Final Day
national gallery , barnett newman, Inpenatrable, Sol Lewitt, Duchamp Readymades, impressionists, Louise Bourgeois
I managed to sneak an hour to take a quick tour of the National Gallery (it was less sneaking and more that I did not make it to the panel I was going to go to) and that was a great break from all the running around at the festival.
closing ceremony
little disorganized
good stuff at best of ottawa
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Ottablog - Day 4
Saturday was when all the job information panels were being held at the National Gallery, so I stayed for three. I am considering this my makeup for not being in class... it was like a Professional Practices field trip.
The first panel I attended was "Gimme a Job!" which was a discussion between recruiters from different studios, DMX (studio B in Vancouver), Walt Disney Studios and Cartoon Network. I think what I found particularly reassuring was that all the recruiters were friendly and very open - they displayed their own passion for good and interesting work over just getting the job position filled.
Panels and recruiting info
The panel with Pendleton Ward and Thurop van Orlen was like a two for the price of one... informative about their process but pretty much a comedy act.
Dead but not buried
ironic I guess?
Colorful
overall, ok, nothing different from most anime
The first panel I attended was "Gimme a Job!" which was a discussion between recruiters from different studios, DMX (studio B in Vancouver), Walt Disney Studios and Cartoon Network. I think what I found particularly reassuring was that all the recruiters were friendly and very open - they displayed their own passion for good and interesting work over just getting the job position filled.
Panels and recruiting info
The panel with Pendleton Ward and Thurop van Orlen was like a two for the price of one... informative about their process but pretty much a comedy act.
Dead but not buried
ironic I guess?
Colorful
overall, ok, nothing different from most anime
Friday, September 23, 2011
Ottablog - Day 3
to be edited(Short comp 4
heliotropes
camels was great
International showcase 1 )
After the screening the animator's picnic was going on, but I had planned my whole week out and I had few breaks, so I took that time to go visit my grandparents and my uncle from my mother's side. I hadn't seen them in quite a few years. It was great though a bit strange, because I went back to my old neighborhood... it was like constantly experiencing deja vu. What makes this an interesting experience for me is that in my film I am leaning towards it being representative of piecing together a memory or understanding of a certain time and place for Fia. There were things I realized were wrong in my memory when I went back... small things like signs being square when I thought they were circles, the school being brick instead of grey siding... trees taller, etc. Though when I got to my grandmother's house, everything was just the same, the smell, where everything was. We dug a bit further and looked through some old family photobooks. It was good to refresh myself on the way that experience made me feel, because it is something I want to convey in my film.
heliotropes
camels was great
International showcase 1 )
After the screening the animator's picnic was going on, but I had planned my whole week out and I had few breaks, so I took that time to go visit my grandparents and my uncle from my mother's side. I hadn't seen them in quite a few years. It was great though a bit strange, because I went back to my old neighborhood... it was like constantly experiencing deja vu. What makes this an interesting experience for me is that in my film I am leaning towards it being representative of piecing together a memory or understanding of a certain time and place for Fia. There were things I realized were wrong in my memory when I went back... small things like signs being square when I thought they were circles, the school being brick instead of grey siding... trees taller, etc. Though when I got to my grandmother's house, everything was just the same, the smell, where everything was. We dug a bit further and looked through some old family photobooks. It was good to refresh myself on the way that experience made me feel, because it is something I want to convey in my film.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Ottablog - Day 2
Today was a busy day with a total of four screenings and a panel. The highlight for me personally was the Canadian Showcase and meeting two filmmakers that have inspired me greatly, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby. Their new film, Wild Life, was screened in the Canadian Showcase and was later discussed in a Masterclass panel they hosted. I picked up some great insight into their process which I can relate back to my Senior film, though before that I would like to run over some thoughts about the other screenings I saw today.
The first screening I saw was the Canadian Showcase, which I found the most impressive in screening selections so far. As I am looking at my showcase guide I can see I have circled half of the films in the screening to remind myself to write about them, though to prevent myself from writing into the night (its already 2am! How did this happen?) I'll try to keep it down to three pieces I found myself most impressed by.
Wild Life - Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
This was the main reason for me to go to the Canadian Showcase - I saw When the Day Breaks many years ago and I still remember how engaged and affected I felt afterwards. They had captured a very ineffable, intrinsic part of what it is to be a person and to be connected to others in this film. In Wendy Tilby's own words, Wild Life is very much like the opposite of When the Day Breaks. It acts as a documentary describing a remittance man's gradual isolation after he moves to the harsh prairies of Alberta in 1910. I was struck by the beautiful and poetic manner they capture the sadness of the main character, and also still be able to juxtapose it next to light hearted and comical scenes. Their work always reminds me that despite what systematic divisions of genres demand, the description of a human nature does not carry those boundaries.
