firday was like a special highlight in this UK trip.
i wake up 8:15am in the morning and take the train to manchester piccadily station at 9:38am
i arrive manchester at 1:00pm and i took the metrolink the tram to navigation road, where i walk 20 minutes to hot animation, which is the studio that i am going to visit!!
Liz Whitaker - the director of bob the builder and pingu, she is super nice to me.
she start showing me every part of the studio, and explaining to me the whole production process of the two series, starting from story creation, scripting writing, lip sync breakdown....etc.
she took me to all the studio space and introduce me to all the sets, props and puppets of bob the builder and pingu, not that i can see the puppets, she let me touch them and feel all the joints and skeleton of all the puppets!! I GET TO SEE HOW THE ANIMATORS WORK, and i get to ask them very practical and technical questions and that is very good for me as i can really learn something from it!! they are so organize to all the puppets, all the different animation movement cycles are all put together in a very organized way!!
the studio space is huge and there are around 75 people working there. i get to see all their cameras and motion control rigs which is also memorable. i have wrote down a lot of questions for Liz and she systematically answer all of them which is fantastic!!
i have prepared a lot for this visit really, i bought a bob the builder dvd and a pingue dvd for her to sign...and of course the big animadrid book that I am going to send you one robbie!! i also gave her my films and also some souvenirs from Hong Kong of couse!! i am glad that my mum picked out some gifts for me to bring here as they are all given out to some very nice people that i met during this trip!
Liz told me about her background, that she start from art school doing painting, then did a 3 years course in animation. and from there, she has always been working, starting from making models to props, fashion models and animation. she worked in holland for a year and then she was employed full time in this hot animation studio as a full time director! She has been animating for 18 years now!!
oh, and one of the interesting places that she showed me was the sound department, they do all their sounds inhouse and guess how many people are working there.....just two girls, and they are doing all the foley, sound editing, dialogue recording, sound design, and temp mix, their gear is top notch, they are using pro tools HD and got a mixing console and all that!! you really should check them out next time when you are in Manchester really!!
and i was telling Liz how there are no claymation or stop motion animation in asia and that is good for them because Asia don't have the talents yet to do it, so they are pretty much save from the whole globalization trend where all the massive production are brought to the international factory - China! and i got a feeling that all the animators there are very hands on and dont really like 3d or computer graphics animations...haha!!
Liz spend 3 hours to give me this grand tour and she said she dont usually give people a tour, and usually a producer would do it, so that was really my special privilege!! and I am very thankful for that.
i leave their studio at 5pm, rush it back to the train station and have my 2 hours train ride back to london....after the whole day....
i was just completely smashed!!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
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