Bradford Animation Festival 2014 – A Round Up
Inspirational, jam-packed and WOW! are three understatements of the year when talking about this year’s Bradford Animation Festival. From the moment we got the programme in our hot little hands it was non-stop fun and frolics for five days (six if you braved the Frozen sing-a-long on Saturday).
Peter Lord and Morph
Monday didn’t ease festivalgoers in gently, with none other than Peter Lord coming to town to give a talk on all things Aardman and giving us insights into the world of British stop motion. As well as the great man himself, Morph was also on hand to provide lucky animation fans that all important selfie. To close off the Aardman madness, their soon-to-be classic The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists rounded the day off. Tuesday kept up the pace of the same stop-motion convoy as we got a chance to meet and greet the guys from Laika and all the Boxtrolls puppets. With Mark Shapiro at the helm to answer questions on the staggering feat of making such an intricate film, the audience certainly put him through his paces in an inquisitive Q&A. In keeping with the puppet theme the afternoon also bought us treats from BAFTA nominated Strange Hill High in the form of the script writer and lead puppeteer. Again the puppets were there for a meet and greet afterwards to awaiting throngs of eager fans.
Claire Jennings – Lifetime Achievement Award
Vivien Halas and Paul Wells
Over the next few days time seemed to fly by with a lifetime achievement award for ingenious producer Claire Jennings (Coraline, Father and Daughter, Stressed Eric), an insight into Women in Animation from Jez Stewert, the amazing spectacular that was the Skwigly quiz and – a personal favourite of mine – a talk and retrospective from Vivien Halas on her mother Joy Batchelor, explaining what it was like growing up with two animation legends (her father being John Halas) and how they went from small time animators to world renowned pioneers of British animation. A true inspiration and one that was reinforced by a special 60th anniversary screening of Animal Farm, in a new sparkling digital format.
Joanna Quinn’s Life Drawing Class
It would be rude to talk about BAF and not mention festival favourite Joanna Quinn, who once more this year brought her expert knowledge to her now-famous life drawing class. Delving into the world of gesture drawing, it was an amazing insight into the way she works and thinks when creating such diverse and voluptuous characters as Beryl. There was no better way to commend such an inspiration than with this years ASIFA award, coupled with a retrospective of some of Joanna’s classics like Family Ties and Girls Night Out.
The Osgoods
Oh, and there were a ton of great films, short and long, funny and sad. An eclectic bunch this year that got everyone talking. Hipopotamy got some tongues wagging over its controversial theme whilst music video Moving On had people quite literally crying in the aisles. A firm favourite from the crowd was the fantastically funny and creatively produced Elephant and the Bicycle. There was a certain buzz about this film and when the awards night, hosted by animation guru Barry Purves, handed it the Audience Award the crowd bought the house down.
Check out all that went on at this year’s event at nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/bradfordanimationfestival