Animation students at the Norwich School of Art and Design (NSAD) have been working with the 大象传媒's Where I Live website in Norfolk to create a series of animated film shorts to mark the 大象传媒 Coast series. The project, to create a one-minute film, was marked as part of the second year students' coursework for their degree in animation and sound design. "This project is the second year we've collaborated with the animation department at the NSAD, following on from the success of our 2004 project to create an animated trailer for the entertainment section of this website," said 大象传媒 producer Martin Barber. "It's important to give students the opportunity and experience of working to client's brief with deadlines. To create something based around 大象传媒 Coast seemed an ideal subject," he added. Animating the coast Students were given their brief for Coast in February 2005, with a deadline to deliver the completed film and a written synopsis by the end of the summer term. Over the following weeks the Norfolk Where I Live website worked with the students and lecturers to assist in the films' development.
 | | A Day At The Seaside |
"I'm a big fan of the coast, visually it's often one of the most colourful places you can go. I jumped at the opportunity to do this project as I knew there was so much scope for colour and fun," said student Alex Watkins. "I decided to do a brainstorm of everything I could think of to do with the coast and pretty soon I had this huge list, which led me to the idea of animating a chronological day at the coast - starting in the morning with the Vikings, and ending in 2005 with a beach packed full of sunbathers and sand castles. "Throughout the animation there are frequent clashes in time though as the Vikings get lost and chased by giant crabs, and submarines shoot at pirate ships.
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"I wanted it to be quite slap stick and this concept reminded me of the old Benny Hill sketches - so I based my animation on this concept," he added. The Coast animations use a range of media and animation techniques - from traditional stop-frame and hand drawn animations, to works created in digitally, to the use of puppets and mixed media. "It's been fascinating to see the different ways the students have responded to the brief, both in terms of their storyboard and in the type of animation that has been used," said the 大象传媒's Martin Barber. Norfolk-next-the-Sea
 | | Norfolk-next-the-Sea |
"My animation is a series of morphing images based on personal impressions of the Norfolk coast and what I see as the individual character of each place I have visited," said Helen Schroeder. "From walking at Holkham beach, to meeting unconcerned seals on the coast between Horsey and Winterton, to the classic seaside entertainment in Sheringham and Yarmouth and England鈥檚 most charming collection of beach huts in Wells-next-the-Sea. "All of these images are about enjoyment and leisure, the benign side of human interaction with the coast. In deliberate contrast, the view of Happisburgh is showing a struggle with the elements in the threat of erosion. "The image of the turning turbines of Yarmouth's new offshore wind park impressed me with the confident, possibly arrogant, scale of human intervention, the taking over of the horizon. "It was my idea from the start to work with sand as a medium because it is such an intrinsic part of the coast.听 "To achieve a sensitive range of browns I placed the sand on a pane of glass over a light box. That way I could control the density of the tone by spreading or piling the sand on the glass. "The location sounds were recorded in Cromer and Yarmouth and musician Steve Smith brought in a lovely local waltz to pull the piece together," she added.
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For Douglas Merton, working on this project was a home-from-home experience, having come to Norwich to study animation after growing up in Felixstowe. "I have enjoyed working on this project, as most of the aspects of the production tools were fairly new to me and a fun learning curve. It's also great that we had the freedom to make the animation on any media we liked," he said.
 | | From Office Gloom To Seaside Bliss |
"I decided to film the beaches and quay where I used to play and go crabbing as a child, to add a local feel to the piece. "I've also had the unfortunate experience of working in an office on mind numbingly boring, repetitive jobs over the summer. So the film is pretty close to home in more ways than one," he added. Suzie Hanna, the senior lecturer in animation at the NSAD, is delighted the 大象传媒 agreed to work with the NSAD students for a second year. "One again, the 大象传媒 has been hugely supportive throughout the project. Always available to the students with help and advice about the practical requirements of television, explaining issues regarding music usage, copyright and helping to find the right voice-over artists," she said. "The audience expectation of animation is now so high, I think people are beginning to be connoisseurs of it these days. "A few years ago 90 per cent of the British public would have said animation was cartoons for kids, but now with companies like Ardman, Disney and Pixar, it's much more in the public eye," she added. Graduates from the NSAD animation course now work in fields as diverse as the special effects on Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter and Tim Burton's forthcoming film The Corpus Bride, to 3D character design for computer games and model animated kids' TV like Fireman Sam and Bob The Builder. "The result of our collaboration with the NSAD over Coast is a terrific collection of coastal films that I'm sure will be appreciated by the many people who will get to see them via this website, at animation festivals and during other screenings around the UK. We look forward to working with the school again," said Martin Barber. Public screenings - A selection of the works from the Coast animation project can be viewed at the Time And Tide Museum until 2 July, 2006.
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