Fantastic Mr Fox was one of the most beautifully animated films of 2009. André Bonifay spoke to some of the Oscar-nominated animators behind it to find out how they ended up working with the inimitable Wes Anderson.
It’s not every day an Oscar-nominated professional has the time to take a grilling from those trying to break into the elusive film industry, so when Screen Academy Wales announced a weekend of animation masterclasses, a screening of Wes Anderson’s first animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox and a Q&A session with eight crew members exclusively for screen academy students and graduates, I considered going back to school.
Andy Gent, who worked as the model supervisor on Fantastic Mr. Fox and has flexed his animation muscles on works such as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, quite rightly sums up the essence of the weekend: “You make contacts, you get into meeting people, and events like this are amazing.” It’s through meeting these people that Screen Academy Wales hope to one day make a return on their investment by seeing an Oscar nomination of their own.
As Andy reminisces, “I went back to my university recently to do this, and I remember going to them at Uni in this dark amphitheatre with twenty slightly sleepy students and I was expecting something along those lines, and when I got there, there was 300 students from all faculties of design for an hour-and-a-half of absolute quiet listening to everything, and then I was hit by every sort of question”. The demand for events like these is definitely there, but it always helps when the speakers themselves feel that “things like this I think are brilliant; you’ll really be able to meet people that are hopefully doing the same thing that you’re interested in” – which is exactly what the attendees of the weekend were hoping for.
Ralph Forster works as an editor, and his credits include Fantastic Mr. Fox, Corpse Bride, Hannibal Rising and 10,000 B.C. His advice for the lucky industry hopefuls attending the weekend is to “make films, make your own films, make films that you like and try to get through the festival circuit”, and for those thinking that the gap between student productions and Hollywood blockbusters is too large to be beneficial, he points out that “it never ceased to surprise me how it’s the same sort of work ethic on a small student film, but expanded into a big budget feature.” All the more reason why getting a professional perspective can be invaluable experience. As Ralph mentions, however, it’s very important for someone starting out in the film industry to bring with them the attitude of “not being afraid to muck in. The biggest mistake someone can make is to pretend they know but they don’t.” This is whyweekends like these offer attendees the chance to gain a competitive edge.
The most reassuring advice comes from Andy Gent: “Experience is a valuable commodity: it’s the time that goes by with the employer. If you start as a runner you’ll be making tea and sweeping floors, but by the end of the week you might be animating a background character to help out a shot, and who knows where it goes from there. But be enthusiastic with it all, have a go and embrace it” – and with the promise from Screen Academy Wales of more masterclass sessions in the future, I may be enthusiastically embracing a trip to an open day very soon.