Bradford Animation Festival 2011 – Festival Preview
The Bradford animation festival returns to the Media Museum this November from the 8th to the 12th to celebrate the world of animation and video games.
In the past the festival has played host to the likes of Aardman Animations Nick Park and Peter Lord, The Simpsons producer Al Jean, legendary stop motion legend creator Ray Harryhausen and the man who put the frames of Roger Rabbit into Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Richard Williams.
This year is no exception as they welcome Pixar’s Andy Schmidt to talk about working for the studio on films from Monsters Inc. to Toy Story 3 and Cars 2. Richard McGuire will be in conversation with Paul Gravett to discuss his work that includes ‘Loulou and the other Wolves’ and his work on ‘Fears of the Dark’.
Other guests include Disney and Pixar Layout artist Scott Caple joining Roger Rabbit layout artists Fraser Mclean and Roy Naisbitt to deliver a master-class in animation art. A must see for students, professionals and animation fans alike.
Barry Purves will also be presenting his new films ‘Plume’ and ‘Tchaikovsky’ as well as hosting the awards ceremony at the end of the festival and for those wishing to brush up with their life drawing skills Joanna Quinn will be hosting a life drawing class.
This years Lifetime achievement award will be presented to Author, Film Maker and Illustrator Geoff Dunbar alongside a retrospective of his work that includes Rupert and the Frog Song as well as his new film The Tap.
BAF 2011 will showcase over 120 films from countries all over the world including Australia, Canada, Poland, USA, Switzerland, Germany. The features showing include: Arrietty, George the Hedgehog and The Animated Century.
Atsushi Wada from new Japanese label CALF will present the work of four innovative and exciting directors and challenge the notion of what we understand by the terms ‘Japanese animation’. The Association of British Animation Collections (ABAC) will screen a programme of British animated shorts and there will be a retrospective of the work of Studio M.I.R, an award-winning Russian animation studio.
BAF Game takes place at the Museum on 8 November and the University of Bradford on 9 November. BAF Game showcases the best and most up-to-date computer games technology and animation. This year’s BAF Game special guests include Brendan McNamara, founder of Team Bondi the creators of L.A. Noire, and Nick Adams, design lead at Top 5 Independent European Developer of Video Games, Blitz Games. They join Matt Stephenson, Principal Animator on Kinect Disneyland Adventures for Frontier Developments and Olly Nicholson, Technical Developer, Unity 3D; there will also be presentations from Hand Circus, Six to Start, Play with Learning, Ten24 and Game Republic.
Deb Singleton, director of Bradford Animation Festival said: “We are delighted to bring such big names from the worlds of animation and gaming to Bradford. The programme offers something for everyone from fans of animated films and gaming to students and industry professionals.”
For more information on BAF and BAF Game head over to the website at www.baf.org.uk