Three little words

One of the first projects we were set this term was to gather into groups, pick two words at random from an envelope and a third emotion from a sport envelope and make a short film collaboratively. The films we were given were OPERA, ROAR and our emotion was ARROGANCE/SNOOTINESS. We were then given style guides, which we were abel to swap out if we wanted, we received UPA which was fantastic for me as it's something i'm very familiar with and love. It was suggested as myself and another girl in our group are 'The stop-motioners' of our year that we should attempt stop-motion for this project. This was great as I've wanted to combine my love of stop-mo and UPA for a long time.

The result of this exercise and six weeks, of making, planning, animating and tireless editing on behalf of our Director/Editor Ben Sullivan. Is as seen below ( I can't show you the full film at this time as were hoping to submit it for festivals this summer).

Initial sculpts

Setting up/testing

 

multiple ladys for shots

me animting

Production schedule - ready!

Lady in the spotlight

i'm back...sorry

It's been a long time since i've done anything with this blog, again. sorry about that. I've now started a MA in Animation at the University of West England (Bristol) in fact i'm just about to finish my first term (of three). eep. It's been one hell of a trip getting here, I applied to both UWE and The NFTS ( however that was for Producing) and al though the experience was a greta, I learnt a lot about Pitching which was exciting, it was generally decided i wasn't the best fit for the course. I am very happy to be in Bristol however, the course if amazing, my peers equal so, lectures smashing and Bristol it has to be said feels very much like home.

Another massive thing that happened in conjunction with getting on my Masters degree was that i also managed to swing a BAFTA scholarship, which is a little insane. You can read about it here. It was truly such a great honour and to be honest surprise to not only be considered but awarded the funding for the full cost of my Masters which is huge wait off, I can tell you.

Me and my fellow recipients at the Bafta drinks party!

Like so many of the best and most exciting things that have happened to me in the last 5 years have come though not only hard work but actually just sitting down and applying for things with a kind of f**k it why not attitude.

I'll try and update things from this term soon, maybe over christmas, it'll be nice to get back into the blog again, regardless of how little attention and how easily I forget to update it...Ever.

Skwigly Advent Creation

This was my contribution to Skwigly's Advent Calendar this year I took inspiration form cartoon modern design and the good old 'lets all go to the lobby' cartoon. Gif's are quite fun aren't they? created in Photoshop designed and animated.

Heres the link to the article : http://www.skwigly.co.uk/advent-calendar/day-3-laurabeth-cowley/

Skwigly Banner July 2014

I did a new banner for Skwigly this month. Look it moves. Oooooo!

Inspired by my home town (were I'm currently residing before my next job starts in sept). Every local artist has drawn the lighthouse at Portland Bill, this is the closest I'm getting! 

Difficulty in the festivals.

A year has passed since I sent my film out into the world for its film festival cycle, with another year still in him I feel this would be a great opportunity to update you on his progress. 

Difficulty's first outing was in Cambridge at the Arts Picture House cinema as part of my degree show, closely followed by it's first international screening in Breda, in the Netherlands.

The film enjoyed quite a nice run in London, being screened at the Barbican as part of the Frame film festival as well as Tricycle theatre-  Takeover Festival and at the launch Party for Animated Woman UK at the MPC Building. 

At the MPC- for the Animated woman Uk Launch

My companion to the screening, fellow animator Erika Lewis 

A Screening in May at the 5th Golden Kuker - Sofia was a nice serprise...i only recently discovered i'd been screened at all.

And a Lovely little screening at The London Animation Club hosted by Martin Pickle. 

I'm hoping for a few more screening before relaxing it online Later this year. 

The wonderful Marcelo Cervone ( musician and composer for my film Difficulty) has put my film up on his website and gives a short account of working with my self. Check out his site and indeed his impressive work, he is a busy fella.

His music made my film, the soundscape he made was hark back to every stop-motion film i loved from my childhood whilst still being utterly orginal. He was a pleasure to work with, and his personal character and attitude is a joy to experience!

BUILD Charity Promotional Film

I was approached by Amy Willet the Producer/Director of this Promotional film to create the animated type for the names and questions for the film. The type face was created by Erika Lewis.

Un-Advent calendar banner!

I was asked by the nice guys at Skwigly Magazine to create a banner for the Un-Advent Calendar, so i came up with this little homarge to Aadman co-founder Peter Lord, anitmed by my good friend Ben Mitchell . I also received some rather nice comments form some rather big names, which was great! 

