Of course, I doubt I’ll be watching it live these days, but watching the Oscars will always have an element of nostalgia for me. Back in university, we used to spend Oscars Night sitting up all night in front of our TVs watching together. Same with the BAFTAs and the other film award shows. Being students of various media disciplines – animation, film, television and radio – we had a vested interest in the winners. We would debate who would win beforehand, and then debate much more furiously over who had actually won. The Oscars in particular always provided snappy discourse thanks to being the biggest accolade that it was possible to win in the industry.

Being an animator, I tend to give the animation categories much more attention than some of my friends would. This year is no different. Unfortunately, because there’s rarely an animated film that I can’t see some form of merit in (because all animation takes effort and diligence) it’s usually a source of sheer agony to try and pick a favourite. But I’ll do my best!

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
The Nominees

Brave
The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists
ParaNorman
Frankenweenie
Wreck-It Ralph

Whilst I felt that Brave was an excellent film, from other reviews it seemed to have missed the mark somehow for a lot of people. General consensus was that, although a decent movie, Brave seemed to be missing that magical Pixar touch somehow, but considering that Pixar have walked away with six awards in the category since it was first introduced in 2001, it’s a strong contender based solely on the studio that produced it. Brave has won Best Animated Feature at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes this year, which is usually a good indicator of how the Academy will swing.

The Pirates! will probably suffer for having much of its humour based very heavily on certain British-isms (note how even the title was altered to ‘The Pirates! Band of Misfits’ for the US market) and it hasn’t made much of a splash across other award ceremonies; it received 5 nominations but no wins at this year’s Annie Awards, and didn’t even get a nomination at the BAFTAs, losing out to stronger contenders Brave, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. When you compare the film’s current track record for award nominations in comparison to the other nominees, it’s disappointing, especially for a film that’s had a generally positive reception, is so delightfully quirky, and was directed by the inimitable Peter Lord.

Speaking of ParaNorman, it’s been doing incredibly well, having won Best Animated Feature at no less than 14 different award ceremonies. The film grabbed my attention from the get-go when I first saw the trailer for it attached to Brave, and it’s beautifully animated with a cracking story. Something that might swing favour for it either way is the inclusion of what is generally believed to be the first openly gay character in an animated film directed at children. Many people will laud this. Many people will condemn it. I myself happen to fall into the first category and hope to see more of the scope of human nature represented in children’s film.

The second of this year’s animated feature nominees to have a rather maudlin basis for its storyline, Frankenweenie is Tim Burton’s latest offering to the animation world. Personally, I’ve always tended to find his animated efforts to be more consistent than his live action films. The Nightmare Before Christmas was one of the first films to open my eyes to the world of stop motion as a child, and I still wear the big baggie Jack Skellington hoodie I acquired from Camden Market during the most intense years of my goth phase when I want to be warm and show off that, yes, I am a 23 year old woman who still has a vested interest in cartoons. I actually know a few of the animators who worked on Frankenweenie, and I know just how hard they worked on it. The fact that this is also the result of decades of a labour of love from Burton himself makes it particularly appealing to those of us keeping a little candle lit for our own favourite pet projects, but will the Academy see the film’s worth in comparison to its competitors?

Last, but by no means least, we come to Wreck-It Ralph. Now, I will raise my hands and confess that I’ve not actually had the opportunity to see this latest offering from Disney yet, but I vividly remember seeing the trailer online last summer, and after my initial geeky fangirl squealing – how much must it have cost to get all of those game characters licensed to use?! – I was left with a deep-seated need to see it. Wreck-It Ralph won Best Animated Feature at the Annies, but that can’t always be used as a good yard stick for how the Academy will vote thanks to the very different ways one can be eligible to vote for them. Still, given the mostly positive reviews and given that it’s Disney, Wreck-It Ralph has a lot of clout.

So, who would I put my money on? Well, if I were voting with my heart, it would be ParaNorman, especially because it would be nice to see another stop-motion feature take the Oscar tonight (taking the total number of stop-motion winners of the Animated Feature Film gong to a might two). But if I vote with my head, and take into account the elaborate and headscratching politics of the American film industry, my bet goes to Brave.

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BEST ANIMATED SHORT
The Nominees

Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head Over Heels
The Longest Daycare
Paperman

I’ll being with Adam and Dog. It marries a strong, engaging story with sumptuous visuals, and if like me you have a dog yourself, you’ll watch the first two-thirds of the film smiling and recognising the various sometimes-idiotic things your own beloved mutt gets up to at times. There is an air of charming innocence in this first section that is reminiscent of a Ghibli movie, coupled with a darker later section that only strengthens the comparison, but moves it from being a bedfellow of My Neighbour Totoro to sharing space with an offering like Laputa. The emotional crux is the age old man-and-his-dog storyline, and I think it would take a hard heart not to be moved even the slightest bit by Dog’s loyalty.

