Tag Archives: bradford animation festival

Scenery taking shape and a visit to the Sound & Vision gallery at the National Science and Media Museum

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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  • Projected image on our wall of Goldilocks puppet with hand-painted coloured back-drop
  • Projection on our wall of the 3 bears cottage from hand-painted transparency
  • Both painted transparencies encased in laminating plastic with coloured “shadow” behind.

I wanted a coloured background for the scenery on “Goldilocks…” and potentially some of the other stories in our new show (“Fairytales of Wit, Wisdom & Witchcraft“) and wanted to avoid using felt pens ( as I hadn’t been happy with the way they looked on the scenery for our Alice in Wonderland show previously).

I also didn’t want to go down the Ai/digital artwork printed out onto transparencies route. We had used period artwork which was out of copyright for our “Seven Songs of Love” show but this show would not be suitable for artwork of that type.

I thought I’d like to try glass paints, but was unsure if that would work and might have the problem of puppets sticking to it.

Then, I had a brainwave that I could try laminating the painted transparency so that the paint was encased and would be protected and not stick to the puppets.

The photos above show what I’ve got so far. I tried them out on the overhead projector and found that they look fine as they are (I wasn’t sure if I’d need to go in with a black pen to do outlines but they seem fine as is).

I was reminded of the hand painted magic lantern slides from the National Science and Media museum in Bradford.  They, and some Indonesian shadow puppets and silhouette cutouts by Lotte Reiniger, are now on public display in the new “Sound & Vision” gallery. You can access my previous posts about Lotte Reiniger here: (Animation at National Media Museum, Bradford and Nice but Naughty?).

The magic lantern pre-dates photography and cinema though photography was used to produce lantern slides (which were then hand coloured later on). CLICK HERE for the Wikipedia entry and HERE for info on the museum collection.

While I was doing my shadow puppet workshop and performances for the museum’s family day it was brought to my attention that there would be a screening of Lotte Reiniger’s masterpiece “The Adventures of Prince Ahmed” and accompanying workshops on Saturday 25th July.

This is the oldest surviving full length animated feature film (pre-dating Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by 11 years) with a new original score by Chris Davies.

Chris was originally commissioned by the museum to create the score (which is part recorded and partly performed live) for the Bradford animation festival in 2014.  You can find out more by clicking HERE. Below is a video extract from this first performance:

So, I (obviously), made a point of going along and also had time to go round the Sound and Vision gallery in the morning with my kids.

For those who haven’t already seen it, below is a little tour of the new gallery by Al, from “Al & Kai’s Faboo News”:

The “Faboo News” patreon page has had an overhaul and you can now access lots of fun activities/resources for FREE, why not take a look by clicking HERE

Animation at National Media Museum, Bradford

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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The photos above are some of the exhibits from the animation section at the National Media Museum in Bradford.  I had a quick look in before an artists networking meeting at Kala Sangam yesterday.  Obviously the quality of my photos is not that great but if you have never been before it is well worth a visit and can see the originals properly for yourselves.  It is an excellent resource, brilliant for kids and is free to get in.  There is also a picnic area if you want an extra cheap day out as well as the IMAX cinema if you want to splash out a bit.  For a trip down memory lane they have old computer/arcade games that you can play and also a section on TV and old TV adverts.

I used to go as a child when it was called the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and it has lost none of its charm.  In fact they constantly have new exhibitions, activities etc. and are a central part of the Bradford Animation Festival which showed Lotte Reiniger’s feature length silhouette animation film “The Adventure of Prince Achmed” with a specially commissioned live musical score back in 2014.  This film with live musical accompaniment is being shown again in July this year at the Horse + Bamboo Puppet Festival (CLICK HERE for more details).