Difficulty!

My short film Difficulty completed during my graduate year at Cambridge school of art has been screened in Breda in the Netherlands and is to be screened at the Barbican in London, in February 2014. Yay!

Here is a link to the production blog http://difficultydiary.tumblr.com/

Working late on 'Difficulty'.

Poster for 'Difficulty'

Le Mime Pire to be screened at this years -Stop -Trick festival inPoland

First of apologies for the great gap between posts been working on a few things mostly graduating and becoming a responsible adult but great news found out last week that "Le Mime Pire" will be screened at the Stop Trick festival in Poland that I attended last year. It's exciting alos due to wonderful line up it's been screened with like Michele Cusack's "Slight of Hand" and Spela Cadez "Boles".

Fete De L'anim

on a break during the Marathon I decided to go and talk to everyone involved and get them sign one of the posters, this will be a great keep sake for years to come. Just trying to keep myself motivated, Maybe it'll be worth something one day ;)

Fete de L'anim

Ok so a couple of weeks ago I too part in an animation Marathon with fellow CSA students Erika Lewis (

@ErikaCLewis) and Georgia Yorke (@georgialiannee) it was an amazing to say the least made some great contacts and even wrangled an article out of it not to shabby. 

This year’s Fete de L’anim proved to be an overwhelming success. The festival is based in the northern French towns of Lille and Tourcoing. The industrial buildings are over-run with animators from around the world, with an impressive line-up of guest speakers, screenings and workshops.

The international festival starts and finishes with the collective efforts of nineteen animation schools and one professional group, the teams come from across Europe including France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe were invited to take part in this fantastic challenge.

The Marathon

The excited young animators are gather together in La Teinturerie studio space to create 10 seconds of animation each, over a 48 hour period.

This is a massively collaborative project, which offered students a unique opportunity to experience both a creative challenge and to see a range of work from their peers across Europe. The studio was a hive of activity from 2pm on the 13^th March when the start image was unveiled (created by Belgium animator Raoul Servais) until 7pm on the 15^th March. Many of the teams worked through the night (one French team even slept on the floor) to create their animations. The stints are then edited together with sound and screened at the closing ceremony.

As well as this there was also a Graphic Battle; which encouraged students to pitch their skills against each other within two categories: a 2D digital drawn and 3D digital modelled (zbrush) competition, in a knock out round of talent!

The Master classes

Joanna Quinn, Serge Élissalde, Adriaan Lokman, Patrick Bouchard and Pixar animator Erick Oh all offered up their knowledge in these informative and incredibly intimate programs.

A heavily Pixar themed festival this year, with screenings of most of Pixar most loved feature films on show throughout the festival, master classes and screenings from the wonderful Erick Oh as well as the premiere of Oh’s exhibition His Chamber in Lille.

The master classes offered a fascinating insight in to each of the guests working practice. They discussed their films, storyboards and production photos, which left the audience of animation enthusiasts, students and experts alike far more knowledgeable on each of the speakers work, each presentation was followed by extensive and thought provoking Q&A session.

A personal favourite was the inspiring and charming master class by Mikey Please, in which he discussed his method of working, showing animatics and personal photos that inspired his BAFTA winning film The Eagleman Stag. The audience was given the amazing opportunity to see the ruff cut of his new filmMarilyn Myller, it received a great amount of accolade from the audience, a brilliant film from this amazing talent.

As well as this there was a range of activity for the younger audience in the Imaginarium. Which celebrated both Retro games (perhaps to co-inside with Disney’s Wreck-It-Ralph) but also offered workshops in stop-motion, storyboarding and much more, helping to make sense of the key principles of animation which will hopefully go on to inspire the next generation of animators.

And that’s not all from this jam-packed festival the 11pm to 4am duration of your visit offered Electro-animated night’s, with electronic music, digital art, dancing and drinking an energetic atmosphere was created, allowing for socialising and discussions to be made alongside the stimulating surroundings.

Screenings galore

As well as the Pixar films and each of the guest animators screening there was also The Best of Schoolscreening which showcased a selection of European best student films including the National Film and Television Schools Head over Heels and MOME’s Dipendenza. Through out the rest of the festival there was screenings from each school from the Marathons – which demonstrated diversity in style, influence/inspiration and teaching practices. Many contacts and friendships were made during and after these screenings.