Dimanche (Sunday) - Patrick Doyon
This film really captured my heart, it had a simple but distinct line aesthetic. It was a cute and funny look into a child's memory of how his family would spend Sundays. I found it insightful into how the main character of a child's attention is distracted by all sorts of things, especially when he is the only kid in a large group of adults. It was quite charming and one of my favorites at the festival.
Second Hand - Isaac King
This was also one of my festival favorites (maybe its my Canadian bias?). It has a focus on different 'timings' of people and the pacing of the film reflects that exactly. It juxtaposes a fast paced businessman next to a slow and calm elderly couple next door. Storywise I found it surprising not preachy, because it appears at first to be a pro-green film, but I found it really revealed more of a message on balance and organization. The visual technique was what I enjoyed the most about this film, as King managed to merge 3D and stop motion dimension with 2D animation seamlessly.
CMYK - Marv Newland
This film was particularly exciting to me because Martin Rose was the producer! He had shown us some sneak peeks in class for this film, and also explained it was Newland's first foray into experimental work. It is nice to see animators crossing over to try different work, I think I found that encouraging.
Short Competition 5
PES - the deep - always love pes
Das Haus - great 2d /3d, flat animation in layers in AFX good sound and timing
Short Comp 3
(blanche fraise?)
Did not enjoy curation so much because it frequently went between very dark films and then very silly/sophomoric intervals. Was hard to feel any carryover feeling from films.
I'm Fine Thanks - was good but I thought lacked some elements that I assumed from the trailer
Muybridge's strings - very different from his previous films (mt head and Kafka) though contained some elements.
Panel notes -
process driven - lots of experimenting to fin the correct feel for the story. They tried digital but it lacked the 'heft' of traditional textures and media.
piece together film loosely, but it all comes together with sound.
what I love about their films is the mise en scene, the insight into the characters lives and not just the character stand alone. Their setting is just as important, and how they act with other people is just as important as their own actions.
The first screening I saw was the Canadian Showcase, which I found the most impressive in screening selections so far. As I am looking at my showcase guide I can see I have circled half of the films in the screening to remind myself to write about them, though to prevent myself from writing into the night (its already 2am! How did this happen?) I'll try to keep it down to three pieces I found myself most impressed by.
Wild Life - Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
This was the main reason for me to go to the Canadian Showcase - I saw When the Day Breaks many years ago and I still remember how engaged and affected I felt afterwards. They had captured a very ineffable, intrinsic part of what it is to be a person and to be connected to others in this film. In Wendy Tilby's own words, Wild Life is very much like the opposite of When the Day Breaks. It acts as a documentary describing a remittance man's gradual isolation after he moves to the harsh prairies of Alberta in 1910. I was struck by the beautiful and poetic manner they capture the sadness of the main character, and also still be able to juxtapose it next to light hearted and comical scenes. Their work always reminds me that despite what systematic divisions of genres demand, the description of a human nature does not carry those boundaries.
Dimanche (Sunday) - Patrick Doyon
This film really captured my heart, it had a simple but distinct line aesthetic. It was a cute and funny look into a child's memory of how his family would spend Sundays. I found it insightful into how the main character of a child's attention is distracted by all sorts of things, especially when he is the only kid in a large group of adults. It was quite charming and one of my favorites at the festival.
Second Hand - Isaac King
This was also one of my festival favorites (maybe its my Canadian bias?). It has a focus on different 'timings' of people and the pacing of the film reflects that exactly. It juxtaposes a fast paced businessman next to a slow and calm elderly couple next door. Storywise I found it surprising not preachy, because it appears at first to be a pro-green film, but I found it really revealed more of a message on balance and organization. The visual technique was what I enjoyed the most about this film, as King managed to merge 3D and stop motion dimension with 2D animation seamlessly.
CMYK - Marv Newland
This film was particularly exciting to me because Martin Rose was the producer! He had shown us some sneak peeks in class for this film, and also explained it was Newland's first foray into experimental work. It is nice to see animators crossing over to try different work, I think I found that encouraging.
Short Competition 5
PES - the deep - always love pes
Das Haus - great 2d /3d, flat animation in layers in AFX good sound and timing
Short Comp 3
(blanche fraise?)
Did not enjoy curation so much because it frequently went between very dark films and then very silly/sophomoric intervals. Was hard to feel any carryover feeling from films.
