FLIP Festival 2011 review

The FLIP international animation festival 2011 was held over the past three days and this weeks (slightly delayed) blog is dedicated to our experience at the annual event.

We attended on the two main days of the festival where our ringmaster sting was used to open the very first open shorts screening. What followed on Friday was an amazing line up of industry heroes such as Bill Plympton and Barry Purves. We attended Bill plympton's master class which was fascinating, as we got an insight into the process behind his work as well as his view on animation.



The ringmaster open the festival on Friday 28th during
the first open shorts screening


He shared his views on the animation industry still not accepting adult oriented animations, especially in the US where he believes they still see it as an art form and medium for children. An outside view that we also hope fades away so that more and more adult animations are accepted in society such as the dark humour of Bill Plympton's films.

Saturday was just as good with a talk from Aardman, (the legendary) Corgrove Hall and Brothers Mcleod premiering their latest film, Isle of Spagg. Two animations from S5S were shown during Open shorts 5; Caged and Overtime, that had a great response. A panel discussion on the state of 2D animation was also held near the end of the day with animation figures Charlie MacRae (Hanna Barbera) and Tori Davis ( Blue Sky, Walt Disney, DreamWorks ).

This was an interesting discussion which was set up to raise concerns for the growing lack of 2D animations. However, over the course of the discussion the concern was flipped with the recent trend of bringing 2D feature films in 3D, such as The Lion King. It was a great pivotal moment that proved that 2D animation is here to stay. It was also interesting to see that the majority of the open shorts were also stop motion which was great considering the recent perception that its a dieing form of animation.



Caged becomes an award winning animation at FLIP 2011


The Festival ended with the festival short winners and we are proud to announce that S5S animator, Ravi Maheru, won an award for short film, Caged, making us an award winning studio!

We enjoyed the festival and are looking forward to FLIP festival 2012.

Countdown to FLIP 2011 and BCU feature

FLIP international animation festival 2011 is taking place next week (Thursday-Saturday) and we're all excited about attending it. Not only do we have 2 short films from s5s animators in the open shorts screenings but our ringmaster sting has also been selected to be shown as part of FLIP.

We'll be attending the festival all weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone there. For more details on the festival visit:
http://www.flipfestival.co.uk/

We also hope you enjoyed reading our interview on animation forum west midlands. We're also pleased to announce that we have also been featured on the Birmingham City University website which features a never before seen image of the ringmaster both in 2D form and 3D form standing together. Check out the article on BCU here:

http://www.bcu.ac.uk/news-events/news/animators-establish-studio-straight-after-graduating

if you still haven't seen our ringmaster sting for FLIP 2011 and you're finding it hard to wait until FLIP, you can check out below:


Our entry for the Sting competition for FLIP 2011 which will be shown at FLIP next week

An interview at Animation Forum

Earlier this week we were interviewed at Animation Forum West Midlands (AFWM) by Jessica Allman, which is now available to read on the AFWM website:

http://www.animationforumwm.co.uk/post/2011/10/12/Sector-5-Studios-set-up-by-graduates-to-show-enterprising-within-animation-industry.aspx

We were delighted to have the opportunity to be interviewed and would like to give our thanks to the team at AFWM.

This week also saw Shorts on Walls hosted at the Lighthouse (by AFWM) on Thursday 13th October. Sector5 Studios were present as well as having animations from S5S screened (Caged and Overtime) which will be screened at FLIP festival later this month.

FLIP festival 2011 open shorts

With FLIP festival 2011 drawing closer, the open shorts list was revealed this week. We are pleased to announce that two of our animators have had their graduation films selected for the screenings.

Caged (Ravi Maheru) has been selected for Saturday's 1:30pm screenings which has had a dedicated blog post here in the past. Overtime (Gary Jones) has also been selected for the the 1:30pm screenings on the Saturday. This will be the debut screening of the animation and this weeks blog post will be dedicated to overtime.

A stressed worker is about to embark on a surreal journey

The stop motion film features an overstressed worker in her office. When the workload becomes too much she is transported to a world made of post it notes, as she encounters the the weird and wonderful.

Each post it note was animated individually on a wall over the time frame of five to six months by S5S animator, Gary, as well as fellow animators who believed in his vision and joined the production team. Actress, Sara Bracknell, was then added in post production interacting with the post it world.

"Just want to thank everyone involved with Overtime for their patience with me and their help throughout the making of the film. Wouldn't have been possible without you guys."  - Gary thanks everyone involved with the project



Meet office worker / diver

 Keep a look out for both films at FLIP festival 2011 on Saturday 29th October. We'll of course be there too.

---------

Our Gallery is now up and running on our site and will be updated regularly with more images for you to all check out.