March BANG event – A Night on the Red Carpet February 11, 2009
Posted by animnation in BANG Meetings.Tags: alan smith, animations, bafta, bang, brighton, brighton animators, films, nominated, oscar, screenings, short films, smith & foulkes
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I’ve been organising the March meet up for the Brighton Animators Networking Group. Here are a few details about it –
Award fever is in the air! So we’ve pulled out all the stops (and the red carpet) with the next BANG event on Monday 9th March.
Expect an A-List evening packed full of entertainment, glitz & glamour (without the tears and tantrums) as we screen some of this year’s BAFTA and Oscar nominated animated short films (and few of the old favourites for good measure).
Our guest speaker is none other than the acclaimed director Alan Smith; half of the famous animation directing team Smith & Foulkes – who’s animated short film “This Way Up” has been nominated at this years Oscars! His credits include many well-known projects such as the BBC animated comedy series Monkey Dust, the film credit sequence for Thunderbirds, and an animated film within Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events. He has also created commercial work for Coca Cola, Volkswagen, Robinsons (their recent TV advert with the little characters playing in puddles), Honda (the beautiful “Hate Something, Change Something” TV advert) and Orange. Alan is going to show us how his projects have evolved from their original concept drawings, storyboards and animatics, through to the final animated piece.
Find out more about “This Way Up” HERE
When?
Monday 9th March ’09 – doors open at 7pm, screenings start promptly at 7:30 until 10:30pm. So please make sure you arrive on time.
Where?
Lighthouse Digital Screening Lounge, 28 Kensington Street, Brighton BN1 4AJ (behind Wagamama).
How much?
£5 per person payable on the door to cover the venue hire costs.
Registration?
I hope to see you there!
Sarah
Cinecity events coming up November 17, 2008
Posted by animnation in Brighton Digital Festival.Tags: animation, brighton, cinecity, events, lighthouse, screenings, UK
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Lighthouse and Cinecity are hosting a couple of great animation events this month –
Barry Purves – Artist in Motion
Sunday 23rd November 2008
Acclaimed British animation director and writer Barry Purves is giving a talk at Lighthouse from 3pm.
Cineville – An Animated Euro-Vision
Monday 24th November 2008
Industry experts and filmmakers from the UK and abroad will discuss the challenges and benefits of animation co-production, taking a look at how British writers, producers and directors are working with international partners, the reasons why and the results of these collaborations.
Paper Bagski – Full of Eastern (European) Promise
Tuesday 25th November 2008
Eastern European animation screenings from 6:30pm at The Brunswick in Hove.
AnimNation win an award! February 5, 2008
Posted by animnation in General AnimNation News.Tags: 2d, animation, animnation, award, brighton, film festival, gold, new york, video festival
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I have just heard the amazing news that AnimNation have won a gold award at the New York International Film and Video Festival!
I produced a 10 minute 2D animation with Hove-based production company Supernova Learning on the issue of age discrimination in the workplace, “As Old As You Feel”.
Here’s the press release –
Age Diversity Video strikes gold in New York
Hove-based video producer Supernova has won a Gold Award at this
year’s New York International Film and Video Festival. The Awards
Ceremony took place last Thursday 30th January at Manhattan’s Tribeca
Rooftop. The Annual Festival attracted entries from 31 countries.
Supernova won the award in the human relations category with As Old
as You Feel. The 10 min cartoon, with a commentary by Woman’s Hour’s
Jenni Murray, promotes a positive approach to age in the workplace.
Supernova teamed up with Brighton-based AnimNation to make the video.
It was written and produced by Supernova’s Vincent Thompson, with
animation by AnimNation’s Sarah Bird.
Supernova director Vincent Thompson commented “I’m delighted that our
DVD has received this recognition. Age discrimination at work is a problem
for both young and old. We’ve set out to raise awareness and promote
good practice in a witty way without being patronising”.
More information and video clip at:
http://www.supernovalearning.com/catalogue_08_age.htm
Brighton Digital Festival Update November 28, 2007
Posted by animnation in BANG Meetings, Brighton Digital Festival, General AnimNation News.Tags: animation, animation night, animnation, bang, brighton, Brighton Digital Festival, event, fireworks, flash, hang, portfolio, portfolio clinic, wired sussex
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This year’s Brighton Digital Festival went off with a bang this year – quite literally!
Starting off with an amazing interactive Flash generated fireworks display by Seb Lee-Delisle from Plug-in Media on the front of the Unitarian church in Brighton.
Pictures from the night are here
It then continued the next week to include the Portfolio Clinic – where I was priviledged to share a table with local animator RichMitch and look over work produced by local students and freelancers and offer advice on how to improve their portfolios and where to take their career next.
Photos from the night are here
The following night I was asked to be part of the Animation Night. Together with the Hastings Animation Networking Group’s founder, Angus Giorgi – we compiled a 30 minute showreel of animation work produced by BANG and HANG members – which included a very varied selection of films – from commerical work produced by AnimNation and John Davison, to personal projects created by the incedibly talented Cyriak, Tim Frost, to name but a few.
On the night this was shown to the audience along with a selection of animations from some of Ireland’s most talented film makers and animators. A panel discussion was then put together – consisting of the Dark Light Festival organiser Nicky Gogan; Matthew Talbot-Kelly who created the haunting Blind Man’s Eye; Eoghan Kidney who created Stars; English animator/film maker and director at Slinky Pictures, Chris Shepherd; Angus Giorgi founder of HANG and myself.We all discussed how we all have sought funding for short films and how the process varies from country to country – with an English, Irish and Canadian perspective on things. We also chatted about how politics can influence animation.
