Manchester Animation Festival - Day Three

Day Three of Manchester Animation Festival brought more short films, including a few of my favourites from the show.

The first thing I saw was a celebration of the work of Ray Harryhausen. Though I wasn't very familiar with him, I was certainly familiar with his work, and it was highly insightful to be able to delve deeper into his work and see what he had created in his lifetime, told through the eyes of John Walsh, who knew and worked with Harryhausen closely. I found the discussion very enrapturing, as they went over his process, and it was delightful to be able to see his concept art for characters - something that is close to my personal interest.

I also enjoyed the collection of commissioned films, though I felt some were stronger than others - I guess that is the curse of being paid to create, that you must fit the brief. Still, I felt inspired after watching them. They are the reality of animation, and even though a few of them felt a bit stifled, they are what I hope to pursue.

I attended the Masterclass of Studio AKA, which I found surprisingly good. It was very interesting to see professionals discuss their craft and what it is like to work independently vs working for other companies to create adverts vs creating a feature film. Even though they are all animated works, each of them has their own pros and cons, and allows the company to open up different channels of creative flow.

Finally, the last thing I saw at MAF was The Red Turtle. The feature film had been hyped as "the next Studio Ghibli film, previewed at MAF", but it fell incredibly short of my personal expectations. For one thing, as a big lover of Studio Ghibli, it was disappointing to realise that actually, the studio's involvement was fairly minimal, and certainly didn't match the magical realism of their other famous films. Additionally, I found the characters lacking. As someone who prefers a good character over a good story, I found it difficult to connect to any of the characters (that could also be due to the lack of dialogue - the movie only used shouts and noises, rather than any kind of conversation). I never fully understood their motives or personalities, and didn't gain much of an emotional connection, which made the "tragic" moments less hard-hitting.

I'm very glad to have attended MAF, and I really would love to go back next year, if not as an attendant then as a volunteer, as the volunteers there were fantastically helpful and cheerful.