Fresh Guacamole is the latest short film by director PES, and uses his trademark stop motion style to full effect. I recall being shown Western Spaghetti in my first few weeks studying animation at university. It made a huge impact then, showing what could be achieved in terms of inventive visuals. But I feel that whilst Fresh Guacamole may win points on said inventiveness, it falls flat in comparison to its competitors this year in terms of storytelling and emotion.

Head Over Heels is a British student contribution to this years nominated shorts. Another stop-motion offering, it includes a brilliant metaphor for a couple that has grown apart, and is vaguely reminiscent of Pixar’s Up in its elderly couple and flying house. Make no mistake, though – this is certainly a film for the older audience, and it packs an emotional punch with a worthy pay-off at the end.

I had the delightful fortune of catching The Longest Daycare on Channel 4 a few days ago. This short feels like a Simpsons episode of old – subversive, subtle, and most importantly, laugh out loud funny, which unfortunately can’t quite be said as consistently occurring in the main show as often these days. Perhaps an Oscar win might rejuvenate their creative juices at the studio? It might, but some of the animation doesn’t quite compete with the other shorts this year, and solely because other competitors seem visually and narratively stronger, I think it will miss out this time around.

Finally, we come to Paperman. There’s been a lot of buzz about this one, especially since it was placed on Disney’s YouTube channel last month. It perfectly combines 3D and 2D animation, a technique I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of in the future, and for a little film, it’s got a hell of lot of heart – quite appropriate for a romance. The music in this one is also absolutely stunning.

My winner? Well, I’m personally rooting for Adam and Dog, because I can’t not get behind the film that resonates with me the most on an emotional level, but my money is on the creators of Paperman to take Mr. Oscar home with them tonight.

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Good luck to all of the contenders, because as I said, there’s rarely an animated film without merit and these ten offerings have merit in spades. By this time tomorrow, we’ll see if my predictions were correct! There’s still plenty of time before it all kicks off, however, so what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Wildly disagree? Let me relive my uni days and let me know below!

Since my last blog, a lot has changed in my animation career. I’ve had the great fortune to work on some fantastic projects with some brilliant creative minds, and you’ll all be able to start seeing the fruits of those efforts soon. Meanwhile, I’ve become a fully fledged freelancer (try saying that three times really really fast), and I’ve even upgraded from working out of my bedroom to having a proper office, shared with my good friend Dan Eycott.

The office, seen here complete with productivity-inducing mug of tea in shot.

Some things, of course, never change. For example, the DIY I spoke about in my last entry still isn’t complete – I’ve yet to paint the last wall, for example, and there is a shelf that’s been sat waiting in vain to be hung up and permitted to fulfil its full book-supporting potential. But when you’re busy in this industry, you’re busy. And before you know it, a whole summer and a Christmas has flown by and you’re not quite sure where the last 10 months of your life zoomed off to.

Still, it’s Valentine’s Day, and everybody is in the mood for love! Apart from me, of course, as I’m a cranky singleton, so I will be spending my Valentine’s evening curled up under my duvet with some chocolate, living vicariously through film characters getting their romance on instead; characters like the Little Groom in this cute and quirky little animated video by Maneki Lab. It’s sweet, it’s cheerful, and it’s beautifully animated. You can catch more of the ‘Little Groom’ series on their Vimeo page.

THE LITTLE GROOM IS FALLING IN LOVE IN ROMA from MANEKI LAB on Vimeo.

Got any of your own recommendations for romantic ‘toons? What’s the best 2D, stop motion or CG romance you think has been committed to film? Share them in the comments below!

That photo there is my bedroom – my space wherein I do all of my work. It’s handy having your bed in your office; you don’t have to walk too far to have a quick power nap. Note the pillows on the bed propped up in a strategic I-need-to-sit-up-comfortably-against-the-wall-to-write-a-blog position and the caramel chocolate egg sat beside my laptop. Well, it is Easter.

Now, you may have noticed that there’s a distinct lack of a desk in that photograph. Chances are some of you may even be sat there thinking ‘Gosh Mandy; just how do you do all that drawing you do with no surface to work on?’ Well, that’s because my desk screws to the wall, rather than standing alone, so had to be taken down so I could paint. Also because said desk happens to be a rather fetching shade of 12-year-old-girl-princess-purple and so needs a new lick of paint itself. In short, I have temporarily lost my desk, and in doing so have temporarily lost both my workstation (my Mac, tablet, and printer/scanner are all currently sat on my parents’ bedroom floor) and what is basically the hub of all my creative activity.

