Workshop One

Had the first of my two workshops today. It was a moderate success I think. Five people turned up in all which was five more then I was hoping for. I started by showing a selection of animated shorts, a Buster Keaton short and an episode of Paranoia Agent. I failed to give any insight in to any of them but it killed an hour and a half.

I then made a start on the list of activities that I had planned. Reading the scribbles in my notebook I realised that most of them worked better with larger groups of people so I had to scrap a few ideas and settled for two of the easier ones. These I failed to explain adequately and they achieved little more than coexing looks of confusion and disbelief from everyone. At that point I decided it was time for lunch.

The afternoon was better. I moved on to the main part of the workshop I had planned which was developing ideas in a free-flowing kind of way. This involved everyone writing a random word, then swapping the words with each other and writing a sentence with that word. Then in groups of three each of those sentences was turned in to a synopsis for a narrative film. Then a member of each group pitched their three ideas to the members of the other group who then picked one. Each group then developed each of the chosen ideas in to a narrative for a short film which they presented to the other group at the end. Overall it seemed to work and I think people enjoyed it. I'm not sure if they left with any new knowledge but I don't think they lost any either.

Tomorrow will be about animatics. I have a better idea of what I will be doing tomorrow. This is fortunate as we have to look busy for Tim Rice.