Stoke Your Fires - Animation event

Unfortunately I don't have much good to say about this event. It was definitely a complete contrast to the BAF event that I attended. The event was hosted over several days however we were only able to attend for one of them. That said the day we went wasn't strictly speaking bad, rather quite uneventful. There were screenings of a few international films in the morning, none of which I particularly enjoyed. After that there was a discussion panel with a few professionals from the industry. However none of them were really animators. In fact one the guys on the panel was responsible for taking heritage brands like 'Thomas the Tank Engine' and 'Fireman Sam' and then converting them from beautiful stop into some plain ugly C.G.I. animation I would be embarrassed to show children. Not to say I'm anti C.G.I. That's definitely not the case however I am very anti of clear cash ins such as continuing a brand as cheaply as possible.

Fortunately the day ended on a particularly good high note. A speaker from the London based visual effects studio 'Double Negative' gave a very in depth insight of the making of the visual effects for the recent film 'PAUL'. An incredible amount of detail goes into the main character (an alien called Paul) to make him look as realistic as possible. Most of the details you would never notice without being told. For example the gooey texture of Paul's eyes, down to the fact hes a full working muscles system that reacts appropriately when he flexes. The talk also revealed that literally none of the scenes shot in the camper van the characters travel around in during the film were shot on location. Instead the interior of the camper van was created and then the moving backgrounds were then keyed in outside the van giving the illusion of movement. Now this may sound like standard industry practice but the 'green screening' has been done so effectively in 'PAUL' that you actually would never realize that it wasn't shot on location. And no I'm not joking, I saw the film before the presentation at 'Stoke your Fires' and I was shocked when I found out 'Double Negative' had achieved. I don't I would want to work on something like that though. Literally the visual effects artists on 'PAUL' were trying to make sure you never realised that they worked on the film. Quite ironic really.