09 November, 2011

Review of Panorama 2 at BAF 2011

Guest blogger: Alison Smith, Bradford College Animation Student

First of all, "hello". It's great to be writing for the National Media Museum Blog, so today I had an overall feeling of excitement, especially surrounded by people who have an interest in animation like me.

As I took my seat in Cubby Broccoli I was eager to set my eyes on the animations that were to be shown. As the lights went off and each of the short films finished, I thought to myself "Wow! I can't wait to go away and draw something." I was so inspired by what I'd watched on screen.

Out of the animations that screened, two were my favourite:

Princesse a stop motion animation directed by Frederick Tremblay. There was a genuinely unsettling feeling while watching the film. The camera angles used to capture the stop motion were the cherry on the top for me; such grim storytelling.

Princesse

The wooden puppets seemed alive with emotion, even though their facial expressions stayed the same - the body language of the puppets was so strong. The especially scary part of the animation was when the wolf suddenly popped up, constantly banging and snarling outside the window trying to get inside to the woman. It just made me feel uneasy, so the animation was a success.

The other film that stuck with me was Las Palmas, an interesting mix of styles including stop motion, directed by Johannes Nyholm.

Las Palmas

The setting was a hotel on a tropical island, where a real baby was dressed up as a middle aged woman on holiday with puppets, and it had the whole cinema roaring with laughter! I was even in tears; the baby's face, and how she stumbled around the bar set drinking (supposedly) alcohol and making a gigantic mess after partying too hard, was hilarious.

Once it finished, people couldn't stop giggling in the audience. I'd say that one was a success, to produce such a strong reaction.

0 comments:

Post a Comment