Student work gets better and better

There was a welcome freedom from boy's fantasies in this year's end of year show for the Diploma of Animation students at Yoobee (previously Natcoll).

That is almost certainly because, in a hugely welcome trend, there were far more women showing their work than previously. Indeed in previous years the course was often 100% male. This year there were four or five women, including some who presented computer generated models as their final work. (Modelling is usually a boy thing - they make monsters and machines of mind boggling complexity and ingenuity.)

Of the models my favourite was "Time Guardian" (by a girl) - a creature designed in three versions - good, neutral and evil. Models are usually presented as static images, shown from all angles and at various stages of development. "Time Guardian" was presented in an engaging way with narrative and poetic quotation on screen.

There was still a lot of "boy stuff" - but considering most of their job prospects are in the overwhelmingly male gaming industry, this is not surprising. Because I'm a girl I enjoy the girls' work more, but a boy produced the dear little dog creature running over to its mother and a cute tale about a little witch, so I hope I'm not too biased.

The Diploma of Digital Filmmaking filled the second half of the show. This course has always had more women in it and my favourites (below) are by men and women.

The films from this course were almost all excellent. Something new to the course was photo animation, where still photos are animated against background scenes. This is surprisingly effective, making a moving "collage" image.

Some of the films suffered from the undergraduate problem of starting with an abstract idea and then using the most obvious symbolism and images to portray it. A bit more brainstorming of ideas was required.

Favourites in this category "How to Get a Girl in 6 Days" - a gorgeous wee thing with heaps of humour and charm - and "The Fort" - well observed drama about childhood.

Natcoll Student Vid Blast

There were several excellent short films at last night's Natcoll end of year show for 3D animation and post production video courses. For us the outstanding item in the 3D was David Morris's "Breaking Point" which he rightly described as dark, but which was stylish and well executed. We also especially enjoyed "My Apocalypse" (Govind Dhir Singh) an interesting POV short about a dragon attack with an ear splitting sound track and an iconic shot of a dragon landing on the Auckland Skytower.
While the 3D show was obviously the work of a class of 100% young male artists (ie games, comics and movie influence) they were mostly original in their take on popular media.

The Video post production show was more diverse and included an excellent, although unfinished hand drawn animation by Joe Faga ("Fetu"), which I sincerely hope he finishes and we can see in its entirety, and a very accomplished live action short from Michael Miller ("And We Think in Colours"). This was a film that worked on every level and would have been at home in any professional short film programme. Miller tracked the story of a relationship in a symbolic, short form way that was emotionally and artistically complete.

The debate-stirrer of the night was the first item, the joint project for the 3D animation class. This was a film they made for a client and thus they were not responsible for the design of the characters. In fact they seemed embarassed by them. The two female characters were basically naked, which is not how any woman would (un)dress in order to "kick butt". This is a common fantasy in the gaming world, but is, in all practicality, laughable. Breasts flop around and are uncomfortable and get in the way, guys!