Animation Festival coming to Melbourne

Ah, those happy, pre-kids days, when Jeff and I used to go to the animation festivals every year, stay out late and sip coffee well after 10pm... Well, this year's Melbourne International Animation Festival is coming up, and my goodness me, it coincides with a four day camp the kids are going on!

To celebrate, here's an animation I made my own self (I had to wait until everyone else was out of the house). Making stop motion animation is technically fairly easy, but there's just SO much to learn about doing it well. We stick to daylight as the lighting - that's fraught with problems - if the sun gradually goes behind a cloud, you get a rapid nightfall in your film. We generally make a "film" of just one shot - moving the camera to a new spot and filming from there, and making it look 'right', would be way beyond us. Also getting the little people to stand up is tricky - that's where Lego comes in.

So when I see something amazing like Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, or Aardman's Wallace and Gromit films, I just gaze in wonder. And that's why I'm looking forward to the Animation Festival!