The fruit of our labors!

The finished film from this year's workshop:

Cook With Dan from Dan Berry on Vimeo.

French departure

6h30 this morning near the dorms, waiting for the taxi to come.

I waved to them while they were in the cab on the way to the airport then went back to my duties : give the keys back,  make sure that all the files are saved,  nicely compress our film to put it online and update the blog.
There was some huge traffic-jam on the way to Birmnigham airport and I received a text message saying that they were about to miss their flight but fortunately didn't. All finally made it safe to Paris.
tomorrow that will be my turn to set a quite early alarm clock to catch the 5.29 am train to the airport.

Good bye Wrexham and its people, see you soon,
come and see us in Angoulême and let's have a workshop there next year !

Claire

time to say goodbye

Chris has took his plane this morning. That started the "goodbye" time.
I and the students were up for a pic-nic that we finally had at the dorm's kitchen. It was a nice moment . We talked about the "after workshop", about internships and how it works in the US versus France.
We went to play pool and then the sun showed up later in the afternoon and we had pizzas on the grass.

 We had a nice "danse moment" before saying goodbye. It was really difficult to depart. But we'll keep in touch. See you in Philadelphia or New-York in september UArts girls !

Claire

Day 10: the film

Here's "Cook with Dan":
https://vimeo.com/44673835

COOKING WITH DAN from claire fouquet on Vimeo.

Day 10: tidy up

A morning of tidying up loose ends (smoke animation, missing backgrounds, missing props, animation refinements), and a 6:30pm appointment for the screening.

What did we learn this time around?  Three important concepts were reinforced here:

1) Start with a coherent, engaging script and a visually-appealing story.
2) The reason why professional studios use After Effects to hit their production deadlines: it's powerful and efficient.
3) A cleanly-recorded, well thought-out soundtrack makes a big difference in the final impression.







Thanks to Glyndwr University Comics instructor Dan Berry, Simon Berry, and Tim Barnes for their script, and to Dan for the concept!

Thanks to Claire Fouquet, animation instructor at EESI for persevering through this, our seventh co-production (and third with Glyndwr University) - this project would never have continued were it not for her energy, enthusiasm, and directorial skills.

Thanks to our talented, dedicated, and hard-working team of students:

l'École Européene Supérieure de l'Image d'Angoulême et de Poitiers (EESI):
Audrey Hess
Léa Donadille
Nicolas Savoye
Amaury Trouvé

Glyndwr University:
Chris Lacey
George Roberts
Edgar Snowball
Lyndon White

The University of the Arts (UArts):
Amanda Bautista
Shannon Connor
Aleson Ho
Giselle Rosser

You did excellent work under intense and time-sensitive conditions.

And finally what was the experience like for you? How was working with peers from different countries? Did you notice differences in work habits? approach to content? aesthetics? Add your comments and your voice to the mix...

We're all tired, and of course glad to have reached the finished line, but also aware of the end of an experience whose full significance may take time to rise to the surface - there was a lot to digest. Thanks to everyone for their energy, positive attitude, and creativity!

cheers! merci! aloha!

Christopher Magee
Animation Instructor, UArts

Day 9: finish animating

Animators are putting final touches on their moves, Claire is sweating it out in front of the editing station, Dan and Léa attack the credits, and your truly is improving the blog.

Amaury & Shannon

Chris & Lyndon

Dan & Giselle

Claire & Lyndon

Nicolas

Amanda

Aleson glum

Aleson happy

Dan & George

Day 8: animation & "croquis"

The end looms ever larger on the horizon. We are working on finishing all the animation, getting closer every hour. After that, it's compositing and editing...Claire's joy.

Some "croquis"/sketches from Audrey.