I actually feel as though I’ve lost a limb.

I’ve surprised myself with this reaction, but after giving it some thought, it’s actually not hard to figure it out why I’m having it. The life of an animator – of any creative person, really – revolves around deadlines. That’s the bitter truth of it. Sorry kids; if you think leaving school will be the end of pulling all-nighters to hit a target, you’re sadly mistaken. If anything, the adult world heaps more deadlines onto you. The only upside to adult deadlines is that you’re finally old enough to drink the magical elixir known as coffee to help you through any all-nighters that you might have to pull (read: there is no ‘might’ about it; an all-nighter comes to us all eventually.)

Let me give you a breakdown of my workload at this moment. I’m doing a sequence of special effects for a short feature film. I’m animating not one, but two music videos, both of which are about 4 minutes long. I have a variety of painting and picture commissions to work through. Then there’s a whole stack of my own personal projects. This is a normal working monthly workload for me.

But now I have lost my desk. It’s my right-hand man – my Robin; my Spock; my Declan Donnelly. As of typing, it’s been sat in our conservatory for, ooh, about 10 hours, a sticky sheen of fresh new paint slowly drying on it. 10 hours I could have been working. 10 hours that have ticked by that haven’t earned me a penny; that no amount of effort bar actually inventing a Flux Capacitor, installing it in my dad’s car and driving it at 88mph can get back for me.

These things happen. And the room desperately did need redecorating after a full ten years. And, hell, it’s the Easter weekend; traditionally four days to celebrate the religious holiday, but now four days that the majority of people in Britain seem to use to get as much DIY work done as possible. But time is precious, and when you work on a freelance basis, it’s even more precious because every hour of the day might earn you some cash, and every hour missed is an hour closer to that looming deadline.

However, as I’ve brought up in a previous blog post, time off-duty is just as precious. I can almost guarantee that a day or two forced away from working on projects will allow me to come back to them with a renewed sense of vigour and creativity and, with luck, allow me to do an even better job on them than before. So I wish you all a very happy Easter, or if you don’t celebrate it, a very happy extra-day-or-two-off-work weekend, and hope it’s a relaxing, rejuvenating one for you. I myself will be spending my holiday armed with a paintbrush. Just not the sort of one I’m usually holding…

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(Behold, the exhausted, paint-smothered worker. Interested parties – I don’t normally look so dishevelled. Honest. Promise. Not a word of a lie.)

The most exciting (in my opinion) of the recent developments in my creative career can be summed up in two words – vintage cameras. Ok, technically, these have very very little to do with animation and illustration, but I’ve always agreed with the school of thought that if you’re creatively inclined, why stick to one pathway? I personally prefer hopping around from medium to medium like a kid trying to play Don’t Step On The Cracks on crazy paving.

Between artwork jobs, I also work in a charity shop two days per week. The best part about working in a place where so many secondhand goods come in is when you make a discovery of something strange and unusual. Sometimes, it’s a set of vintage opticians’ lenses*. Sometimes, it’s a teapot shaped like a cat**. And sometimes, it’s a 1968 Chinon Powermaster Super 8 camera and accompanying 8mm projector, which has been sitting hidden away on a shelf for the last year because it can’t be tested (and ergo can’t be sold to the general public) but is simultaneously too much of a curiosity to throw away. Curiosity is what led me to finding it – or at least, that’s the polite term for being so nosy that I have to open every single old-looking box I stumble across out in the back rooms.

The camera and projector are now the joint property of myself and two very good filmmaker friends of mine; Dan Eycott and Alma Andreescu, both of whom you should go and follow on Twitter RIGHT NOW because they’re exceptionally talented and wonderful people (and tell them I sent you – makes me look good, eh?) We’ve got various experiments and plans for things to film, but my own personal project with our shiny new vintage equipment is to attempt to scratch a series of images and patterns onto a roll of film and project that onto a wall, filming the results. Oh yes; my Art Cinema module at university taught me well!

It’s not only pretty Super 8 cameras that land on our doorstep at the shop either. A whole set of varying film cameras were recently very kindly donated, and so I bought myself a circa 1958-63 Kodak Retinette IB Rangefinder camera. Photography has long been a passion of mine, but I’d forgotten what it was like to snap pictures onto a roll of film. The camera began a test run at the weekend as I enjoyed the rare spot of sunshine we get here in Britain wandering around Camden Market (colour film – it’s blessedly cheaper than black and white these days) and I’m looking forward to processing the pictures and seeing the results (which I will of course share here). The major difference between film and digital photography is patience, which thankfully is something animators have by the bucketload. You have just 24 or 36 exposures at your disposal. You cannot delete, and you cannot see how the picture will come out before you commit it to film. It’s an exercise in the art of composition and camera set-up, and in our age of instant digital gratification I’d recommend that everybody should give film photography a go just for the fun and nostalgia of it.