I'm Fine Thanks - was good but I thought lacked some elements that I assumed from the trailer
Muybridge's strings - very different from his previous films (mt head and Kafka) though contained some elements.
Panel notes -
process driven - lots of experimenting to fin the correct feel for the story. They tried digital but it lacked the 'heft' of traditional textures and media.
piece together film loosely, but it all comes together with sound.
what I love about their films is the mise en scene, the insight into the characters lives and not just the character stand alone. Their setting is just as important, and how they act with other people is just as important as their own actions.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Ottablog - The Arrival
I am attending the Ottawa International Animation Festival 2011, courtesy of the student scholarship program organized by Leslie Bishko. I have finally navigated to my motel room and my primary instincts are clear: make coffee and write. Anything.
I have slightly more motivation than just being awkwardly talkative, and it stems from some resentment (something that actually motivates me alarmingly frequently). It sounds negative, but lets pretend I am transforming it into the positive - pro-activity! Typically I am good at navigating, but today I committed some serious sins against that art by a) forgetting to print a map, as well as b) starting to walk without orienting myself first. I walked in all sorts of wrong directions for 40 minutes, saddled with my duffel and laptop, which I cursed all sorts of obscenities at in my head. So, I am determined to make this luggage choice worthwhile, and document the cuss out of this trip.
The best thing about being lost are the accidental scenic routes, or forging your own routes (my recommendation is to first ward off the timidity you might feel in a new place, and to blast through wherever you go as if you are the Bomberman himself). I was certainly thinking about who I would whine to about this experience first (It's all of you! Viva la internet.) but I also managed to bumble past almost every building I plan to visit later on. I like to think this is similar to my creative process, that there is a lot of awkward bumbling initially but eventually it gets tuned down to an efficient process. Considering the walk from my room to the museum of civilization is 45 minutes, I think it will be my calf muscles getting the tuning done.
Now that I have exhausted my whining I'll move on to some actual content. I managed to see the 'Short Competition 1' screening. I was surprised at how much the content varied, there was really a huge range of things from high school films to seasoned professionals, promotional work to experimental. There were a few works that stood out to me particularly in technique. Yoshihisa Nakanishi's Many Go Round employed 2D animation cut out of paper to transform it to 3D, and then further it into a 3D tesselation. I also enjoyed Alexander Gelnner's MANNIMANN and Alexandra Hetmerova's Swimming Pool which both had unique, strong narratives and a bold but simple aesthetic of lines and bright colors on black. Their stories could not have been more different in theme and atmosphere, so seeing these together really demonstrated the flexibility of visuals when paired with a narrative.
Tomorrow will be very busy, with many more screenings to scramble too, as well as some panels and artist talks thrown in as well.
I have slightly more motivation than just being awkwardly talkative, and it stems from some resentment (something that actually motivates me alarmingly frequently). It sounds negative, but lets pretend I am transforming it into the positive - pro-activity! Typically I am good at navigating, but today I committed some serious sins against that art by a) forgetting to print a map, as well as b) starting to walk without orienting myself first. I walked in all sorts of wrong directions for 40 minutes, saddled with my duffel and laptop, which I cursed all sorts of obscenities at in my head. So, I am determined to make this luggage choice worthwhile, and document the cuss out of this trip.
The best thing about being lost are the accidental scenic routes, or forging your own routes (my recommendation is to first ward off the timidity you might feel in a new place, and to blast through wherever you go as if you are the Bomberman himself). I was certainly thinking about who I would whine to about this experience first (It's all of you! Viva la internet.) but I also managed to bumble past almost every building I plan to visit later on. I like to think this is similar to my creative process, that there is a lot of awkward bumbling initially but eventually it gets tuned down to an efficient process. Considering the walk from my room to the museum of civilization is 45 minutes, I think it will be my calf muscles getting the tuning done.
Now that I have exhausted my whining I'll move on to some actual content. I managed to see the 'Short Competition 1' screening. I was surprised at how much the content varied, there was really a huge range of things from high school films to seasoned professionals, promotional work to experimental. There were a few works that stood out to me particularly in technique. Yoshihisa Nakanishi's Many Go Round employed 2D animation cut out of paper to transform it to 3D, and then further it into a 3D tesselation. I also enjoyed Alexander Gelnner's MANNIMANN and Alexandra Hetmerova's Swimming Pool which both had unique, strong narratives and a bold but simple aesthetic of lines and bright colors on black. Their stories could not have been more different in theme and atmosphere, so seeing these together really demonstrated the flexibility of visuals when paired with a narrative.
Tomorrow will be very busy, with many more screenings to scramble too, as well as some panels and artist talks thrown in as well.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)