visiting speaker

Lee Hardcastle

this talk came from no other than the creator and animator of the renowned Claycats, and other gory and violent clay-mation animations, his talk was all about his journey from becoming a film student to animator.

Lee started his film career at the Northern Film School. the problem that he faced was that as a group you had to pitch your ideas (not dissimilar to what we have to do in our collaboration projects) but he found out he wasn't very sociable and found it hard to do so. so off his own back he started investigating into stop motion using a free software that he found on-line and using action figures as the puppets. He pitched his idea independently, adamant to work on his own, and the tutors saw his dedication and gave him the green light!

His animations soon became popular at indie festivals but regardless he was still on the dol after graduating from film school. he then started work in the VFX department at a small company, and this gave him an insight to new techniques and processes.

He never gave up his dream of doing his own films.

He was shortly after approached by an american festival to continue his work on one of his first animations: GI Joe. after this confrontation he developed a strong partnership with the man that approached him, and still works with him to this day.

throughout his animation career he has always had a protentious outlook on film making, and refused to identify himself as an animator, but this is just denial. as he now realises he is an animator. with a strong influence from his film making career.

But this is the part which most relates to me and my practice! he mentioned how competitions are so important! because you never know what will sprout from entering competitions. so this has made me more inclined to not worry about being refused, instead to realise that the more i enter the more my work will be seen and who knows what can come of it!

He touched on youtube, and how his videos are forming his salary. and a nice quote appeared:

"My videos are like cows, the more cows I put in the field, the more cows I could milk"

so it was nice to take a look into his experiences, but it also sprouted the seed of the importance of entering your work into competitions!