LinkedIn

My professional linked in page is now fully completed and updated ready for industry contacts. I have included a link to my current showreel and will update that with my final year showreel once it is completed. 

This should give me a professional look to the industry and enable me to find industry contacts that will assist me in starting my career as a puppet maker/ animator.

Manchester Animation Festival- Making it in Manchester.

Phil Chalk- Factory.
Leo Casserly- Flix Facilities.
Chris Bowden- Mackinnon and Saunders.


Chris Bowden- Mackinnon and Saunders.
Contributed to over 80 projects- films, thames TV.
Works frequently with Flix and Factory.
Allows employees to expand and experiment within the company.
Using both traditional sculpting and armatures and CGI modelling too.
3D printing in metal is possible. Makes little bone elements possible for armatures.
Line up live action and stop motion by putting a square/ something in the middle and line up camera to both.



Phil Chalk- Factory.
Born out of necessity. Working out of a company that went bust so set up factory with connections in BBC commissions. 
Strange Hill High- First commission from BBC- Rod Puppets.

Have all their own post production studios. In house sound, lighting, compositing. 

3D printing whole heads. 
11 minutes of Digital Facial animation in 24 hours. 



Leo Casserly- Flix.
Works with live action and animation.
Leo started as a runner at a post production company in Manchester. 
Works mostly in childrens animations. 
1985- Cosgrove Hall.
Fix started in 1992, the same time as Mackinnon and Saunders.
Had to close one branch in 2009 from the credit crunch. 



Mackinnon and Saunders do take interns, but you need to be up to a good standard so that you can keep up with production.


What are they looking for?
General skills. 
Specific skills.
Teamwork.
Passion!

How to get there.
Just keep asking. 
Volunteer your time for nothing.
Persistance.

You have to love what you do. You can't half heartedly become a stop motion animator.
Get your foot in the door and make a good impression.

Manchester Animation Festival- Will Becher: Masterclass.

Started animating when he was 12. Inspired by Morph. Found his way into Aardman at 22. 

Animated Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep.

Shaun the Sheep was first seen in the Wallace and Gromit film 'A Close Shave'. He was a popular character from his brief appearance and so that made him his own show.

Order of production.
Script.
Storyboard (Cintiqs. Every scene broken down.)
Animatic +  Voice actors.
Set Building.
Character building.
Animating.
Post production.


Creating the world.
Everything is made by hand except for skies and some special effects.

Large fully coloured drawings and designs.
Very Large scale sets- needs a warehouse with very high ceilings.

Floor+ Scaffold+ Wooden pallets underneath sets for stability.

Polystyrene for cliffs and things. Stick it to mdf and carve away.

Teddy bear felt painted green for grass.

Glass made by a local man.


Character build.
1. Plasticine sculpt.
2. Armature.
3. Break down into parts- hands and head gone.
4. Foam latex inside fibre glass moulds for body and baked.
5. Trimmed and hand painted.
6. Mouth sets and moulds made.
     Head made up from hard and soft elements. Detailed/ textures- hard. The rest plasticine. Latex hands. Foam body. Tie down onto set through feet.
7. Movement tests.
8. Mouth mould made and silicon poured in.
9. Plasticine colours mixed in house.

More than 120 sheep were made for the film. Hard elements for the head and feet. Black and white plasticine is really hard to work with. The only plasticine on Shaun is the eyelids.


In the Studio.
Background figures sometimes in 2D. 2D cut outs look like puppets if they are far away or very close and not in focus.

Big sets- need to climb on set to reach characters.

3 seconds a day on average done. Less if there are more characters to take care of.

Sets designed so that they can come apart easily for access.


Live action video.
-Perform the shots.
-Tiny web camera.
-Acted out by directors and animators.

Water Drops- glass beads, perspex, vaseline, glycerine.

Use dragon frame and canon cameras.
To make scrubs costumes, they 'borrowed' scrubs from a hospital.


Post production.

Rig removal.
Skies added.
Sound- they recorded a full orchestra.


550,000 shots in Shaun the Sheep.
Start to finish took 9 months, Pirates tool 16-18 months.

Heat can affect the set- can cause movement.
If moving camera through a set, motion control rig. It'll move the camera frame by frame. Can't animate camera on twos or it would look juddery.

To get into animation:
Luck.
Be Persistent.
Get in as a Runner/ Junior model maker.
Just get your work out there. Make sure people know you're there.
Just keep getting feedback, reach out to companies just to ask for feedback.

@will_becher on twitter.

Useful sites.
Skwigly.co.uk
Animate-it.com
Dragonframe.com
Aardman.com/jobs



    

Manchester Animation Festival- How to Make Friends and Animate People: The Art of Crowdfunding.

Kick starter:

Wide reach.
Trusted.
Better update tools.
Simple.
But,
High fees.
Little support.
Dropout/ failed payment.

Campaign target divided by average pledge= estimated number of pledges.

The reboot of Morph- Aardman was crowdfunded. 

If you get your short film shown in the cinema you can claim back 16% tax.

New Youtube channel

I have made a new professional youtube channel for my showreel and for animations that I am most proud of. This will be my place share my animations with the industry and hopefully it will be useful in finding myself a job.