Leeds Film Festival

Last week I went to Leeds films festival which took place in Bradford, in the National Media Museum. There was a range of exhibits, such as animation, photography, film and work shops.

One of the main attractions was the art of Joanna Quinn. She has a sharp, witty hand drawn style that replicates human character. I loved how 'real' and dimensional she makes her characters by emphasising facial features that other illustrators might try to make look pretty.

My favourite part of the festival was the workshop we did with Curtis Jobling who created Bob The Builder. He showed us through his many different characters about how to create successful caricature through emphasising about 3 of the facial features. He looks at the prominent shapes that make someones face unique.

Below are two of the caricatures that I drew myself of two of the people that I met whilst at the workshop. I tried to emphasis the different shapes and how close/far way each facial feature was.

Curtis Jobling told us how he creates his characters out of shapes e.g. Bob is made out of a circle for his head and a rectangular body. Also he said he often changes the original design, always looking for improvement no matter how simple they are. As you can see below he has taken away the moustache to stop Bob looking like he's from the YMCA!
Jobling's main topic apart from his portfolio was how to network and the benefits it gives you. His main tips were to-

• Do your sketches all the time to generate your ideas and build your portfolio.
• Visit publishing houses, studios, send emails, find out who teh art director is and get their feedback along with a meeting.
• Put yourself in the right place at the right time.

Daily Motion

http://www.dailymotion.com/us/featured/video/x91gj5_she-farted-and-created-the-world_shortfilms

I found this short animation on the daily motion website. It is about a dog who farts and creates a world. It follows the theme of evolution by being made entirely of recycled papers, bank statements, spam mail etc. I really like the idea of how it is made of all 'natural' ingredients and put into a digital production. The story is simple but moves at a good flowing pace to the music. I also think that it is very effective when the world turns into colour after the eruption because of  the direction of the camera that draws your attention to certain words that control our world, such as hours, government, cost, markets etc. The underlying message is about wastage in our world of greed that disrupts the flow of nature.

Its also aimed at the children because of the simple, childlike nature of the drawings. This is the issue that future generations will have to deal with. I noticed that there are two colour changes one when the world begins and one when we seek to find other worlds. I think this is to say that we will develop, we will continue to discover new possibilities but we have to preserve what we have (due to the creators use of recycled materials. 

More animation inspiration

http://www.animationarena.com/mayo-animation-artist.html

This is a still frame from an animation called 'An irresponsible use of frogs' by Philip Child. I really like his style of work. it's like typical pixar but with more character. I love the expressions in the characters faces because of the characteristic 'ugliness' of the characters. What really spoke to me was the fact he was doing a fine art degree and all of this was self taught. It has given me even more inspiration to carry on battling with techniques on 3d max until I know them fluently.

Also I like the process of thought behind his narratives. He starts of with a contradiction, for example one of his stories was about what the consequences of paying for gravity would be. If you didn't pay you would float of into space. 

In terms of my own work a new narrative of my curiosity box could be contradiction in my life that have got me into awkward situations. I could bring this into by interactive game. 

Contradictions/Narratives of My Imagination

1) what if everything that you imagined came to life the next day? 

2) what if humans could fly and birds could walk? 

P.S check out the website and these ideas wont seems so weird...