Report from Annecy 2011

When I arrived in Annecy late at monday evening, the outside screening of "Rango" had just started in the park outside the festival centre. I was struck by the cozy atmosphere immediately. There on the grass were literally thousands of other animation enthusiasts, students and profesionals crammed together. There was so much people that you couldn't see the grass they all were sitting on.
Didn't catch much of the film though, dubbed to french and with no subtitles - but the whole thing was still an experience in itself.

My visit was kind of short, I was there only for three days. But I tried to get to see as much as possible in that short time and used the time quite efficiently I think.

Some of the highlights from the screenings (remember I only saw a fraction of all that was offered):

Of the short films the one that made the biggest impression on me was "la Détente" produced and directed by Pierre DUCOS and Bertrand BEY. A fantastic, highly visual story on the subject of war. A french soldier becomes paralyzed with fear during bombings in the first world war. He escapes into his fantasy where the war takes on the form of a toy-world.

This is the trailer.



On the feature screenings I really fell in love with "the rabbin's cat", which later also got the crystal award of the whole festival for best feature film. The story is about the very unlikely situation of a family cat who swallows a parrot, thus gains the ability to talk - and wishes to convert to judaism.
The film is based on a comic book by Joann Sfar and directed by Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar.

This is the trailer for "le chat du rabbin"



I joined several screenings in the television series class, since that is where my own main interest is. Some stuff was really good there - and some of it I utterly hated.
One of the more fresh experiences was an episode from the british/french production "the amazing world of gumballs". Normally I'm not too hot on cartoon networks style of children's animation. Too loud and too busy for my taste. But this was something I really liked, mostly because of the craziness of the story and for the cute main characters. Story turned out annonyingly thin but nevertheless I found it very entertaining, it made me smile.
Produced by Dandelion studios, directed by Mic Graves and Ben Boquelet




There were also numerous masterclasses and talks about films and animation. I got to see a couple that I really enjoyed. On wednesday there was a 3 hour seminar on four different productions, presented by its producers. We were shown material from the development of the films and got to hear a little about the processes behind each of the productions.

On thursday there was another presentation that focused on VFX and animation, also very interesting, even if it's not my primary field of interest.

I visited the MIFA area on thursday as well and strolled around among all the booths and stands. Stopped for half an hour at the Disney booth and listened to Paul Briggs who gave a speech on "the art of story".

And of course I met with all the other students from animation mentor who happened to be there, shared a couple of beers and talked animation. Too bad I only had a couple of days, it sure would have been fun to spend much more time together with them all.

The only thing I won't miss after my visit to Annecy is the bloody weather - it rained almost all of the time I was there. My feet were soaking wet for three days in a row. I hope for more sunshine on my next visit to the festival! :-)

Annecy 2011

Annecy 2011, here I come!  Booked a (cheap) room at a hotel, got my airplane ticket  -  and now I am sooo ready to go! 

Bradford animation festival 2010

It was cold, wet and windy in Bradford. But the National media museum was packed with warm people who all love animation. Something like 700 people had shown up to join the event, said the lady at the box office when I asked.
This was the 17th edition of the Bradford animation festival and it really is a likeable event, right in my taste. Lots of good stuff to take part of, but still small enough to have a certain familiar and cozy feeling about it. You do have a chance to talk to the bigshots here too after screentalks and workshops, no one is too distant.

The audience is pouring into pictureville cinema waiting for
the screentalk by Paul Mendoza of Pixar.

There were all kinds of animation gathered here at this festival, in the competition class you found newer productions from the recent years, but there were also room for retroperspectives, lookbacks, children's productions (ASIFA), classic narrative storytelling and more abstract shorts experimenting in form and style.

At every festival there is usually some kind of sneak preview of upcoming features, so also this time in Bradford. At the festival opening night we saw "Chico and Rita". A fresh english-spanish production telling a story full of jazz music, love and heartache, all placed in Cuba, Paris, New York, Las Vegas, Hollywood with the story beginning in the year of 1948. The film is seductive and creates a strong atmosphere, much thanks to the wonderful way in which the music is used throughout the film. A really good music film!





Sadly I didn't get the chance to participate in as many workshops as I would have wanted to. Actually I only got into one of them, a motion capture workshop demonstration, which was both cool and interesting.  (jeez, there is REALLY a lot of cleanup to do after each capture !!!)

But I enjoyed more of the screentalks instead, don't think I missed any of them... Here are two of the highlights from this year's screentalks. 


NEXUS RETROSPECTIVE

Adam Foulkes, Alan Smith and Jim LeFevre at Nexus, an independent production company and animation studio in London, gave a very interesting insight to the creative aspect of their work and how they go about it when they decide on HOW to meet a customer's order for a commercial or a television short. Very intersting how openmindedly they weigh pros and cons of different animation styles and what a broad palette of production types they choose from. As they are brainstroming ideas and/or investigating the script or idea they are presented they always ask themselves if this idea would be best done with live action, stop motion or CG or some kind of mixture of these...  their showreel proved them also to be a very creative crew, IMHO.

INCEPTION TALK

Paul Franklin of the VFX company double negative gave us a detailed and thorough insight to the production of all the visual effects of the film "inception". Lots of behind-the-scene-photos, lots of examples from the process of making the visual effects made this appearance one of the most interesting at the festival.

This is the giant mirror that was used for
some of the special effects in Inception

GENE DEITCH

Maybe the most interesting and certainly most heartwarming appearance was done by Gene Deitch and his wife Zdenka - partners in life AND in animation.  We got to hear the story of a young animator who was asked to move to Prag in the late 50s and 60s to work at a studio there.  An amazing story of the development of the animation artform unfolded, as told by Gene, we learned what it was like to be "the only free American in Prague during 30 years of Communism." - and we also got to hear a wonderful love story.

You can read about Gene at his site: http://www.genedeitch.com/

 

For a little while I thought that I would be the only representant from animation mentor at this festival, but my classmate Ian Yale met up for friday's show and joined us at the talk that Paul Mendoza from Pixar gave.

You know what? Webcam and chat on skype is nice - but meeting
in real life is better. :) 

In conclusion, I can only give my warm recommendations to everybody to go and visit this festival upcoming years - IF you like the cozy atmosphere of the somewhat smaller festival.  I know I do. 
Cheers!