There was full audience for the closing night which offered a fantastic selection of short films from top French directors including Amelie Harrault’s Mademoiselle KIKI et les montparnos and Bruno Collet’s Son Indochine, Michaela Pavlatova created a huge amount of laughter with the sensual short film Tram.  To night and festival was brought to a close with the premiere screening of the Marathon challenge film, the end result was a hugely varied melting pot of creative styles and ideas, often comical and surprising- but each stint was individually stunning. Each student represented there country with pride, and left inspired and ready to take on new work or continue their current course work with greater vitality.

Fete De L’anim had a distinctly student vibe to it, making it a great place for young animators to cut their teeth into the animation community. It also offered the guests, tutours and public a great opportunity to see new talent emerging, the future looks engorging for the animation industry.

List of competing groups for Marathon de L’anim 

France:  PÔLE 3D, Supinfocom, ESAAT, Encole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, E-Art Sup, Cellofan’-Lézards Hâchésb (pro team)

United Kingdom: National Film and Television School, Anglia Ruskin University, Southampton Solent University

Belgium: Howest, La Cambre, La KASK, Beaux-Arts Tournai, Haute Ecole Albert Jacquart.

The Netherlands: St Joost

Germany: Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

Eastern Europe: FAMU, MOME

Happy World Mime Day

Happy world mime Day everyone, love form Rene

 

Wired Arts paper cut workshop

Myself and fellow animator Erika Lewis, ran a paper cut animation workshop for wired arts, this is my second workshop working with the wonderful society at Cambridge school of art. 

It was a great evening and a good turn out...lots of fun. 

Workshop Partner Erika Lewis

and here is the final film edited together. enjoy:

Business cards...Finally!

I finally managed to get round to designing and printing my business cards, with a little help from my friend at CW9 Design 

There not exactly what I want after m degree, I hope to update them after completing my fmp. But the'll do for now. 

Huzzah! scholarship success

This is my happy face!

A little while ago I applied for a foundation scholarship through uni, I had to write a proposal for a self-directed educational trip. I'd been considering attending Stuttgart international animation festival as Barry Purves had mentioned he's be attending, also I love germany, so I thought id give the scholarship a go as the money wouldn't go a miss.

And to my surprise a letter arrived saying i'd been Successful...Great News so come April 23rd i'll be on my way to one of the biggest animation festivals in europe. I have to write a essay piece and give a few talks when I get back but i hope to be able to tie that in with some other work and hopefully be able to put it off until after hand in. But buzzing! now just to book the train, and hotel, and flight, and festival tickets, and.......o dear!

International VIVID conference Cambridge

Hello. So to begin this term, myself and fellow student Erika Lewis where approached by our tutor to create a welcoming animation for the VIVID International conference hosted by Anglia Ruskin Cambridge.

Erika is a good friend of mine as well as housemate-we go way back. So it seemed like a fun idea. We created the animation in around 3-4 days, so was nice quick turn around, with erika creating the hand drawn element and me handling the digital and composting side. 

Working late 2days before deadline.

VIVID is a great company that aims to create a networking environment between university, industry experts and companies mostly based in the UK and netherlands. I applied for  a scholarship with this company last year so I know a fair bit about it. 

The animation was played at the start of the conference on a double screen. 

It was a realy interesting day of lectures form all over the UK and netherlands. From educational and surgeon training games to interactive and inteligent materials, I even got to meet a local businessman with two 3D printers who's letting em come in and see them at some point. We even got a mention on there website  http://www.vivideurope.net/ which was pritty nice.

Was all in all a great day, brilliant brief, got to work with one of my best buds, made some contacts and even got a free lunch in the form of ridiculously good free canapés...not to shabby.

Though this did remind me, must get business cards...again!

I'll be away a while....

Hey cool cats, due to starting my Final Major Project I have begun a new blog, on tumbler *shudder* just trying to span all the social networks, so for my production diary on my new film follow this link: http://difficultydiary.tumblr.com/

but don't worry ill be updating here with other tit bits i'm doing thought out this term, workshops, quick briefs, festivals ect

First Show-reel

so to sum up this terms visual work, here is my final show-reel, tailored and geared for industry!

That's all folks!

Recycling animation complete

This was quite a nice little brief in the end, offered a collaboration with my tutor as a voice over, which was fun, and it was a nice break in style also.... I feel the timing is still a little of so I may change that later. But this will be a great way of working in the future especially on short commissions.

Here's the full film if you fancy a look