Graduation on to the next chapter.

                         Officially Graduated Finally, its been a long journey full of mixed emotions, the hard grind to get to university then the outcome i could have only ever hoped for becoming a graduate with a First in B.A. Animation Hon's with my student film Street Act being Awarded the Silent Movie Animation Challenge Winner was a blessing.
                         Current state would be a pool of ideas and goals yet to accomplish, working in the local Card shop as a Key Holder to gain funds for personal projects, with that said i am also consistent in my efforts to become the Animator and creature that will inspire others if i fail, well i know i tried with everything.
                         There will be more updates on current endeavours to come, il leave this post with a quote i saw just yesterday 'Business doesn't get me down it gets me off' its a charismatic version of my business card quote which is simple 'Enjoy what you do'. 

Thanks for reading,

till next time,

Gareth Hirst

Slapstick Festival 2013 January 24-27

 

Bristol was my first destination this year for Slapstick Festival 2013, this gives a great chance to meet people who have a love for celebrating silent and classic comedy, this year the face of the programme was the third genius a Mr Harold Lloyd after last year being my favourite Golden Cinema performer Buster Keaton.

                                    

The much anticipated talk between Nick Park and Peter Lord Slapstick Animated did not disappoint in the slightest, speaking about live action that has influenced then like Norman Wisedom and the Marx Brothers, how gags have been reinvented to their own characters like Morph and Wallace and Gromit. 

The night was finished up with the like of drinks with a crowd that run the festival to discuss the films and how the next festival with be held with Chaplin being the main focus of the festival which should attract many new guests.

Fridays first talk was Harold Lloyd the Third Genius with Kevin Brownlow who did a great talk on Buster Keaton last year talking about the Third Genius documentary film and showed extracts with that anecdotes about time spent with Lloyd which was most amusing, later spoke to Kevin Brownlow about Street Act my student film which i got his opinion on last year.

Gala poster

Gala event

Main event of the slapstick festival the Silent Comedy Gala which featured films from Harold Lloyd,Buster Keaton and George Melies with live accompaniment, with Victoria Wood introducing the films and towards the end and before the interval was the greatly funny comedian Barry Cryer with Ronnie Golden on guitar with fitting songs which made the audience ball up with laughter.

Some fitting photos taken from Bristol

Blazing it up ahead of going to the first event enjoyed the first beverage!

Flip Animation Festival-Wolverhampton 1,2,3 November

2012 was a year of graduating and importantly to put a lot of time into my networking as you will have noticed through looking at past posts on the blog. This time i headed North to Wolverhampton a festival that i've gone to for the past 3 years mainly to enjoy new shorts that graduates have done, this time at a festival volunteer.

The first day was spent mainly promoting the event with signs and showing people directions to the much anticipated events, later that day was spent showing people what it takes to create a animation in the drop in workshop for anyone to come along.

Friday was finished with speaking with people who came along to the festival that i'd spoke to before at previous events that i've kept in touch with and seeing how their career is progressing with that creating new contacts.

                                                               

Last but not least was the Gif the City-Wolverhampton at St.Peter's Church which i only found out about later on that day which was great i described it as people looking up to see fireworks and to see Animation projected onto a church with the sound of base which was totally different to the usual cinemas which accustomed to seeing an animation.

Saturday was Bright and early moving equipment ready for the greatly anticipated Gromit workshop with Jim Parkyn, this was great to help with after doing the workshop last year which was a good laugh  and seeing the end Gromit next to everyone else's which forms an army of personalised Gromits.

Frankenweenie-The Art of Exhibition 17-21 October 2012

Frankenweenie is a 2012 3D stop motion sci-fi family film directed by Tim Burton. 

It is a remake of Burton's 1984 short film of the same name which i always enjoyed and glad he came back to it in stop motion. The film was from start to finish Burton which i like then add the fact the whole film is shot in Black and white i really appreciated after my own student film Street Act being shot in b/w.

Sadly i was unable to see the film before going to the exhibition yet i couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the sets and Characters from the film up close. Interesting to see the sizes of the characters but more than any of them get to see Mr Rzykruski up close being my favourite from the film also all his different mouth shapes which were on display.

Shots from Pre-Production

Director Tim Burton Looking over Pre-Production

My Favourite Character from the film Mr.Rzykruski

Early sketches of Sparky!

Stages Victor and Sparky took.

 The trip to London was very eventful staying at my friends house and getting to see the Exhibition was such a great opportunity and look out for more opportunity's like this at festivals. 2012 coming to an end with meeting so many new people from the animation world through networking in the year which i will continue to do so this year.

 Pre-production already starting with my set and after Christmas the books will come in hands to expand my knowledge for my animations and further more starting my career, feel free to check out any of the 2012 posts in the log. i hope everyone had a great New-years and look forward to seeing you all again with new posts on the horizon.