I was lucky enough to attend Cardiff Animation festival this year and it has been a great experience.
It was my first proper animation festival and I think what made it even better was having a film I had worked on being screened in one of the programmes, as I could refer it to people I talked to or use it as a starting point for a conversation.
In retrospective, I am able to talk about my experience and summarise it into a few categories:
The World of Animation
Attending as many screenings as I can made me realise how diverse the world of animation is. I was obviously aware of it but I was still an eye-opening experience, particularly as some of the films would get screened worldwide outside of a festival environment. Also, the web is really selective of what is popular and needs to be given visibility to, so having to opportunity to see all these independent projects within the time frame of a few hours was an incredible experience.
Through attending Q&A sessions with directors I came to understand that there is some very good funding opportunities for independent films, and a lot of professional have mentioned some major schemes which I will keep in mind for the future. I was overall glad to see the effort to keep an industry alive and also make sure there are different voices being represented.
The Industry
Initially, the talks I was most excited to attend where the ones led by industry professionals. I really wanted to gain some more insight into how to start and apply for jobs or whether there was any specific recommendations about showreels and related materials. I think I came out of every single talk with a few notes of how I can improve my work . I also came out with a little bit more hope for the future, as there seems to be quite a lot of production happening in London and the UK.
Moreover, I felt relieved in hearing that a lot of productions seek junior animators (even if it’s due to a financial decision sometimes), which makes me feel better about my journey so far and where my skills are at the moment.
Overall the festival had a great representation of studios and I got to hear from producers of major tv and film production to owners and directors of smaller studios, which gave me a better perspective of what is out there.
Networking
The Festival also offered a great way to network with professionals and people at different stage in their career, both during pre-set session and casually over a meal or in between screenings. I was lucky that I had a film selected for one of the screening as a starting point for conversation, as I still find it hard to talk to people. I think by the end of the festival it almost became a second nature. I was able to talk with people like Joanna Quinn, Tina Nawrocki, Emma Fernando, Nia Alavezos, and many others.
Along with the two classmate I’m collaborating with on my graduation project, I attended a Screenskills networking event where we were able to introduce our graduation film work in progress animatic to different professionals and we received a positive feedback. We were grateful for the experience and more determined than ever to finish it and plan for the future of the film.
Overall, Cardiff was a fantastic experience and I’m now considering the film festival we’d want to send or graduation film to. I know that my networking needs to continue after the end of the course for me to break into the industry, but I now feel like I have the competence to do it in a more relaxed way. It was also interesting to get an insight of the animation studio outside London and how they operate. I never thought I would need to be “stuck” in a specific city to get work, but this experience made me aware of how much is out there.