation Festival, we had the chance to view many animated shorts. In particular, I really liked the stop motion animations which included, ‘Moving On’, ‘Life Begins at Breakfast’ and ‘The Bigger Picture’.

I was really impressed by the animation for the music video of, ‘Moving On’. I think that the use of string to create the characters and scenery was unique and very interesting to watch. Additionally, I think that it was interesting to use this technique to display the sensitive topic of somebody dying and ‘moving on’ since it allows the audience to connect with the characters as well as making it easy to watch.

I also liked ‘Life Begins at Breakfast’ because of its unique style. By using fabrics to create the characters, they appear lovable and adorable. Although this was only a very short advertisement, it is one that I found memorable because of the characters.

I thought that ‘The Bigger Picture’ used a very clever technique, and this animated short in fact won an award at the festival. The fact that this animation was partly painted and partly modelled seemed very impressive and again, covered a sensitive topic in an interesting way. Something that particularly stood out for me with this animation was the transitions between each scene. For example, one of the characters was pouring hot water into a mug and then the water from this scene merged into water in a shower. This was very well thought-out.

Another stop motion animation that won an award at this festival was the music video, ‘Robin’. Although I didn’t think much of the song, I really liked the animation in this video and its use of natural materials such as leaves and flowers to create a beautiful animation.

As well as this, another form of stop motion animation that I liked in this festival was the use of cut out animation in the animations, ‘Tiger is Gun’ and ‘Katachi’.

Even though I didn’t particularly like the narrative in ‘Tiger is Gun’, I did think that the cut out animation style was enjoyable and the transitions were clever. An example of this is where some paper representing grass was used in one scene and then, following the camera panning upwards, the same paper was used in another.

I thought that the stop motion music video ‘Katachi’ was also impressive because of the style being a cut out animation. I particularly liked this animation due to the fact that paper used to create it was all laid out together and never taken away so that it looked like one continuous shot.

My favourite animated short at the festival however, was ‘The Bear and The Hare’ which was a mixture of 2D animation, stop motion and 3D modelling. I thought that the design, music and the narrative of this animation together were very moving and the animation as a whole was very beautiful to look at. Additionally, I think that the link to Christmas meant that this was more appealing to a wider target audience as most people celebrate this time of year.

Weight

This is another animation that I have created on Adobe Flash, using a graphics tablet to draw it. Here, I have caused a character to pick up a rock and then fall over because it was too heavy. I think that as a first attempt, this is okay but the rock should maybe move more, as it stays in the same position a lot of the time. The character also seems to hover in the air for a couple of the frames so I should have perhaps moved it down a bit.

Monty Walk Cycle

This is a walk cycle that I have created on Maya using a rig called Monty. I think that this is successful since the walk looks fairly realistic however, I could have created more movement, making him have a more interesting walk and building more of a character.

Stop Motion Hand

Another stop motion task that I did was an animation of a hand turning over. Although there is a bit of a jump between two of the drawings that I did (the third and fourth ones), I think that the animation as a whole works well and I am very happy with it.

Tail Obstacle Course

This is an obstacle course that I made for the tail on Maya. I think that this was fairly successful however I think that the tail takes too long to get up into the air. If it took the same amount of time that it takes to go back down and then jump onto the block, I think it would have been better.

Jump

For Animation Principles, I created an animation on Adobe Flash of a man jumping. I like using Adobe Flash, however I am not used to using a graphics tablet and used one for the first time whilst making this. I think that this animation could use a few more in-betweens in places as it seems a bit jumpy and could also be improved with a more exaggerated squash and stretch effect.

Tail

 

Here is another example of using Maya again for the first time, I have moved a ball with a tail and attempted to make it look as though the tail is moving with the ball. I think this was fairly successful as the tail moves at the same rate as the ball. As an improvement, it could have showed more movement to show the speed. For example, if  it was moving quicker, I could have shown the tail being thrown around a bit more.