I’m running a Flash Brighton group workshop on creating 3D in Maya! November 15, 2007
Posted by animnation in Animation Tutorials, Flash Brighton, General AnimNation News.Tags: 2d, 3d, animation, animnation, brighton, demonstration, flash, Flash Brighton, flash games, ik, maya, tutorial, workshop
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I have been helping Flash guru Seb Lee-Delisle run the Flash Brighton group for a while now – but this is the first time I have actually held a workshop for the group!
There seems to be a bit of a growing interest in 3D within the group – so I thought I’d give them all an insight into the world of Maya and what the software is capable of doing. Plus a lot of the research and technology used for many years in the 3D industry is now making it’s way across to the Flash platform. News has it that the next version on Flash will have IK integrated into it (for those who aren’t “in-the-know” about IK – it basically is an amazing tool to assist character animators. It links a series of skeleton joints together in a chain – enabling you to simply pick up a handle in 3D space and move, for example, a limb around without having to manipulate a series of individual joints). So I thought it would be nice to show where that technology came from.
Seeing as Maya is such an immense piece of software & has quite a steep learning curve – I’m limiting my talk to demonstrating character modeling and animation, lighting, particles and dynamics, and also how to integrate 3D animation into Flash (a technique I have done a few times to bring in 3D character animation into online Flash games).
It’s beginning to remind me of the days when I was assisting Techex – demonstrating earlier versions of Maya to potential buyers!
When & where is it?
The Greene Room (upstairs in The Cricketers)
Tuesday 20th November, 6:30pm
Register to attend here – http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/319259
Flash On The Beach Update November 9, 2007
Posted by animnation in Brighton Digital Festival, Flash Brighton.Tags: 2d, 3d, animation, brighton, conference, flash, Flash Brighton, flash on the beach, maya, papervision, workshops
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Well I’ve just got back from the Flash On The Beach conference & feeling incredibly inspired! The conference guest speakers were amazing – & really opened my eyes up to the advances in the Flash world. I was very lucky to be given a ticket to this year’s festival through coming 1st in a competition to design a Flash banner to advertise the conference – so a big thanks to the Flash Brighton group and John Davey for making it all possible.
I’m off now to download a copy of the Papervison3D Collada Maya converter software to see what amazing 3D models I can drag into Flash!
And the best news of all – the next version of Flash is incorporating Inverse Kinematics! Now why they couldn’t include that technology into Flash years ago, I’ll never know! IK has been around in the world of 3D for donkeys years & revolutionised the way us 3D animators work. But it’s great news anyway for any Flash animator!
Out of all of the guest speakers, three stand out as being very inspirational to me:-
Chris Orwig – freelance interactive designer, photographer & lecturer at Brookes Institute of Photography. Chris gave an hour long talk on story, branding and visual design. A few things I took away from his talk are to keep things simple, how to explain my niche work in one sentence and how my work could tell a story (colour conveys emotion, typography a voice etc) & also complete admiration for his photography work.
GMUNK – an amazing Motion Graphics designer who combines Maya dynamics & modelling and design to create brilliant visuals. And very often his work has been produced to an extremely tight deadline – so I’m sure his tips and tricks will come in handy!
The Ronin – again, an amazing Motion Graphics designer & UK based! I recognised one of The Ronin’s animations “Black Day to Freedom” from the McLaren Award at Edinburgh Festival a few years ago – second time round watching it, I still found it incredibly moving. The Ronin combines photography and illustrations by his brother to make some very inspirational pieces. I would definitely like to try out some of his techniques to combine my photography work and get some motion into it!
As soon as the tickets become available for the 2008 Flash on the Beach – I’ll be getting my credit card out to book a bunch of tickets!
Brighton Digital Festival October 24, 2007
Posted by animnation in BANG Meetings, Brighton Digital Festival, Flash Brighton.Tags: animation, animation night, animnation, bang, brighton, Brighton Digital Festival, event, fireworks, flash, Flash Brighton, flash on the beach, hang, november, portfolio, portfolio clinic, wired sussex
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The Brighton Digital Festival is coming up fast!
Flash on the Beach – 4th – 7th November
We’re only a week and half away until the start of the Flash On The Beach conference – which will be hosting talks and workshops by some of the world’s best Flash experts. I was very lucky enough to win my ticket to the conference this year by creating a Flash banner to advertise the conference. The entries to the competition were judged by the Flash Coders New York group and I was privileged to win 1st place!
Y-Design Awards – Peoples’ Choice Award – 5th November Brighton Pier
Brighton Pier has been opened up to digital artists to celebrate the Peoples’ Choice Award as part of the Y-Design Awards. The organisers of this event have very kindly opened up their invitations to the Brighton Animators Networking Group.
Portfolio Clinic – 13th November
I will be putting in an appearance at the DScape Portfolio Clinic as an industry representative. The evening is designed for students and freelancers to have a one-to-one meeting with the best local digital companies to show their portfolio in the hope of getting some expert advice and possibly some work!
Animation Night – 14th November
This is evening is being held to showcase English and Irish animation work with a political theme. Wired Sussex have very kindly offered a 20 minute slot that evening to show off the work produced by the Brighton Animators Networking Group (BANG) and the newly formed Hastings Animators Networking Group (HANG).
AnimNation - 2D/3D Computer Animation in Brighton 