Animation Workshop – The Showreel

Well, it’s a week on from the animation workshop and its well and truly the end of the summer holidays (and from the looks of it, the end of gorgeous summer weather – but it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?).

This weekend we caught up with Richard Shaw who ran last week’s animation workshops; he’s been busy compiling all the work of the summer film workshop to bring us a completed show reel.

Richard said of the week, which concluded with a short half an hour screening in The Maltings Arts Theatre; “it was different from what I normally do – given the amount of time we had to work on things. Usually, I only get to work with the kids for half an hour or an hour at a time!”

“Also, the number of children I was working with was a change for me: there were almost 20 kids there. It was a challenge to keep everyone entertained, but it was good fun,” he said.

If it was a challenge, it certainly didn’t show, as the only glitch in the showcase of work came in the form of a technical hiccup – the work itself, produced by children in groups of two to five members, amounted to fifteen videos.

Richard said: “I think the work was well received by the parents and families that came to watch [at the Maltings].”

“I didn’t do any plasticine animation last week [festival director Leoni Kibbey managed this are of work], but I felt very in control with what I did; some of it was my Pixilation stuff that I’ve practised before using lots of props – just fun little things from the pound shop that we could easily replace.”

“One of the things we did try out for the first time was the film about the apple. Given the amount of time we had, I could work closely with a group and we came up with this film all about an apple that comes to life – I had them chasing it up and down the room, we used green screen, there was even an interview with apple at the end: it was a lot of fun!”

Mr Shaw says he will definitely be keeping in touch with the St Albans Film Festival, and hopes he may be able to get involved with next year’s film fest. “I’m hoping to submit something for it, actually” he says. We wonder if it will feature our favourite live apple?

Check out some of the other animations here.

Animation Bootcamp – 27th August

Following the success of the St Albans Film Festival film bootcamp at the start of the month, the second week of summer holiday events kicks off on Tuesday 27th August, after the back holiday weekend.

This four-day animation workshop gives attendees a chance to make their own short films, try their hand at stop motion production and even animate themselves.

During this week, animator Richard Shaw will be teaching the animation course for 8 – 16 year olds.

Richard recently worked with children at a music festival, delivering a short Pixilation workshop – see some of the fun stuff they got up to here:

We are looking forward to sharing stories and short films from the animation week soon.

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Re-branding the Blog

A big welcome back to anyone checking back here for news on the 2014 St Albans Film Festival and all that’s going on between now and then! It’s been a while since we’ve posted on the blog, so now we’re bringing you an entirely re-vamped and re-designed web page to make up for that… ta da!

The 2014 festival has been confirmed for a little later in the year than the previous one and will have an extra day of events – be sure to put the 1st – 4th May 2014 in your diaries and keep checking our Upcoming Events page to see what’s happening in the meantime. First up are our summer workshops for kids- created especially for 8 – 16 year olds to learn about film-making. For more info click HERE.

Mini Student Film Awards

The Mini Student film winners were announced at St Peters School at 2pm.

Certificate for shortlisted entries

A full list of finalists and winners will be available on here shortly, but in the meantime, I caught up with William Collins and Salim Handfi, both aged 10, who had their short film ’10 Things to Do When You’re Bored’

Salim and William, shortlisted entrants

‘We made it all ourselves!”, they told me excitedly.

William said: we didn’t win but we were short-listed and got given goody bags”.

Jack Campbell shorty after winning his award

The University of Hertfordshire team shot a short interview with Best Actress winner Emily Horton-Harpin who starred in her movie: “Love Letters – A Melodrama” and winner of the Made in St Albans category, Jack Campbell, which will be available on the film festival website shortly (www.stalbansfilmfestival.com)

Full list of shortlisted mini student films

Made in St Albans

It’s a very long time since I’ve been in a primary school assembly hall. Nearly 12 years in fact. But it was time to get re- acquainted for the Made in St Albans Film Screenings at St Peters School.

St Peters School venue

After the initial getting lost trying to find the Venue, after taking a wrong turn, my next challenge was to find a way to squeeze my bum into the tiny children’s chairs in the assembly hall (nobody said being a journalist was glamorous) but with my knees leaving just enough space between themselves and my chin to rest a notepad on, it was time to get to business and enjoy the short films made by the children and young people of St Albans.

The programme of events at St Peters School

Sadly, I could not stay for too long, as I had to rush over to the next venue for 11.00 (this event started at 10.30). But I was able to see two brilliant short films that were made and submitted by children in the age 5-15 category.

The first, ‘The Spark’ was a clever concept, about a boy looking for a good idea for a short film for his submission to the film festival. As the sound of his mothers voice echoes in his head; ‘you just need a good idea’ , the audience get to witness his light-bulb moment where an idea comes to him, and he rushes to make it into a film. The ending line: ‘this is my film’ got quite a few whispers as people around me remarked on what a clever twist it was.

The screenings

The second film I got to watch was ‘Footsteps to the Future’ about a group of ‘Green Ambassadors’ working hard to make their school Eco-friendly. Along with the ‘Recylcing Rangers’ they take the audience on a journey through their work on creating a campaign: switch off fortnight, promoting ‘bikeability’, filling bird feeders and making compost heaps. There were a few laugh out loud moments, such as when one child, wearing blue flashing light on his head, became the ‘light police’ making sure lights in classrooms were switched off, another child; a girl with a clipboard and pen, become the water monitor and turned off taps that had been left on and boy stroking a soft toy cat, in a James Bond spoof, spoke of his anger and people not using both sides of the paper when working. The soundtrack was not overlooked and the children singing songs with green messages was a well received detail.

Cake stall for raising funds for the school.

I’d have loved to have stayed longer and seen more, but to the next event I must dash! I can, however, recommend some of the cakes from the stall that was raising funds for the school!