NFT and Animation

As part of the British Animation Awards over at the NFT there was a lecture session called "Animation and Computer Tools: Who Rules?" with Gaelle Denis (Fish Never Sleep, City Paradise), Darren Walsh (Angry Kid) . Run Wrake (Rabbit) was swapped with Osbert Parker (Film Noir)

On the way in a chap asked "why are you here", it was a good question so I had a think about that during the session... General interested I told him. He also asked if I'd ever finished any films so I mentioned that I had made three (as I'd forgotten about Big man little cigar).

The session was entertaining and looked at three different animators and their old and new works with some discussion about how they were made. A man from Adobe demoed how easy it was to swap low and hi resolution images in After Effects as well as explaining how he helped convert a project from Digibeta to 35mm Film quality (1828x1536) and switching from 25fps to 24fps.

The general conclusion from the pannel was that computers are a necessary evil. However all of the panel did use computers for editing and some for actual production, either CGI or drawn animation using computer tools.

However the question that remained in my mind following the session was how do you manage it all? Osbert's slightly cryptic answer was to use the story. Later panel answered indirectly and commented on Storyboards, Notebooks and Treatments.

So why was I there? Motivation was my key reason and I got bucket loads as many of the panel were creating films like myself in their spare time and taking a long time to do so. I was also hoping for some inspiration on planning and this session did provide some ideas and more motivation. The panel were also impressed that I'd managed to film some of my animations in a day and commented that this was good for creativity.

Coincidentally when I got home the next chapter in the book I was reading Animation: The Mechanics of Motion just so happened to be about production planning...