The team made their first visit to Manchester Animation Festival this year for a day of inspiration and insight into all things animation.
We kicked things off with a panel session called ‘How to Pitch’. Featuring industry professionals from BBC, BFI, Karrot animation and animation director J.P. Vine, it offered great insight into pitching for TV with a hugely inspirational panel of experts. We picked up some great tips to help improve our pitches in general, as well as an insight into the world of commissioning children’s animation. We loved the idea of “pitching for feedback, not solely for commissions”. Stressing the importance of presenting yourself confidently and your ideas clearly, but more importantly listening to and implementing the feedback you get to make your idea stronger.
We also got a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Aardman’s Lloyd of the Flies. We were excited to see the workings from initial concept all the way through to 50+ 11 minute episodes. It was interesting to see how they mixed a hybrid of 3D and 2D animation. This is something we’ve talked lots about trying to implement more of, so to see the pipeline was inspiring and gave us lots of food for thought.
Our final session was the ‘Animation Mixtape’. Having an hour to sit down and watch a collection of animated short films in the cinema setting was great. It’s not often the team get to dedicate that kind of time, in that kind of environment to just watch short films and be inspired. Our joint pick for favourite animation of the festival was ‘Ice Merchants’ directed by João Gonzalez.
All in all, it was excellent to spend a day with the team away from the computers, full of inspiration. We can’t wait for next year!