* Yes, this is a real donation that has come into our shop within the last 48 hours.

** Yes, this as well. And a bloody creepy teapot it is too!!!

Meanwhile, this week I attended my very first BVExpo and Production Show and believe me when I say tha it’s going to be a new annual addiction, right there. If you’re into the technical side of the industry, I’d highly recommend it – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cameras, monitors, lighting rigs and jib-arms all in one place before. And for those of you like me who are fairly new to the whole work side of things, as opposed to education and study, there were some brilliant resources for newbies, including BECTU’s trade union advice for students and recent graduates, and a brilliant and very useful talk about surviving as a freelancer by Christina Fox of Urbanfox.tv that certainly makes the prospect of becoming a freelancer. Even more brilliantly and usefully, all of the slides from the presentation are available on their website, so I’d certainly advise that you check it out! I’ve already got the dates set aside in my diary for next year…

Of course, I am absolutely no exception, and this is probably why I was up until 3:30 in the morning following this excellent tutorial over on Video Copilot to create this short video in After Effects:

I’ve used After Effects before at university to create Under The Surface, but owning it yourself always means you can explore it to a greater extent at your own leisure. The result of watching the video above back was a stupidly dizzy grin on my face – that ‘I made that’ sense of satisfaction that you get when you see the final results of something you’ve worked on. Hopefully with the new production suite those moments might be coming more often!

In related news, I’m looking to expand this out from a blog into a full website/portfolio. This means, gulp, that I’ll be letting myself loose on the CSS coding. Thankfully Firefox’s Web Development extention means I can do this without actually changing anything about the site itself until I’m happy with the results, but that’s my explanation for the mess that will inevitably ensue…

Between graduating in a beautiful ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral at the very end of January there and working on some very exciting projects (both personal ones and collaborations with some of the most talented people I know, aka my friends), I was honoured enough to attend the inaugural International Student Film Festival London, hosted at the London College of Communication from the 3rd till the 5th February, at which Under The Surface was a competitor! The film was nominated for both ‘Best Animated Short’ and ‘Best Soundtrack’, but unfortunately won neither prize – ‘Best Animated Short’ went to the very deserving and utterly beautiful Playing Ghost by Bianca Ansems, whilst ‘Best Soundtrack’ went to the striking Concrete Walls, featuring music by Síol Na Gréine.

Still, as the saying goes, it’s not the winning that matters, but the taking part, and needless to say that the experience on the day that I attended was definitely worth going for! If you’ve never been to a film festival, I urge you to give it a go, either as a filmmaker or as an audience member. Meeting like-minded creatives is never a day wasted (remember to take your business cards!) and some of the talent on display is amazing. I’ll take the time now to recommend my personal favourite of the many films I saw at this year’s festival; Ainult Meie Kolm, the story of a brother and sister discovering the truth about their parentage after the death of their father and the effect it has on their family. It’s a gorgeously shot, bittersweet and beautiful little film and if you get the opportunity to see it, you should!

Whilst at the festival, I was also interviewed by New Wave District‘s Arts, Music and Fashion section, 1613. Talk about feeling like a mini-celebrity! Their coverage of the festival should hopefully be live soon. In the meantime, check them out – they highlight a wealth of opportunities for young talent to make their way into the creative industries.

In other festival news, I was also contacted this week by n4yp.com, who will now be screening ‘Under The Surface’ at their International Animation Shorts Film Festival in Berlin this February 17th! Born out of the destruction caused in the English Riots during summer 2011, N4YP strives to show the good in young people by providing platforms to showcase their talent and grants to channel their visions into creative directions. It’s a wonderful cause and I’m delighted to help be a part of it, and although I can’t get to Berlin myself, I’m certain it’ll be a brilliant night for all involved!

A little sneak peek into my next animation project!

It’s only a very short piece around the subject of a carousel. It’s a bit different from normal animations, because it’s intended to be screened in a 360° format; therefore, it loops round and round. Meaning, if you were stood in the centre of the circular screen, you wouldn’t be able to tell where it begins and ends!

I’m going for really bold, bright, primary colours in this one – just red, yellow, and blue, and nice sharp lines. I hope to have it finished by the end of the week.

During my time at university, I also studied radio production. One afternoon, a freelance radio producer came in to speak to the class. Though I’ll confess here and now to not really remembering the majority of her no doubt engaging and inspiring lecture, she did dispense one piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten.

