See the fruits of The Great Animation Challenge, the best entries to last year’s Flip Animation Festival and chew the fat with Animation Forum WM members at the next Animation Forum West Midlands event, Out Of Hours: Animation on Tuesday 21st July 2009 at the Light House, Wolverhampton.

The event starts at 7pm, with screenings of The Great Animation Challenge entries preceded by the best animation from Flip Festival 2008 and a talk by stop-motion animator behind Small Birds Singing Linda McCarthy. Following this, the results of The Great Animation Challenge will be announced with the competition entries screened in the courtyard area. The Great Animation Challenge is the culminatation of a competition run by Animation Forum WM, Flip and Imagine Magazine over the summer which gave animators tracks from several up and coming bands to download and animate to.

The evening will continue with a chance for a chat over a drink with fellow animators in Lock Works, the Light House café and bar.

To attend this free event, simply RSVP via the Facebook group or by email.

2008’s Virgin Media Shorts winners, Phil and Olly, won with a film called ‘Black Hole‘, which has since gone on to be included in this year’s Cannes festivities. They’ve had quite a year since winning the Virgin Media Shorts competition (judged, amongst others, by Kevin Spacey) and if you’d like to ask them a question about their journey – i’m offering you that chance!

Have a read of the following message from Olly and Phil (VMS winners) documenting what they’ve been up to this past year and if you’ve got a question for the two of them post it to this thread – I’ll then collect up all your questions and pass them on to Olly and Phil to respond to before posting them back here for your reading convenience! -You might be interested to know how they’ve spent their £30,000, what help The UK Film Council and Virgin Media have provided, what lessons they’ve learned – anything! I look forward to recieving your questions!

Since winning last years Virgin Media Shorts Competition, we have been busy working on our next film. Supported by the UK Film Council and Virgin Media we have been developing numerous ideas and discussing the best type of film to try and achieve second time round. The Black Hole was pretty much a silent movie so this time we really wanted to tackle some dialogue.

Initially we spent some time just thinking about what kind of films we actually enjoy and the kind of movies we would eventually want to make as features. Its harder than you think to try and decipher all the influences, themes and interests that inform the work you do, but eventually we knew it would have to involve something surreal and dark that allows deeper character / relationship exploration with a slightly twisted sense of humour in it.

After preliminarily drafting seven different ideas as short, single paragraph synopses, we slimmed the list down to three that everyone liked and from there spent a few more weeks in a coffee shop hammering out the finer points, eventually settling on one. It’s hard to develop several ideas at once, as you become deeply involved in every detail of the plot and characters in order to keep the action believable and the story watertight.

We found we naturally began to gravitate towards one film in particular and have let that become the focus of our attention over the last couple of weeks. We have written the first draft of our script and will be picking through it with the Film Council and Virgin over the next week or so. Getting other peoples point of view is an important part of the process, especially as we have never written dialogue before.

Although £30k is a lot of money, we still need to have a tight rein on the purse strings as crew, cast and location costs can mount up pretty quickly and we need to be clever about maximising the production value. . 1 location, only a couple of characters, that kind of thing – we find that setting limits on what you are working with often forces you to focus more on the quality of what’s on screen as opposed to how much.

We never really imagined The Black Hole would do so well, or notch up quite so many hits on youtube – it was our first ever film attempt and it was all done so quickly. It’s great this time to know we have time and money sorted, so the focus is really on the writing. It’s a great opportunity so thank you to all of you who voted for us, we hope you’ll enjoy our next offering.

Matt Rebeiro
(working on behalf of Virgin Media Shorts )

http://rts360.eventbrite.com/

Here’s what RTS Futures have to say about it:

Following the great launch of RTS Futures Midlands’ sold out How to Pitch panel session, the Midlands Centre is yet again bringing together some of the top names in digital media next week, Thursday, June 4th.

With panelists from Channel 4, BBC, Hat Trick Productions and Raw TV, Pitching Multiplatform Ideas Pitching Multiplatform Ideas will demystify the process of how to pitch 360-degree concepts as well as the do’s and don’ts of pitching. Hear the experiences of our panel on the pitfalls, success stories plus, what’s hot and what’s not in the cross-platform world. Attendees will also get the chance to listen to top tips on how to give a successful pitch under pressure. This FREE event is produced by the Royal Television Society in partnership with Screen West Midlands and supported by Advantage West Midlands.

The speakers are:

• Alice Taylor: Commissioning Editor – Education, Channel 4 – Chair
• Martin Trickey, Commissioning Executive – Comedy and Comedy Entertainment, BBC
• Lucy Willis, Executive Producer, Raw TV
• Jon Davenport, Head of Digital, Hat Trick Productions

The event will be held at the Symphony Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency, 2 Bridge Street, Birmingham, B1 2JZ. Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Places are limited and so if you want to book, please go to http://rts360.eventbrite.com/.

For more information on the panellists, RTS Futures has provided a bio and picture for each guest here : http://rtsmids.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/pitching360/

04 June 2009 7:30 PM — 9:00 PM

Hyatt Regency Birmingham, 2 Bridge Street, Birmingham

What is a 360-degree idea?

Should all programme pitches have a multiplatform element to them? 

‘Pitching Multiplatform Ideas’ will demystify the process of how to pitch 360-degree concepts plus the do’s and don’ts of pitching. Hear the experiences of our panel on the pit-falls, success stories plus, what’s hot and what’s not in the cross-platform world.  Plus top tips on how to give a successful pitch under pressure.

Chair:
Alice Taylor: Commissioning Editor – Education, Channel 4

The Panel:
Martin Trickey, Commissioning Executive – Comedy and Comedy Entertainment, BBC
Lucy Willis, Executive Producer, Raw TV

Visit here to register for the free event.

Screen WM and Channel 4 / 4iP in conjunction with Creative Networks invites you to:

Platform Alteration

Keynote by Lord David Puttnam CBE

Wednesday 10 June

6pm – 8pm The Patrick Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome

Followed by a drinks and canapés reception

Media is moving fast, and new platforms for content distribution have arrived. But what does the changing digital landscape mean for content producers? Should content be influenced by creative ideas or platform choice, and how easy is it to succeed in this new environment?

Film Producer and Politician, Lord David Puttnam, will examine the importance of collaboration and encourage us to look beyond digital platforms as distribution mechanisms for traditional content, but explore the opportunities to engage users in entirely new ways by creating entertainment products that have strong social value.

Innovative and lively debate will be lead by our panel of experts, including a focus on the opportunities for collaboration with the games industry.

Places for this event are strictly limited. Please RSVP by Friday 29 May to secure your place.