Date of Trip: 15 & 16 Feb
Previously regarded as second only to Bath as an architectural site in southern England, since the 1942 bombing and subsequent reconstruction Exeter has been a city with some beautiful buildings rather than a beautiful city. (wiki)The trip to Exeter has been absolutely fabulous. I find the hilly city quite charming in its own ways and that will warrant several blog entries to describe. For a start, I will talk about Animated Exeter, which was the primary reason I went.
Most of the event I was interested in took place in the Phoenix Center. The multistory building on a hill was guarded by 3 mythical creatures.
An orange dragon watches over the western side of the building.
A unicorn stood on the eastern side, on the steps up to the cafe.
And right above the main entrance roost the center's namesake.
The phoenix will rise every hour or so (about 7 minutes earlier than the actual hour, or so I was told). I was fortunate enough to witness one of its 'resurrections' without even knowing that the mechanical thing can move. I did make a short animated clip of it, but that will have to wait till I find a suitable way to upload it.
Tales From the Golden West is the exhibition within the center. The South West of England is home to some of the greatest and oldest animation companies in the UK. This exhibition showcases their work with many eye-opening treasures. The many production models, original storyboard and snippets from the creative mind's sketchbook makes you wish they'd share even more! The following are some of the awesome production models on display.
The intricate and peculiar models from the advertisement for Fanta by the Bolex Brothers company.
Aardman's early success, the plasticine Morph.
Aardman's recent foray into 3D CGI, Chop Cocky Chooks.
Aardman's partnership with DreamWorks, Chicken Run.
and Finally the popular plasticine duo, Wallace and Gromit along with the were rabbit.
In the
life drawing workshop for animators that I attended, this was the first time I try to draw a model in movements and sequential poses. It came as a beneficial exercise though it is really hard to get a great model like her who is a dancer and knows the specific needs and vocabulary of animators.
While my main motive was to watch
Nina Paley's
Sita Sings the Blues, I ended up watching
Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure as well since all the shops, and most of the businesses were closed as regulated in UK on a Sunday evening.
Sita definitely lives up to the hype surrounding it. Having seen Nina's previous film, the style of utilizing collage and 2D animation was apparent in this one as well. Of the various mix and matches of styles, I still do like her Flash vector characters the most. Their strong stylistic design with limited but well times animation makes for an entertaining watch. Laughs are aplenty, but what is special about this film is the sincerity or rawness perhaps, of 'the greatest break up story ever told'. While the Ramaya epic was quite a storytelling material, interweaving so well, the thread between the modern tale about Nina's own story, the three shadow puppet's hilarious dialogs along with their not always concurring accounts and finally the Annette Hanshaw 'music videos' was very admirable. It is really an alternative film that is not to be missed!
Irreverent yet so human, when Rama finally sheds the single tear, Nina was happy with her new cat and in the final scene with the role reversal between the Hindu deities, there was a real sense of triumph for the ladies.
A link from New York Times here.The other feature of my 'accidental comedic and irreverent double-bill', Lucky Luke, was even funnier than Sita (it being more children targeted than the later). The film is simply too hilarious, ridiculous, silly and witty for words to describe. It is so hyper-actively choke-full of gags both in the visuals and the dialogs that you have to be the Ice Queen not to laugh out out. It was really nothing less than what I would expect from the producers of Oggy and the Cockroaches. A sure cure for any blues, go see it, if you ever get the chance. I most thoroughly enjoy wasting 90 minutes of my life for that and will be more than happy to it again and again!
More from Exeter later...
In those fully packed days of mostly in and out of cinemas and screenings, I hardly took any photographs, but here are a few of the lovely city.
The city by night.
The cinemas that we spent a substantial amount of time in. (The same cinema sign that we saw hit by lightning one of the afternoons.)
Some other interesting sights abound in the city, particularly with street performers. Alas I failed to capture any decent pictures to share. Although nothing special, I just like this stag.
Spiderman! I saw him when I was sleeping on a comfortable sofa in a bookshop between screening (can't remember if it is Borders).
Two of my lively friends from UWE, first year animation with a 'pony'.
One of the things I do enjoy very much about Stuttgart is the summer grass where you can lazed around with friends under the sun, that wasn't too hot.
And share watermelons too.
I enjoy looking at the celestial bodies when I'm outdoors. Our nearest star, the sun.
And the moon.
And the Doppelgänger of the moon.
Although I skipped Coraline's German premier, where Henry Selick was present and presenting, I did manage to get some good look at the film's puppets when it wasn't too crowded. The workmanship of these puppets were marvelous. To paint away the seams around Coraline's eyes would be quite as labor intensive.
Other highlights for the festival was to be able to attend the Disney lectures on Bolt, one of the recent Disney offerings I'm fond of. What's not to like about a big white wolf-looking dog?
Animators are animated people!
Simply meeting passionate people about what they do, something as consuming as film making and animation, from across the globe is the very inspiring! I would certainly like to return to Stuttgart again and maybe visit other festivals like Annecy or Ottawa too.