“When you start out, take work. Any work. All the work that’s offered to you. Even if you’ve never done it before and you don’t really know what you’re doing, say yes. Always, always say yes.”

And for those of you reading this who are just starting out on your creative journey, this advice probably seems sound. ‘I have to build up my portfolio!’ you’ll be thinking. ‘It’s all good experience! I can make new contacts in the industry!’ Good! You’re thinking like a creative worker. But stop and take a breather for a second before you go applying for every single opportunity you see advertised on SkillPages. Just how much work is too much?

My own discovery is that you will never, ever have enough time. Even if you think you do, you don’t. No matter how much or how little an amount of work you take upon yourself, you will inevitably find yourself crushed between a host of pressing worldly concerns and an inevitable deadline looming increasingly over you. Sod’s Law declares this to be a universal truth.

There is a sign pasted up at every workstation in the office that I intern at as an animator and illustrator. It’s a very long, multi-paragraphed quote, so I’ll just paraphrase: “Work hard,” it says. “Now work harder. Work as hard as you can, because if you’re not, someone else out there is working as hard as they can, and they’ll reap the benefits instead of you. And when you think you’re working as hard as you can, you’re probably only working a tenth as hard as you should be. If you’re not absolutely exhausted all the time, you’re probably not working hard enough.”

The problem is that, although I certainly agree with the sentiment of working hard if you want to achieve your goals, I just can’t agree with the idea of working yourself to the bone.

At the end of the day, we’re only human. And humans have a whole host of annoying, time-wasting requirements that need to be met daily – the need to sleep, for example. You can waste a whole eight hours a day on that. Eating is another annoying waste of time. You might work a part or full-time job to earn enough to live on until you’ve established your creative career properly. You might have other commitments, from family events to doctor’s appointments.

There’s another one of those irritating human needs that can be overlooked by the overly busy person, and yet it’s probably one of the most important. It’s downtime. If you’ve ever played EA’s The Sims franchise, you will recognise the scenario wherein you’ve allowed a Sim’s Fun bar to have drained all the way into the red, unintentionally or not (I know I’m not the only one to have popped a Sim into a windowless 1×1 room before just to watch their gradual descent into sheer lunacy.) Switching off occasionally is good for you. Whilst passion and drive and commitment are all essential qualities of the artist – indeed, you probably wouldn’t be a in creative career in the first place if you had none of these things – we as normal, regular human beings also require rest and time away from our pencils, paints, graphics tablets and reference materials.

In fact, I would make the argument for regular breaks being one of the creative worker’s most essential tools. Returning to a project after a pause allows you to view what’s been done before with fresh eyes and a somewhat new perspective, as well as think with a clear head about what your next steps are going to be. And I often find that inspiration hits me best when I’m taking some time out to listen to music, or go out to the cinema, or have dinner with friends. By allowing yourself a few hours a day away from constantly considering working ground in your head, you allow your mind the freedom to wander; to daydream; to think on other things.

The exhausted worker is not a productive worker. The exhausted worker is probably too tired to think entirely straight, or come up with new solutions to a task, or concentrate fully on the projects they have. How do I know this? Because I’ve been the sleep-deprived overworker more times than is acceptable to admit, and believe me, exhaustion is nothing but detrimental to your actual skill level. You can’t be useful if you’re falling asleep at your desk.

And finally; sometimes, downtime isn’t for such a noble cause. Sometimes, it’s just nice to have a bit of fun. After all, there’s one more oft-quoted saying that those of us who have a tendency to take too much onto our own shoulders would probably do well to keep at the back of our minds: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Original Animatic

I thought it might be fun to show my original rough idea! The images in this are from my original storyboarding/scripting work. In my own personal projects, I’m much more of a visual thinker, so I have a tendency to script out my stories in mini-storyboard form.

You’ll see that, in comparison to the finished film, Under The Surface was originally a lot longer. The original concept involved the character moving through worlds that represented the four elements; for example, the desert = fire, the ocean = water. It proved to be an overly ambitious project, but I hope to perhaps use the abandoned sections for a future piece of work! For the final project, I ended up using just the water world because I thought, of the four separate worlds, it had the most to offer visually at the time of making the film.

No sound, unfortunately. The original placeholder track that I inserted over it when showing it in class was ‘Define Dancing’, from the soundtrack of Pixar’s ‘Wall-E’, but I felt it was unfair to use a copyrighted piece of material for this…

Concept Art

Some examples of the concept artwork I painted during my initial design process. These are only two of the many pictures created during the pre-production period, but they’re my two favourites!