Back in January myself and Naomi Blakeway put our names forward for the 48 hour jam, a competition run by the International Trickfilm festival in Stuttgart. In March we found out that we had been chosen to represent Great Britiain!
The challenge is to use the festival mascot, a rainbow horse called Trixi to complete a short animation in only 48 hours, competing against 4 other teams from across the globe.
Luckily we had last year's competitor and alumni Nicola Everill on hand to give us some great advice, especially as we had chosen to work in Stop Motion, meaning we had to come up with a way of bringing our own camera rig to Germany. Initially we brainstormed ideas and started making models to take with us, however not knowing too much about what we could pre prepare we left them half finished just incase we were not allowed to use them!
However when we arrived in Stuttgart and compared the two, they looked completely different, so after making a heartbreaking choice, I abandoned my half crocheted horse, instead deciding we would cover the white horse in thread for the final shot. Whilst Naomi finished the horse, I started gathering sounds to use and created the hay bale.
Day One of the competition was spent preparing our rig and models, as it was impossible to shoot in the daylight we waited till the sun went down to begin animating our first scenes, lasting until 3am before we caved and went home to sleep. You can see us hard at work on the festival video, 1min 27secs in:
Our names in the festival programme:
Day two was a more stressful experience as time was beginning to run away rapidly. We attempted to animate in the daylight but the constant lighting issues were making our lives hell! Luckily the festival staff took pity and relocated us to a photography darkroom where we could work. By midnight we returned to the main base to carry on, Naomi began to edit whilst I madly glued the coloured thread to the horse for our final shot, racing against the clock before the sunrise. Returning to the edit I began sorting out the titles and colour grading whilst Naomi added sound. We eventually had a finished film by 12pm the following day and after 24 hours with no sleep we could have a rest!
Final Trixi horse
Walking through a very quiet Stuttgart at 5am!
On Sunday we were called to gather for the presentation and award ceremony, this took place in the main city square. It was a very nerve-wracking affair to go up on stage and see my animation on such a big screen in-front of a huge crowd (especially as Naomi had unfortunately left early, and I was all alone!) I never expected us to win, especially only being 2nd year students, but I was very proud of what we achieved. It was an invaluble experience which taught me so much in such a small amount of time. There are a million and one things I would do differently but thats the beauty of hindsight!
All the teams & last years winners attempting a very badly co-ordinated jump photo!
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