03 December 2013

Canterbury Anifest

I went to animation festival on 4th and 5th October, in the university in Canterbury. There was a programme of masterclasses, film screening and talks. I went to a masterclass on cut-out animation with Charlotte Firmin. Her dad Peter and Oliver Postgate started Small Films in Canterbury in the 1960s, they made Ivor the engine, Bagpuss, Pingu and lots more animations for children's television. It was really interesting. I made a cut-out animation Ginger cat and animated and walking in a garden. There wasn't time to do much, I want to do more at home. I bought a Zu3d animation programme, it's easy to use but it can do lots of things. Later I went to a screening of short animations from around the world, by Students and independent film makers. I thought that was interesting because the films were all different. Some were funny, some sweet, some a little bit strange. On Saturday I went to a talk by Jim Parkin from Aardman about animating Shaun the sheep. Jim makes the models. He explained lots of things about how the programmes are made, with photos and clips. He was funny and interesting. He brought models of Shaun, little Timmy and other sheep, and after the talk we could take photos with the sheep models. I think Anifest was really good. I want to go again next year and go to more talks, films and maybe masterclasses.