Leeds Animation Workshop (25/11/2015)

Leeds Animation Workshop (LAW) is a feminist independent animation studio based in Leeds known for their post World War II short animation. One of the animators from LAW came to our college to share their stories on developing a studio which mainly produces animations that condense messages on social and political issues. Despite the feminist nature of the studio, they still portrays beauty in a stereotypical way by putting emphasis on women's sexual appeal. I think it is a good strategy to capture the public attention. Other than addressing issues faced by women, they also see international issues and racial discrimination as worthy subjects to cover in their animations. They are not just an animation studio but also a social activist group that represents the marginalised. I am really amazed by how they want to have autonomy and control over the film that they made. After all, this uniqueness is what made them different than big animation studios, and their success is a result of a collective effort to promote their animation to those who are interested with the subject of their films.

Aside from being a social activist studio, LAW highly regards the traditional medium of doing animation. Their first few animations are done on transparent plastic sheets while their recent ones are made out of paper cut-outs. The reason that they do not want to do their animation in digital medium is they still want to preserve the natural touch in making animation that cannot be felt in artificially polished CGI animation. They also argued that they do not want to change their approach because they think that human are not meant to work with technology for a prolonged time as it will ruin their physical and mental well-being. I relate to this argument as it is evidenced by the drying up of eyes as we stared on the computer screen for a long time, but I think that taking breaks periodically will solve the problem. Although not being fond of working digitally, I still think that it is the current industry standard to be an animator.

Will Becher's Masterclass (18/11/2015)

I went to a talk by Will Becher on Aardman's newest feature animation film Shaun the Sheep the Movie. Will Becher himself is an animator from Aardman who worked on it. I can feel his strong passion towards producing an animation, especially stopmotion, which he started doing when he was just a teenager. He has been on a long journey to pave his career path as a successful animator. As a young animator, he said that the job is quite tasking because begginers usually started off as either a middle runner or a junior model maker. His passion makes his presentation even more engaging to the point that it convinced me to watch Shaun the Sheep the Movie for the second time.

Will told us that the challenge in making Shaun the Sheep the Movie is to convey points because the characters are talking in a jibberish manner. They solved this problem through the use of diagrams to explain process and the surroundings to make us understand what is going on in the scenes. 

Creating the world

Design set dressing and model making

The film is set in a typical metropolis city where stray animals are not supposed to roam freely and people adhere to trends. This concept is successfully applied with a humorous touch by the creators. The set of the city is a combination of bits and pieces of big cities architecture in the UK. Not all of the buildings are fully made because those can be seen by the camera is the most important. Will also explains the roles of set artists and model-makers in the creation of the settings. Set artists decides which textures work best for the background while model-makers will make the character concept into puppets which will be used for the filming. The model makers usually make the armature of the puppets from and connecting their joints. This is followed by mixing of the latex batter which is then poured into a tray shaped like the character, baked and coloured traditionally with paint. To make a character stand firmly, screw holes are made on the feet of the characters. Will explains that they decided to dress up the sheeps in human clothes in a quirky manner to show how the sheeps are blending into the settings through the ways they interact in the city. 

After the concept is finalised, the scriptwriters made the animatics which will be printed as panels. Panels are used to summarise what is happening in the scenes and to track the filming progress.

In the Studio

Lights, camera and audio

Will says a lot of useful tips on animating  stopmotion animation in this section. He brought up rigging which helps the puppets to stand still in unstable poses which assists the animators in doing the inbetweens. Rigging the puppets can also be useful as the camera moves because it stabilises them so that they do not shift. He also showed us some clips of Aardman's crew acting as characters in the animation as a reference for the real animation. I think this is the best and the funniest part of his presentation as he joked about his colleague, Golly, being all jibberish and ridiculous. He concluded the presentation by touching a little bit on the soundtrack recording which is done by a British orchestra group in an auditorium.

Contains Adult Themes - An Exhibition by Joan Cornellà (11/11/2015)

Totally unrelated to animation, I went to an exhibition by an infamous Instagram artist, @sirjoancornella, in Munro House. Cornella is well-known for his adult humour comic strips which often revolves around dark and/or vulgar themes. He never fails to make me laugh when reading his comic, and I think it may be caused by the straight faces of his characters as if they are desensitised from what is happening to them or their surroundings. I appreciate Cornella's artworks even more as I saw his exhibition since I found out that all the pieces of his work are painted with solid coloured paints (either gouache or poster colour), perfectly lined with no single accidental jitters on it. I find this discovery amazing as, if I were him, I might keep on giggling at the jokes, which I created, hence it is basically impossible for me to produce a single flawless straight line or curve. 

Thought Bubble 2015

I love comic books as much as I love animation. The comic books I am into is not the typical superheroes comic series, so I went to Thought Bubble yesterday which is a comic convention held yearly in Leeds in the hope of finding quirky independent comic books artists. It is a really eye opening experience since this is my first time going to a comic convention. I realised that there is a plethora of independent comic book artists who creates artsy or even 'trippy' pieces. And, of course, I could not resist to get one of the Nobrow magazine which is a compilation of eccentric wordless comics.

Nobrow 9 Magazine and Postcards

At first, I did not know where to go except the Illustration students zines booth since I could not recognise any familiar names. However, as I stroll around the venue, I do not feel like leaving empty handed. Luckily, I managed to hold my desire to shop impulsively, and selectively choose what I am getting. Apart from Descender, these are all made by independent artists. I got a rhino poo Astro Boy print (because I find it exotic to have rhino poo paper hanging on my wall), some free postcards and Badger's Day Out.

Science Fictions

I talked to Howard Hardiman, the maker of Badger's Day Out which is a friendly person. Hence, I kind of regret not having him to sign the Badger book that I bought. He explained to me about his Badger series that accounts a silly adventure of a badger that he made for fun in the beginning and how he managed to pave the way for his success. He uses post-its to draw the panels, take a picture of them and upload them to Instagram on a regular basis. He thinks that the series got to the heart of many people because it simply shows the innocence of the everyday life of a badger hence gives a calming effect to the audience. He even joked that his readers often read Badger's Day Out as a bedtime story. To bring variety to the series, he uses different medium to draw. In this book, he uses pencil while for the other two books he uses ink & watercolours and brush pen separately. He also enjoys to animate and he made an gif animation of the sleeping badger, and he gave me the postcard of the frames that he uses instead since he could not show me the animation at that moment.

Howard Hardiman's Badger's Day Out